Cultural Differences And Immigration

Cultural Differences: France

Friend Jo mentioned recently that she found many of her French acquaintances very self-centred. Not selfish, indeed many are very generous, but self-centred, as though the world revolves around them. On reflection I decided that I had noticed the same, so was this one of the cultural differences between the French and the English I keep trying to tease out (always recognising the danger of generalising on the basis of a small sample)? Of course both cultures are changing all the time but I think there is a recognisable difference here.

In this respect the English culture taught, if not always practised, is one of abnegation, self-subordination to the goals of the group. It is a reason why the English, in general, have made good team players but been less successful at individualist sports. When I was young and playing football in France I noticed that indivudal technical ability seemed to be prized more than efforts directed at team play. A brass-band consultant friend, who does a lot of work in France, recently complained that his chief difficulty was turning a collection of very competent musicians who all considered their role to be soloists into a cooperating band. An American friend in Senegal, coaching basket ball teams, said that his main difficulty was trying to get players to use team play to get close to the basket before shooting rather than attempting highly speculative efforts from 30 metres (which were much more appreciated than team play if they succeeded). It is noticeable that conversations in shops are sacrosanct, however many people are waiting to be served; first, the server must finish his/her conversation. That is not difficult to accept in a small village environment but may explain also why service is so bad in large stores and chains: the idea that service to the customer, the third party, comes first is alien. So maybe Jo is on to something here although, as I have said, both cultures are changing.

Immigration

That led me to think about cultural differences in the wave of immigrants entering Europe. Let there be no doubt, once large numbers of African and Middle Eastern immigrants are installed in Europe there will be huge cultural differences to be overcome and, more worryingly, the potential for very destructive social unrest.

Two recent stories in the press caught my eye. One was of an adolescent Afghan, housed in a hostel in Germany, who was going hungry because he refused to eat at a table at which women were also sitting (which was normally the case). The other concerned African refugees (all men) housed in a villa in a small town in Italy who were becoming disruptive in the town. They had two major complaints; the first was that they had nothing to do all day, the second was that they needed a cleaner to clean the villa (African men couldn't be expected to clean it).

These are pretty trivial examples of what can be expected to follow. A survey of recent immigrants by a qualified agency in Germany found that around 50% were essentially unemployable, because of lack of skills and lack of understanding of the language. These are primarily young to middle-aged people, who may have escaped intolerable conditions, but what is to be their future? How can they earn any sort of living, for themselves and their families, particularly if benefits are curtailed, outside of illegal activities of one sort or another? Moreover they come from countries/cultures where corruption is endemic, a way of life. And what will the reaction of the indigenous population be to that? And what are the likely political consequences? “Simple” cultural differences have already resulted in numerous court cases in the UK with respect to forced marriages and so-called “honour” killings. Add to that kind of cultural mismatch a potent mix of unemployment, poverty and resultant desperation and what do you get? Syrian refugees may want to return to their original homeland if and when the conflict ends, dependent on the regime then in place, but refugees from other areas (the large majority) will not.

Those who have welcomed and promoted cultural diversity have focussed on the undoubted richness in cultural variety in narrative, song, dances and food. But those are minor, albeit significant, elements. Fundamental differences in terms of life expectations, assumptions on ways of living, acceptable behaviour towards other people of either sex and how society should be run seem to have been overlooked in previous considerations and now need very urgently to be addressed. True, such issues have existed before but never before in such quantity at one time. Will the European democracies be able to cope? There is as yet no sign of them even understanding the problems that lie ahead, let alone preparing to do anything about any of them other than the danger of importing terrorists. The English programme for induction into English culture has never been anything but a horribly bad joke but there is no reason to believe that any other European country recognises and is equipped to deal with these issues. The governmental humanitarian response to the influx of refugees has been mixed but not totally negative. However, the social response could easily become so and if, politically, Europe is to escape a lurch to the extreme right, possibly the disintegration of the EU and who knows what else, somebody had better come up with some answers very quickly. Political leaders are apparently already discussing possible futures for Syria and the surrounding region. They would do well to direct some of their attention homewards also on questions other than just benefits.

Christmas Carols

Christmas Carols

As usual at this time of the year our ad hoc merry band of carol singers, organised, rehearsed and exhorted by friend Jo, have delivered our annual carol concert (three times). Since carol singing is not a tradition here, this is something I think we have genuinely added to the calendar of village life and to the enjoyment of many. The above photo says some of it, the introductory speech by René below probably says all else that needs saying.

Chorale de Noel

Votre impatience -légitime- fait chaud au cœur. Mais auparavant et comme c'est la dernière fois -on me l'a promis- que me revient l'honneur de présenter la chorale, permettez-moi d'en profiter un peu.

Cher public, chers amis de Mollans et banlieue

C'est pour notre chorale un vrai plaisir de revenir pour la cinquième fois vous présenter nos chants de Noël.

Certains d'entre vous nous suivent depuis nos débuts, c'est un acharnement que nous ne méritons pas. Nous essaierons ce soir de vous donner le courage de revenir une sixième fois.

Pour ceux qui nous découvrent, consolez-vous de savoir que nous serons encore meilleurs que l'année dernière. Car, c'est une constante dans notre chorale de ne jamais faire regretter la prestation précédente. J'en connais qui ne sont pas venus ce soir parce qu'ils savent déjà que nous serons encore meilleurs l'année prochaine.

Pour cette cinquième édition nous avons essayé de rajeunir … ce que nous vous proposons.

Il y en aura pour tous les goûts. Pour ceux qui croient au ciel, pour ceux qui n'y croient pas, pour les enfants, pour ceux qui n'en sont plus, pour les mélomanes et même pour les sourds ….

Ce sont les plus beaux.

Aussi, pour les personnes appareillées et pour profiter au maximum nous conseillons le réglage des aides auditives au minimum. Encore plus bas n'est pas déconseillé. Et même là, quand vous rentrerez ce soir chez vous, vous vous direz :

« -ce n'est pas possible, je suis allé écouter ça ! »

A force de volonté, il est possible de refouler ses larmes.

En effet, à nous seuls nous sommes capables de faire chuter l'ambiance d'une salle de fête de plusieurs degrés.

Parmi nos chants de Noël vous reconnaîtrez facilement ceux qui sont en français. Ce sont ceux qu'on comprend le mieux, souvent les plus réussis.

D'autres sont d'un accès plus difficile, presque énigmatiques. C'est à cela qu'on sent qu'ils sont anglais. Ils laissent cependant l'esprit joyeux, rêveur, parfois même ahuri. Je ne saurai dire si à les traduire on les comprendrait mieux. Il est préférable de laisser à l'anglais un peu du mystère qui fait sa différence. Mais c'est déjà bien assez beau comme ça.

Les gens qui ont voyagé remarqueront également un passage en allemand. Il s'agissait là de faire plaisir à l'un d'entre nous qui a survécu à une aventure galante inachevée en Germanie.

Nous avons dans notre chorale pour principe de laisser à chacun d'entre nous une certaine liberté dans l'interprétation. Les anglais ne sont pas les seuls responsables. L'harmonie en souffre parfois mais c'est très bon pour le moral. J'en connais qui répètent solitairement la nuit pour trouver une interprétation personnelle.

Aussi si pour certains puristes le plaisir ne sera pas dans l'oreille, nous l'espérons dans le cœur et voir les yeux se border de lumière. Celle de Noël qui éblouit l'enfant et réveille l'ancien qui vieillissait par habitude (ma minute de poésie).

Je voudrai maintenant et au nom de la chorale remercier Valérie et Patrick qui malgré les craintes fondées de mouvements de fans trop enthousiastes nous accueillent ce soir pour le cinquième fois avec les mêmes inquiétudes. En reconnaissance nous sommes prêts à accepter le CDI dont ils nous menacent depuis longtemps et renoncer ainsi à une carrière plus ambitieuse au café des sports voisin. Merci Valérie, merci Patrick.

Nos remerciements aussi à Jo, notre chef de chœur qui avec l'autorité d'un homme politique de gauche qui exige de voter à droite et la candeur d'une Mary Poppins qui comme tous les anges n'a pas les pieds sur terre a réussi à faire de cette bande de délinquants du solfège quelque chose qui a du bon sens.

On aimait Mollans pour ses illuminations de Noël -remarquables surtout le jour- et voilà que grace à Jo cette commune s'enrichit d'une chorale qui compte désormais dans le patrimoine immatériel du village.

Un dernier mot à titre personnel pour rassurer mon épouse. Je ne lui tiens pas rigueur de son deuxième mensonge en trente ans de vie partagée.

Le premier était à notre première rencontre quand elle m'a dit que j'étais beau gosse, (quoi que … )

le second il y a cinq minutes quand elle m'a assuré que j’avais une belle voix.

On savait l'amour aveugle le voici aussi sourd.

Vous avez grace aux petits fascicules distribués la possibilité de réduire par votre participation mon influence dans ce que vous allez entendre,

Nous comptons sur vous

Merci

The Wealth Gap, Infrastructure And Christmas

The Wealth Gap

I increasingly feel that this is an important problem not just in the UK but probably for most of the developed world. An article on a statistical analysis from reputable sources in the USA triggered what follows below. The article stated that, for the first time in countless years, the number of households in the USA classified as middle class was below 50% and that that percentage had been shrinking for the last 40 years.

Now, I assume that the only viable economic system we have been able to find is based on capitalism. To paraphrase Churchill's view on democracy, it's the least bad system. Socialism embraces capitalism, albeit with a rather different attitude to the distribution of the profits of capitalism than the agendas of more right-wing political parties. The only economic alternative to capitalism that we have been able to come up with is economic communism and that has been tried and seen to fail in a number of countries. So we are lumbered with capitalism as an economic basis. Some, admittedly, would like to see capitalism disappear entirely but then they need to come up with a viable alternative.

Naked capitalism, however, capitalism red in tooth and claw as Tennyson would have it, clearly contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Left entirely to its own devices, it will produce an economically feudal society of the sort that provoked the French revolution and thus ensure its overthrow. Consciousness of this has instigated controls of various sorts, especially tax and laws on working conditions and wages, in different countries to mitigate its most destructive aspects. An important question then is whether, currently and in a new global market, these controls are sufficient.

The large and increasing wealth gap becoming apparent suggests to me that they aren't. America, land of opportunity, etc, has owed a great deal of its economic stability to a large and thriving middle class. That class, it seems, is rapidly disappearing, with a very small percentage moving economically upwards and a rather larger percentage moving downwards. The same is true of the UK. In the UK, as in most European countries, the outstanding need is to revive the economy, which in large part means more inhabit

ants spending more. That, of course, presumes that they have money to spend and austerity measures mean increasingly that they don't. Numerous economic commentators have stressed that the incipient UK economic recovery is very fragile, unsurprisingly in the circumstances. It is unlikely that David Cameron's head will be severed on a block in the Tower of London but he would appear to be leading the country into a situation where, in less forgiving times, that could have happened.

So what's to be done? In the wake of the banking crisis there was a very understandable reaction to want to crucify bankers, or at least to chop their huge bonuses. Whilst that measure would undoubtedly have given great emotional satisfaction to many it would have been difficult to implement, easy to circumvent and could have unwanted side-effects; so it didn't happen. To the chagrin of a great deal of the population, it turned out that the only practical thing to be done with the investment bankers who had gambled wildly and ruined many people's lives was to let them have another go at it, albeit with reduced funds to gamble with. So what can curb the bonuses widely viewed as outrageous, or indeed the same in kind for many at the top of the capitalist ladder? What measure could reduce the wealth gap?

I believe a law is necessary, along the following lines, that specifically addresses the wealth gap. It needn't be a permanent law; it could run for, say, 5 or 10 years. What it would state, for any company of a given size, say 30 employees or above, is something like that any salary increases, bonuses or benefits in kind would have to reduce the wealth gap between the average remuneration of the top 10% beneficiaries and the bottom 20 %. (Those percentages are off the top of my head; they may well need refining.) It would be possible to add a minimum percentage reduction but that might not be necessary, even just a penny difference might do it, since clearly the middle ground would have to benefit also. The point is that a company would still be free to offer whatever largesse it chose to its upper echelons but would at the same time have to offer more, spread more thinly, obviously, to its lowest echelons. It shouldn't need poiting out that a small bonus to a low-paid employee will have a vastly different and much more positive economic effect than a large bonus paid to a highly paid employee. And since the lower echelons would be far more numerous, even without the percentage difference I have suggested, that would put a severe brake on what could be distributed at the high level. But the company would still have a choice in deciding what, overall, it could afford to distibute or wanted to divest.

Anyway, that's my solution. I can't see any reasonable objection that companies could make to it on practical grounds and it might even save capitalism from itself.

Infrastructure

I am convinced that the French have a better grasp of what constitutes infrastructure and how to manage it than we Brits do. Infrastructure is a word that trips easily off the tongue but is difficult in practice to define, as I discovered in my IT career, where similar considerations apply. It's easy to define it as elements on which the whole of society depends and enumerate such items as transport, communications, energy, healthcare, etc, but far less easy to define specific items within all these. The point is that infrastructure in general is better managed centrally in any country; and centrally implies government. It's clear that government should control all the above entities but which should it run directly?

France seems to have a clear view of this. It's answer is that the government should run almost all of it. The big exception is healthcare, which is entirely privately run but very closely controlled by the government. I think the French have got that largely right, with the exception of telephony. Telephony is unwarrantedly expensive in France through lack of competition but everything else works better.

The French also have a better alternative, I think, to public/private combinations. The British PFI initiatives have almost all been disastrous for the public sector. In France, the government builds infrastructure and may or may not let the private sector maintain it. As regards roads, for instance, the government pays to construct motorways but lets the private sector maintain them. In return for maintenance, the private motorway operators charge tolls. However, there is always an alternative to using a motorway so the tolls must be perceived as reasonable and the condition of the motorway has to be good if people are to decide to use it. This leaves the private companies with the conundrum of how much to spend on maintenance and how much to charge for tolls. There is never a question of how much should be spent on these roads, as there is in Britain. The private owners either get it right or go bust.

This view on infratsructure devolves right down to quite small items, such as cinemas and libraries. The French consider access to culture as a right that makes cinemas and libraries part of infrastructure. So, our little village had a new library, termed a media centre, built for it a couple of years ago. The government underwrote a lot of the cost of building it but won't incur the cost of running or maintaining it. If the village wants it, it must find volunteers to run it or pay people to do that. So the library is run by volunteers. The same goes for the cinema in nearby Buis. This has been completely renovated, largely with government funds, but is run by volunteers. The message is: if you want such amenities, the government will pay a large part of the cost of creating them but you have to prove you want them by covering the running costs.

This clear, cohesive view on what constitutes infrastructure and how it should be managed strikes me as a great strength, albeit with a few blindspots such as telephony. In the UK, by contrast, there seems to be no clear view. Infrastructure, however defined, may or may not be built by government and may or may not be run by it. The criteria for decision seem to be random questions of how much money is available at the time, who has it, and who wants it. Cinemas are certainly not regarded as infrsatructure in the UK, perhaps understandably as there is no right to access to culture in the UK. On the other hand, Post Offices in the UK arguably constitute part of the infrastructure of small villages and yet are not regarded as such. The result is piecemeal, opportunistic, privatisation and often, more importantly, privation. The current UK government certainly has no view on infrastructure other than wanting to be rid of it. Future governments may take a different view but what I think is needed in the UK, and has been lacking for decades, is a clear cohesive view that would lead to cohesive solutions rather than chaos to be exploited by private profiteers.

Christmas

Christmas has been looming for weeks but started to happen for real in the village this Sunday. A Father Christmas had been hired for the village kids, for whom donkey rides across the bridge were also organised. Patrique in the Bar du Pont asked our ad hoc choir to sing some carols, as we duly did. I've remarked before that carol singing is not a tradition here but the carols were well received, with many in the audience joining in. Patrique had also arranged for Roberto to come, offering tartiflette or plates of seafood to follow the carol singing. I had seafood, oysters, prawns, crab and whelks, which was very good although it did nothing to counter the midday chill. The same happened last year when I took a photo of my son Carl sitting outside the Bar in front of just such a dish, looking only slightly less cold than the seafood.

Back From England

Back From England

I have just returned from a long weekend in England. I left Marseilles in sunshine, which continued as we flew above the clouds before descending below them to Heathrow. That was the last I saw of the sun, apart from a brief hour on Monday, until after my return on Wednesday morning. The renowned tupperware lid was fixed firmly over the capital.

Not that it spoiled my enjoyment of my brief stay. I met a friend and my “kids” as planned and spent time with them, had some very good meals including the compulsory fish and chips, very well cooked with thin crisp batter, and more than a few pints of good bitter. I offloaded various delicacies from this part of the world to friends and family and had time to do some shopping for myself before leaving. So it was a good trip.

I think many major cities in Europe have successfully come to grips with the transport problem and London is certainly one of them. Public transport is clean, efficient and inexpensive, with very frequent services and lots of new rolling stock and buses. The new no-cash, card-contact-only payment system speeds things along impressively and the visual and audible reminders of where the bus/tube is headed and the name of the next stop are useful for old dodderers like me who are liable to forget where they have to get off. True there was quite a lot of congestion along the roads but there is not a lot anyone can do about that; the excellence of the public transport system probably keeps road congestion to a minimum anyway by discouraging use of cars unless there is no practical alternative. Having lived in a small village for eight years now I find I've become averse to crowds and, although there were plenty of people everywhere, nowhere I went was oppressivley crowded. Fortunately I didn't have to travel in the rush hour at any time. I must have heard most of the major European and Asian languages spoken during my brief stay so the tourist trade is obviously doing well. Tourist information was abundant, clear and useful everywhere.

I visited the British museum and think I could probably spend a week happily just going round the main museums, all of which currently have free entrance. That can be important because London is definitely expensive. Meals were not too expensive and it was possible to find good value for money but accommodation very definitely was. Before going I searched for a reasonably priced hotel in a fairly central location and had great difficulty finding anything under about £70 (100 euros) a night. It seems that most of the smaller hotels have turned their rooms into dormitories sleeping 4-8 per room, which is fine for young back-packers, but I wanted my own room. For the larger hotels, a price of £150-250 per night seemed to be the norm. In the event I found a hotel in the Earls Court area for my target price that was clean and comfortable if spartan in facilities.

I bought some clothes, since there were sales discounts everywhere, some back bacon, marmite and good cheddar cheese to take back to France and also a 3kg gammon, which seems unobtainable here. I shall soak it in cider for a week and then roast it with cloves and honey, as I used to do every Christmas in England, to have over the holiday period.

The airports need a mention. I could have missed my flight out. I had arranged with friend Daniel to drive to Marignane, leave him with my car to spend the weekend with his son in Marseille and then drive back together on the Tuesday evening. As we approached the airport police cars suddenly appeared and blocked off the entrance. We the had to make a long detour before joining a queue of traffic back past the entrance again; fortunately it was then open and I had time to catch my plane. I presumed there was a security alert of some sort, which didn't actually bother me. Anywhere large numbers of people gather can be a target for terrorists, at any time, and I regard the risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as a matter of chance, beond my control. What worried the airport security staff though were my (explosive?) goats' cheeses, little crottins. I'd bought cheeses to take to England and they were in my hand luggage. The security staff were very polite and offered to let me return to check-in to have them placed in my hold luggage but were quite firm that they could not travel in the cabin. Their explanation was that soft cheeses, though they could hardly be classed as liquids, were not allowed. That clearly wasn't the case as two large slices of tome were happily passed over. I think the objection must have been to whole cheeses in which something could be hidden, although just how much danger could be presented by a small crottin was beyond me. Finally on airports, having got to Heathrow, checked in and passed through security, I saw a notice showing the estimated time to get to the gate I was leaving from posted as a 20-minutes brisk walk. That is best part of a mile. Even now, let alone if Heathrow is extended as proposed, they need to install a lot, lot more travellators, provide road trains or put travellers through a gym test beforehand to see if they are able to make it. I shall avoid Heathrow until they do so.