I was absolutely thrilled by Algeria’s qualification for the knockout phase on Thursday night. For the anecdote, I watched the second half of the game in a bar in Bayeux, managing to persuade the barman and sympathique table of Belgian fans—wearing goofy caps with horns and Belgian flags painted on their cheeks—that the Algeria-Russia match was more interesting and with greater stakes than Belgium-South Korea—being played simultaneously—, as Belgium was going to round 16 anyway, so they agreed to flip the channel. I also informed the French in the bar that they should be for Algeria, as the majority of Algerian players are, in fact, Franco-Algerian dual nationals from France, so the Algerian national team may also be seen as the French B team… At the end of the Algeria-Russia game the Belgians all applauded the Algerian qualification and a couple of the French gave me the high five. Sympa….
The Algeria qualification was a lead story in the French media yesterday morning, with the explosion of joy by Franco-Algerians across the country after the game (pics here), acting like Les Verts had won the World Cup final. But not everyone in France is happy about it, or at least for the same reasons. There was the expected bad humor from the extreme right (FN etc), who predictably focused on incidents of vandalism and torching of cars in various cities during the celebrations (which has been going on in this country for over three decades; it’s a permanent phenomenon; it always happens when there’s a pretext for lumpen youths to do so; so what point is one trying to make in fixating on it?). And then there were reactions from non-extreme right commentators, e.g. Le Figaro’s nitwit editorialist Ivan Rioufol, who asserted that “le patriotisme algérien en France révèle l’échec de l’assimilation.” Quel con. Monsieur Rioufol—as with so many others on the right (and some on the left as well) who opine on the subject—has zero understanding of the immigrant experience—in all immigrant populations in France and everywhere in the world, present and past—and the multiple or hybrid identities that ensue from this. And when it comes to Algerians and other post-colonial immigrant-origin populations in France, there is also a considerable mauvaise foi in Rioufol & Co.’s attitude.
To illustrate this, I will recount an exchange I had with a student (French) on precisely November 20th last fall, in one of the Master’s level courses I teach at the Catholic University here. It was the day after the French national team’s stunning victory against Ukraine, that (unexpectedly) qualified Les Bleus for the World Cup tournament in Brazil, and with the game happening at the same moment as the Algeria-Burkina Faso playoff—which Algeria won, thereby earning the ticket to Brazil as well. And, as it happened, Portugal also qualified for Brazil that evening, winning its playoff against Sweden. So there were celebrations on the Champs-Elysées that night after the games, of fans of all three winning teams waving flags of the three countries. My very right-wing student—who was not FN but not far from it; and, as I learned, had been an activist in the anti-gay marriage movement several months earlier—brought up the incidents of vandalism and arson (hugely exaggerated by hard right websites) and expressed indignation at the waving of Algerian flags by youths who were certainly born and raised in France. I responded to this by asking him about all the Portuguese-French fans who waved Portuguese flags during the celebration, adding that in my banlieue—where there is a significant Portuguese community—Portuguese flags hang from windows when the Portuguese national team plays a game, and that when it’s Portugal vs. France—as happened in the semifinal in both the Euro 2000 and 2006 World Cup—, these fans root for Portugal against France, and that this includes members of the second generation, who are full French citizens, so what does he have to say about that? The student’s response: “Ah, but that’s not the same thing…” Me: “Oh, really? So it’s okay for a French citizen of Portuguese parentage to wave a Portuguese flag but not okay for a French citizen of Algerian origin to wave an Algerian flag? Please explain.” The student: “Behind the Algerian flag are revendications…” Me (surprised): “Revendications? What revendications?” The student would not or could not say. And he clearly did not want to continue the exchange. I invited him to elaborate on what he said in a future class, to do a short presentation on it, which we would then discuss as a class, but he manifestly wasn’t interested in my proposition.
Total French right-wing mauvaise foi. And on this, I don’t imagine I would have received a more elaborate or sophisticated response from Ivan Rioufol. The French right has a problem with the presence of Muslims in France and doesn’t know how to think about Algeria, Algerians, or the Algerian war—or about France’s colonial past more generally. And this mentality is clearly being transmitted down the generations, at least in the more politicized portion of the hard right.
As it happens, the CRIF saw fit to publish Rioufol’s commentary on its website. This is lamentable. What point does the CRIF wish to make here? Rhetorical question: If Israel had qualified for the World Cup, finished in the top two in its group, and thereby proceeded to the knockout phase, would not there not be celebrations by French Jews and who would proudly wave the Israeli flag? Poser la question c’est y répondre…
What on earth is wrong with individuals having multiple or hybrid national identities? What’s the big deal? E.g. the big pro-Israel march in Paris on April 7, 2002 (along Bd Voltaire, from République to Nation)—which I attended as a spectator—, was a sea of French and Israeli flags (and in equal proportion). Absolutely no one in the French political or media mainstream expressed disapproval of this display of multiple national identities on the part of the marchers—and whose ranks included high-profile politicians from the right, center, and left, who came to express solidarity with the Jewish community and Israel at the height of second Intifada (those I remember seeing: Alain Madelin, Claude Goasguen, Pierre Lellouche, François Bayrou, Corinne Lepage, Jean-Marie Le Guen, Julian Dray). Rhetorical question: So if it’s okay for Jews, why not for Muslims too?
Nouvel Obs columnist Bruno Roger-Petit has a fine commentary (June 27th) on the celebrations following the Algeria-Russia game, which he says were “un formidable pied de nez aux réacs.” And Laurent Dubois had an equally fine essay in January (which I just read, h/t Muriam HD) on the Roads & Kingdoms blog, “Afro-Europe in the World Cup.”
Though I’m pleased that Algeria has qualified for round 16, I will not be rooting for Les Verts to beat Germany on Monday, as this will—assuming that France defeats Nigeria in that day’s earlier match-up—set up an Algeria-France quarterfinal, which is to be avoided at all costs, not because of what will happen on the field but off it—in the cities and banlieues of France. The hybrid/multiple identities will brutally clash and with a certain deleterious political fallout. An Algeria-France World Cup match is not in the higher interests of the French polity or French society. So Algeria needs to lose to Germany with honor, allowing for a (logical) France-Germany face-off in the quarterfinal.
I was also pleased with the outcome of the Germany-USA game on Thursday—which I watched at the aforementioned Bayeux bar earlier in the evening, packed with Americans—plus that of Ghana-Portugal, thereby allowing Team USA to proceed to the knockout phase and in second place. Had the Americans defeated Germany to finish first in the group, this would have set up an eventual France-USA quarterfinal—and with me being for France against the USA, a position I would rather not find myself in. So now Team USA will face off against the Belgian Red Devils on Tuesday. I will be favoring the former.
After the game I saw a “commentary” by the wacky right-wing bloviator-entertainer Ann Coulter, in which she says that “growing interest in soccer a sign of nation’s moral decay.” It reads like a parody of an Ann Coulter column. Numerous Facebook friends posted it and with indignant comments but I thought it was hilarious, as it’s so wildly over-the-top that it can’t be serious. Ms. Coulter cannot possibly believe what she’s saying. It has to be tongue-in-cheek: click bait written with the expressed purpose of getting liberals all worked up and talking about her. But there is, of course, the possibility that the unhinged Coulter is 100% serious and is seriously throwing red meat to her numerous right-wing fans. If so, the intellectual depravity of the American right is even worse than I thought.
Great post, Arun. And I greatly enjoyed the story about your student.
Checking my gut here – if there was a France-US meetup, yep I would have to back the Blues. 🙂
Thanks Victoria. Fortunately we’ll have to wait a few years before Team USA faces Les Bleus…
“What on earth is wrong with individuals having multiple or hybrid national identities? What’s the big deal? ”
And where does their ultimate loyalty lies? Are they politcally reliable? We live in a wolrd of nation states. In the end, there can be only one God, one community to which you will remain loyal and fight for.
Is it so extra-ordinary to wonder why a french passport and a citizenship was given to people who seems somewhat conflicted over this issue? The same is true for all dual identities, I don’t know why the portugese get a free pass.
The question would be perfectly valid of jews considering french policy in the middle east is not very favorable to Israel but well, these days it’s bad form to ask it for obvious reasons.
So to whom these algerian-flag-waving youths are loyal in the end? The french republic? The homeland of their parents?
Zl: What do you mean by “loyalty”? What precisely does it mean to be “loyal” to a country? Why should “loyalty” to one exclude “loyalty” to another? And what, pray, does it mean to be “politically reliable”? If you opened the ‘About’ tab on my blog you will have read that I am both an American citizen (by birth) and a French citizen (by naturalization/declaration). Dual citizenship is recognized de jure by the French state and de facto by the US government. I obey the laws of both countries. That’s as much as I need to do. As for which national sports team I may root for – or which flag I may choose to hang from my balcony during international sports events – that’s my personal affair, as it is for every other sports fan, in France, America, or anywhere.
BTW, French citizenship was not “given” to dual national Algerians, Portuguese, and others. They acquired it according to the conditions of French nationality law (which has liberal jus soli provisions; though not quite as much so as in America). They possess French citizenship by right.
Also BTW, numerous persons in this world who are not atheists or agnostics believe in more than one god (e.g. Hindus).
I think there’s a difference between respecting different religions or cultures or lingering affections for one’s place of origin and creating a situation where loyalties begin to go not to the nation where one lives but instead to ever smaller units of tribal or familial affiliation.
My sense is that encouraging a multitude of small, largely autonomous enclaves of people who have no investment or interest in the host country necessarily undermines both the host’s traditional culture and even its existence. Eventually, if you have totally autonomous groups of people with nothing in common expect that they are sharing the same physical space “obeying the laws” of whichever countries they have citizenship documents from, the best you can hope for is that you will end up with Lebanon. I think there has to be something more, something deeper and, yes, something involving a certain degree of national loyalty that’s necessary to avoid existing countries devolving into Balkanized nightmares.
Mitch: In the case of French citizens of Algerian (or Moroccan, Tunisian etc) parentage, the overwhelming majority do indeed identify with France and are loyal to it (however one wants to define loyalty). And those who care about soccer do cheer on Les Bleus (as was manifest during the celebrations after France won the 1998 World Cup). Where there is a significant multigenerational ethnic ghettoization in a country with a civic conception of citizenship, then the primary responsibility for that ghettoization necessarily lies with the dominant society, not with the ethnic group in question.
As for a Balkanized nightmare in France, this exists only in the fevered imagination of the far right (and with fevered laïcard intellectuals like Alain Finkielkraut, who don’t know WTF they’re talking about when they opine on this subject).
I just caught up on your great World Cup posts — and this one is the gem. (Though I awfully liked IV, and the notes on how “assholes” on team can change one’s opinion regarding for whom to cheer — I am currently watching Costa Rica – Greece, and while at first I was fairly neutral on this game, CR has played such a dirty, floppy game, any sympathy I have for them has dissipated. Fortunately, about half the team now carries yellow cards, so they won’t go any further, if they survive today. And as Greece JUST equalized, perhaps today is the end of the road for them.) The issue of dual-nationality players is quite interesting — much of the US team carries two passports. I think dual-nationality players create an even more global context for the world’s premier global event. And I am glad to see the US team playing competitively with the world’s best, and the US public at last fully embracing the tournament.
DHM: Thanks. I started watching Costa Rica-Greece as it entered extra time. I was for the Costa Ricans, mainly because of their excellent performance in the group phase, finishing in first place in what was the veritable “group of death” and with 7 points, whereas Greece was mediocre in its group, winning only one game – and on a last second penalty (a devastating loss for the Ivory Coast, which should have gone through) – and with a negative goal differential. And I’m still irritated at the Greeks’ freak victory in the Euro 2004, in which they were by no means the best team (or even the fifth best…). But Costa Rica’s fine run should, in principle, come to a logical end in the quarterfinal against the Netherlands.
Re Team USA, the fact that five of its players are American-German dual nationals – and at least two of whom who speak German better than English – is utterly uncontroversial in the US. Which is at it should be.
“What do you mean by “loyalty”? What precisely does it mean to be “loyal” to a country? Why should “loyalty” to one exclude “loyalty” to another? And what, pray, does it mean to be “politically reliable”? ”
Are they willing to uphold and defend the current political order?Will they send their kids to die for it when the time comes? Because it inevitably does.
The iraqi kurds don’t seem to care much for the continued existence of the governement in Bagdad (and they never did). The russophone ukrainians have a somewhat questionable and confused relationship with the government in Kiev to say the least. And the least goes on, many states have political minorities whose loyalty to the governement is questionable at the best of times.
You can’t be both because in the end, the interests of the 200 states of the face of this earth don’t align. In last resort, there can be only one team.
Zl: You need to reframe your (rhetorical) questions, as people don’t make the decision to “send their kids to die” (and for a political order? I think you mean the country of which they are citizens and regardless of its political order, however you want to define this). The state does – via conscription – or the “kids” themselves, who make the decision to enlist in the military when they are legal adults (and young adults generally do not go into the military with the expectation of dying but with the assumption, or at least hope, they’ll get out alive). If citizens are subjected to conscription, they need to conform to that or face the legal consequences – or leave the country (as did thousands of Americans during the Vietnam War) –, unless they’re excused by the military or perform alternative service (where that’s possible). And in the case of dual nationals in France, there was the possibility of doing one’s military service in the other country in which one held citizenship, France having had formal treaties with 24 countries on the matter (including Algeria and Israel).
But your question is neither here nor there, as France ended conscription 13 years ago. Like the US, France now has an all volunteer army and no one imagines that there will be a return to mandatory national service.
As for Iraqi Kurdistan, Ukraine, and other multinational states with strong separatist sentiment or movements, these cases are not relevant to France (or to the United States).