Strikes, Politics, and a Political Student in Paris

I'm feeling very political at the moment. It might be because it's only 5 days before the Australian federal election, and I feel the urge to go to the Australian embassy in Paris to vote. For those of you who don't know, it's compulsory to vote in Australia if you're an Australian citizen - but not if you are overseas. As a Politics student, however, I really should practice what I preach, so I'm going. Long live representative democracy and citizen participation!

Anyway, compounding this strange condition I have is the fact that it's been nearly a week since public transport workers (and many public sector workers) went on strike. They want more retirement benefits than everyone else; a remnant of a bygone era in the great social-democratic nation-building process that is la France moderne. In typical French fashion, there have been protests against these protests. Yes - people go on strike to protest, and then the general population holds a counter-protest. In fact, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) lists France as a country in which one should "exercise caution", and advises people to stay away from demonstrations, which, in France, have a habit of turning violent. All the more reason to take some photos!

Riot police in the centre of Paris

Student blockade at the Sorbonne

Actually, I very nearly got myself arrested. I knew that students were blockading the Sorbonne, so I decided to go, along with my student card showing that I'm studying at the National Foundation of Political Sciences, and I asked permission and everything. They let me in, and did a check, but [fortunately], they forgot to check my film pouch, where they would've found my beautiful Swiss Army knife. Oops. Ah well, I would've been able to rock up to the Australian Embassy and kill two birds with the one stone. Though I only want to kill one of those birds... Ah well all this is good cred-building.

However, I wonder if I may have gone just a little bit too far when I wrote an email to my local member, Joe Hockey, telling him that I wouldn't vote for him. I wrote to him because he sent me a lousy election propaganda article attacking Kevin Rudd, ad hominem. Sorry for my Latin - I'm spending too much time in Paris' Latin quarter, but ad hominem means an attack on a person's argument by attacking their personality; "Bill Clinton can't run the country cause he's not a family man", for instance. More and more, I find Liberal's election campaign to be filled with ad hominem attacks, and yes, thanks to the wonders of Youtube, I do follow the information campaigns.

Back to my personal vendetta on Joe Hockey: In a representative democracy, you should feel represented by your representative. If not, vote for someone who you think represents you. In my seat of North Sydney, the Labor (left-wing) candidate is former ABC weatherman and journalist, Mike Bailey. From what I gather (I have seen both of them in person), Mike Bailey appears a lot less arrogant, though appearances can be deceptive. But when Mr. Hockey speaks, there is a... real... Northshore air about him. For those of you who don't know, the Northshore and Eastern suburbs of Sydney are the middle and upper class bourgeoisie strongholds of Australia, and yes, they exist, even in Australia. It's such that my counter-vote is unlikely to do anything for weatherman Mike Bailey - he is running in a blue-ribbon Liberal (right-wing) electorate. And now that I'm no longer in my Northshore bubble, I'm allowed to say that. Perhaps I've developed a Parisian arrogance.

All this talk may make me sound like a communist, but in fact, I would consider myself a swing voter. And [hopefully], an informed one at that (based on the optimistic assumption that I've learnt something in my last 3 years at uni studying Politics, that is). At the end of the day, it's not about right or left - that's really an over-simplified dichotomy. It's about the best leader and the best party with the best policies for Australia, and for my part, I'm proudly voting "KEVIN 07"! Dad, I know you must be upset at me, too bad.

However, in France, I support the UMP, the incumbent right-wing government. I feel that the unions have too much power, and are making unwarranted demands. Extra privileges for those working in the public sector, for instance, contradicts France's founding values of liberté, égalité (equality) and fraternité. Egalité, especially. Though I don't agree with moderate-right président Sarkozy's stance on immigration, I feel that it's a somewhat prudent measure considering public opinion in France.

Now, I don't support all of Kevin Rudd's policies. And there are certainly a number of Liberal's policies that I do support (not many though haha). At the last election, I went to each parties' respective websites and had a look at their policy platforms. It's interesting - and well worth a read, especially for those who have strong opinions (e.g. "Labor's going to fuck up the economy"). It's representative democracy; not participatory democracy like ancient Athens. We choose some goon to represent us, but then we don't all have to participate in forum each week to discuss policies. Imagine if we did though - 100% of our population would be politicians. A scary thought (or not?).

I once read found a nice, concise definition of politics in a French book on philosophy. It goes something like this: in any society, there are always people with conflicting interests; politics is the peaceful resolution of conflicting interests and finding a modus vivendi; and eventually a modus operandi. War is the violent extreme of this. That last bit concerning war is quite important, because it's often debated weather war is, indeed politics, as it's definitely political. But that's a totally different discussion...

And some photos from Reims:

A culture that's rich and famous

As usual, let's start with a few thousand words in photos...

Now if pictures really did tell a thousand words, wouldn't that 10,000 word essay be so much easier?

Last week, my uni, la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (known as Sciences-Po) let us off for a semaine pédagogique, or reading week. The idea is that you use the time to catch up on a bit of study. Now of course, without discipline, a reading week can quickly become a "reading" week - with "reading" meaning anything from Facebooking, to other forms of procrastination, to getting drunk on one of the 4636 million litres of wine that France produces each year.

My plan was to read in the first part of the week, and save my "reading" for the second part. Be productive, and then reward myself with it. Alas, this was not possible - one my (by now famous) flatmates invited her sister and two friends over from Germany to visit for 4 nights. Philip and Michael (pronounched Mik-a-El) and her sister Freya. Really, really lovely people. The only problem is, even nice people tend to make a lot of noise at 3am in the morning when they are drunk and vomiting in the toilet... every night. Oh and after lots of vomiting, the toilet we spent 1500 euros on got blocked, again. And it's still blocked - though that means that we can claim insurance on one month's rent (because it's illegal to rent out an apartment without a toilet).

So yes, 6 of us in a small apartment in Paris sharing one toilet and a kitchen that's too small to seat two people. Though it wasn't quite as conducive to study as I hoped it would be - I was hoping it would be a deciding moment in our fun little flat-sharing saga so far. Without raising my voice, I sat Caroline down and talked to her about respect - how I had been treating them much nicer than they had been treating me, and that I'd rather that they start treating me better than I start treating them worse. I'd already started to lash out at them at the smaller things that I'd normally let go of. I think there was a change in attitude - and it seems like things are normalising.

To everyone who has expressed their concern, merci - it's good to know that people are listening. You'll be glad to know that the second part of my week was really nice. I hopped on a train at Gare de l'Est, Paris, and 45 minutes later, I was in Reims (pronounced something like Runss), Champagne; home of Veuve Clicquot, and home to my friend Steph, who welcomed me into her home for a bit of champagne-mixed relaxing out in the French countryside.

It's so easy to romanticise France - to actually live in Champagne, for example. Reims itself is quite an unassuming little town (city); population 187,206. You'd never know that lurking under the streets lie cellars which house its mythical, world-famous bubbly liquid. And my house in Montmartre, for example. I did a guided tour of my neighbourhood, and found out that Van Gogh lived around the corner. And that the guy who wrote Beauty and the Beast lived opposite me. No kidding. I wonder who may have lived in this very room where I'm typing up my blog at the moment - I know that I certainly have. Maybe one day I'll become famous too.

It's a cultural richness that Sydney, for all its laidback, easygoing beauty can't match. Yes, I'm sorry, I should point out that we have over 40,000 years of Aboriginal history that is the oldest culture of its type still preserved today. However, that history is not particularly famous in terms of world history. World history didn't even include Australia until 1788, thanks to its isolated spot down under.

On the other hand, France has seen kings, revolutions, beheadings, wars of religion and Nazi occupation, among other things. Coming back from my week off, I asked a friend in class what she got up to. "I went home", she told me. Where's that? "Rouen". Now I'm sure I'd heard of Rouen before - so I asked what made it famous. "Nothing really...". Okay. And then as an afterthought "Oh yeah, that's right, it's where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake". Now if something like that is only worth an afterthought, I can only imagine the kind of rich, famous history that awaits me in this fascinating city. And I'm living and breathing it every single day. Paris je t'aime!

In other news, the French public service are co-ordinating an open-ended general strike starting tomorrow. It's been labelled as [newly installed] president Nicolas Sarkozy's "Thatcher moment". Will he stand firm by his economic streamlining, or will he buckle to the pressure? In 1995, when faced with a 3-week strike, Jacques Chiraq buckled. But public opinion has apparently changed; according to some sources, 69% of people believe the strike is unnecessary. They're basically on strike because workers in the public sector make two-and-a-half years' less pension payments than everyone else, but receive the same amount from the government. So much for liberty, equality and fraternity; France's three founding values. If the occasion arises, I will be reporting live from the frontline, informing the rest of the world through phenomenon that is the internet. By the way, we had a listening test in French class today; an aural comprehension on the importance of the internet to politicians. Did you know, for example, that for his political campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy bought (hijacked) Google keywords, such as "Ségolene Royale" - the rival candidate? Or that his party, the UMP, encouraged its members to write blogs, so that there would be more websites pointing to the UMP website, increasing its ranking?

Reporting live from Paris, this is Jonathan Li for www.jonojet.com

Hearing without listening, but trying to understand

Back when I was (or...am) a young, immature kid living in the boarding house, I decided to show off my language skills by speaking in Cantonese with a boarder from Hong Kong. At the time, I was scolded by a boarding master and told that it was rude.

The reason for the rudeness, I've always been told, is that people can talk behind your back, without going "behind your back". I've never really subscribed to this logic, because if people are going to talk behind your back, they're going to do it anyway. Life's too stressful as it is, without having to be paranoid!

Since I started living in my share-flat with my two Deutsche Mitbeiwohnerin (female German flatmates... I hope the spelling's correct), I've started to understand another dimension of the language barrier. They always speak to each other in German, which has had its share of positives and negatives. On the positive side my German's improved out of sight. On the negative side...

...A language barrier exists when someone is unable to communicate with their entourage or milieu because they can't speak the language. So when two (or more) people who share a common language use it, they immediately establish a language barrier with the people around them. A language barrier which severs communication with everyone else, until they revert back to that language.

Okay, the word "sever" is a bit emotive, but it is one way to look at it. When they're talking to each other, it's fine, they can speak all the German they like. But when we're all in the kitchen, for example, and they chat to each other about how they've been going, it means that I don't get a chance to ask how they are, I don't get a chance to socialise. I have to keep to myself, cook my dinner, feel excluded... it's all a bit awkward and I don't think they realise. I don't think they realise that that's probably one of the reasons why we've grown apart... because I can't communicate with them... I'm becoming more and more like a nextdoor neighbour rather than a flatmate.

Now I know I can be a bit hypersensitive, but I don't think I've been hypersensitive here. I'm not trying to be best friends with my flatmates... but on the other hand, I don't want to be a piece of moving furniture. I say "moving furniture" because I feel even more isolated than a pet - I mean people communicate with their pets all the time... they talk to them, there's communication going on. When my flatmates speak in German in front of me, it's an implicit way of saying "we don't want to talk to you". The language barrier is raised.

I guess our fall out (which I hope will is salvageable) is more complicated - there's the fact that they put me 1600 euros into debt, which I could've been given a bad credit rating for, and banned from writing cheques in France for 5-10 years. There's also the fact our toilet got blocked... which has been harder on them (being girls). And their quick accusation that it was me that blocked it (what, with my tampons or something?), and their dumping food in my room for not tidying up the kitchen the night the plumbers had to fix the plumbing, rendering the kitchen inaccessible (yes, I left a mess, but this is after they put me 1600 euros in debt).

I've lived in a situation with lots of people before (in the boarding house), and it was there that I realised my selfish ways, that living with other people takes a lot of give-and-take... more giving actually. Yes, the boarding house isn't quite the same thing as sharing a flat. And I know that I'm not as tidy as them. But I've tried to bite my tongue when, for example, I was locked out of the house for two hours, when they cooked the pork that I bought, when they accused me of not leaving my cheque for the rent (I left it in the landlady's letterbox), and particularly, when I gave them a blank cheque to pay for the plumber because they wouldn't pay for it, and they wrote off 1571.95 euros without contacting me nor the landlady. In that context, I think it was just outright childish to dump a pot, an egg, a coffee plunger, a chopping board, my Swiss army knife and some half-cut tomatoes on my floor. It would've been nicer to shove it in the fridge and just tell me "Jon, you left a mess" - and I would've just said "sorry I left a mess".

Extreme Asia
On a slightly different note - it's funny how some French terms sound quite politically incorrect when translated directly into English. For example, Far-East Asia is called "Extreme Asia", which means that Japanese, Chinese and Koreans are "extreme Asians". To the max! And, as part of my little research project at Sydney Uni, I've been looking at stigmatisation and construction of negative images... and I've come to the conclusion that :

TODAY TONIGHT* PERPETUATES RACISM
Stigmatisation - when something acquires a negative connotation. The word "Asian" in Australia has become stigmatised, so has the words "Middle-Eastern" and "Lebanese". So, for example, whilst it is [only just] politically correct to say "Middle-Eastern gangs are wreaking havoc in Sydney", it is obviously stigmatising Middle-Easterners, and implying that "Middle-Eastern gangs (and not yobbo, redneck "Aussie" mobs like we saw at Cronulla) wreak havoc".

I've had a look at how racism can be countered... and some interesting literature talks about the construction of negative images and their associations with a race. To counter that, we really need positive images, rather than negative ones - of Asians, Middle-Easterners... etc. People like Victor Chang... Marie Bashir...

As long as Today Tonight is not taken off air for breaching every anti-discrimination act under the sun, we are going to have really, really mis-informed Australians who are really, really intolerant. Now "that's just un-Australian" (Today Tonight, 1997-2007).

*For our foreign readers - Today Tonight is a rubbish current affairs show which features stories ranging from fat people, magic milk, quick weight-loss, conspiracy theories, "what you didn't know about X", and "X race is going to take over Australia".