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Article Excerpt
In Hospitalite francaise (1984), Tahar Ben Jelloun lists a number of crimes committed against Arab people in France between May 1982 and October 1983. (1) A total of forty-five victims, teenagers and young adults, were violently attacked for various reasons by police, residents, and unidentified aggressors. According to Ben Jelloun, "[L]e racisme en France est de l'ordre de convictions aveugles, de l'ordre de l'evidence, d'intuitions et de donnees que ni la science ni la politique ne justifient serieusement" (36). In other terms, racism against Arabs does not have its own theory and seems to draw, according to Ben Jelloun, from old, anti-Semitic ideas. But racism does not always express itself in a violent manner. On one hand it may express itself in radical, exceptional acts; on the other hand it may occur in more subtle terms, such as stereotyping, prejudices or simply indifference to one's misery.
According to sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann. daily life is not the focus of much research because most people are not interested in everyday life and events. (2) On the contrary human beings are interested in the extraordinary--amazing or peculiar actions. However, according to Kaufmann, it is in the study of basic daily life itself that very meaningful facts and realities can be exposed. In the two texts by Azouz Begag and Mehdi Charef that we propose to examine here, daily life is rather uneventful. Characters go on about their own business away from the mainstream. Neighborhoods do not mix, and interaction between the newcomers and French residents is kept at a minimum. The two texts offer a distinct perspective on the themes of race and racism, and its consequences on the young. Because they do not openly call for special attention, it is particularly interesting to explore the notion of racism in both stories from the perspective of daily life whereas previous research deals with broad cultural differences and gender roles.
In L'Invention du quotidien. 2. Habiter, cuisiner, (3) Michel de Certeau and his colleagues undertook the study of daily life among residents of specific neighborhoods in Lyon Several significant domains meaningful to the creation of daily life were revealed in the study: neighborhood, individual/group practices and responsibilities, gender roles, private vs. public space, memory, interaction between residents and/or shop keepers, all proved essential to healthy group activity Because all areas are not clearly visible, it is the researcher's responsibility to discuss theory as well as point out specific examples. As De Certeau put it, "ce qui interesse l'historien du quotidien, c'est l'invisible" (2:11). According to De Certeau, the concept of daily life includes everything pertinent to one's life, from the minute one wakes up: i.e., oppression, lifestyle, living conditions, memory of places, but also within the body: smells, actions, fatigue, desire, pleasures. Keeping De Certeau's study as a model, we propose to examine the intertwined notions of racism and daily life in Azouz Begag's Le gone du Chaaba and Mehdi Charef's Le the au harem d'Archi Ahmed. (4)
The particular theme we are interested in treating here focuses on the impact of accommodation and urban development on daily life. In the 1950s and 1960s, many French cities saw the rapid construction of high-rise apartment buildings, or HLM, (Habitation a Loyer Modere, government subsidized housing) aimed at solving the housing shortage According to Simon, the crisis actually became unbearable after 1945, after a new wave of immigration following WWII. Foreign labor was needed in order to reconstruct the country. Algerian immigrants resided in garnis (modest hotel rooms), foyers pour immigres, and centres d'hebergement:
Une enquete de 1956 montre que 40,5% Nord-Africains se logeaient eux-memes darts des conditions epouvantables, 31,8% duns des conditions moins penibles, 22,7% etaient loges par les entreprises et 5% par des organismes relevant...
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