Prevention of Right-Wing Extremism, Xenophobia and Racism in ...

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not want to meet. For example, I’ll organise meetings between policemen and youth, or between parents of north-African or African origin and teachers or policemen. So my way of preventing racism is to let groups with whom I work to express their racist feelings. If we let people express themselves without condemning them right away or without patron- ising them, they will begin to think a little bit more, and if they get to meet other people, it will change their way of seeing things. Let me supply you with an example: I work in a city where there are a lot of problems with violence. In this city, there is someone working for the city, a gardener. And he begins to speak. Well, actually, at fi rst, he didn’t want to speak, and says nothing. So I say: “Why don’t you want to speak”? He says: “I don’t want to speak because if I do, people will say that I’m racist”. So I said: “Of course not, go ahead!” and everyone chimes in: “Go ahead, say what you want to say!” “Well, I have problems because when I work, some African or Arab children throw stones at me and keep me from doing my work.” So we tell him: “Go ahead, explain, tell!” And he begins to tell us about his his life. He tells us about his his diffi cul- ties, and, after a moment, says: “I think these children are like that because they haven’t been properly raised by their parents. Their parents, those Arab or African parents, don’t take care of their children. They don’t raise them well. I’d like to meet those African or Arab parents to talk to them and to know why they don’t take care of their children.” So we organise a meeting between those people and the African or north-African parents. And we discuss. And the gardener says what he has to say. And I help him defend his idea. I don’t say: “You, that’s good, you that’s not good”. I help him, I help them all, to defend their idea. And then he discovers that north-African parents really want their children to behave properly, but they just don’t manage to do it, because of modern-day life and such. So afterwards, the gardener thinks: “Ah but my children are also diffi cult. They also do pull pranks and I can’t always manage, etc.” So he speaks about all that and it changes his way of seeing things. He even thinks further and says: “but you know, in this neighbourhood, the city wants us to plant fl owers for everything to look nice but those plants with those children and those large families who can’t take care of them, they just break everything, so it would be better not to put in such plants but rather a resilient kind of grass, and then some hills like that so that the children can play and so.” And he adds: “But I’m not the one making decisions. They just call in an architect, and he doesn’t have a clue, and he’s the one who decided that we would put in plants and so.” So we fi nd out that this man has many ideas but he is powerless; powerless; nobody listens to him, so we work to give him some power, so fi rst of all comes the meeting and then to rid him of his powerlessness. As far as I am concerned, violent people are powerless people. Violence is for them a counter- measure for powerlessness, so if we want them to stop being violent, we have to fi nd a way to lose this powerlessness. S: You have already mentioned prevention work. Are there any programs organised by the state to fi ght, reduce or prevent racism? R: We now have programs against discrimination. Say if you send your résumé under an Arab name, for example, the company might refuse you because of the bad reputation of 116 “Multi-Cultural France is becoming a Multi-Racist Society”
people from the suburbs. There may not even be an interview, just because of the name. This is something I experienced in Germany as well, at the time when I was a guest worker there, I witnessed the same thing. So we now have laws which provide for anonymous résumés. S: Are there also any programs on the pedagogical level? R: No, because the current priority in France is not racism, but violence: violence from the youth in neighbourhoods of mainly foreign origin, because this violence is a cause for the rise of xenophobic sentiments and racism in the population. As far as I know, the pedagogical programs to counter violence are not many and they don’t really work, but people have tried. This is what is called city politics. City politics are there to ensure that there are less social problems and problems of violence in those neighbourhoods. S: And how do these city politics function? R: There are programs which have been in place for now twenty years which aim to solve housing problems, to create a more balanced social mix in buildings, or to give the youth the means to organise animation activities. This was a failure, I think because it was too technocratic and didn’t consider people’s feelings, and you can’t train teachers, policemen, social workers, to work with population groups who they themselves view as diffi - cult. A policeman in France, for example, does not get trained to deal with foreign populations, which creates racism; a lot of racism through ignorance but also racism through fear. S: And who are the main people responsible for these programs? R: Public services: school, social workers, police, animation. They are very present in France, everywhere, as opposed to the United States or Russia where public services do not exist. In France, there is everything and everything works: busses, schools, elementary schools, hobby centres, all exist. S: But these programs did not work, even if they had been in place for twenty years? R: In my opinion, they don’t work well. As far as the pedagogy of racism is concerned, I would say that there is simply nothing. There have been some training sessions for a few years now, and I am in part responsible for that. Seminars about discrimination in order to train professionals, for example those working in work placement offi ces, in order to train them to know the laws punishing racism, also to train them to greet foreign populations, it ex- ists but it is all quite new. S: Does anti-racist pedagogy play a role in school? R: I think anti-racism is very present in France but anti-racism is one of protest, of indignaindigna- tion, but not of learning. That is, anti-racism is carried out in France through the spoken word, demonstrations against Le Pen during electoral campaigns but there is no pedagogical refl exion. In the IUFM’s (Instituts Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres), teacher academies, there is simply nothing. In police academies, that’s where I work, there is simply nothing. You hear such nonsense as policemen who say they need training, who work in a neighbourhood with a majority of north-African inhabitants and the police don’t hesitate to ask an imam to come by and explain to them what Islam is all about. The imam “Multi-Cultural France is becoming a Multi-Racist Society” 117
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Prevention of Right-Wing Extremism,
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Contents Michaela Glaser Introducti
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these developments (Minkenberg, 200
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institutional framework of this pol
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lum. In addition, schools are requi
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YNGVE CARLSSON Violent Right-Wing E
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Boot Boys. They emphasize physical
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The economic explanation Norway is
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danger is of course that the proble
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“tool-bags”. In other cases the
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and Norwegian communities are trans
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The effects of such demonstrations
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Building personal relations as a st
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there is of course a possibility th
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MIRYAM ESER DAVOLIO; BRIGITTA GERBE
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& Wallerstein, 1988). Right-wing ex
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If younger people exhibit right-win
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had very different effects on attit
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For each specifi c fi eld, the the
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the problems of right-wing extremis
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The networking among community acto
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could be most successful, because i
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Eser Davolio, Miryam & Drilling, Ma
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GÉ GRUBBEN Right-Extremist Sympath
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in the way in which they accentuate
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digit membership. The mobility of t
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Strategies for combating prejudice,
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The government Right-wing extremism
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Anti discrimination organizations T
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shortfall of thorough research and
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From intercultural education to act
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Appendix - Educational and children
Page 66 and 67: Experience shows that many particip
Page 68 and 69: Reliable information on members of
Page 70 and 71: to sympathy with the National Socia
Page 72 and 73: extremist activities cannot be reac
Page 74 and 75: do so, social work not only has to
Page 76 and 77: not neglect content-related dimensi
Page 78 and 79: Pingel, Andrea & Rieker, Peter (200
Page 80 and 81: Black people 23 are a lot more like
Page 82 and 83: stances that encouraged members of
Page 84 and 85: upon the forces of law and order th
Page 86 and 87: landscape in contrast to the previo
Page 88 and 89: Dealing with racism in schools Havi
Page 90 and 91: New Labour, racism and education In
Page 92 and 93: REWIND: This organisation carries o
Page 94 and 95: Gillborn, David & Mirza, Heidi (200
Page 96 and 97: GYÖRGY LIGETI & TAMÁS NYESTE Righ
Page 98 and 99: A multitude of amateur bands have s
Page 100 and 101: ner portraying all possible stereot
Page 102 and 103: like their children to get their fi
Page 104 and 105: a so-called Árpád striped fl ag,
Page 106 and 107: The Holocaust Memorial Center (www.
Page 108 and 109: Youth work Mobilitas Youth Service
Page 110 and 111: their programmes and projects. Rece
Page 112 and 113: exclusion, but that they would then
Page 114 and 115: fi remen are often greeted by stone
Page 118 and 119: disserts about Islam, saying that i
Page 120 and 121: liceman, which caused quite uproar,
Page 122 and 123: seat, calmed, quiet. This from a ra
Page 124 and 125: situation, which is also institutio
Page 126: Gé Grubben: higher professional ed
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