No, it wasn't Mel Gibson again. This time it was Max Gallo, the French historian, who was tackling the big and touchy question of what it is to be French on France Culture's morning news programme last Thursday (29th March) - a particularly charged and touchy issue in the lead up to the current Presidential elections later this month.
Max's own origins betray his particular interest in the question. Like his paternal grandparents, his mother was Italian and he grew up in the family household in Nice speaking an Italian dialect. But that didn't stop Max from marching in street demonstrations in later years to insult the Italian immigrants as he openly admitted.
Now Max has a theory about immigrants. According to Max, all immigrants carry a wound inside them, a schizophrenic wound from having left their homeland. An immigrant is schizophrenic, according to Max. "You have the right to express your identity and your roots," he conceded, adding that "there is also a responsibility to assume the totality of French history," before he ended with the sober reminder that "the history of
I wonder what KN readers would make of this.
Malachy, this is a really interesting issue.
ReplyDeleteWhen I arrived in France, I felt I should hide my Englishness, should conform, should learn the language as quickly as possible, should appear to be French at all times! Subsequently, when I started work, my French was not up to scratch and as a result, I became internalised, frightened to speak, and as a result probably seemed unfriendly.
I was desperate for people to know who I really was, what my personality was really like, what I was like when I lived in England.
This year at work, I decided that I was going to be who I really am, speaking a terrible mix of Franglais - it seems to work. I am not frightened to speak, I am enjoying my work more as a result and I am communicating with people at my pace and with my personality. They don't seem to be having any problem with it. They laugh sometimes when I say something really stupid in French but that's OK.
I also know someone who moved here about 30 years ago and who had subsequently lost herself, her Englishness, her origins, as a result of wanting to conform, to be French. It took the death of her father, to reevaluate her life and to realise that she wanted to BE ENGLISH again. She has now carried this forward into her work and is really enjoying being English again and has bloomed into someone else.
I also had a very 'rosy' picture of France and the French due to my language problems; not understanding everything, not understanding the nuances of what people; the TV, the radio was communicating. I now have a much more balanced view of all of that.
But the great thing about moving to another country is that you can reinvent yourself; do things that you would not have done before, challenge yourself. I moved here in my mid-forties and felt like my life was in need of change. There were always things I wanted to do, but I just didn't get around to doing them. It has also been great to meet lots of new people, make new friends.
The counter-side of that is that I missed my family and friends terribly, but I go to visit them, and they us, and that is now not so much of a problem. But, these old friends and family, really know you; your roots, your baggage, your history and you know theirs and that is something different about the friendships you make later in life.
In short Malachy, I am not sure if scar is the right metaphor for me, for me it is something deeper inside, the essence of who we are, something that cannot be seen, but known.
Thanks for putting this post up. What do you think? How do you feel about being an Irishman in France?
I was in a kitchen in Southend and we were talking about the refugees then being housed in the Victorianly lacy Royal hotel o the sea front. My friends mother said something along the lines of "they are not like us" to which, maybe more quickly than was polite, I replied "I am not one of you." "But you're Irish, you're part of...you know, England, Britain, the United Kingdom." And there, among the Rich Tea bisciuts and PG Tips and aspidistras, I was again a stranger in a strnge land.
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