A man has died. We’ll never know what he was thinking as his blood slowly trickled over the pavement and dripped into the sewers of a French suburb. And we’ll never know what he would have made of himself. All we know is that he is dead.
But it seems we know why. This man died not because of who he was so much as for who his parents were, where they came from and which God they worshipped.
And by this time, of course, you should realize the unfortunate Frenchman I’m talking about is … Chaïb Zehaf.
Unless you’re an avid reader of French newspapers — and read them cover-to-cover — the odds are you’re seeing Zehaf’s name for the first time here. In fact, I almost missed the story during my recent three-week trip to France.
The 42-year-old son of Algerians was gunned down earlier this month by a man witnesses allege had been waving around a pistol in a bar earlier that evening and spouting anti-Arab epithets immediately prior to the shooting.
The fate of Zehaf and his grieving family was buried in the French papers while the cruel torture and murder of the young Jew Ilan Halimi last month by the violent and incompetent “Barbarian” kidnapping gang was international front-page news, sparking large rallies throughout the nation. Arguably, this presents an easy dichotomy of how France responds to the murders of an Arab and a Jew, respectively.
But, in fact, that’s a bit too easy.
While Zehaf’s heartbroken relatives are wondering where their parade is, the last thing France needs is an additional impetus to rally in the streets — in fact, just last week, a gathering of 400,000 marched through Paris protesting a new law making it easier to fire young workers, stealing the thunder of a simultaneous rally protesting inhumane treatment of illegal aliens. Clearly the French have mastered the art of going on a politically motivated walk, with company.
So, if anything, the murders and their aftermaths are the tips of a large and problematic iceberg. Yes, France is home to large numbers of angry, impoverished, even nihilistic Muslims who don’t like Jews or the government, and may even see government efforts on behalf of Jews as all the more impetus to harass them. And, yes, France is home to large numbers of (white) people who are uneasy with this problematic population. And, of course, there are some terrified people and/or out-and-out racists, as in any country.
In short, France has problems. Big problems. Like the United States. Like Great Britain. Like any country in which the government doesn’t monopolize the use of violence in a terror-driven police state.
But if there’s any good news to be had, it’s that France is aware of its problems. Over the past five years, the reports of anti-Jewish extremism in France bandied about in the Jewish press have often taken on a hysterical tone, even making references to World War II. And this sort of simplistic fear-mongering — to the point where friends acted as if I was planning a trip to Nablus instead of Nantes — is not productive, and destroys American Jews’ credibility.
Make no mistake, France — its government and people — are aware of a large population of enraged young people who fit the target demographic of Islamist propagandists to a tee. Attacks on French Jews and vestiges of the government are no longer being written off as the natural outcome of angst over the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
At the same time, as in so many nations, there is complacency about the struggles of the country’s hardest-up. (If police officers roughed up Jews in Shaker Heights, America would be up in arms, but when blacks are regularly harassed by law enforcement, it’s often met with a shrug, even by earnest liberals, as the kind of thing that happens in the parts of town you don’t go.)
Contrasting the sporadic attacks on Jews with the daily struggles of poor blacks and North Africans is not meant to downplay anti-Semitism or, worst of all, condone it. Those who engage in anti-Jewish violence aren’t making a grand societal statement. They’re violent criminals.
But, as the recent French ghetto riots demonstrate, France’s underclass — which is by no means uniformly Muslim or of African descent — hates its lot in life. The status quo is a sinking ship. Long-term solutions transcend law-enforcement issues.
And France knows this. While some French voices quoted in an article running in these pages refuse to chalk up any degree of anti-Semitism in Halimi’s death, one should always raise an eyebrow when confronted with obvious examples of contrived journalistic balance.
The bottom line is the French know that had Halimi not been Jewish, he’d be alive and hawking cellular phones today. To a lesser degree, they also know that if Chaïb Zehaf hadn’t been an Arab, he’d be driving his delivery truck (which, undoubtedly, would be blocked by some large-scale demonstration).
For Americans to claim France is turning a blind eye to racial and economic strife is beyond hypocritical. France’s cards, at the very least, are on the table. How it will play out — Je ne sais pas.
Joe Eskenazi is a j. staff writer recently returning from several weeks in France.