Even Americans get touchy when the term "xenophobia" gets thrown around. But it is difficult to put it any other way, as France sanctioned a removal of thousands of Roma, or "gypsies," from its political borders this year.
But if the French are offended by such a designation, they can sit with the rest of us who are uncomfortable with the messy New York City vagabond that sings loudly to himself on the subway. Speaking in terms of cultures, many fear the outsider.
Though dealing with similar problems concerning Mexican immigrants, the United States does not suffer from the exact same kind of drama. Europeans, in general, place more importance on heritage; so whether a person is French or not actually means something in France.
Thus, the seemingly bi-conditional view that each French person must be a citizen and of a French bloodline raises questions about how humanistic the Roma removal can claim to be and how much of the incentive we can trace back to basic ethnocentrism.
Though most of the headlines read that France is removing "illegal immigrants," it seems that their equivalent border patrol continues to target Romani people specifically. We wonder, as in any similar case, as to what degree these people are being profiled.
Granted, gypsies are widely considered to be a nuisance, haunting urban European transit depots and harassing passersby for money, only to then demand more money. Refusing to donate will sometimes result in being on the receiving end of a curse. Such animosity toward refused generosity unnerves even the non-superstitious.
Arguably, Romanian poverty is not France's problem, and the removed Romani people are all illegally within the borders of sovereign France, not paying taxes and contributing only to urban blight.
But France can offer some rights to non-citizens, and the direct and physical removal and displacement of an entire race of people seems a bit extreme.
Similarly to the United States, if France wants to ride the moral high horse and if it wants to be known as a superior humanitarian nation, then it needs to check its apparent narrow-mindedness and begin efforts to assimilate a group of people that will probably find their way back to France anyway.
Trying hard to mask the ubiquitous fear of "the other," France will be hard pressed to find means to successfully defend its own xenophobia, especially as the means of remedying French comfort comes down to physically removing an entire ethnicity.
Despite whatever opinions one has about French people, remember that we are knee-deep in a similar issue on the home front, and the United States is not handling it with an admirable moral finesse, either.
E-mail: editorial@ubspectrum.com
