Beginning to Awake

Have I been awake the past two months? Have I really been here two months? I cannot be dreaming – I never would have dreamed that I would live in Paris. Period.

And yet I feel as if I am starting to rustle from my blissful sleep. Reality, seldom beautiful, is seeping in at the edges of my reverie.

A few weeks ago in class we read an essay by Julia Kristeva called “Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner,” describing the ways in which we are all foreign, and how we must recognize that fact for xenophobia and its nasty siblings, genocide and racism, to disappear. The essay is an exploration of what it means to be foreign – feeling isolated from one’s mother country, residing in the silent land between two languages, basking in solitude and mutual hatred. When I first read it, I hated it. And in fact, I still hate it. Kristeva has a way of making ridiculous assumptions and using detestably melodramatic comparisons and imagery to get her point across. But – many of her points are very insightful. Maybe it’s finally starting to sink in for me that I’m just not welcome here. I feel eloigned from the United States on many levels – culturally, politically, physically – and yet, I feel little closer to these things in France. I will never be able to speak or understand French as well as the French can, as much as I would like to. And as for English, I use it with friends, but entire days have passed where I have only mumbled it to myself, and any other speaking I have done has been as The Bumbling Foreigner. As for mutual hatred, I’m remarkably ambivalent. I don’t like the word hate. I know I have that emotion, but I try to suppress it. The French certainly don’t try though. Or at least, the average Parisian does not. I remember coming into a restaurant back when I felt self-conscious of that fact that everyone looks at you when coming into restaurants here, and a friend of mine said, “I don’t like feeling hated when I go out to eat.” Me neither. Who does? I don’t like feeling hated on the subway, on the sidewalk, in a store, at the museum…and I can feel a nice hot glowing pinprick of resentment blooming in myself. Paris is spoiled by the Parisians, many say. Baudelaire himself wrote: “Paris, center and radiance of idiocy.” The other day an old man smacked me in the face with his bag as he was sitting down on the train. He didn’t say a word to me. He just looked at me like I had shoved my head at him while he was sitting. A woman practically tripped me as I was leaving the metro. Didn’t say a word. I was crossing the street and paused in the middle so a cyclist could go by. “Attention!” she screamed at me, and then felt it necessary to repeat it and sigh dramatically as she passed. I traded exasperated looks with a man smoking a cigarette, and I have no idea if he was making it at me or the woman. In a store, I gingerly began to pull a sweater off the (apparently) wrong shelf and a clerk quickly and curtly reminded me that the display was over there. What’s wrong with these people? What arrogance inspires them to these ends? A newspaper headline today read: “America: Why they don’t think like us.” Implicit in that title is the sense that the way “we” – the French – think is superior. I won’t argue whether or not America’s way of thinking is superior, but where do the French get the authority to make that claim? They have the Maginot Line, numerous bungled land wars in Asia, two horrendous Empires, and three failed revolutions under their belt. They played a large part in creating the colossal debacle that we call the Twentieth Century.

I’m bordering on nationalist rhetoric here, but I’m sure when it comes to the nitty-gritty I couldn’t say many better things about America. What we have over the French in military and economic conquest they have over us in high art and cooking. Still, it bothers me that these thoughts have come to me because of a headline in a newspaper and a few encounters with some surly Parisians. The sense of my own foreignness is becoming more and more apparent to me. It’s not just about people staring at you when you speak English in a restaurant.

And yet I still love Paris. On one particularly frustrating day, when I had all but given up at the idea of courtesy, I stopped in at my local bakery to buy a baguette. It was still hot in my hands as I left, and with the first bite I could only smile. Yesterday I went to the Viaduc des Arts – a rather phenomenal street where a viaduct was converted into a series of little art galleries and artisan shops. In many of these spaces I saw the artists hard at work themselves, painting or sewing or what have you. On top of the viaduct, an urban garden has been planted, creating a roof level park with an interesting view of the neighborhood around it. Where else could you find this sort of innovation and dedication to beauty and art?

Yesterday evening, though, things were slightly put in perspective for me. The photographer known simply as Reza came to speak at AUP, thanks to my French professor. He is known for photographing scenes of misery and conflict around the world since the late ‘70s. He grew up in Iran under the Shah, and at age 16 he began posting photos around public places showing the Shah’s despotic policies. At 22 he was captured and tortured for five months. Upon his release, he began photographing scenes from the Iran-Iraq War, then exiled himself in Paris. Since then, he has photographed the Russian and American conflicts in Afghanistan, street life in Egypt, social unrest in the Philippines, the genocide in Rwanda and countless other scenes from which the Western world has turned its collective eye. But he has done more than that, for he believes very strongly in the humanitarian cause – he established Afghanistan’s first free press and founded a charity organization to support the rehabilitation of culture in the post-Taliban Kabul. His photographs themselves have led many to action. His message is one of peace, understanding, and humanity. And he has one of the most kind, sparkling smiles of any one I’ve seen. I had to ask myself, looking at this man’s moving pictures, how has he retained his faith in humanity? He has been physically and psychologically tortured, shot at, wounded by shrapnel, and witness to innumerable tragedies. I’m pretty disillusioned, and I’ve never experienced any of these things. His view is a world view, yet one that is simultaneously outside the corrupt system of “humanitarian” aid offered by the West to third world nations. He believes that when one commits wrong against another, it is a wrong against the entire species. He told us stories that could make the most jaded (like myself) believe in some shred of fate. I was inspired, but also ashamed, because I know I am a part of the system that created the atrocities he has captured on film. And so are the French. I guess this is where I wrap things up with some nice little bow implying the world – we’re all human, nationality doesn’t matter, etc. I just don’t know if I can make things that tidy, though. I’ll leave it at this: if a man such as Reza can have hope and charity and kindness, I suppose I can too.

I’ve felt pretty disconnected from the world outside, from responsibility and the future, while I’ve been here in Paris. I just sip my espresso or my fantastic wine, and look at beautiful things and beautiful people. Would someone in Afghanistan believe that people do that? By being American, I was born into an enormous amount of privilege and freedom of all sorts even for the West – and while the lush life of Paris is great, maybe I should start thinking about using some of my privilege and freedom for the benefit of others.