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Printer-Friendly ModeAmerican, French perceptions examined
Lecture looks at French anti-Semitism
April 4, 2005 —
Learning the abilities to move past stereotypical thinking in the United States and abroad was the main point of a Tuesday, March 29 lecture in the Dow Visiting Artists and Lecture Series.
Dr. Jonathan Judaken, assistant professor of history at the University of Memphis, gave the lecture entitled "Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, and Freedom Fries: Thinking Beyond Stereotypes in a post 9/11 World." The majority of the speech dealt with reasons for the pervasive, negative French stereotypes in the U.S., as well as reasons for the negative American stereotypes in France and other European nations. The end of the lecture featured a truncated analysis of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim behavior in modern France.
Judaken, a South Africa native, tried to show the way that the U.S. media demonized France in the run-up to the war in Iraq. He presented a copy of the New York Post, the nation's eighth largest selling newspaper and also one with a reputation for biased conservative reporting. On its cover, the French delegation to the United Nations had the heads of weasels superimposed onto the delegates' bodies. Judaken also presented I-Hate-France.com, another example that showed how many conservatives in the U.S. jumped on the Anti-France bandwagon. The site also has a link to I-Hate-Liberals.com.
Judaken said he believes the negative image of the French has been building for some time, and it was ultimately the result of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
France, a colonial power in the region, was defeated in the 1950s even with U.S. military assistance, which helped to cement the reputation of the French as cowards unable to win a battle. Combined with the French Army's decisive and quick defeat in WWII, many Americans began to see the French people as untrustworthy.
However, it was the recent war in Iraq that stirred up the most negative French stereotypes in the U.S.
"France has had a longer history with terrorism from its former central colonies in North Africa," Judaken said. Fearful that U.S. intervention would ultimately stir up more trouble for the West than it would prevent, France opposed the Iraq invasion on almost all pretexts.
But Judaken said that their reasons for opposing the war were not as short-lived as U.S. leaders have believed. France thought the war would divert attention away from the fight in Afghanistan, a nation France believed posed a serious threat to the world's stability. France also emphasized international organization like the European Union and the United Nations, something that the Bush Administration has shown less cooperation to work with. French leaders also thought that a war for regime change to bring democracy to the Middle East was a simple solution to a complicated problem.
In addition, France didn't want to antagonize their significant North African Muslim population, which has expanded so much that now nearly one out of 12 people in France is Muslim. Participating in the Iraq war could have led to a conflict of civilizations in France. Ultimately, France believed that a secular Iraq wasn't the greatest barrier to Middle East peace and that to have peace the Arab-Israeli conflict needs to be resolved.
After this, Judaken explained some of the reasons why the United States often has a negative reputation abroad.
"The stereotype of America today in the world is summed up by the SUV," Judaken illustrated. Representing a culture where larger is always better, the inefficient Sports Utility Vehicle becomes synonymous with the stereotype of an America where people are only concerned with vanity and appearance. Above all things today, it is American foreign policy, not American citizens or society, which is despised in France.
Judaken said he believes that Americans and French distrust each other because of their shared heritage.
"Our distorted view of the French came from the fact that we are a mirror image of one another," he said. Both nations were founded upon constitutionalism, human rights, liberty, and other inalienable rights that other democracies take for granted today.
To go alongside these common traditions, there are some differences, notably that France has always had a strong state, and has been a critic of unbridled capitalism, where the U.S. is almost a polar opposite of these traits.
The last portion of the lecture focused on perceived French anti-Semitism and anti-Islamic sentiment. Judaken illustrated the dichotomy present in viewing the French in this way, for France was the first nation to emancipate the Jews. During the 19th Century, Paris was like modern-day Jerusalem, and up until World War II, it had the third highest Jewish population in the world. France has had two Jewish Prime Ministers, and more than 3/4 of its Jewish population survived WWII, even though France was occupied by Germany for much of the war.
Today, however, backlash against both the Jews and Muslim immigrants in France has led to a shift in French political culture. The National Front, a far-right political organization that professes openly anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic views, is one of the nation's largest parties, gathering around 15 percent of the vote. In addition, there has been a wave in anti-Semitic violence, which has been overwhelmingly committed by the North African immigrants.
So is France becoming less tolerant toward its minorities? Judaken said he doesn't believe so, noting that 1.3 million French turned out in a recent gathering to denounce fascism and anti-Semitism in France. Rather, he said that the heterogeneous populations are causing some initial dishevel, which will stabilize once the North Africans settle into society more.