Exclusive Christianity

Arthur Rimbaud's House in Harar, Ethiopia

(A post from 2005 at Camera Lucida)

---------------------------------------------------------

Arthur Rimbaud has his own house/museum in the city of Harar. Perhaps it is in the name of literary tradition that Canadian novelist Camilla Gibb has made a special ode to this walled, Southern Islamic city in Ethiopia in her new book Sweetness in the Belly.

It is always curious why writers pay such high praises to this city. Although Rimbaud initially said he was living in boredom, he stayed in Harar on-and-off for ten years.

Sir Richard Burton preferred to investigate Harar in his First Footsteps in East Africa rather than travel to the northern Christian Highlands of the Amhara people. And even Evelyn Waugh couldn’t see the ancient strength of this Christian civilization, and in his journalistic travelogues Waugh in Abyssinia and Remote People at times appeared much more complimentary toward the Southern Harare/Somali Muslims. His novel Scoop, based on his journalistic experience of the fascist invasion of Ethiopia, is centered around the fictional "East Africa" country of…Ishmaelia. This is all the more surprising in light of Waugh’s recent conversion to Catholicism. But it could just be that he was temporarily side-tracked by the Catholic (yet fascist) Italians. And such a basic Christianity may have been too much to handle.

I suspect that it is mostly atheist/pantheist/agnostic writers who are lured into the facile spirituality (sensuality) of places like Harar. As always with exotic works, the subject rings of the writer/traveler himself, in his spiritual (or similar) quest to find some meaning in his life. Usually, the farther away from home, the better.

The disciplined, ancient and exclusive Christianity of the highlander Amhara is too difficult and too demanding, and too close to home. I think this Biblical fear drives these writers away. It is easier to wallow in the accessible sensuality of a Southern Muslim city, in search of a generalized spirituality.

The Islam of Harar may be beguiling, and easier to enter. But it is far less forgiving and far less compassionate than the Christianity of the austere Highlanders.

Flora

I went through my post on the new Miss France, Flora Coquerel, to review the photograph I posted of her with her African cousins.



I made a small error (well, big in the context of the analysis I later make), but I think I missed it because of the re-writes I did of the post to get to the core meaning of the words and images.

Flora says:

...je pense que beaucoup de personnes peuvent se retrouver en moi.

I translated "se retrouver" and "en" as:

...I think that many people can identify themselves with me.

Later on, in an analysis of this statement, using the correct pronoun for "en" and a different, but more precise phrase for "se retrouver," I wrote:

"find themselves in me"

I think finding oneself is an existential quest. There is only one self to find. Whereas to identify oneself is a fluid, changing, and less traumatic quest. One's identity can be linked to a family, to a gender, to a culture, to a country, to a region, and so on. If my family's link is not solid, then I always have my cultural links. If that is not enough, there is always my country, and so on.

Flora instinctively realizes that there are many like her in France, and although she may not be able to articulate this, in the West as well, who are "finding themselves." Her example, and her candid declaration, may help those others, lost and searching, who cannot feel comfortable with the France they grew up in, but who can still fight to reach the pinnacle she has reached. She is truly "Miss France," but for the disenfranchised, as she has pronounced in her unsophisticated, but sincere, language.

And later on, as she gains more confidence, and without doubt becomes more political, she will try to forge a new "France" where the metisses, the neglected offspring of Africa and Europe, can win more than decorative titles. Why not from Miss France to Madame La Presidente?

Flora's quest is serious and deep. She may have won Miss France, but who is she, really?

Back to the photographs. Flora's parents took her to Benin as a young girl, and from my understanding, took her there regularly. Her mother is very dark-skinned (and I think attractive with her high cheek bones and very dark, ebony skin), so it is not surprising that these cousins also have this blue-black skin color.

Flora seems at ease in the photograph, and is even leaning slightly on the cousin to her right, in a kind of loving gesture. These are family, after all.

But look at the scowls of the boys. And look at how the one on her right is pushing into her, squeezing her between him and the other cousin. It is as though she is to be protected by them, but that she also belongs to them. This beautiful, light-skinned, half-white cousin of theirs is like a trophy. Even the cousin at the far right is vigilant, forming a bodyguard of boys around the girls. I would think the other girl is also a cousin, and she looks like another mettise, although perhaps not as favored as the French Flora. I have to speculate that this other metisse cousin has a difficult life in Benin. Metisse may be good coming from France, but black Africans would most certainly not tolerate such a different looking "relative" in their midst, and would treat her as an alien. That could be the reason for her slightly dejected, and vigilant - in her own way - look. She does look like Flora, but isn't as pretty. And that could be another reason these dark African boys flocked around Flora in their protective/aggressive manner.

Flora is not at all frightened. Her father (whom I assume is taking the photograph) is there after all.

I wonder if Flora were left alone with these boys and the other metisse girl for an extended period the protectiveness of the boys would turn to violence? I think the metisse girl would be an accomplice with the black boys, since she has to deal with them when Flora is gone. She is not Flora's ally. For these black boys (and metisse African girl), Flora is the pretty French cousin who comes from that far-off white world which they see on television and which the whole world admires. She is a trophy, and an enemy. To have her in their midst, and to claim her, would give them prestige. And no-one in their community would denounce them.

This is the volatile world in which Flora lives, as she happily and innocently claims her trophy in the name of her metissage.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Je pense que mon métissage est une force"

Miss France 2014 being crowned

We think that through our multicultural mind-set, other cultures will follow our (pious) example.

Well, people don't want to change.

The new Miss France is a metisse: the offspring of a black mother and a white father.

I've tried to find a current definition (and translation) of "metissage" but have decided to keep the word in its French. Tiberge from Gallia Watch has come to the same conclusion, and explains her decision here. She writes:

Here is my rendition of his words. It is far from perfect, because his grammar seems a bit off at times. Except for two places, I have retained the French word "métissage" (crossbreeding), and it's various verbal and adjectival forms, since "crossbreeding", "racial mixing" and other similar terms don't always convey the right meaning. "Crossbreeding" sounds too scientific, as when farmers crossbreed crops. "Miscegenation" is too technical and refers to marriage. "Mongrelization" and "bastardization" are too graphic. It looks as if "métissage" will join "laïcité" and "communautarisme" as French words that are so troublesome, it's better to just leave them.

This Metisse Miss France says:
"I think that my metissage is a strength."

Which is a variation on "Diversity Our Strength."

She says about her "metissage":

Je pense que mon métissage est une force. Ca montre que la France d’aujourd’hui est une France mélangée où il y a toutes les cultures. Et je pense que beaucoup de personnes peuvent se retrouver en moi, que ce soit les Français de souche ou les Français d’origines diverses.

--------------------------------------

I think my miscegenation is a strength. It shows that today's France is a mixed France, which has all cultures. And I think that many people can identify themselves in me, whether they are "les Français de souche" or those french from diverse origins .

Some notes on the translation:
- "find themselves in me" implies a deep, even ancestral identification rather than through skin color or looks.
- "Les Français de souche" is a difficult phrase to translate, and Tiberge has given a brief definition here, where she writes: "[I]n French the word "souche" means "root", a "Français de souche" being, therefore, an ethnic Frenchman."
- Rather than say "French of diverse cultures" Miss France goes one step back and says French of diverse origins, as though these are not French people - i.e. les Français de souche - but other peoples of the world. But more specifically, she means French of diverse origins who come from non-European countries.

Miss France is pretty. I thought she was Arab when I first saw her photo, and that her "metissage" was white and Arab. But, here are her parents:


Miss France's parents

Her father is from Orleans, the heartland of France, in the beautiful Loire Valley, in whose town center stands a statue of Joan of Arc.

Her mother is from the west African country Benin.


Statue of Joan of Arc in the city square of Orleans


Statue of King Toffa in Porto Novo, Benin

She looks nothing like either of them. How does she identify with her parents? Children often resemble at least one of their parents, and if they have siblings, the resemblances would be distributed amongst the two parents. They can say "I come from that family," which of course leads to the bigger identification of "I come from that culture," and eventually "I come from that country."

Although Miss France's mother speaks fluent French, she has a slight accent. French is the official language of Benin, which also has a plethora of indigenous languages. Most African countries which were colonized by the British or the French use these European languages as their official ones, but also speak one or more other native language.

I wonder how Flora reacted to her mother's accent growing up? Young children are very discerning of differences. This must have accentuated her mother's "otherness" to her even more. Her father, like her, speaks French like a Frenchman.

Miss France has to invent an identity for her amorphous and difficult-to-identify mixed-parentage of such different racial and national backgrounds. Even countries where metissage is common in the core identity of the country, like Brazil, for example, the strong and confident groups are not the metisse, but those who claim a particular racial group, like blacks or whites. In Canada, there is a racial group called Metisse, but they have never forged alliances either with the "Natives Canadians," i.e. those with Indian ancestry, or with whites. Their cultural and political, and even personal, strength is minimal.

I don't know how strong metissage will prove in France. I don't think it is a strength, as Flora says above. Whites may be having a hard time identifying their whiteness with strength, but there is a group which is not at all shy of doing so, and it is growing in strength and in numbers: Muslims. And this group doesn't tolerate any kind of metissage, either in racial or religious terms. It jealously guards its religious, and cultural, identity. And it eventually seeks to put everyone within its own religious identity, possibly with hierarchical categorizations of Arab Muslims at the top and with white and black Muslims at the bottom of the ladder. The religious superiority of Islam is mandated through their religious book, the Koran. Muslims show this repeatedly throughout history in whatever country they have amassed numbers any strength. Why should France be any different? Where would the black and white metisse like Flora fall under this categorization?

Here is Flora's more specific association with her African roots:

"Je suis franco-béninoise. Je mets en avant mes deux origines. Mes parents ont une association au Bénin, qui vient en aide aux enfants et s'occupe du forage. Au cours de mon année, je souhaite soutenir l'insertion des femmes dans le travail et l'alphabétisation", a-t-elle expliqué après son sacre.

Below is my translation:

I am Franco-Beninese. I give equal importance to both my backgrounds. My parents have an association in Benin, which helps children and drills wells. During my reign, I hope to provide work and literacy for women [in the Benin project, I presume].

In the Wikipedia definition of Beninese (the English translation for Béninois) such a person is:

From Benin, or of Beninese descent.

Flora thus identifies with the culture (or racio-culture) as well as the nationality of Benin.

Her metissage does not place her white and black backgrounds on an equal level: she is more black than white. Her diversity does not put all cultures on an equal footing: she is more Béninoise than Française.

Whenever a mixed-race child with one parent who is white and the other Asian, African or Hispanic, is asked to chose his identity, he will always identify with the non-white parent. This seems to be the rule of racial identity.

This of course also leads to identification with the non-white parent's cultural and national background, even as this mixed-race child lives, and benefits from, the culture, civilization and accomplishments of whites.

I will try to refine this and coin a definition (or definitions) in the manner of: First Law of non-whites' racial and cultural identification.


Flora in Benin as a small girl, visiting her cousins, as Mr. Coquerel informs us in this video.
Her parents kept her in direct contact with her mother's country from an early age.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------