Global Citizenship

Citizenship rich and citizenship poor in Australia and the EU

Media framing and citizenship

Issues of citizenship enter the public domain in times of stressMigrant groups are focus of disquietThe mantra of clashing civilizations is used to explain urban unrestFor media, urban unrest moves from France to Australia, much as fashion does.

Clichy-sous-Bois

France’s IntifadaTelevisions depicted flames from the “Muslim

unrest” dangerously close to the Eiffel Tower.  Isolated cries of “Allahu Akbar” and scenes of imams trying to calm crowds were highlighted as worrying signs of the times in “Frankistan.” Politicians and the media hinted that Islamist militants were partly to blame for the rampaging youths and nightly fire bombings. News dispatches with datelines such as Clichy-sous-Bois sounded like they were actually describing a “Baghdad-on-the-Seine.”(Heneghon)

What happened in Paris

October 27 2005Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traouré, 15,

electrocuted after being chased by police

Text messages coordinate riotsNovember 6 1400 vehicles torched

November 8 State of Emergency declared November 14 100 vehicles only

torched(normal)

Paris nights

Cronulla

Cronulla

December 4 2005: “Lebs” attack Surfie group

December 7 text message: This Sunday every Aussie in the shire get down to North Cronulla to support the leb and wog bashing day

December 10 and 11: Rioting on beaches, and “Leb” reprisals in suburb

December 17,18: NSW Gov supports heavy policing of beaches in Sydney and Newcastle – calls for people not to go to beach.

Arrests Australian style

Reactions to rioting

Both in France and Australia (as elsewhere in Europe) there has been a strong reaction to such eventsIn France, the last election fought inter alia on immigration issuesIn Australia, the next election will be: citizenship testing to be introduced.

Citizenship and the nation stateWe need to distinguish a strong and a weaker sense of citizenship

Bare citizenship (under Geneva convention)

passports, right to work, duty to pay tax

Cultural citizenship as ‘Identity generating and community building’

(Weiner, 1998)

Bare Citizenship

Citizenship rich Legal situation has made two or more passports possible in the US and AustraliaIn the EU, all citizens have transnational citizenship rights

Citizenship poorRefugeesExpatriate citizens of poorer countries who offer little consular protection

Cultural citizenship and media

Access to media has undermined national control of cultural citizenshipArabic speakers in EU and in Australia have access to >39 Arabic language television programs, both national and transnational (Al Jazeera, Al Manar). However real differences underlie similarities

Immigration: Australia and France

Australia overwhelmingly immigrant 1950-2004 23.1% of population immigrantCitizenship awarded to 610 migrants

/100,000pop in 1990s

France 1950-2004 7.9% of population immigrantCitizenship awarded to 173 migrants

/100,000pop in 1990s

Multiculturalism vs Assimilation

Australia colonial (transnational) citizenshipWhite Australia policy (accepted Maronites) until 1972Multiculturalism

France Citizenship assimilationist, in tradition of la patrie

Multiculturalism under pressure

When you come to Australia, you become Australian (Prime Minister, 12/02/06)Multiculturalism is a reversion to tribalism that is anachronistic in a modern liberal urban society…. [It] has bred ethnic ghettos characterised by high levels of unemployment, welfare dependancy, welfare abuse, crime and violence (Windshuttle, 16/12/05)

Assimilation under pressure

EU context of transnational citizenship puts pressure on the French modelthe multicultural self-understanding of the nations of citizens formed in classical countries of immigration.. is more instructive..than that derived from the culturally assimilationist French model (Habermas 2001:159-160).

Reislamisation in Paris

Olivier Roy: Reislamisation is new form of individualised Islam, suited to disenfranchised youth.

Unemployment 20-40% in suburbs such as Clichy-sous-Bois.

Riots fuelled by French traditions of liberté, egalité, fraternité

Lakemba and the west

Sydney’s western suburbs have been home to the post civil war group of Lebanese migrants, a group sharply distinguished from Maronites who came earlier

High unemployment and radical Islamic clerics flourish in western suburbs

White ‘ghetto’

The idea of invasion is important in understanding what happened. The population centre of Sydney is Parramatta, which means that as many live to the west of there as towards the beaches. To enjoy the beach means that many from the working-class and ethnic west will come down to the beach suburbs. (Jupp, 2005)

Identity generating

Young rioters are French the rioters were unmistakably French, and

not only because almost all were citizens. They have internalized French political values so well that they want France to live up to its promise of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their dream was not to overthrow the system, but to make it work so they could get ahead too. Political violence is as French as baguettes and berets. (Heneghon 2006)

Berets and baguettes?

Community building?

Lebanese are Australians, even to their very Australian style of rumbling on beaches

An.. important social feature is the existence of a hoon culture, with young men believing that physical force is a sign of being a real Australian. This is usually combined with the even more dangerous belief that getting drunk is equally Australian. Although many Muslims are likely to avoid the second feature, they are susceptible to the first. (Jupp, 2005)

Beaches and barbecues

Hybrid citizenships

‘The coexistence of rival ways of life in individual experience’ Becktransnational and national media worldsworld view/mediascape which includes but is not limited by the nation stateThe myth: a culturally homogeneous nation state