arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

If the recent riots in Paris appeared to be result of the incorrect analysis following a foolish act by two youngsters, the riots are now spreading to other cities. Are we to conclude that these acts of violence are the expressions of a far larger dissatisfaction ?

The obvious had to happen. The only question unanswered was when. Maybe it is being answered these days. How much longer can we accept that ,in Belgium, in a so-called modern western society, 15% of the people are living below poverty level, with a potential slide towards 30% ? How long can we accept that 12% of its active population have to undergo the debilitating effect of unemployment, and that one third of those is living below the poverty level ? The bubble had to burst sooner rather than later.

It will be interesting to watch how the mainstream media will report on these Paris events as an isolated fact of society or put them in their larger scope where they belong. Because the journalists mainstream media rarely get the permission to educate people. Media entertain people. And media entertain people, because entertained people are so-called happy people, and happy people buy. And when happy consumers buy goods and services, without limits and sound reflection, then the economy grows accordingly. All sides are happy. The big capital owners get a good return on investment, the ‘ordinary’ people have a job and politicians get re-elected.
For the past 50 years, people living in the Western world have been living in this artificial ‘Truman Show’ kind of environment. Only recently, the myth of the growth economy ,an idyllic closed loop system, starts showing cracks which can not be hidden any longer : primo, the earth’s resources are finite making our Western life-style model is not sustainable, not even for the small minority currently enjoying it. Secondly, our excessive levels of material wealth is distancing people instead of bring them together, between countries and within countries.

The consequences of the latter are now emerging in the suburbs of French cities. Mostly desperate, jobless people expressing, violently, their frustration about leading a life of which the sole objective is to wait for another, better life to be offered. Those desperados choose violence as their only language of communication, perhaps also as they realize that the chances for this better life are growing dimmer by the day in this globalised, corporations-driven world. In these first instances, they destroy the cars of their neighbors, people who might be just a little bit better of than themselves. In the same geographical perimeter, the protesters are equally targeting the French state : state-owned property and its security manpower. It will be interesting to see how the politicians handle these events : are they courageous enough and empowered to accept these events fit into a larger picture and indicate, publicly, that our societies need to evolved from the GDP-driven, standard of life oriented ‘Truman Show’ to a sustainable quality of life model of society ? With all the wealth distribution mechanism this will require ? And how much longer before the Paris protesters will understand there are more actors to this story and turn against the private enterprises ?

they are targeting private enterprises.