Craig S. Smith, who seems to head the Paris bureau of The New York Times, has proven over the last year to have a mere few journalistic failings; consider the niceties on display in his account of the national reaction to Zidane's coup-de-boule:
PARIS, Monday, July 10 — In the end there was bewilderment, embarrassment and, among some, a sense of betrayal as the national party planned to celebrate France's World Cup victory and a glorious end to the career of France's star player fizzled in a moment of frayed nerves.France could have used a triumph to boost the national spirit, flagging after a year of social unrest and political scandals. It could have used an unblemished hero, too.
Instead, Zinédine Zidane, the team's star and captain, ended his World Cup performance with an ignominious moment of pique that got him ejected from the game. It was his last game before he retires from international competition.
It is, one supposes, a reasonable attempt to fashion a fabric of national life from the pattern of a single incident (of a piece with the analogical thinking which seems to take on the order of an imperative for the Times, especially in the Op-Ed section); alas, pull on a thread and the whole thing unravels.
First, it is worth noting that "bewilderment and embarassment" do not seem to be the foremost feelings, much less universal ones, here in France. "Curiosity"? Certainly — and its mother, amazement. But if there is an accompanying affect (and there are many), unregistrable delight is probably closer to the truth. When Zidane gave a cable-tv press conference on the 12th, people filled the bars and crowded outside in the streets trying to watch through windows. Zidane soccer jerseys are exhausted at every store — and every store had been stocking more than many.
If Zidane seemed the most famous man in the world after the 1998 World Cup victory, he has eclipsed that now, and not in the form of a villain. He has made the true leap from sport celebrity to folk hero. It's less than a week since Zidane knocked down Materazzi with a single head-butt, and there is already a song about it: "Coup de boule," it's called, by Lipszyc and Lascombes. The title seems to continue, "Zidane il a tapé." It comes with a dance, naturally (one for which you will not require much instruction).
It's too early to measure, but it seems to be the most popular song in the country. It has already entered the charts as a ringtone, and as of this writing has almost certainly reached Number One; the song to follow. This is not exactly what "embarrassment" looks like.
How could Smith have gotten it so wrong? His first failing, a minor one for a reporter, is that he seemingly hasn't actually spoken with actual people — certainly not people in bars, French-Algerians, Marseillaises, immigrants, soccer fans, or anyone with whom we've had any occasion to make chat in the last week (for here there is only one topic, or was, until the bombing of Beirut). Nor, would it seem, has Smith listened to the radio or watched much television. Well, he's merely a journalist after all; he's not Superman.
As a result, Smith finds himself a bit like a reporter in Baghdad's Green Zone, insisting that the war's going well. His general observations about the state of things, though you wouldn't know it from what's written, turn out to be true for a rather small group of people, in a rather fortified area.
This analogy, while crude, clarifies some oddities in his attempts to annex Zidane's singular act to the condition of the national psyche (already an absurdity, a total misunderstanding of exactly what was beautiful about the non-institutional because entirely non-strategic act). Here's the passage immediately following Smith's lede above:
It seemed almost metaphorical for a country that, despite its successes, has been paralyzed by its recent failures. They began with last year's rejection of the referendum on a proposed constitution for Europe [....]Then came last fall's outbreak of urban violence, which exposed the failures of the country's egalitarian ideals. Finally, the government foundered over a modest attempt to loosen labor regulations. Violence briefly surged again.
"Its recent failures" — but failures for whom, exactly? One suspects that last year's Non vote on joining the European constitution was a a success for some; perhaps the national majority that voted Non? Similarly, this spring's overturning of the CPE might not be considered a failure by the millions who marched, blockaded, and struck against the pro-business measure? As one slogan had it, Travailleurs, étudiants, chômeurs, sans-papiers— tous précaires, tous solidaires! "Workers, students, unemployed, illegals — all precarious, all in solidarity." Well, perhaps not the most elegant slogan; however, a useful list of folks with whom reporter Smith has not spoken, who are excluded from his national psyche.
This finally, is what links the embarrassment over Zidane and the year's "failures": they exist only for a small and perhaps imaginary minority. We can imagine it via all the persons this population does not include, as mentioned above: they are white liberal bourgeoises, sitting in their étage noble apartments and fretting about the decline of civilization, believing all the while that "France" still means them and them alone. They are cranks, perhaps, except, as is quite clear from Smith's measure, they are businessmen as well. It's from within their comically narrow worldview that Smith speaks in the voice of the universal subject, rendering his politics as if they are simply a set of facts, and discovering without much expense of shoeleather what's true for everyone — a truth requiring the fantasy that there is a single national condition, a country of a single mind, which just happens to be that of a few men in suits. And this is true, as long as the nation is limited to a few conversations within the carefully entrenched green zone. Beyond the Belle Epoque fortifications, the love for Zidane, if it must be made to tell a national story, would narrate it rather differently.
Posted by jane at July 14, 2006 11:20 AM | TrackBack