From the Uprising in the Banlieues to the Proletarian Revolution - Part 1

From the Uprising in the Banlieues to the Proletarian Revolution

Presentation by PCm Italy at the International Meeting held in Paris, April 2006 - Part 1
 
25,000 cops deployed in the suburbs on the night of Dec. 31, 2005 in defence of order and security against the possible resumption of the uprising, provided an eloquent image of what the uprising has been for France and for the imperialist countries in general. The ostentatious show of strength by the French State was paradoxically a blatant demonstration of weakness, the French bourgeoisie and its state were not able to ensure a more normal new year to 500 thousand thronging the Champ Elisees except at the cost of a level of militarization similar to a state of war.

In all the imperialist countries, even those slightly touched by the French contagion - Belgium, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Spain, Greece, England, Switzerland, Sweden - the fear of the bourgeoisie was so great that governments took measures, in terms of deployment of forces, as if there had been actually an uprising.

Even the account of the burnt cars has seemed quite grotesque: first it has been said that they were the sign of mere vandalism and hooliganism by the 'scum' of the banlieues, with no political consciousness, no purpose and ultimately reasonless; but later the full force of the police is deployed and military and political effectiveness, the degree of tightness of the institutional political system has been assessed by counting the burnt cars. The comments of the day after New Year have in fact spoken of "narrow escape", counting the relatively low number of burnt cars, even if they were 100 more than the previous New Year.

Recalling Marx, it could be said that when every rustle and social ferment, every abnormal event, every single episode is perceived by the bourgeoisie as a danger, then indeed every single episode becomes a danger.

To the fear of the bourgeoisie corresponded the pride and strength of the rebel proletarian youth. Muhittin, the kid survived the tragic night of 27 October, when Bouna and Zyaed lost their lives, said: "Now my friends think I'm a hero, that I became a leader. But I'm just a boy" and, speaking about the New Year Eve, "Sure, I know people who get ready to stick it to the cops."

How can they think that 25 thousand cops can wipe out and smother all this hate? In the infamous courts of the bourgeoisie, particularly in Bobigny, have been tried and sentenced dozens of young people involved in the uprising. More than 5000 have been arrested and more than twice charged and prosecuted.

The logic of these courts has been that of a "court-martial" where they did not even looked for proven "evidences", but hired the police reports as "evidence".

But even here, though the State tried to show a fierce face, they certainly found neither fear or repentance of young people. Those trials resembled to all trials against mass rebellions, impregnated with terror and revenge, with rituals that should go according to the the law, but that turn out to be a sort of "exorcism".

From the Commune of Paris to the France of today, these events always revive the historical memory: the bourgeoisie would like the "peace of the graveyard" to bury instances of rebellion and social transformation. But Paris is not suited to this, even the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, with the tombs of many Communards, communists, fighters and partisans of the liberation, is the memory of the revolution that feeds the revolution.

The truth is that in Paris and France a new spectrum appeared: the proletarian youth. It begins to haunt all major European cities and disturb the slumbers and safety of the bourgeois. The new proletarian youth, children of proletarians, from the proletarian suburbs, has rebelled. It is not the first time, the anger and hatred were and are permanent and latent, but this time they rebelled everywhere, in all the banlieues of Paris and the French cities where there are the same conditions, and where they did not rebel, they anyway recognized themselves in the revolt, and made the rebellion stronger and sharpened, laying bare before the eyes of all France and imperialist countries of Europe its class nature. Every argument used by rulers, politicians, intellectuals to explain and sometimes justify the revolt revealed its global nature. Shocked journalists, sociologists from overwork, members of the "official left", the more they climbed at straws to give the "real explanation", even more each explanation ended to give a reason more to rebel and bring out more clearly than ever the general class character of the class society against which the uprising has developed, just what each "true explanation" tried to conceal.

It is the revolt of the French proletarian youth, of the most precarious strata in the proletarian suburbs, having a proletarian tradition, where the factories in some cases are merged with the neighbourhood. At Aulnay Sous-Bois, the heart of the uprising, there is the Citroen, with 7,000 workers. In short, thinking about this neighbourhood, it can be said that the problem of the bourgeoisie are not the burnt cars, but the workers who produce them, and their children.

Correctly, it has been talked about children of the proletariat. Often wrongly, to stress that the adult proletariat would be contrary to the revolt, that it would be on the side of the system, integrated into it, but it was a forgery and deception. The young proletarians have expressed in a radical form the interest of their class and have rebelled against the passivity imposed by the the ruling class, in all its ramifications and allied - the labor aristocracy represented by political parties and trade unions, the wealthy petty bourgeoisie, intellectual or "shopkeeper" and owner.

They also tried to show the rebellion of the youth of the banlieues as a particular event, not linked to the more general process of entry of the new generation in the world political scene within the imperialist countries, as has been shown a few months after by the student movement against the CPE, and as had already shown by the movement against imperialist globalization, from Seattle to Genoa. It is just the nature of the clash with the police that explains and makes visible the same instances, made deeper and more radical by the class character of these youth.

It is as if the murderer cops of the G8 2001 in Genoa were on active duty in the banlieues and here the proletarian youth gave them "tit for tat", made their life difficult, gave stalemate, burnt their stations, sometimes a car or a school building, put them on the run, rejected a trend to a traditional clash in which they would be massacred.

 The proletarian youth collected the anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist issues - here their "Algerian" origin had influence - which was already subject of contention in those suburbs. But,  when those issues fly on the winged speeches of anti-globalization gurus, SOS Racisme, etc., are good, if they become violent confrontation in the ghettos of the imperialist metropolises, everyone hurries to mark them as unmotivated, unreasonable, unacceptable, and reformists of all kinds show to be nothing but a noble form of the vulgar expressions of Sarkozy.

Part1 - to be continued