Week 8 - What's in a language?

On Paris Living...

Un beau matin, un petit lapin était assis près d’une souche d’arbe…

‘One beautiful morning, a little rabbit sits next to a tree stump’, reads the first line of the French children’s book I bought from the local librairie. I haven’t really been able to get past the first sentence, but like the little rabbit in question, I too found myself near a tree stump one fine morning, cold and wide-eyed, scoffing down a falafel and wondering how they made hummus so darn delicious. Mashallah…

It’s been one whole week of life in Paris after quarantine, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it’s been a rollercoaster. I’m scared, all the time! Not in a soul wrenching way, mind you, but in that everything-requires-strength kind of way. Going to the bakery, buying groceries, asking for directions to the loo, everything and anything that requires an interaction with another human being - another French speaking human being - elicits overwhelming feelings of insecurity, worry, and anxiety. What am I going to say? Will they understand me? Oh my goodness, I’ve lost all my words… I swear I knew the words!

It verges on the hysterical, because I know it’s all in my head. I know I just have to gird my loins, muster up the confidence to open my mouth, and speak. I know I should just smile and nod when someone laughs at my pronunciation, or when my order arrives and it’s completely wrong. I know… because it’s all part of the journey, isn’t it?

In a way, I love it. I love that the simple things are difficult. It sharpens the experience, makes any accomplishment a small win, makes one grateful for the ease I previously took for granted. These are difficulties I have chosen, after all. It feels luxurious to be able to choose a challenge, rather than have it shoved in your face by virtue of the body you inhabit or the faith you believe in. It is difficult and scary because I want it to be. The rollercoaster is the ride I’ve paid for.

That all being said, what lives at the edge of my consciousness is another question, one that I don’t quite have the answer to. Why have I chosen this challenge? Why French? Why Paris? Given everything about this country, from its current intolerance to its violent colonial history, why would I want to spend all this time and energy and effort here? I mean, yes, part of the answer is that I was awarded a residency to the Cite des Arts, so it’s only natural that I learn the language… but there’s more to it. Everything is political, no?

When I visited Paris 12 years ago in 2009, as a fresh faced 18 year old attending an engineering course, I fell in love with this city. I knew it was racist, my father had told me numerous times. I knew it was Islamophobic (I mean, who doesn’t, right?). And yet, I still, somehow, loved it. It was my first trip abroad alone, and gosh, on my return to Brisbane I was the most insufferable Francophile for at least a month (my classmates threatened to slap me if I said ‘oui’ one more time). I swore to my bemused parents that one day, inshallah, I would move to Paris, learn French, and live my best cheese and baguette eating life. It may have taken me over a decade, but subhanallah… here I am.

The Paris I fell in love with was Arabic speaking and Black. It was anti-establishment and socialist, clear eyed about the state and uninterested in any idea of ‘integration’. It’s not the city of Dix-Percent, Emily in Paris, or Midnight in…you guessed it, Paris. It’s the cognitive dissonance of Intouchable, the bops of Magic System, the dry humour of Fadily Camara. And of course, Paris is both those worlds, and more. Paris is fashionable, thin, and Islamophobic. It’s cultured, stunning, and racist. It’s inaccessible, aspirational and presents no easy answers for my place in it. Should I not be spending this time working on my Arabic, I ask myself? Why am I learning the language of a people who don’t want me here, who think I am inferior, who ban the way I dress? Am I not reinforcing unjust global power dynamics by choosing a widely spoken, colonial European language to learn instead of my own mother tongue, or an Indigenous language that is at risk of dying out?

An Algerian French tutor I worked with for a couple of weeks spoke to me of this tension. Some in Algeria, she said, refused to learn French. They weren’t interested in the language of the colonisers.

What do you think, I asked.

All languages are worth learning. Her reply came easily.

Whoever learns a people’s language shall be safe from their plots, she then quoted, relaying a saying often incorrectly attributed to the Prophet Mohammed SAW. I smiled, because my experience tells me otherwise.

How do we make the ‘best’ individual choices when the complexities - and realities - of our existences leave us bereft of genuinely liberatory options? If everything is political, does politics have to be everything? That feels like a dangerous question to ask…

Of course, I have spent time learning Arabic. I did it through school, spent half a year studying in Sudan after I finished university, and though I am out of practice, I can speak, read and write the language that first left my lips. Knowledge is not mutually exclusive - learning one language does not mean I am barred from picking up another, nor does it necessarily have the colonial undertones I fear I am unwittingly participating in. For at some point, theory must come into contact with the real world, and learning an Indigenous Nubian language is little help at the Parisian boulangerie downstairs.

I can enjoy what this city has to offer, choose to participate in it, and love my time here while also being clear eyed and honest about its history and contemporary challenges. I still don’t know what to make of the knowledge that who I am and what I ‘represent’ is unvalued and unwanted by many in this society.

But then again, I’m not alone…

Ah, so much to think about, learn and discover! Khair Inshallah.

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What I’m reading this week: This essay on Britney Spears by Tavi Gevinson is the read of the week. It’s been so fascinating to see Tavi grow and am glad she is still writing - I remember reading her blog when she was only 13…

What I am watching this week: The French theme continues - have you seen this docu series on DSK? Such is the ‘luck’ of powerful men…

What I am listening to this week: The first two episodes of the Reply All series on Bon Appétit is an interesting look at toxic / racist behaviours in workplaces (and that the series has now been suspended is even more *dra-ma*)

What about you? What’s been catching your eye this week?

PS - LISTEN LAYLA is out! Click here if you’d like to check out the book or buy a copy. I would be most grateful :)

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Much love, strength and safety to you all.

Best,

Yassmin