Who is to Blame for the Aliens’ Alienation?

Excerpt:

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Albert Memmi was a Tunisian Jew who emigrated to France and then bitterly blamed the French because he did not feel at home.  Like a fastidious vegetarian recoiling from a chunk of beef on the fork of his carnivorous host, Memmi recoiled, with an indignant sense of injury, from the offensive Christianity and Frenchness of narrow-minded France.  But in Memmi’s telling his recoil was not Memmi’s rejection of France.  It was instead France’s rejection of Memmi.

“I have not rejected anything; unfortunately it is the nation that has rejected me, that leaves me outside.”*

France was inhospitable to Memmi simply because it was French.  Its landscape everywhere bristled with menacing Christian spires; many of its towns bore the dreadful names of Christian saints; men and women under strong suspicion of antisemitism stalked the pages of its history books.

“Whether I like it or not, the history of the country in which I live is, to me, a borrowed history. How could I feel that Joan of Arc is a symbol for me? Would I hear with her the patriotic and Christian voices?”*

No, probably not.  And the only solution, in Memmi’s opinion, is that the symbol of Joan of Arc be retired to the museum, and no doubt there problematized by a critical reinterpretation— that the native French no longer hear with her (and through her) those patriotic and Christian voices.

This is of course akin to the iconoclastic purge that recently toppled so many statues here in the United States.  Can Robert E. Lee be a symbol for descendants of American slaves?  Can George Washington be a symbol for the an immigrant who “borrowed” American history only the year before last?  Can sons of the Ganges and Niger hear with Robert and George those patriotic and Christian voices?

No, probably not.  And so neither will ancestral Americans if men like Memmi have their way.

No Gauls, please. Enough of Celts, ancient Germans, Slavs, conquering Romans and conquering Arabs! For then, I find myself naked and alone: my own ancestors were neither Gauls, Celts, Slavs, ancient Germans, Arabs, or Turks . . . . I have never been able to say ‘We’ in referring to those historical pedigrees on which my fellow-citizens pride themselves. I have never heard another Jew say ‘We’ without wincing, without vaguely suspecting him of an inadvertent blunder, of complacency or of a slip of the tongue.

* * * * *

So then, is the accusation confirmed? As a Jew, you admit to being stateless and cosmopolitan? Of your own accord, you reject the nation! I do not reject anything! What is confirmed? Do I really suffer from my own refusal or from what other men refuse me?”

Who is to blame for the alienation of the alien?  Is the alien to blame because he refuses to change, is perhaps incapable of change?  Does the fault lie in Memmi’s prejudice against Christian churches, Christian saints, and the myth of Joan of Arc?  Or are the French to blame because they refuse to change—because thy are too prejudiced to make Memmi feel at home by pulling down their churches, renaming their towns, and problematizing the Maid of Orlèans?

It was Memmi’s opinion that the fault lay with the French and their offensive insistence on remaining French in a French France.  It was Memmi’s opinion that the French should yield to his insistence on remaining a cosmopolitan Jew and feeling at home anywhere he liked.  He was, in fact, like the intolerant vegetarian who insists upon remaining vegetarian wherever he dines, and who cries out in pain if every plate at the table is not heaped with beans and kale.

Continues...