musings on sociological metamorphoses in Europe (by an Antipodean wanker)

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No one speaks English and everything’s broken – Tom Waits

Trains are great places for reflecting (if you can stop yourself nodding off to the rocking). Am on eurostar.
At the risk of being a know-all aussie abroad, the following observations spring to mind about England and France.

Newcastle’s multiculturalism is very European. You immediately notice the difference when you get to Sydney. Sydney is polyglot. England and France are similar.

When we got on the metro this evening there was a young girl wearing full fitted head scarf. She also had on skin tight jeans, was wearing rings and spent most of her time on her mobile phone. Her friend was a young woman of African descent. There was no doubting this young girl's religious conviction. Equally there was no doubting her membership of the current youth generation. Their elders (muslim and non) may have difficulty with this hybridisation but for this young person and her friend this was the most natural thing in the world. I have seen young white males arm in arm with black and/or muslim females and vice versa. I have seen gaggles of young people mixing naturally without any seeming acknowledgement of the diversity of colour and culture amongst them.

“what we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to hold the world and all it’s got
Keep it churning for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score.” – Blue Mink

We’ve had about 50 years. And i think 100 years might be close to the mark.

Now before i get accused of being overly sentimental or optimistic, let me lay some reality on these observations.
1. Racism is not dead. But it appears to be waning particularly amongst the young
2. Most menial service jobs (particularly in France) and done by blacks.
3. There is a massive wealth gap between black and white (and between white and white)
4. The belt tightening as a result of the financial meltdown will impact harder on the less fortunate which means blacks and those from the sub continent and the middle east.
But progress is being made. I’m not sure of the origin but someone said that comedy is tragedy plus time. Well maybe tolerance and understanding is strangeness and difference + time

“sometimes the best map will not guide you, you can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads to dark places, sometimes the darkness is your friend” – Bruce Cockburn

The problem with quoting from song lyrics is that you start seeing connections everywhere. On a really banal level i cannot imagine how we could get around without Clare, our GPS. But the certainty of the minutiae of which road to take may blind us to the wider question of whither are we going? The great thing about our trips is that we organise them ourselves. No “if it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium for us”. Sometimes that means we make mistakes. In hindsight we (for we read me) really mismanaged the Caen/Rouen sojourn. What we should have done is two days on Caen, caught a train to Rouen and then another train back to Paris and had an extra day in Paris. But we would have missed driving over the Pegasus bridge and Pont L’Eveque. Pegasus bridge was a canal bridge inland from Gold beach which was captured on the night of june 5 by British paratroopers. They held it until relieved and in doing so prevented German re-inforcements being transferred to the beaches. I was resigned to missing it. But our road trip to Rouen not only took us over the bridge but we had to wait while it was raised to allow a couple of tugs to pass under.

Back on the train, there is a tall, veryl good looking black man sitting in the seat opposite me. The young French lady sitting next to him (sitting there because i sat in the wrong seat i might add) just had the most minute flirt with him. See!!

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