Why I Am Not French
01 February 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
a lot of you keep your eyes on that nerd
who's channel name I won't attempt to pronounce but i will link it down below i banished yen greetings so i just washed I Bella cl's video on the israel-palestine conflict I Venice yen thank you also to abolish seal ah the new CN hey one of the questions I've been asked most frequently just last little while is are you French and the answer is no I'm not French the quite next question comes as why why are you not French was actually a completely reasonable question in my case right now my daughter is connected to France in some way it's not quite clear how to be honest with you and the start of this semester just a couple of weeks ago I tried to enroll in French classes here at the University of Victoria but I could not do so just by happenstance it turns out that this semester the university only scheduled one class one room so there were half as many seats as they're usually would be I walked into the office to see what was up with this French class because I had enrolled via the computer here you select your courses through a computer interface uh but I didn't think I'd get into the class and I went I went to the the office and spoke to the secretary she's a special secretary for the Department of French and you can see she was a nationalist about it and she said to me oh I'm sorry this is the situation you can't get to class but I hope you won't be discouraged I mean I hope you know this isn't your last chance study the French language I hope you stick with she was completely sincere and I said back to her complete sincerely let me tell you this is my last chance still in the French language because as far as i know a couple months from now I'm moving to Japan this is quite likely my last semester at this university and my last opportunity learn this language now or ever so yeah it would have meant a lot to me if you guys had your act together and I get study French this term but I can't so I won't thanks your time I have studied the French language in the past when I was in grade school and very memorably when I was in the process of applying to become a French citizen so this is the bizarre answer the question of why are you not French the truth is that it comes down to one bad teacher and one bad bureaucrat nobody taking responsibility for an awful government system over there in France I feel bad and telling the story not because it's a sad story not because i feel that i can't give voice to some kind of tragedy that i'm trying to communicate to you but actually because of how hilarious the story really is many many points in the story were laugh out loud funny when i went through them and i actually can't communicate that i feel powerless to share with you just how ridiculous absurd and surreal my experience was in applying to become a French citizen and in going through the process of civic education and language education that was supposed to prepare me to become a citizen the French Republic it was so funny and so absurd and so ridiculous and so over-the-top and I can't communicate that to you I can't share that surreal situation with you being in a civics class learning about the the virtues of French democracy the teacher of the instructor for the class telling us all how secular France is because even in a small city like this there were 38 mosques so when people in your home country say Oh France is a bad country because its secular you should say back to them know i'll have you know there are 38 mosques even in this small city in France but secularism Eaton's have mosque on every corner and in that town it did I mean they're pretty much was a mosque on every corner downtown there a lot of them quite small of course some big ones out in the suburbs the teachers interpretation of secularism was that Islam had special protection under the government and he insisted on this that the government supported all three religions in the world equally Judaism Christianity Islam and even though my ability to communicate in French was so limited I tried to engage him in a bit of a philosophical discussion pointing out to him that know the meaning of the word secular is not that the government supports Judaism Christianity and Islam equally that is not the meaning of word secular the meaning of the word secular is that the French state is not involved with any of the religions government is separate from all religion and Hum his insistence that their only were three religions in the world is Silva is really became bizarre as the class came up all the time there were all these really political debates reflecting who was in the classroom and ultimately the coercive purpose of the course itself because as politely as possible the purpose of the course was to say assimilator get the hell out that's softball at all he want that was the message this guy was there delivered to us and let me tell you I'd have a lot of assimilating do to fit in the French culture for me in particular that would have been an uphill struggle but you know there were students in the class who bitterly denounced the French government for their laws on the veil you know wearing a headscarf and wearing a veil that covers your your face for a Muslim woman that's actually illegal in some contexts in France and it's discouraged by the French government so we got all these great speeches from the audience disputing with the professor got really upset disputing with him the legality and morality of wearing the veil in France and again you know my ability my ability to me to get in France was limited but I I nevertheless made the effort say to him look I'm sorry in this room as it happens nobody is Hindu and nobody is Buddhist but secularism does not mean that Christianity Judaism and Islam are the state religion secularism means that the government has no religion and that all religions are are equal it's out of the state etc and I remember the first time I raised that issue he said well India was not a former French colony now France did have some colonies in Asia but I remember i managed to come back you know at the moment I said well hate he was a former French colony what about the religion of voodoo are you telling me that secularism doesn't treat voodooism as equal to Judea switch in Islam I said that you have I think they have many thousands of Buddhists and Hindus living in France despite the liquidity zuv the colonial history as it look you know this is not what the word secular means this is not what you should be teaching new immigrants because what he was teaching them directly was that Islam specifically had a special status as defended and funded by the French state and again when you're living to the situation sometimes they're so over-the-top they're so bizarre you think if this was on television people would think it was unrealistic if this were a sketch people would think it's too exaggerated it can't possibly be real one day the the professor brought pamphlets for an STD Clement a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases and he explained that that here in France we have special civil rights for these things and not only do you have the right to be tested for free at this clinic but you can be tested anonymously so that way it's completely impossible that your husband finds out that you went to visit the clinic to get tested this way and the front several rows of the audience which is where the the more observant Muslims would sit the women who were running full veil for whatever reason they prefer to sit in the front row women are wearing head scarves and so on they got excited they got verbally excited and jumped up in their seats and wave their oh give me one and they were asking for more copies so they could give them to their their friends he didn't have enough copies he hadn't brought enough copies of the promotional pamphlet for this STD clinic to this event and it was actually a scramble if you made a sketch out of that and certainly a lot of people would say it was offensive and they would also just say unrealistic too over-the-top too unbelievable I mean in general in life all of your opportunities are going to be created and destroyed by just one good person or one bad person in the right place at the right time in the particular town I was living in in France when I went into the naturalization process as they call it the language education program there was a complete fraud and I say fraud advisedly a small number of people were charged it really two teachers with one supervisor so we're not talking about a lot of people involved in some kind of scam here but most of the students they had were in a position of powerlessness where they could not complain now about ninety-five percent of the people going through that program were Muslim immigrants we're economic migrants from North Africa and other parts of the Muslim world not all the more Muslim immigrants there was one fellow from Tibet I met and spoke with one fellow who was a refugee from Cambodia was one woman from Thailand those few people those two teachers and that one supervisor if they had been good people if they had been competent at their job I would be a French citizen today but they weren't they were bad people and that was an absolutely terrible program and in their legal position the vast majority of students wouldn't say or do anything to question what was happening the program and again I've got to make clear I'm not trying to reform or radicalize what they're doing I just want a legitimate French education so I mentioned in the paper work legally they were obliged to give me a curriculum a lesson plan basically and then I was supposed to sign this lesson plan I was supposed to agree to it and then I would be bound to attend the lessons and participate in that plan and I could not get them to give me a curriculum and this is part of the problem because these teachers would just show up and improvise off the top of their head there was no textbook there were no lessons there was no grammar there was no structure of any kind if they decided to photocopy something they would do it during their coffee break you know extemporaneous elling of the last minute do it but mostly that the teachers would just show up and in plain language they would they would be s they would they would make things up and you'd be stuck there for hours and at the time I mean I had every motivation I was completely exhausted from taking care of my newborn daughter and managing my relationship with my wife who was none to gradually becoming my ex-wife but despite all those things it's it's very strange like we have this idea and the West that if you complain if you are non conformist if you challenge authority then you're some kind of maverick you're some kind of radical but this has been wanting one of many situations in my life where I am challenging Authority but what I want really is the luxury of being a conformist I would have been completely happy to be in that program and just focus work hard learn French what did nothing else here when I came back this part of Canada enrolled in Chinese I had no motivation whatsoever to challenge authority I was just here to learn Chinese no reason to criticize the teacher the professor's or anything but the program was a disaster and I ended up having to take a formal complaint to the Dean and a formal complaint department as a result of my complaints here by the way things changed there's reform going on right now in this university because of the written complaint and the verbal complaints I I brought to higher levels too late for me though it's not going to help me my life still gets destroyed and in France as I say the students were powerless they were the captives of the teachers and bureaucrats who control the program and if the program was bad and in my particular town particular time with these few particular teachers this program was bad it was absolutely terrible ah the only way for me to compensate there were no checks and balances there was no oversight nobody was responsible anyone for anything the only way to compensate would have been for me to leave France and when I say leave I don't mean on vacation to close the apartment lose all my furniture lose my fixed address lose my telephone number and then re-enter France rent a new apartment get a new telephone number a new fixed address something like a bank account and try to prove that that's your address and so on and begin the whole immigration process again from page one anyway I went through this series of surreal scenarios in applying to become a French citizen but because of one bad teacher because of one bad unit in the French bureaucracy that is now an opportunity I will never have
who's channel name I won't attempt to pronounce but i will link it down below i banished yen greetings so i just washed I Bella cl's video on the israel-palestine conflict I Venice yen thank you also to abolish seal ah the new CN hey one of the questions I've been asked most frequently just last little while is are you French and the answer is no I'm not French the quite next question comes as why why are you not French was actually a completely reasonable question in my case right now my daughter is connected to France in some way it's not quite clear how to be honest with you and the start of this semester just a couple of weeks ago I tried to enroll in French classes here at the University of Victoria but I could not do so just by happenstance it turns out that this semester the university only scheduled one class one room so there were half as many seats as they're usually would be I walked into the office to see what was up with this French class because I had enrolled via the computer here you select your courses through a computer interface uh but I didn't think I'd get into the class and I went I went to the the office and spoke to the secretary she's a special secretary for the Department of French and you can see she was a nationalist about it and she said to me oh I'm sorry this is the situation you can't get to class but I hope you won't be discouraged I mean I hope you know this isn't your last chance study the French language I hope you stick with she was completely sincere and I said back to her complete sincerely let me tell you this is my last chance still in the French language because as far as i know a couple months from now I'm moving to Japan this is quite likely my last semester at this university and my last opportunity learn this language now or ever so yeah it would have meant a lot to me if you guys had your act together and I get study French this term but I can't so I won't thanks your time I have studied the French language in the past when I was in grade school and very memorably when I was in the process of applying to become a French citizen so this is the bizarre answer the question of why are you not French the truth is that it comes down to one bad teacher and one bad bureaucrat nobody taking responsibility for an awful government system over there in France I feel bad and telling the story not because it's a sad story not because i feel that i can't give voice to some kind of tragedy that i'm trying to communicate to you but actually because of how hilarious the story really is many many points in the story were laugh out loud funny when i went through them and i actually can't communicate that i feel powerless to share with you just how ridiculous absurd and surreal my experience was in applying to become a French citizen and in going through the process of civic education and language education that was supposed to prepare me to become a citizen the French Republic it was so funny and so absurd and so ridiculous and so over-the-top and I can't communicate that to you I can't share that surreal situation with you being in a civics class learning about the the virtues of French democracy the teacher of the instructor for the class telling us all how secular France is because even in a small city like this there were 38 mosques so when people in your home country say Oh France is a bad country because its secular you should say back to them know i'll have you know there are 38 mosques even in this small city in France but secularism Eaton's have mosque on every corner and in that town it did I mean they're pretty much was a mosque on every corner downtown there a lot of them quite small of course some big ones out in the suburbs the teachers interpretation of secularism was that Islam had special protection under the government and he insisted on this that the government supported all three religions in the world equally Judaism Christianity Islam and even though my ability to communicate in French was so limited I tried to engage him in a bit of a philosophical discussion pointing out to him that know the meaning of the word secular is not that the government supports Judaism Christianity and Islam equally that is not the meaning of word secular the meaning of the word secular is that the French state is not involved with any of the religions government is separate from all religion and Hum his insistence that their only were three religions in the world is Silva is really became bizarre as the class came up all the time there were all these really political debates reflecting who was in the classroom and ultimately the coercive purpose of the course itself because as politely as possible the purpose of the course was to say assimilator get the hell out that's softball at all he want that was the message this guy was there delivered to us and let me tell you I'd have a lot of assimilating do to fit in the French culture for me in particular that would have been an uphill struggle but you know there were students in the class who bitterly denounced the French government for their laws on the veil you know wearing a headscarf and wearing a veil that covers your your face for a Muslim woman that's actually illegal in some contexts in France and it's discouraged by the French government so we got all these great speeches from the audience disputing with the professor got really upset disputing with him the legality and morality of wearing the veil in France and again you know my ability my ability to me to get in France was limited but I I nevertheless made the effort say to him look I'm sorry in this room as it happens nobody is Hindu and nobody is Buddhist but secularism does not mean that Christianity Judaism and Islam are the state religion secularism means that the government has no religion and that all religions are are equal it's out of the state etc and I remember the first time I raised that issue he said well India was not a former French colony now France did have some colonies in Asia but I remember i managed to come back you know at the moment I said well hate he was a former French colony what about the religion of voodoo are you telling me that secularism doesn't treat voodooism as equal to Judea switch in Islam I said that you have I think they have many thousands of Buddhists and Hindus living in France despite the liquidity zuv the colonial history as it look you know this is not what the word secular means this is not what you should be teaching new immigrants because what he was teaching them directly was that Islam specifically had a special status as defended and funded by the French state and again when you're living to the situation sometimes they're so over-the-top they're so bizarre you think if this was on television people would think it was unrealistic if this were a sketch people would think it's too exaggerated it can't possibly be real one day the the professor brought pamphlets for an STD Clement a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases and he explained that that here in France we have special civil rights for these things and not only do you have the right to be tested for free at this clinic but you can be tested anonymously so that way it's completely impossible that your husband finds out that you went to visit the clinic to get tested this way and the front several rows of the audience which is where the the more observant Muslims would sit the women who were running full veil for whatever reason they prefer to sit in the front row women are wearing head scarves and so on they got excited they got verbally excited and jumped up in their seats and wave their oh give me one and they were asking for more copies so they could give them to their their friends he didn't have enough copies he hadn't brought enough copies of the promotional pamphlet for this STD clinic to this event and it was actually a scramble if you made a sketch out of that and certainly a lot of people would say it was offensive and they would also just say unrealistic too over-the-top too unbelievable I mean in general in life all of your opportunities are going to be created and destroyed by just one good person or one bad person in the right place at the right time in the particular town I was living in in France when I went into the naturalization process as they call it the language education program there was a complete fraud and I say fraud advisedly a small number of people were charged it really two teachers with one supervisor so we're not talking about a lot of people involved in some kind of scam here but most of the students they had were in a position of powerlessness where they could not complain now about ninety-five percent of the people going through that program were Muslim immigrants we're economic migrants from North Africa and other parts of the Muslim world not all the more Muslim immigrants there was one fellow from Tibet I met and spoke with one fellow who was a refugee from Cambodia was one woman from Thailand those few people those two teachers and that one supervisor if they had been good people if they had been competent at their job I would be a French citizen today but they weren't they were bad people and that was an absolutely terrible program and in their legal position the vast majority of students wouldn't say or do anything to question what was happening the program and again I've got to make clear I'm not trying to reform or radicalize what they're doing I just want a legitimate French education so I mentioned in the paper work legally they were obliged to give me a curriculum a lesson plan basically and then I was supposed to sign this lesson plan I was supposed to agree to it and then I would be bound to attend the lessons and participate in that plan and I could not get them to give me a curriculum and this is part of the problem because these teachers would just show up and improvise off the top of their head there was no textbook there were no lessons there was no grammar there was no structure of any kind if they decided to photocopy something they would do it during their coffee break you know extemporaneous elling of the last minute do it but mostly that the teachers would just show up and in plain language they would they would be s they would they would make things up and you'd be stuck there for hours and at the time I mean I had every motivation I was completely exhausted from taking care of my newborn daughter and managing my relationship with my wife who was none to gradually becoming my ex-wife but despite all those things it's it's very strange like we have this idea and the West that if you complain if you are non conformist if you challenge authority then you're some kind of maverick you're some kind of radical but this has been wanting one of many situations in my life where I am challenging Authority but what I want really is the luxury of being a conformist I would have been completely happy to be in that program and just focus work hard learn French what did nothing else here when I came back this part of Canada enrolled in Chinese I had no motivation whatsoever to challenge authority I was just here to learn Chinese no reason to criticize the teacher the professor's or anything but the program was a disaster and I ended up having to take a formal complaint to the Dean and a formal complaint department as a result of my complaints here by the way things changed there's reform going on right now in this university because of the written complaint and the verbal complaints I I brought to higher levels too late for me though it's not going to help me my life still gets destroyed and in France as I say the students were powerless they were the captives of the teachers and bureaucrats who control the program and if the program was bad and in my particular town particular time with these few particular teachers this program was bad it was absolutely terrible ah the only way for me to compensate there were no checks and balances there was no oversight nobody was responsible anyone for anything the only way to compensate would have been for me to leave France and when I say leave I don't mean on vacation to close the apartment lose all my furniture lose my fixed address lose my telephone number and then re-enter France rent a new apartment get a new telephone number a new fixed address something like a bank account and try to prove that that's your address and so on and begin the whole immigration process again from page one anyway I went through this series of surreal scenarios in applying to become a French citizen but because of one bad teacher because of one bad unit in the French bureaucracy that is now an opportunity I will never have