Food for Thought is a series aimed at unearthing and analyzing the connections between food packaging, culture and use of language. It is composed by two artworks, each one of them being coupled with a text aimed at explaining the situation and my position about it. Recurring characteristics in both pieces are the use of pencil to underline the words in question, extensive research and above all great spirit of observation. Sometimes, it's from very small details that is easier to see the bigger picture better..... and if food can be defined as a cultural trait of a people's identity, this is as good as it gets in our case....
COUSCOUS PRODUCT OF FRANCE
This bag looks like an involuntary, perfect example of how a policy of assimilation works (or does not work at all).
Couscous is a typical North African food, originating in the Maghreb area and you can refer to Couscous either as the actual durum wheat or as the finished dish.There are two main historical moments when couscous came into contact with the French cuisine: the first one was when the 2nd French Empire was formed with Napoleon III whose peculiar interest in North Africa meant the colonization of Algeria in 1848 and lately the institution of protectorates in Morocco and Tunisia. The second moment is represented by the immigration wave from these 3 states that hit France during the 60s and 70s. To integrate ethnic minorities into French society France pursued (and still do) a policy of ASSIMILATION.
Assimilation is the exact opposite of Multiculturalism.
A policy of assimilation tends towards cultural homogenization of society around the values peculiar to the country in question. All the citizens are considered perfectly identical in front of the state, without emphasis on the cultural background of the single individual. Assimilation does not recognize cultural diversity and through the means of education suppress it, in this way the subjects basically drop their original cultural background acquiring the cultural traits of the nation in which they are host, or - in the case of the sons of immigrants - in which they are born. The procedure of assimilation is based on a model that do not prize diversity.
Assimilation also looks like more of a form of mentality, rather than just a state policy. This is the same mentality that can produce rather ironic anomalies, like the Italian painter Michelangelo being spelled Michelange on the walls of the academy of Fine Arts in Paris, but also far complex and less amusing social issues. In the French case, for example, an entire class of French citizens, born and educated in France, with French documents, doesn't feel too sure about being French at all. They are the sons, or the sons of the sons of the immigrants arrived in the 60s, lost in between the absence of an original culture to which refer, the ambition of being French and the incapacity of feeling as such. If you couple all this with 50% more chances of not being employed if your surname sounds a bit too Arabic and a political situation where the NATIONAL FRONT (far right) of Jean Marie Le Pen almost won the presidential election in 2002 you will have a taste of the dish we are talking about. I suspect for someone might feel more like eating shit every day than anything else.
How to cook a hot Couscous in 6 easy steps:
1. Accurately select 3 north african countries, possibly rich in heritage and history and colonize them.
Take as an example Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. If you have any moral objection to colonies you can
go for protectorates.
2. Administer the colonial rule, possibly in a fairly ruthless way. This may include arbitrary justice, exploitation, double standards. When indigenous population starts to complain make a bit of a fuss about it, try the iron fist. After a while concede independence.
3. By now your friends are visiting your country, welcome them with a slightly bothered expression and some perplexities.
4. Choose a suitable area of your city where to put them to avoid coming into contact too frequently.
5. Give them the worst jobs in your economy.
6. Complain when their sons (French citizens) burn 500 cars in one night.
A bit more of Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’.
