Paris and the Arab Spring

When I arrived in Paris on February 1 of this year, I thought I was leaving the Arab world behind me for good. In Morocco where I had been living, there was little talk of revolution or reform, but Tunisia had just ousted their long-time president Ben Ali, on-going protests were pressuring Mubarak in Egypt, and Yemen, Syria, Algeria, and Libya all seemed to possess similar revolutionary potential. Those movements and peoples seemed to belong to another world, though, and not to the city of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sorbonne.

That assumption, however, was wrong.

On the bus from Orly airport to Paris proper, I couldn't help but notice that the three young men sitting behind me were speaking Arabic. So in typical Arabic (and decidedly un-Parisian) fashion I turned around and started chatting with them. I understood most of what they were saying, so I assumed they were from somewhere in Morocco or Algeria. As it turned out they were returning from Tunisia. They explained the euphoria surrounding Ben Ali's departure, their hopes for the future, and their dislike of the Western-coined "Jasmine Revolution".

Two weeks later I was sitting in a café at Chatelet (in the center of Paris), reading and occasionally looking out over the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower, when I received a text messages from a Moroccan relaying the news that Mubarak's presidency had come to an end. A chill went through my body. I stopped reading and proceeded to exchange more text messages with other Arab friends. Our shared mood was that of cautious but exuberant hope.

Since then my Arabic and my smattering of Berber have got me free coffee, free wine, and generally lower prices throughout the city of Paris. And, perhaps most importantly, they have indirectly helped me to get a job.

A large number of Parisian restaurants are run by Kabyles (an Algerian Berber people). Halal butchers exist in almost every neighborhood. I play soccer with a group of North African friends every weekend. One cannot understand Paris today without understanding its large minority of Arabs and Berbers. And yet with the exceptions of the 2005 riots in the Parisian suburbs and the prayers in the street, American coverage of Paris focuses on the Parisian fine dining and high culture unavailable to most North Africans.

This weekend I was at the same café at Chatelet where I was when Mubarak fell. As the sun began to set over the Seine, I left to catch the metro only to notice a protest with Syrian flags in the plaza. There, in the heart of Paris, I stopped and talked with one Syrian protester. He explained their hopes for more Western pressure on Assad. In return, I showed him a poem I had written in Arabic to express my hopes for their future. We exchanged a few words of Arabic and returned to French.

The next day I showed a Syrian friend of mine the document I had been given and we discussed further developments in the Arab Spring: Qaddafi's imminent fall, Israeli-Egyptian tensions, and difficulties in his home country.

The Arab Spring has stretched into summer, and Paris is the perfect place to follow it.