“Kakutani is a one-woman kamikaze. She disdains white male authors, and I’m her number-one favorite target. One of her cheap tricks is to bring out your review two weeks in advance of publication. She trashes it just to hurt sales and embarrass the author … But The Times’ editors can’t fire her. They’re terrified of her. With discrimination rules and such, well, she’s a threefer: Asiatic, feminist, and, ah, what’s the third? Well, let’s just call her a twofer. They get two for one. She is a token. And, deep down, she probably knows it.”

—Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer on one-time Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michiko Kakutani.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Two countries in the world now offer gays and lesbians equal rights when it comes to marital union: Canada and Spain. Tuesday, Canadian lawmakers approved a measure that legalized same-sex marriages throughout the country. Today, Spain’s parliament followed suit.

Unlike similar measures in the Netherlands and Belgium, where gay marriage has become legal but same-sex couples possess a second-class status without the full range of rights that their straight counterparts enjoy, the legislation in Canada and Spain redefines the institution of marriage so that it applies to all couples, regardless of gender. In fact, as The New York Times noted, the Spanish measure adds just one sentence to the existing marriage law: “Marriage will have the same requirements and results when the two people entering into the contract are of the same sex or of different sexes.”

(Yes, one sentence is all it took. And now Canada and Spain don’t have to deal with all the added bureaucratic paper-shuffling and color-coding that this “civil union”/“marriage but not real marriage”/etc. tomfoolery entails.)

The two gay marriage proposals beat back determined opposition in both countries. In Canada, Conservatives joined with defiant Liberals in decrying the legislation; a junior cabinet member of the ruling Liberal Party resigned in protest. Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Madrid to voice their opposition to gay marriage. The mayor of Valladolid pledged not to carry out the law, and Catholic leaders urged other government officials to become conscientious objectors.

Using language that Senator Richard Durbin would surely not approve of, the Archbishop of Barcelona likened those officials who disagree with the law but nonetheless carry it out to the Nazis at Auschwitz, who “believed that they had to obey the laws of the Nazi government before their own conscience.”

You know, I seem to remember that the Nazis had some pretty strong views on gays and lesbians, too — do pink triangles ring a bell?

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

“I am such a complete atheist that I am afraid God will punish me.” Such is the pithy wisdom of Jára Cimrman, the man overwhelmingly voted the “Greatest Czech of All Time” in a nationwide poll earlier this month. (A state TV station in the Czech Republic sponsored the survey, inspired by a hit BBC show that birthed similar “Greatest” polls across the continent.)

Who is Jára Cimrman? A philosopher? An inventor? An explorer? All of these things, yes, and much more. After a few days of investigation here in Prague, this is what I have uncovered:

Born in the middle of the 19th century to a Czech tailor and Austrian actress, Cimrman studied in Vienna and Prague, before starting off on his journeys around the world — traversing the Atlantic by steamboat, scaling mountains in Peru, trekking across the Arctic tundra. Astounding feats soon followed. Cimrman was the first to come within seven meters of the North Pole. He was the first to invent the light bulb (unfortunately, Edison beat him to the patent office by five minutes). It was he who suggested to the Americans the idea for a Panama Canal, though, as usual, he was never credited. Indeed, Cimrman surreptitiously advised many of the world’s greats — Eiffel on his tower, Einstein on his theories of relativity, Chekhov on his plays (you can’t just have two sisters, Cimrman is said to have said — how about three?). In 1886, long before the world knew of Sartre or Camus, Cimrman was writing tracts like, “The Essence of the Existence,” which would become the foundation for his philosophy of “Cimrmanism,” also known as “Non-Existentialism.” (Its central premise: “Existence cannot not exist.”)

This man of unmatched genius would have been bestowed the honor of “Greatest Czech of All Time” if not for the bureaucratic narrow-mindedness of the poll’s sponsors, whose single objection to Cimrman’s candidacy was that “he’s not real.” (Jára Cimrman is the brainchild of two Czech humorists — Zdenek Sverak and Jiri Sebanek — who brought their patriotic Renaissance man to life in 1967 in a satirical radio play.) Thus, although Cimrman handily won the initial balloting in January, Czech TV officials refused to let him into the final rounds of the competition, blatantly biased against his non-existentialism.

How should we interpret the fact that Czechs would rather choose a fictitious character as their greatest countryman over any of their flesh-and-blood national heroes — Charles IV (the 14th-century Holy Roman Emperor who established Prague as the cultural and intellectual capital of Europe), Comenius (the 17th-century educator and writer considered one of the fathers of modern education), Jan  Hus (the 15th-century religious reformer who challenged Catholic orthodoxy), or Martina Navrátilová (someone who plays a sport with bright green balls)? The more cynically inclined — many Czechs among them — might point out that the Czech people have largely stayed behind their mountains for the past millennia, with little interest in, or influence on, happenings elsewhere in the world. Cimrman is so beloved because he is that most prickly of ironies: a Czech who was greater than all the world’s greats, but who for some hiccup of chance has never been recognized for his achievements.

Personally, I like to think that the vote for Cimrman says something about the country’s rousing enthusiasm for blowing raspberries in the face of authority. Throughout its history — from the times of the Czech kings who kept the German menace at bay through crafty diplomacy, to the days of Jan Hus and his questioning of the very legitimacy of the Catholic Church’s power, to the flashes of anti-communist revolt that at last came crashing down in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution — the Czechs have maintained a healthy disrespect for those who would tell them what is best or how to live their lives. Other countries soberly choose their “Greatest” from musty tomes of history, but the Czechs won’t play this silly game. Their vote for a fictional personage, says Cimrman’s co-creator Sverak, says two things about the Czech nation: “that it is skeptical about those who are major figures and those who are supposedly ‘the greatest.’ And that the only certainty that has saved the nation many times throughout history is its humour.”

Cimrman — if he were with us today — would agree. A man of greatness, he was always a bit skeptical of those who saw themselves as great, or who marched forward under the banner of greatness. As Cimrman liked to say, “There are moments when optimists should be shot.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

But at the end of the film, after Balian has surrendered Jerusalem, Saladin enters the city and finds a crucifix lying on the floor of a church, knocked off the altar during the three-day siege. And he carefully picks up the cross and places it reverently back on the altar. And at this point the audience rose to their feet and clapped and shouted their appreciation. They loved that gesture of honour. They wanted Islam to be merciful as well as strong. And they roared their approval above the soundtrack of the film.

Robert Fisk, a veteran Middle East correspondent for The Independent, has a thoughtful piece on Ridley Scott’s Crusades epic, Kingdom of Heaven, and the reactions of the Muslim audience in the Beirut theater where he saw it. There are just enough historical parallels between that ancient, blood-drenched conflict and the fighting going on today in the Middle East to make one uncomfortable. (It probably doesn’t help that President Bush — in one of his lesser moments of eloquence — once described his war on terror as a “crusade.”) Just as before, the question to be decided is whether there is enough honor and mercy on both sides to quell the fundamentalist thinking and permit, someday, a peaceful resolution. Fisk suggests the answer is yes.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

From weakness emerges strength. That’s the paradox that seems to be at the heart of le mouvement altermondialiste (what’s known as the “global justice movement” across the Atlantic), as two leading French activists pointed out to me recently. Elisabeth Gauthier, general secretary of the left-wing, communist-affiliated organizing center known as Espace Marx, and Francine Bavay, a Green Party politician who worked for years with trade unions, have starkly different political pedigrees and perspectives on political change, but both come to the same conclusion about the recent rise of global activism. What brought about this loose coalition of environmentalists, trade unionists, Third World solidarity activists, anarchists, and other leftists — the legions who first strutted across the global stage during the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle — was the very weakness of the left in countries like France and the United States during the eighties and nineties, the two activists say.

In brief: As the political and economic foundations of the Soviet Union crumbled away, the United States emerged as the world’s single superpower, the superiority of its model seemingly unquestioned — that is, an economics of free market fundamentalism and a politics of center-right conformity. Beaten down by these prevailing political winds, the left — in France, in America, and throughout much of the world — was fragmented. The communists were discredited. The liberals and socialists were tempted to the “dark side” of a center-right, neoliberal consensus. Meanwhile, the wide variety of freelance activists on the left — no longer feeling bound (if they ever did) to a single ideology — had gone off to pursue largely single-issue activism on matters of the environment, the rights of immigrants, labor protections, and other parts of society affected by the unfettering of markets.

These circumstances created a new dynamic. Small groups had a need to band together or face irrelevance. No single group was strong enough to bark out marching orders or dictate strategy for the rank-and-file, like the communist or socialist parties of old. Space was opened up for a democratic culture to take root, one in which differences were (more or less) respected, and no one faction could hijack the decision-making process.

I meet Elisabeth Gauthier at her office at the French Communist Party’s headquarters in Paris, an imposing steel-and-glass structured designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. An immigrant from Austria, Gauthier has been a communist almost all her life — a path she decided upon, she says, while growing up in a country ravaged by the horrors of fascism. Yet Gauthier is frank about the shortcomings of the Soviet Union, which she feels forgot the will of the people in erecting the edifice of an all-powerful state. For her, it was a combination of factors — the end of the Cold War, the downfall of unions, political parties, and other traditional forms of left-wing politics, the new conditions faced by workers in the global economy and the urgent need to find alternatives — that opened up possibilities for cooperation between left-wing activists of varying political stripes. “All this was favorable to building new spaces — common spaces,” says Gauthier. “What we did in Porto Alegre [at the World Social Forums], and maybe in a more intense way in Europe [at the European Social Forums], was that we created an autonomous, open, public, and political space. The social forums are not political movements, but they are self-organized spaces, and they make [it] possible to collect and analyze these experiences and [make] proposals.”

Across the Seine, in an upscale Parisian neighborhood where France’s former prime ministers and billionaires live, I meet up with Francine Bavay at the offices of the regional government, where Bavay serves as a councilmember. Her politics, likewise, are a world apart from Gauthier’s — Bavay describes herself as a “radical reformist” — but she shares the same understanding of the origins of the movement’s democracy culture — and its potential. “The people that fight capitalism, [market] liberalism, are very weak in the world,” she says. “When you are weak, it is difficult to impose an organization to take the leadership.” While there are disagreements over strategy within the movement, there is also a prevailing belief, Bavay says, that the different factions need to tolerate those differences and work toward their common goal: overturning neoliberalism. “It’s a new concept of democracy, in a sense. You don’t have the same tools, but you have the same vision, the same objective.”

What “destroyed” the left-wing social movements that emerged in the late sixties around the world, Bavay says, was intolerance and infighting. “People wanted their solution to be the only one, and [they] fought between themselves. And I think we have understood the lesson.”

The question, of course, is whether these coalitions of activists can remain both democratic and united — both idealistic and effective — in the years ahead. If the rapid spread of the World Social Forum model is any indication, however, there seems to be much promise.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

The European Constitution is all but dead now, struck down by the one-two punch of France’s “no” vote on Sunday and the Netherlands’ (even more vehement) “no” yesterday.

The bureaucrats in Brussels are scurrying for cover, as the Euro plummets in value and the political fallout continues to rain down on heads of state across the continent. The French president sacked his unpopular prime minister. The German chancellor pleaded for calm and unity, declaring that the failure to ratify the constitution must not “become a general European crisis.” Luxembourg’s prime minister lamented that “Europe is no longer the stuff of dreams.” There has even been talk of the impending demise of the Euro single currency.

The gloom-and-doom scenarios being put forth seem rather exaggerated to me. Sure, the failure of the European Constitution will mean that the process of integration will slow down. Those who are hoping for a strong European Union to balance the global scales of power will have to wait longer. But it seems only a matter of time before Europe emerges as a mature, unified political force. The younger generations across the continent are expressing an increasingly European identity. The “no” vote gained support from large segments of left because of provisions that were seen — justly or not — as too fixated on free, unfettered markets, and too neglectful of protections for workers and the public sector. Either the treaty establishing the constitution will be renegotiated to increase such protections, or those voters disenchanted with the last draft will come to the conclusion that any kind of unity is better than none. As China and India gain more of a foothold in European markets, and as the United States continues to assert an uncompromising foreign policy, the benefits of unity will undoubtedly appear more attractive to the French and Dutch, as well as other euroskeptics across the continent.

Look at it like this: Those precocious American colonists took quite a few years to move from the Articles of Confederation to the U.S. Constitution — with a whole lot of interstate bickering, Federalist/Anti-Federalist hate mail, and geez-this-is-a-stupid-idea moaning along the way. They didn’t even have a referendum. Cable news wasn’t invented yet. Shouldn’t we expect the Europeans to take some time to get “We the People” right?

In the meantime, you might as well book that next flight to Paris — the Euro is down to an eight-month low of $1.2255. Did I mention that baguettes are less than 1 euro apiece?

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Last week I saw Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (in French, La Guerre des étoiles: La Revanche des Sith) in a Parisian theater. I opted for the subtitled version, rather than the French dubbed one, because for some reason Darth Vader does not sound like the incarnation of evil in French, but more like a Frenchman with a really bad head cold.

I liked the movie. Sure, the exposition of the plot could have at times been less light-saber-me-right-on-the-head, and I could have done without whole scenes worth of George Lucas’ trademark clunky dialogue. (“Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” — how can any actor utter that line with a straight face?) But with this film Lucas came back — at last — to the two resonant themes that he first explored in the original Star Wars trilogy.

The first is the hero’s journey. When he was writing the screenplay for the original 1977 film, Lucas found inspiration in Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which examined the themes shared by hero myths across time and cultures. The story of Luke Skywalker followed the classic narrative, or “monomyth,” described by Campbell — first “departure” (Luke must leave the life and family he knew as a simple farmer), then “initiation” (his learning of the ways of the Force, the identity of his father, and his destiny to face Darth Vader), and finally “return” (his rediscovery of family, his reconciliation with his father, and his “return” as a Jedi knight). The Revenge of the Sith is the exact inversion of this story: it begins with Anakin’s victorious return from battle in the outer reaches of the galaxy, then his initiation in fear (of Padme’s foreseen death) and temptation (of worldly power), and finally his decision to break from his order, his friends, and even the one he loves.

The execution may be less than perfect, but Lucas’ vision is compelling, at times moving. If what ensures the son’s victory is his compassion — a compassion that prevents Luke from killing Darth Vader and taking his place — what destroys the father is his fear. A good man turns to evil, Lucas tells us, not just because of ambition or greed, but also for the most noble reasons: a desire to prevent the suffering of a loved one. Indeed, Yoda’s advice to Anakin — to accept death as natural, to avoid the “attachment” that will lead him to jealousy and greed, to let go of his fear of loss — might have come from a lecture in Buddhist philosophy by the Dalai Lama (froggy voice included). What emerges is a picture of the subtle evils at the heart of all our material strivings — even love, when it oversteps its bounds into desire. “The fear of loss,” Yoda says, “is a path to the dark side.”

The second theme is the downfall of democracy. Star Wars came to theaters in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate years, one of those rare historical moments when the veil was lifted and rampant abuse of executive power revealed. Lucas has talked about his interest in the question of why democracies turn into dictatorships. In ancient Rome, “why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?” Lucas said. “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.” (Fear will make people do anything, Nazi leader Hermann Göring once observed: “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”) In all the cases mentioned, hysterical, irrational fear of enemies (external or internal) led freedom-loving citizens to accept increasingly drastic measures and rally behind an autocratic savior. Fear of loss, again, transforms good people into something else — leaders into unyielding crusaders, citizens into unthinking clones.

The earlier trilogy pitted an Empire against a rebel alliance; the second a Republic against a band of separatists. The “good guys” may seem obvious, given the cast of characters that populate each side (wholesome Jar Jar Binks vs. a cyborg general with emphysema?), but a closer look might make you question your own sympathies. After all, the Empire had the trappings of democracy — an Imperial Senate, only later dissolved by the Emperor — and it did, as promised, bring peace to the galaxy. The Separatists were terrorists led by greedy plutocrats, but their aims were worthy enough — to rid themselves of a corrupt and oppressive government. In Episode III, as the war nears its end and the Republic’s chancellor tightens his grip on power, Padme asks Anakin, “Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?” It is the same treasonous thinking that has been voiced by clear-eyed patriots throughout history: those Roman, French, and German republicans, among others, who protested the descent of their societies into the militarism of Caesar, Napolean, and Hitler. They were few, but history remembers them.

Well, it seems like I’ve gone into hyperspace with this post — Star Wars indeed! As if Star Wars had anything to do with U.S. military policy or certain missile defense systems now under development in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 … what silliness. On to more pressing issues.

Next week: the striking historical parallels between Genghis Khan’s 13th-century conquest of the Eurasian continent and the plot line of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Michaele’s post reminded me of a recent French film, L’auberge espagnole — translated literally, “The Spanish Apartment.” It’s about a young Parisian named Xavier (Romain Duris) who decides to spend a year studying economics in Barcelona as part of the Erasmus exchange program. He soon finds himself in a rundown apartment populated by a host of European stereotypes: the neat-freak German and his clothes-sprawled-across-the-floor Italian roommate, the proud Spaniard driven into a tizzy by a bigoted Brit with a drinking problem, the hip Belgian lesbian who teaches the clueless-in-love Frenchman how to seduce a married woman … (okay, maybe that’s not so stereotypical). Xavier doesn’t end up learning much economics, but he learns quite a bit about life and love, the meaning of happiness and the meaninglessness of making money, how to kiss a woman while grabbing her left buttock in such a way as to drive her mad with passion, etc., etc. (Speaking of French movies, Audrey Tatou from Amelie is in it, playing Xavier’s left-at-home-girlfriend, but she has a total of 15 minutes of screen time devoted to rather un-Amelie-like pouting, so don’t see it just for her.)

After reading Michaele’s post, I was struck by how much the film is a metaphor for today’s European Union. Xavier decides to apply to Erasmus so that he can study economics, learn Spanish, and get a posh job in the French foreign-affairs bureaucracy; the first treaties establishing a European “community” in the 1950s were devoted solely to trade and a common economic policy. Xavier spends his time in Barcelona focusing on everything but his career: he becomes friends with people from around the continent, shatters some of his preconceptions about other cultures, and learns to see himself as, above all, European — in the end, he even loses his Amelie. Likewise, the EU has grown into something more than just a common currency and collection of integrated markets, and many Europeans today hope that its shared social and political values — democracy, secularism, an aversion to military solutions, a strong government role in providing health care and other vital services — will take precedence over its economic policy.

Right now, the dream of an integrated Europe is being fiercely debated across the continent. The European Constitution is up for ratification, and there are grave doubts that the populations of France and Great Britain, among other member states, will give it their blessing. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that even some die-hard opponents of the Constitution say they are actually in favor of a stronger European identity. At least among the left-wingers of the “No” crowd, their hostility to the Constitution has more to do with a belief that it is too supportive of free trade and outsourcing and too biased against the welfare state and the provision of public services. (In fact, ATTAC, one of the left-wing networks leading the charge in Europe against the Constitution, has insisted that their “No” vote is “authentically European and internationalist”; what they want is “another” kind of Constitution, one “founded upon values and goals other than competition and free trade.”)

What Europe will end up emerging is difficult to say. L’auberge espagnole evokes the youthful ideal of Europe: a delirious mixture of language and culture that, left for a few decades to cook, emerges as a delicate dish to be shared among friends (another translation of “L’auberge espagnole” is “Euro pudding”). From the point of view of the film, it’s interesting that Xavier, the son of divorced parents — a sentimental, hippie mother and a rigid, businessman father — starts off pursuing his father’s dream of material success but by the end of the film has drawn closer — tentatively — to his estranged mother. Give the Europeans a few more years and we may see something similar take place.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

For those who haven’t been keeping abreast of the activities of all the racists and misogynists back in the States (which I would be blissfully ignoring myself, if not for all the action alerts that keep plopping into my Inbox), here is a handy quiz:

1. In April, seven Arab American men filed a $28 million lawsuit alleging that while they were eating at a Denny’s restaurant in Florida:

A. Their server refused to take any order except “Moons Over My Hammy.”

B. The manager kicked them out and told them, “We don’t serve bin Ladens here.”

C. The restaurant had a sign over its bathroom that said, “No A-rabs allowed.”

D. They waited for over an hour for their food while customers who arrived later were served. After they asked twice about their order, the manager responded: “Saddam Hussein is in charge of the kitchen.”

2. In February, New York radio host Miss Jones returned to Hot 97. She had been suspended from her morning show for:

A. Playing a song that mocked the victims of December’s tsunami and included the lyrics: “There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away / You can hear God laughing, ‘Swim you bitches swim.’”

B. Insulting her Asian American co-host Miss Info by calling her a “screaming chink.” Co-host Todd Lynn added: “God, I hate those Asians.”

C. Telling her listeners to a create their own board game, “Gookopoly,” in protest of the board game “Ghettopoly,” which was created by an Asian immigrant.

D. Singing on the air, to the tune of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: “So now you’re screwed. It’s the tsunami, / You better run and kiss your ass away. Go find your mommy. / I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head. And now your children will be sold. Child slavery.”

3. In April, the hosts of a New Jersey radio show, 101.5 FM’s “The Jersey Guys,” criticized a Korean American candidate in a local Democratic primary, and then said the following:

A. Talking about how ethnic minorities were always asking for special treatment, host Craig Carton said: “And no one gives a damn about us anymore … And if we cry about it, you know what’s brought up? Slavery … or if we cry about it … well you know, ching chong, ching chong [mimics Chinese accent], you bombed us.”

B. After commiserating with a caller about the “damn Orientals and Indians” in New Jersey, Carton remarked, “It’s like you’re a foreigner in your own country, isn’t it?”

C. Complaining that all the poker tables in Atlantic City were crowded with Chinese players, Carton opined: “Well, go to [Atlantic City] for one week and try and get a table …  ching chong, ching chong, ching chong [mimics Chinese accent]. ‘Hehe, you hit it on seventeen, you stupid bitch’ … they got their little beady pocketbooks with the little beads on it. They take out wads of hundreds. Ching chong ching chong [accent].”

D. All of the above.

4. In December, the hosts of the “Star and Buc Wild” morning show on Power 99 in Philadelphia phoned a customer service call center in India and then:

A. Threatened to “choke” the customer service representative.

B. Called her a “cow-worshipping bitch.”

C. Called her “filthy monkey-eater.”

D. All of the above.

5. Political commentator Ann Coulter sparked protests in March when she insulted Helen Thomas, a columnist who has worked as a White House correspondent for more than 60 years. What did she call Thomas?

A. “That dyspeptic Arab Helen Thomas.”

B. “That clueless Arab liberal, Helen Thomas.”

C. “That Arab I’d like to shoot, Helen Thomas.”

D. “That old Arab Helen Thomas.”

You can view the answers by clicking here.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

This afternoon I was walking to the laudromat when I ran smack into a social movement — or make that several. Parisians were out on the street today in the tens of thousands to voice their opposition to the European Constitution, which will be voted on in a country-wide referendum on May 29 (as described in a previous post).

It was quite a spectacle. There were enough flags to arm several dozen color guards — from rainbow-colored ones calling for “Peace” to martial-red ones printed with Che Guevara’s mustachioed face. There were banners with slogans in angry capital letters, inevitably with a “Non” slipped in somewhere between big, scary words like “délocalisation” (outsourcing) and “impérialisme” (imperialism). And there was an endless procession of flatbed trucks, each with its own sound system, broadcasting anything from anti-Chirac, anti-Bush chants to festive reggae music.

I waited nearly two hours — through pre-wash, wash, rinse, and dry — as the protesters filed by on Voltaire Boulevard. Every time I thought I could go back to folding my underwear there was another brigade of flags and banners, another eardrum-rattling chant, another left-wing group with a cause to publicize.

The CGT, a confederation of unions aligned with the French Communist Party (a relatively mainstream political faction here in France), seemed to have the largest delegation on the streets. The trade unionists were there mainly to protest the privatization of public services, which some believe will be imposed on France if it cedes more of its sovereignty to the European Union. There were also plenty of signs — some held by a group of Armenian activists — declaring that Turkey should be kept out of the European Union (another popular rallying cry for the anti-constitution crowd).

That said, a whole set of grievances unrelated to the coming referendum were also being aired. Workers were outraged at the cancellation of a national holiday. Students protested educational reforms proposed by the French government. Immigrants rallied for the rights of the undocumented. Hindu nationalists voiced their support for the Tamil Tigers, a pro-independence group responsible for terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. Communists hailing from “Turkey and northern Kurdistan” railed against the Iraq occupation. Expatriates from Togo decried the lack of attention being paid to their country, where violence has broken out since last week’s disputed presidential election (“After Rwanda, Togo,” said one sign).

There were plenty of unflattering references to American foreign policy. The majority of protesters stuck to the kind of anti-Bushisms one finds back in the States, but near the end of the procession I saw a truck drive by dragging a puppet on the ground behind it. It was Uncle Sam, wrapped in an American flag.

I suppose it should be expected that every lefty (and not-so-lefty) organization under the sun comes out for the big May Day march. As academics like to say, today’s media-savvy protesters often “shop around” for the best venue to get their message across. Still, I was surprised by how international the demonstration was, especially for one ostensibly about strictly European affairs. Many of these protesters dislike the globalization of markets, but they represent the globalization of protest: local issues become global, global issues become local.

The one sign I saw in English, as it turned out, mentioned someone I used to hear a lot about back in Philadelphia, near where I grew up. Nestled among the anti-neoliberals and anti-imperialists was a small group of protesters with a banner that read: “Free Mumia Now.”

[UPDATE, May 2, 2005, 1:33 p.m. GMT: Added mention of the May Day and Whit Monday themes of the protest.]  

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

In his new book on globalization, The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman talks about how the growing integration of the world’s economies is overturning our conventional notions of political right and left. “Social conservatives from the right wing of the Republican party, who do not like globalization or closer integration with the world because it brings too many foreigners and foreign cultural mores into America, might align themselves with unions from the left wing of the Democratic Party, who don’t like globalization for the way it facilitates the outsourcing and offshoring of jobs,” he writes.

We can already see some evidence of this political reshuffling across the Atlantic. In France, left wingers and extreme rightists have joined together to say “Non” to the European Constitution (“joined together” is perhaps too strong a phrase given how much the two sides detest one another). The May 29 referendum is being closely watched across the continent. Polls show the No vote in the lead — with support in the low- to mid-50s, percentage-wise — and even a determined effort by French President Jacques Chirac to roll back those numbers has, so far, made little difference.

I won’t attempt a summary of the 60,000-word European Constitution (here is a rundown of the juicier details), but basically it strengthens the various institutions of the European Union, from the parliament to the presidency, and allows its member countries — representing a total of 450 million people — to speak with a more unified, potent voice on the international stage. Before its provisions will take effect, however, all 26 member countries need to ratify it. Most have chosen to do so through parliamentary votes, though ten countries, including France, are putting it to a vote of the people by next year.

France’s vote in May is the focus of so much attention because it is the first binding referendum on the constitution: If it fails here, all 26 countries must go back to the bargaining table. The European Union will still exist, but its long and steady path toward further integration will suddenly be halted, perhaps permanently. What French voters decide is also important because France is home to one of the largest populations of “euroskeptics” on the continent. On the left, opponents of the constitution are using the vote as a way to express their disgust with Chirac’s government and their outrage at certain free market policies supported by EU officials, including recent proposals to open the services market to competition from Eastern European countries with laxer regulations. On the extreme right, nationalists fear the loss of French sovereignty as well as an increase in immigration — already a topic of heated debate in France, where immigrants are blamed for high levels of unemployment and strapped public services. (At the center of this right-wing backlash is Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front, who shocked the nation with his second-place finish in the 2002 presidential elections.)

In a televised debate earlier this week, these strange bedfellows made a rare public appearance together, and soon enough unflattering comparisons were being made. Michel Barnier, Chirac’s foreign minister, remarked that the anti-constitution stance of the French communists had led them to the “same vote as Monsieur Le Pen.” Marie-George Buffet, the national secretary of the French Communist Party, loudly objected to Barnier’s “insult,” declaring that the French left was dedicated to fighting the “right and extreme right.” The only thing that all camps could agree upon was that they distrusted the United States. The communist decried the Chirac government as a “puppet of Bush;” the rightist declared that a No vote would lead to a weakened Europe vulnerable to the “influence of the United States.” And the right-wing extremist, Le Pen, declared that France itself was in danger. “If you believe in the nation and the homeland,” he said, “vote no.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

For those who despair at the state of Franco-American relations, I have three words for you: Walker, Texas Ranger.

Yes, flip on the tube in France and you might find yourself watching the exploits of Texas Ranger Cordell Walker — “one of the last old-fashioned heroes of the West” — played by martial artist Chuck Norris. (This is French network TV, mind you — I don’t have cable here in Paris.) You can also catch the X-Files, watch the French version of The Bachelor, and see Andie MacDowell hawking makeup and speaking perfect (dubbed) French. From my scientific analysis of two weeks of French TV, I’d say that — oh — 26.7 percent of their shows and televised movies are French-dubbed American programming.

France and America have had a love/hate relationship for centuries, with highs during the Revolutionary War (French save Americans) and World War II (Americans save French), and lows … at all other times. Things got particularly bad in the run-up to the Iraq War, when French politicians declared their vehement opposition to an American invasion and U.S. lawmakers retaliated in kind, replacing “French fries” with “Freedom fries” in government cafeterias. (Did any of their aides point out that French fries originated in Belgium?) Since then, relations have remained sour. For the documentary Does Europe Hate Us?, which recently aired on the Discovery Channel, Thomas Friedman toured France and other European countries and found plenty of reasons for dislike, ranging from mere disgust with George and Dick’s Not-So-Excellent Adventures Abroad (“We miss the America that made us dream,” one woman put it) to professed admiration for Osama bin Laden. I didn’t see the documentary — did I mention I don’t have cable? — but here’s a nice summary by The Link:

In it you will see young Germans comparing the current state of America to 1930s Germany, French political science students sitting around a large table in McDonald’s intelligently asserting their positions, anti-war activists calling Iraqi police “collaborators” (and implying justification for insurgents targeting them) and French Muslim youth extolling the virtues of Osama bin Laden. While most of those interviewed were critical of the U.S., they also exhibited a hopeful tone. They seemed to really want to like America.

I’ve only just arrived in France, but I’ll let you know if I spot any America-Haters (which, I’m told, can be distinguished from Blame-America-Firsters with a trained eye). In the meantime, I am encouraged by the knowledge that American and French viewers enjoy the same TV garbage. If anyone can bring together these two cultures, it is Cordell Walker.

In a time when legends are scarce, Texas Ranger Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris) is one of the last old-fashioned heroes of the West. Drawing on the customs of his Native American ancestors and the rugged traditions of the Old West, Walker is on a relentless crusade for truth and honor …

Bon courage, Walker!

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen