Citizenship rich and citizenship poor in Australia and the EU

Issues of citizenship enter the public domain in times of stress
Migrant groups are focus of disquiet
The mantra of clashing civilizations is used to explain urban unrest
For media, urban unrest moves from
France to Australia, much as fashion does.

Televisions depicted flames from the “Muslim unrest” dangerously close to the Eiffel
Tower. Isolated cries of “Allahu Akbar” and scenes of imams trying to calm crowds were highlighted as worrying signs of the times in
“Frankistan.” Politicians and the media hinted that Islamist militants were partly to blame for the rampaging youths and nightly fire bombings. News dispatches with datelines such as Clichy-sous-Bois sounded like they were actually describing a “Baghdad-on-the-
Seine .”(Heneghon)

October 27 2005
Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traouré, 15, electrocuted after being chased by police
Text messages coordinate riots
November 6 1400 vehicles torched
November 8 State of Emergency declared
November 14 100 vehicles only torched(normal)

December 4 2005: “Lebs” attack Surfie group
December 7 text message: This Sunday every
Aussie in the shire get down to North Cronulla to support the leb and wog bashing day
December 10 and 11: Rioting on beaches, and “Leb” reprisals in suburb
December 17,18: NSW Gov supports heavy policing of beaches in Sydney and Newcastle – calls for people not to go to beach .

Both in France and Australia (as elsewhere in Europe) there has been a strong reaction to such events
In France, the last election fought alia on immigration issues inter
In Australia, the next election will be: citizenship testing to be introduced.

We need to distinguish a strong and a weaker sense of citizenship
Bare citizenship (under Geneva convention) passports, right to work, duty to pay tax
Cultural citizenship as ‘Identity generating and community building’
(Weiner, 1998)

Citizenship rich
Legal situation has made two or more passports possible in the US and Australia
In the EU, all citizens have transnational citizenship rights
Citizenship poor
Refugees
Expatriate citizens of poorer countries who offer little consular protection

Access to media has undermined national control of cultural citizenship
Arabic speakers in EU and in Australia have access to >39 Arabic language television programs, both national and transnational (Al Jazeera, Al Manar).
However real differences underlie similarities

Australia overwhelmingly immigrant
1950-2004 23.1% of population immigrant
Citizenship awarded to 610 migrants
/100,000pop in 1990s
France
1950-2004 7.9% of population immigrant
Citizenship awarded to 173 migrants
/100,000pop in 1990s

Australia colonial (transnational) citizenship
White Australia policy (accepted Maronites) until 1972
Multiculturalism
France
Citizenship assimilationist, in tradition of la patrie

When you come to Australia, you become
Australian ( Prime Minister, 12/02/06)
Multiculturalism is a reversion to tribalism that is anachronistic in a modern liberal urban society…. [It] has bred ethnic ghettos characterised by high levels of unemployment, welfare dependancy, welfare abuse, crime and violence (Windshuttle,
16/12/05)

EU context of transnational citizenship puts pressure on the French model the multicultural self-understanding of the nations of citizens formed in classical countries of immigration.. is more instructive..than that derived from the culturally assimilationist French model (Habermas 2001:159-160).

Olivier Roy: Reislamisation is new form of individualised Islam, suited to disenfranchised youth.
Unemployment 20-40% in suburbs such as Clichy-sous-Bois.
Riots fuelled by French traditions of liberté, egalité, fraternité

Sydney’s western suburbs have been home to the post civil war group of
Lebanese migrants, a group sharply distinguished from Maronites who came earlier
High unemployment and radical Islamic clerics flourish in western suburbs

The idea of invasion is important in understanding what happened. The population centre of Sydney is
Parramatta, which means that as many live to the west of there as towards the beaches. To enjoy the beach means that many from the working-class and ethnic west will come down to the beach suburbs.
(Jupp, 2005)

Young rioters are French the rioters were unmistakably French, and not only because almost all were citizens. They have internalized French political values so well that they want France to live up to its promise of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Their dream was not to overthrow the system, but to make it work so they could get ahead too. Political violence is as French as baguettes and berets. (Heneghon 2006)

Lebanese are Australians, even to their very
Australian style of rumbling on beaches
An.. important social feature is the existence of a hoon culture, with young men believing that physical force is a sign of being a real Australian. This is usually combined with the even more dangerous belief that getting drunk is equally Australian. Although many
Muslims are likely to avoid the second feature, they are susceptible to the first.
(Jupp, 2005)

‘The coexistence of rival ways of life in individual experience’ Beck transnational and national media worlds world view/mediascape which includes but is not limited by the nation state
The myth: a culturally homogeneous nation state