Paris Calling

Judith Miller

When I was seventeen, I worked at the New York Times Paris bureau. It was an idyllic experience: I was a young go-getter working amongst journalism heavyweights. Most were very respectful of me, or at the very least, polite. None ––which I find surprising looking back–– were difficult or evil in an office politics kind of way. But then again, I wasn't much of a threat. I had zits and baby fat.

One thing I do remember however is how much the energy would change when Judy Miller would come through town. It happened once or twice, but it was always jarring, a distinct interruption to otherwise smooth sailing.

She was, to say the least, toxic. Other correspondents loathed her, especially the ones who reported, like her, on the Middle East. Visiting journalists like Miller would typically borrow an office of a Paris-based journalist who was away on assignment. But some Paris journalists didn't want Judy using their desk (she'd go through their stuff). And the assistants dreaded her, too. She wasn't below putting us through humiliating paces, I was told.

The anticipation to her impending arrival was so distinct that I vividly remember seeing her for the first time. She was going to be my first office 'bitch' so to speak and I just remember being extra vigilant. This was a hated woman, and one who had "fucked Khaddafi," too. I was expecting Darth Vader.

I don't recall how she treated me. She may have been a breeze. But she was already, and this is 1992 or 93, a person who pushed some of the most brilliant, stately minds in journalism to sneak out of the office early. She was, for me at least, an education.

Turkey

It may seem shameful that Europeans, led by the French and the Austrians, are so categorically against Turkey joining the European Union. And this disdain that politicians have for Turkey is hardly wrapped up in any code or indirect argument: It's racism pure and simple.

But it's hardly surprising. What is more surprising in the Turkey debate is the matter-of-factness with which media elites approach the issue. Read the New York Times or listen to Brit politicians, and you think it should be perfectly natural that Europe -Europe!- should welcome Turkey, that great Muslim nation, with open arms.

Hunh? Based on the facts on the ground, the opposite is true, by a landslide. The very idea of being European today is as much defined by NOT being Muslim -specifically- as it is by anything else. There's a values discussion (women's rights, human rights, ethnic rights) but that argument is more often than not a more liberal way of saying we ain't Muslim.

And for this reason pushing towards expansion into Turkey is risky. The only way you keep white Euro right wingers behind this Europe project is if you keep intact an ethnic (white dominated) idea of Europe. By bringing Turkey into the equation you lose the "ethnicists," or racists, from the European cause. These folks are only in it because of a subtly maintained idea that ethnic nationalism can be transferred to a European scale. Bring Turkey in and that possibility is gone and so is Europe.

The Brits don't care because the Brits have never looked to Europe for ethnic identity. Their ethnic identity is national and (when need be) with America. In fact, British right wing inspired identity is still very much defined by NOT being EUROPEAN. To them, the idea of Turkey sinking Europe is delightful.

Eureka

I went back to New York for a week. To my great surprise, New York seemed fine. It didn't seem like it had gone annywhere. Not that I was against it doing so. But walking those streets, I felt like I hadn't left for very long. All seemed to be in its place. If anything had shifted it was about where you would have expected it to.

France is still France. Last week. Corsican sailors quite comically took a ferry boat hostage. The Gendarmerie, on strict orders from Villepin the Prime Minister, carried out a brazen helicopter mission. 50 special forces slid down ropes dangling from the choppers and in 20 seconds, reclaimed the ship. The Corsican sailors just clapped and laughed, welcoming them aboard.

What to make of that? One comedy of error follows another and none of the politicians seem to take any lesson from it besides how it affects them at the ballot box. No different from the US come to think of it.

Why does it seem impossible, in this modern era, to connect politicians to calamaties that, on a paper at least, should sink them? It's strange. Something about today seems to keep elected officials perpetually off the hook almost as if collectively, they've figured out the key to the puzzle, a way to get away with it. Look at Chirac, Shroeder, Blair, Putin, and Bush... All those guys should be out of office, locked up even.