Throughout one of the most unusual election campaigns in U.S. history, politicians and the media are singled out as chief among the causes of the country's woes both real and manufactured and Donald Trump, the political outsider, has been elevated by surrogates, supporters and his own ego.
It was during the penultimate month of nearly two years' worth of palpable turmoil and hatred that Former French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira arrived in America, principally to deliver an Oct. 11 lecture on Justice in the Service of Equality at the University of Chicago that was simultaneously broadcast to 10 schools across the Midwest.
The French Guiana-born economics teacher was the first Black woman to be nominated as a presidential candidate in France. Throughout her career, and despite often dehumanizing opposition from France's right wing, Taubira waged battles with as much poetic eloquence as tenacious ferocity.
Her subsequent victories yielded the 2001 Taubira Law recognizing the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trade as crimes against humanity while ensuring that French schools included that history in their curricula.
She also won the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in France and an equally unprecedented 2015 overhaul of the country's criminal justice system.
In the present national climate, it does not seem quite right that this author, mother and teacher should also have the job title of politician. Nor does she deserve to be tarred with it.
Instead of allowing her wave of successes to rush her further up the shores of political conquest, in January 2016 Taubira resigned her position as President François Hollande's Justice Minister because of her opposition to an amendment he proposed removing French citizenship from those engaging in acts of terrorism.
"Sometimes resisting means staying on; sometimes resisting means leaving," she wrote on her decision.
The proposal was eventually withdrawn, but the rise, in France, of the extreme right Front National and its leader Marine Le Pen remains an ominous threat to everything Taubira holds dear.
It was at the Chicago Commission on Human Relations office that Taubira sat down with Windy City Times and offered to share a croissant and her always candid thoughts on her life, career and the political climate engulfing both France and the United States—one which as she noted in her 2016 book, Murmures a la Jeunesse ( Murmers to Youth ) "leaves the field open to indoctrination by puppeteers [who are] unscrupulous, flouting all honesty [and who] manage to fool helpless minds."
Windy City Times: Why did you want to get into politics?
Christiane Taubira: I had decided every four years to change my job in order to understand life. So I taught [economics] for four years, I was the manager of the [Caricoop] Agricultural Association [French Guiana] and then manager of the Technical Assistance [to Artisanal] Fishing. Throughout my professional life, I was very careful to make sure that everything was for everyone. I always fought, through so many hard times, for justice.
In 1993, I was working in the [Guiana] Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Office and I was not planning to run for election but people knew me due to my fights in my professional fields. So they organized and made a petition. It was my first time running for an election. To me, [politics] is not a job, it is a kind of devotion. Every day, I work in order to help people to live better. I'm not saying I am some sort of savior. If I want to stop tomorrow morning, I will stop tomorrow morning.
WCT: Was this desire to help people always a part of you growing up?
CT: When I was a young girl, I used to give free lectures for children. I was only 10 and I was organizing lectures for the school and the girls and boys living on the same street. My mother helped so many people just naturally. Whatever she had, even if it was small, she would divide and give to others. I grew up this way. She used to say, "When you take care of others, God takes care of you." So it was natural for me even before politics.
WCT: You fought hard for same-sex marriage. What was it like trying to get that bill passed?
CT: I was not expecting such rough opposition before it became law. Before writing the bill, I was already sure that it was a question of freedom ( freedom to choose the people you love, to make your life with [them], to have children ), a question of equality for [LGBT] families to have the same rights as heterosexual families and a question of fraternity because it was a way to say "Different people are still people. They are still citizens. We are improving our collective way of life when we are able consider equality for everyone. We are all equal. We all have to go through prejudices."
I wanted to see why people might oppose the bill, so I consulted experts, organizations and associations. I also [researched] all the consequences of changing the French civil code: sociological, philosophical and what it meant to our collective state mind. The mass of opposition was surprising. But, for me, the question was, "Are you doing something right, just and good?" I knew the answer was yes. I took my time to explain it but those who can't stand rights for others didn't care.
WCT: Who was behind the opposition?
CT: Mainly Catholic people. They were more organized but they included Muslims and Jews. Usually they fight one another, but on this [issue] they were together. At the end of their protest march they would make speeches, one after the other, on the same stage. I thought, "Oh, I'm creating unity!"
WCT: What was behind your decision to resign?
CT: It was an ethical decision. I listened, I argued. Even in the book [Murmurs to Youth] I wondered if I was wrong or if I was making too much noise for something that wasn't so important. But I understood it to be very dangerous and not very efficient. The [bill] was designed to strip terrorists of their nationality but they kill themselves and others. They don't care about nationality. They are not binational. They are just beasts of a person. But we were creating two categories of citizens and putting that into the Constitution. I could not agree with that. I fight for equality. So many years not being at home with my children for equality. So many years being insulted for equality and to then just agree to put equality in the Constitution? No. It mattered to me.
WCT: Marine Le Pen and the Front National seem to be having some success courting gay voters through spreading a fear of Muslims. Is that a mistake on the part of the LGBT community?
CT: Yes it is a mistake for gays and also young people. All kinds of people are joining this party which is xenophobic and discriminatory because it's their philosophy. But the leaders of this party want power. They are also very skilled in telling people what they want to hear because all of us are living in hard times and the world doesn't seem safe. They see danger at home and everywhere.
The Front National says, "We will protect you by closing the country. We will expel terrorists ( and that means people who look like terrorists ) and you will have the jobs that used to belong to the Muslims we threw out." So many simple and stupid things but, because it is hard times, people are tempted to believe them. Those who are objectively threatened by extreme right politics are making a mistake joining the people who [believe] in those politics. It's really just the extreme right's desire to consolidate power that leads them to lie every day, every time. The world history of these people is racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Their leaders never say, "We deny or we don't agree with our past."
WCT: Are the French people not particularly worried about history repeating itself?
CT: I don't think it will because we have learned from it. The tactics are the same in terms of finding and giving people someone to hate and make responsible for all the problems. I think that they are dangerous for the country and the world because their politics increase inequalities, discrimination, exclusion and hatred between people. You make a country poor when people can't play a part in building a common destiny. If the extreme right gets power in France, we will go backwards.
WCT: And would France leave the European Union just as the United Kingdom's Brexit vote ensured?
CT: [Le Pen] wants a referendum but let me tell you something: In France, I never answer questions about Marine Le Pen. I refuse to make a purpose out of this person. I refuse to take part in the fact that, over the past few years, the core of political debate in France is the extreme right. They are on all the radio and TV broadcasts. Everyone says that "they're right" or "they're wrong" but it's not my problem. I explain to people that there is a way to live together even though we are different. In France, equality is a strong principle and value. That means education, access to culture and housing. We have to make the effort to live together and to be strong together. That is my concern.
WCT: So what is the feeling in France toward Donald Trump?
CT: Like here, some people laugh at him and some people are very scared about what he represents. I hope he won't be elected. Even though I don't live here, I am concerned about who leads [the United States] because it affects the whole world. Even if he isn't elected, there is a poison he has spread across society that is hard for all of us. His loud voice gives support to the extreme right in Europe. He is so excessive that the [European] extreme right leaders seem softer and more acceptable. That is dangerous.
WCT: And his foreign policy, whether holding up dictators or threatening not to honor U.S. commitments to NATO?
CT: I think that he doesn't understand anything. His political preferences are people who think like him and are as intolerant as he is and who are as dangerous for the world. He helps others justify their hatred.
