Bor

The word bor was created by reversing the order of the syllables of the Arab word : have-ruffle-beu gives beu-ruffle-have , then bor by contraction. It is thus a word of the Verlan, which with the characteristic “to be verlantisé” itself, giving rebeu , practically used today in the same direction. These two words largely indicate the descendants of the emigrated of North Africa installed in France, except for the descendants of Pieds-Noirs and other African of European origins. In fact words of Argot do not carry in oneself of pejorative connotations. Moreover, part of the French in the Berber beginnings (Kabyle, Chaoui, Tuareg…) challenge this name which categorizes them like pertaining to a culture and an Arab language in which they are not recognized.

Immigrants of second generation

The beurs being often children of immigrants, one uses sometimes the term of “immigrants of second generation”, in opposition to the “firstly-newcomers”, for example in French State education. (The seconds are those which do not have any control of the French language, and sometimes any school practice, and from which the problems are very different from the first).

One can raise that the term “immigrants of second generation” is a discrepancy, indeed, if a person were born on the spot, it is not itself not immigrant; the exact term would be rather “child of immigrant”. Associations antiracists detect in this name the ambiguity of the policy and the French company which, on the one hand, regards the beurs as French citizens with whole share, fixed with the duties citizens like the tax S or, until recently, the Military service, and which on the other hand often rejects them with the margins of the company because of the phenomena of larval Racisme (like the Discrimination at the time of recruitment, the access to housing, the right to attend Discothèque S, even the practice of abusive police controls; one speaks then usually about offense of facies ). In the administrative language, one generally uses the more neutral term French resulting from immigration . The term “Beur” is used by Beurs only to be qualified between them that on a purely caricatural basis. This term remains reserved for those which want to mark a difference “organized” to establish a distinction between French.

Culture bor & discriminations

The beurs, who have all of the origins of the countries of the the Maghreb (Morocco, Algérie, Tunisia), would have created a whole of behaviors, lifestyles, a kind of music (Rap or Raï), modes vestimentary, films worships, a literature, cinema, music, humor beurs etc, which would constitute the culture bor , being able to sometimes express the discomfort of some of these French whom the stereotypes describe like “divided between two cultures”, as well as the difficulties encountered in their relation with their family, often still very marked by their country of origin, and the French company still deeply impregnated of colonial reflexes (in the colony the Maghrebians were “natives”, with rights and a citizenship inferiors compared to Europeans of the colonies).

There remains of this past a continuity of the representations and a reflex of general discriminations at the time of recruitment, to housing, the leisures, reinforced controls with the facies, the racism larval or asserted by a majority (see annual survey on racism). Discriminations which the company combines, not without hypocrisy, with the injunction made to the beurs “be integrated”. The number of French graduate beurs to unemployment is five times more important than the national average of the other French with equivalent diplomas.

These discriminations are also due to the stereotypes or the popular imagery which admits a certain on-representation of people resulting from the culture bor delinquency insecurity. However, even if any referencing is interdict in France on the principle of the ethnic origin or nun, it is established that nearly two thirds of the people imprisoned in France are associated with the culture bor. Thus, this accentuates the redundant principle of the principle of discrimination. For some, the beurs are constantly discriminated what marginalizes them and the conduit with a distrust with regard to the company. For others on the contrary, they are these repeated and continuous distrusts of many members of the culture bor who create and involves a principle of discrimination. Lastly, more and more of people tend to think that Republican France of today recognizes only discriminations of social order, which takes pleasure the beurs in an illegitimate victimization of their community in the only glance of their ethnic origin.

Personalities and groups representative of the culture bor

One can quote the authors Nina Bouraoui and Azouz Begag, the singers Rachid Taha, Nâdiya, Zebda, Rim' K or Amine, the actors Smaïn, Djamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Souad Amidou, Sam Touzani, Salim Kéchiouche, Ramzy Bédia or Yasmine Belmadi, the realizers Mehdi Charef, Yamina Benguigui, and Rachid Bouchareb, the footballer Zinedine Zidane, and of associations like Neither Subjected Whores Nor or Kelma.

Expressions

  • “White Black Beur”: expression appeared in the Years 1990, to indicate multi-ethnic France (by comparison with the blue, white, red flag); perhaps this expression comes from the title Black and white blues , song of Serge Gainsbourg interpreted by Joelle Ursull with the Eurovision in 1990 (it obtained the second place).

  • It (it) “bor of service”: expression used to indicate an emblematic figure used in some Media, that of a child of immigrant having made a success of his studies and its “integration”, in spite of the economic problems of its family; it is about a criticism of the media, but the expression is also sometimes used to designate a child of immigrant having been named at an important station by implying that its nomination is more due to its ethnic origin than with its competences.
“One recognized me no particular competence, if not that to be born Mourad. My identity was used to me as patent of énarque. ”
Mourad Ghazli, them known as step which I am French, they believes me Arab , ED. Presses of the Rebirth, 2006
  • Another Dérivé from the term made its appearance, for example the “Beurgeois” (Mot-valise, for “Beur S embourgeoized”)
  • “Beur or ordinary”: this expression is diverted publicity for butter (“butter or ordinary”), diffused at the end of the years 1980. The first time that this expression appears, it is in 1991, in “Armies of Today” (monthly of the Ministry for Defense), like titrates of an article; this title is created by Jean-Pierre Steinhofer for the article in which he denounces the discriminatory character of the policy lately installation in the army to privilege called the beurs for promotion in the higher ranks of called quota (corporal, senior corporal and sergeant) and for the attribution of the driving licenses. This expression is then included in the title of a play created in 2000 to denounce racism.

Chronological bibliography

  • Stéphanie Hammer, Pascale Tournier, Black, white, bor…: Will the civil war take place really? Albin Michel, 2006, ISBN 2226174966

  • Philippe Bernard, the cream of the beurs. Immigration with integration , Threshold, 2004
  • Nora Barsali, François Freland, Anne-Marie Vincent, Beurs Generations. French with whole share , Editions Differently, 2003
  • Hafid Gafaïti, transnational Cultures of France. Of the “Beurs” with…? Harmattan, 2001
  • Michel Laronde, Around the novel bor. Immigration and identity , Harmattan, 1993
  • Alec G. Hargreaves, the literature bor: A bio-bibliographical guide , New Orleans: CELFAN Edition Monographs 1992
  • Alec G. Hargreaves, Voices from the North African Immigrating Community in France. Immigration and Identity in Beur Fiction . New York - Oxford: Berg 1991/1997

Related articles

Films

Cartoon

republished with the ED. Tartamundo under the title White Black Beur - insane years of integration .

Equivalent words in other cultures

Press and media

External bonds

  • Radio operator sun (www.radio-soleil.com)

  • Mustapha Raïth committed Painter '' exiled '' in Algeria (www.banni-art.net)
  • a “question of the second generation” in France? The role of the school in the formation of a minority identity by Patrick Simon (seminaire.samizdat.net)

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