Beurs Subculture Analysis Essay

Beur Subculture Analysis

      Sometimes you don’t really choose the subculture you belong to. Sometimes it’s the subculture which chooses you. It doesn’t mean you are not proud of being part of this subculture, it just means you didn’t choose it. This essay deals about a subculture with which I am familiar from my birth, like a sticker stuck on my birth-certificate, with its lot of stereotypes attached. The subculture that I am talking about is the “Beur” subculture. Beurs refers to the French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa. I was born in Paris from Algerian immigrants so the Beur subculture chooses me and I am really proud of it.

      To understand the flow of immigrants from North Africa to France, we must take a look to the History of these two regional ares and the strong links between them. During the nineteenth century, France colonized North Africa, from western Morocco to western Tunisia, including Algeria between them, also known as the Maghreb area (maghreb is an Arabic word which means sunset, so the western place on earth before Christopher Colombus discoveries). During the two World Wars, France had to face lack of employees in its factories and other unskilled jobs because of French men fighting and dying in the wars. Many immigrants from Spain, Portugal, Italy and the North African colonies were recruited at that time to substitute them, especially after WWII where the whole country needed to be rebuilt. From the late Fifties to Seventies, France allowed many of these workers families to move to France. This massive flow of immigrants was conducted while Algeria was fighting for its independence, fuelling the flames of racism and hatred of North Africans and Muslims in France.
An economic recession hit France from late 70’s and because of unemployment, France didn’t need workers anymore. Moreover immigrants were blamed and stigmatized for unemployment problems and France had to close its borders to non-European...