A Miserable Cranny in Paris
The German philosopher Hegel wrote “History cannot be written from a miserable cranny.” He meant that someone outside the historical scene of action could never have the proper perspective on passing events. Only a “player,” a head of state, an ambassador, a General, a minister, etc. could provide a full picture of the March of History. The Olympics recently ended in Paris. Though not involved in any way with them, I did see them unfold around me in my “miserable cranny.”
About a year ago everyone I knew started talking about what would happen when the Olympics came to Paris. These conversations centered around two different poles. The first was Airbnb and how everyone in Paris with an empty bed was poised to make a fortune. One friend who has a very small (15 square meters, not unusual for Paris) but nice apartment with a balcony said he was going to rent it for 500 euros a night, maybe more if possible. This was typical. And why not, for the Olympic committee expected 15 million people to show up, for hotels to be packed, the transport system maxed out, etc. Greed is contagious. I let the occasion drop. The Airbnb goldrush never occurred.
The other subject was whether one was staying in Paris during the games. Most people wanted to get out. This was for two different reasons, the first to avoid those imagined 15 million tourists, the second was that the Olympics coincided with the traditional vacation period which is observed like a secular ritual in France.
At first, I thought that the governmental predictions would come true; at the beginning of July there was a huge influx of tourists. I wished I was in the south somewhere, on a beach with a book. But then, just before the Olympics started, they seemed to disappear and Paris became close to a ghost town. In certain areas there were larger numbers of people, but it never came even close to the predicted human deluge. Another example is what I saw at the parc de la Villette where I go to exercise a few times each week. It was transformed into a theme park of the nations, with a Serbian area, an Indian area, a large French section. I couldn’t imagine the money spent on putting it in place and there it was, looking empty. On closing night, I asked a cabbie how he made out during the Olympics and he said it was one of the slowest times he could remember.
The price of metro tickets was raised to four euros, up from 1.70. The government showed its greed and desire to get revenue from those imagined 15 million tourists. To deal with this, people like me who don’t have a monthly metro pass had to resort to the strategy of hoarding tickets. I got 40 just in case. I also witnessed how most of the homeless and all the drug addicts in my neighborhood just disappeared one day. I live where crack is sold and there are junkies begging or worse everywhere one goes. But the government didn’t want that to make the news, so they got shipped out while the cameras were running. They’ll be back in September, I’m sure.
But the strangest was to witness what really happened here in town and then see its coverage in the media. Whether the “debate” over whether it was really The Last Supper in the opening ceremony or the “electric excitement running through Paris during the games” or whether it was supposed to be Lucifer depicted in the closing ceremony descending from Heaven, there was a radical difference between the presentation and reality. The media said it was a big success, showing poll results, saying how revolutionary it was, that people loved it, that there was dancing in the streets, on every corner a party, that the French National Spirit came out in full blooming splendor. I didn’t see this happening.
Global media shows what it wants in the way it wants people to see it. Can we be sure of anything we see, hear or read? We must accept that, like the notices at the end of some films, "Any resemblance between the people depicted and real events is purely coincidental.”