My Bastille Day in Nice

Photo by Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

I was in Nice for Bastille Day in 1996.  We climbed the rocky hills along the north side of Nice. Lavender smells swept up from below when our legs brushed against the plants.  We found some flat rocks large enough for the four of us to sprawl out.  Below, the cities along the French Rivera shimmered in front of the darkness of the Mediterranean.  We could see the trails of fireworks shooting into the sky and their tiny, colored embers falling into the sea.  There was nothing else around us except for the pungent smells of Mediterranean herbs nestled between rocks and pure enjoyment within us.

I went to Nice that summer to live a romantic young woman’s dream of pretending to be French.  My friend was teaching at the university that year.  Together, we could roam the streets trying to dab an air of French sophistication onto our naïve American ways.

We didn’t fear anything besides that which young women feel when travelling alone; the fear that a turn down the wrong street in the dark would lead to a man or group of men that you have to pass, alone and unsure about what will happen.  There was nothing else to fear, really, in 1996 when you were an American abroad on an exciting grand tour of Europe.

Already though, in 1996, there were rumors of discord between native Europeans and North Africans that had come to their countries. We just didn’t hear about it in the United States. Just 30 years earlier, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia had been part of the French empire.  The North Africans that moved to France were part of the French Empire but they were kept out of the mainstream of French society. Unemployment was high in the dense suburbs of mono-tone high rises where the North Africans and other nationalities on the fringe of French culture tended to live.

Social customs kept the populations apart, too.  French freeness of expression in clothing, religion and marriage couldn’t absorb modestly-dressed women whose religion and culture handed down different ideas of women’s and men’s equality.

There hadn’t been enough generations of native French and native North Africans living next to each other in equal respect and tolerance to blend the cultures of the two:  to shake off the beliefs that don’t work in a democracy and to merge the beliefs that enrich and unite a democracy.

I didn’t think about that while watching the fireworks on Bastille Day in 1996.  We, meaning Americans, were high on the free-wheeling economic times of the US in the 90’s.  Yes, terrorism existed for American.  But, terrorism was always over there, within the borders of some country Americans rarely heard about and even more rarely travelled to.

What I did think about that night above Nice watching the Bastille Day fireworks was how happy I was to be celebrating the same ideas behind the 4^th of July at the 14^th of July celebration. In 1776, a newborn country established a government the truth that all people are created equal and are given the right of life, liberty and pursuing happiness.  Thirteen years later, France began its revolution to overthrow the monarchy.  In 1799, a new France was born with the same goals of liberty and equality as its young sister, the United States.  Two different countries, two similar celebrations for the same ideas that increase the dignity of all people on earth.

Comparing the history of two nations leads to thinking about the history of believing in and trying to create a country or a union of countries where life, liberty and happiness are equally accessible to everyone in the county.  Right now, the world is ripe with stories of people and cultures inching toward democracy.  Think of the Arab spring five years ago when Egyptians protested for an elected government.  Think of Syria, five years ago, Syria tried to overthrow its monarchy.  Now it is in civil war.  But, it is a war that people started because they believed in liberty and equality.  The Syrians do not want to live under a brutal dictatorship led first by the father and now by the son.

And yesterday, we saw the same in Turkey.  My Turkish friends and Turkish students surely don’t have much love for Turkey’s President Erdogan.  They are waiting for the chance to vote him out of office.  That is exactly the thing.  They want to vote for their President, not have their president imposed upon them by the military.  Even though their President Erdogan is not progressive in maintaining a division between religious culture and secular culture, Erdogan was democratically elected.  The simple act of voting for a leader is the first step in obtaining liberty and building democracy.

These are modern examples.  History is full of similar stories.  Think of the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants during the 1500s. The Protestants wanted to take political power away from the Catholic Church and the Protestants wanted to have a direct relationship with God.  The religious belief that Protestants and Catholic fought, killed, and sometimes burned people on the stake for was if a people need a priest to speak to God for them or can people worship their God directly, without needing a priest.  This was a step towards liberty and equality.

Examples from long ago, this week and even our nation’s history teach us that wars and rumors of wars come before advancements in liberty and equality.  They also show the righteousness of liberty and equality.  In the end, these ideas win.  In the end, the outcome for future generations is worth the fight.

Now the significance of the 4^th of July in the United States and the 14^th of July in France are much more real to me than they were in 1996, watching Bastille day fireworks on a hill overlooking Nice.