Weekend #1 in Toulouse: It’s whatever. It started off with a
plan to go to Carcassonne by train at 8 am on Saturday. At 7:30 I was
meandering towards the station and saw posters for a protest happening at 2 pm
that day. Underneath that poster was another that advertised an electronic music
concert. I was tempted to do those things instead of go to Carcassonne, but
decided to continue with my original plan.
Then I ran into an open-air market and decided to stay in
town. I finally got some good cheese, good bread, fresh lettuce, fresh
tomatoes, avocados… good things. I left laden with bags and happily nibbling on
cherries all the way home. They weren’t as good as Madrid cherries, though. I
need to find out what France’s specialty is and get a lot of those. I think it
might be strawberries.
Then I read books and napped until 2, when I got dressed
again and headed to the protest. I got a copy of their manifesto and looked it
over while we stood in the drizzling rain. It said that they represented the immigrants
and gays and everyone the fascists were being assholes to, and attacking, etc. Fair.
But then it said: No more fascists in our neighborhood, no more neighborhoods for
fascists, get out get out etc.
That is so IRONIC. The fascists tell you to get out get out
and then you tell them to get out get out, well, um, that seems really
effective on both sides. Why are you protesting fascists? The real problem is
with fascism, and sometimes I feel like the only way to deal with fascists is
to make them politically and culturally irrelevant and then wait for them to
die. Fascism and fascists are different things. Anyways, I marched with the old
people who had flags for human rights and peace movements instead of the young
communists. I was wearing a red scarf and didn’t want to get confused for one.
Eventually I got bored of the cute, sweet old people, and
walked up to the front of the march to see what was going on. That is when I
discovered that they were explicitly protesting the murder of a young
anti-fascist. There was a group at the front with a big banner making a ruckus
and chanting and then the rest of the crowd was either quiet or talking amongst
themselves. Lots of flags though, for a lot of different extreme leftist
groups: communists, anarchists, peace activists, you know the type.
As I was walking up to the front of the parade, I noticed that
the back of a sign made from a cardboard box said “fragile.” I thought to
myself that “Fragile, this side up” might be a good political slogan with
fragile referring to human rights or something and this side referring to a
political group. I laughed a little and continued on my way. At the front of
the march it was all very exciting and yell-y and police everywhere. They were
chanting “Toulouse Anti-Fasciste” over and over.
Then this man, in his late 30s wearing a green
military-reminiscent jacket, starts running across the road. He runs right up
to me and says (in French of course) “Does the death of a young anti-fascist
make you laugh?”
I’m totally shocked and I say, for lack of any other
response: “no…”
“Well, I saw you laughing back there, and maybe you think
that the murder of this man was funny.”
“No, no”
Then he ran back across the road, literally all the way across
a 3-4 lane road back to where he started.
Let me digress a little bit about being a girl alone on a
street in Toulouse.
I get yelled at more than 5 times a day: “Hey little girl,” “it
suits you, having your backpack strap between your breasts,” “do you want to
adopt me,” “~strange chicken noises?~” “Heee-lllllooo-ooooh….” (All translated
of course). Any time of day, I swear. It’s worse coming home from work, of
course, because there are more people around, but the strange chicken noises occurred
at 8:30 this morning so misogyny clearly doesn’t sleep.
And this random asshole at a protests who decides that by
smiling I’m a fascist?
Well I think he’s a sexist for deciding that because a girl
is by herself he has the right to exploit her vulnerability. Yeah, I’m
vulnerable when I’m by myself. Why? Because I don’t expect to be fucking
insulted to my face at any second. On top of that, I don’t want to walk around
with my defenses up. That’s not who I am.
I don’t know what to say when these people are mean to me, it
doesn’t make any sense. Should I just flip them all off? Will that help? Should
I walk up to them and say “Hi, my name is Julia and it really bothers me when
people harass me on the street?” It’s way harder to do all of this in French of
course, but maybe I should try to introduce myself. For now I mostly just
ignore them but it ruins my fucking day, I swear.
And I actually wouldn’t care if they weren’t assholes about
it. The last time I was here, a guy walking by just said “Oh my god you’re so
beautiful” and carried on. That’s totally fine, I’m down to be complimented.
The only nice thing a guy has said to me on the street was “I like your style.”
And that made up for all the other shit I’d put up with that day. It really
doesn’t take a whole lot, either way.
That man at the protest was just too much. I felt like an
idiot for being so hurt by it, but it was really awful. What part of me was so
offensive to him that he needed to come be a dick? Was it really me laughing to
myself about a fucking protest sign and not taking the world as seriously as he
does?
I’m done. Okay, so that’s day one. I didn’t go to the
concert, I just stayed home and read and watched the director’s commentary on I’m
not there and ate food.
Today I also tried to go to Carcassonne but my debit card
didn’t work so I decided not to go since I should really sort that out before I
go rolling off to distant lands. Instead I came back home and finished Songs
of the Doomed and then went to a hydroelectric power museum that is just
down the street from my dorm. I’ll go back for a guided tour, because that’s
really what it’s meant for, but they had a photo exhibit that I know I’ll come
back to also. I don’t remember the photographer, but there were a lot of
pictures of Johnny Hallyday then the Beatles, McJagger and the Stones, and even
a few of Bob Dylan too. They’re really lively and not too studied and I want to
go back there and write in a journal for a while. I love arting around art,
that’s really why I need to start an artist’s collective. It also made me want
a nice camera again. I think I could get really into photography.
Well, now that I’ve written a small novel I guess I’ll be
done here. Suggestions on how to deal with assholes in the street greatly
appreciated. I’ve never been faced with this many of them before.
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