Honors Forum Response

Upon examination of the situation in France concerning immigrants, most of which are Algeria, the problem is quite concrete, but the solution to that problem is multifaceted and complex. The minority immigrants are disadvantaged economically and socially. Economically, they cannot find employment as easily as their “traditional” French counterparts can. This stems from the lack of good education for immigrants and their children. They cannot be expected to compete efficiently with traditional French if they are not given equal educational opportunity. This brings another point up, if the minority immigrants were given equal education, would they compete better? Lets look at their social situation. Because of their faith, and even more so, race they would face discrimination and would be barely better off. Because of their inability to find high paying jobs, the immigrants and their children will be forced to take positions no traditional French would want. This would be compounded be the decrease of the service labor market. Taking these “grunt” labor jobs, their social situation would get worse, and as their social situation gets worse, it will be more difficult to rise economically. Thus, these immigrants are caught in a vicious cycle.

However, the situation is similar to that of blacks in America. Even after emancipation, they faced economic problems and social problems, worse than those in France today. The government was responsible for abolishing slavery. Technically, they were “free”, but in reality they were not. Sill bound by social problems such as discrimination and hence poor economic opportunities. It took a century and more until blacks were on relative equal footing. Throughout his process of assimilation, there was legislation passed to help blacks, numerous associations to lobby the government for reform, and finally there many clear leaders withing the black civil rights movement. Keeping this in mind, I would say that in order to reform France and make it a better place for immigrants, it will need: government action, support of the French people, unification of immigrants, and time.

The government cannot sit back and use their policy of laissez faire. Politicians such as Sarkozy cannot take a cavalier attitude towards this situation. They need to pass legislation that forbids discrimination in the job marked. The government should also be sure to allow for trials involving alleged discrimination, as many reforms in America came out of our judicial system. Immigrant communities need to unify and form organizations that lobby the government to pass reforms. Riots and mobs will not work. The French revolution sprung out of riots because nearly the whole population erupted in riot. They will need to gain power within the government to make a lasting difference. Of course even with reforms, they will need the support of the French populace. Finally, time is required to fix this situation. This reforms cannot take place over night, it could take years (just look at America). What is happening in France is an example of what could happen in America and other nations as the world continues to “shrink”. We should learn from the situation in France.

Hostage Crisis Reflection

After hearing Dr. Kluthe’s comment that this was the first year that the hostages were executed and the U.S took military action, I though about and reflected on what went wrong in the simulation. What element made it a blood bath rather than solution forged out of negotiation and diplomacy? The first problem would be the lack of direct communication. I learned at the debriefing session that neither of the parties demanded direct contact with each other. Even I and the other TV correspondents had to actually go out and hunt for our interviews. Shouldn’t the parties want to communicate with each other? The Committee for National Struggle’s interview was little more than an angry tirade by Hamid, their leader. Clearly, communication was sparse from what I inferred.Without direct communication, negotiation is not possible. This leads to a cloud of uncertainty and doubt surrounding the other party’s intentions. In game theory, both played optimally under the circumstances of no direct lines of communication. If both cooperate, ex: the US gives in to some/all of the kidnappers demands and the prisoners are released, then both win. If both do not cooperate, ex: the US performs military strikes, and the hostages are killed, no one wins or looses. There is only a blood bath. If the US cooperates and the terrorists do not cooperate, ex: US give in to some/all of the kidnappers and the terrorists still execute the hostages, the US drastically looses. If the terrorists cooperate and the US does not, ex: the kidnappers release the hostages and the US performs a military strike, then the kidnappers lose. Without any knowledge of what your opponent will do, in this game theoretic model, the best option is to always not cooperate (the classic prisoner’s dilemma). If the US cooperates, it will either win or lose. If the US chooses not to cooperate, it will either win, or a blood bath occurs with no winner (a draw). In theory, it is safer not to cooperate. These assumptions hold true if and only if no lines of communication exist. By why should we reduce a situation involving many lives to cold, hard game theory based on no communication? If only people would communicate, things would be different. Both sides would win. Throughout history lack of communication in crises has caused needless strife and pain in our world. During the Cold War, the lack of diplomacy caused nuclear proliferation no one wanted. This simulation we played represents a microcosm. A little world that shows what would happen in the real world without direct communication (as has already happens). Lets hope the people of the world can learn from their mistakes…