Beyond The Headlines

Looking at some of the root causes of the past week, in France.

A land

Of two solitudes

Between native born

Growing number of immigrants

And their children.

Living a dream

Gone awry

Over the years

With xenophobic backlash

Against them.

As the heady days

Of the economic boom

Crumbles

Around the world.

Except

They never experienced

The fruits of it

In the first place.

Can still hear

Faint echoes

Of the Dreyfus Affair

From the last century.

Rearing

Its ugly head

Into this century.

Huddling

In substandard ghettos.

Treated like

An alien threat

Upon the doorsteps

By majority.

Nothing has changed

Despite the glowing words

Spoken by

The politicos

And ethnic leaders.

Beyond printing

More reports and strategies

To paper over

The growing divide.

While

A nation mourns

Its dead.