Divine Kinkela, a Congolese émigrée victim of hate speech, joins the French Communist Party to block the National Rally
The frightening Arendtian banality of “gratuitous” Hate-Speech assaults in Montargis, near Paris
Divine Kinkela, a nurse’s aide originally from Matadi, DRC, lives in Montargis, some 132 km southeast from Paris.
Montargis, a longstanding electoral stronghold of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, is a commune where hate speech, gone past the tipping point of hypocritical concealment, has metastasized since the sweep of the far-right party in the 1st round of the snap legislative elections of June 30.
The television newsmagazine “Envoyé spécial” revealed to the public the frightening Arendtian “banality” of hate speech prevalent in Montargis.
Montargia is but a vignette of the new normal in France, the France of the banality of the evil of “gratuitous” hate-speech assaults; where a candidate could think it a legitimate line of attack to call his fellow French-born opponent of immigrant parents a “half-French.”
The “Envoyé spécial” cameras captured the naked ugliness of the “France marine” as the supporters of Marine Le Pen call their ideal of a pure, atavistically “nativistic” French nation.
Kinkela is routinely, visually, verbally assaulted unprovoked by the couple next door.
Torrents of insults come her way on a daily basis from her neighbors: “Bonobo!”; “Go back to where you came from!”; “Go back to the doghouse!” etc. including monkey noises, overbearing displays of French flags and anti-immigrant messages oriented toward her terrasse; and other demeaning jeers and catcalls.
Thrust so suddenly into the public glare, Kinkela at first attempted to shy away from it, moving from her house for some time.
But afterwards, righteous indignation stirred Kinkela, who’s lived and worked in the country for 30 years, and set her on the path of political engagement to defend her ideal of France.
And, sensing an opportunity, leaders of the left rallied around her—including Moroccan-born politician, Ms. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, minister of education under President François Holland.
Kinkela waxes philosophical as she is at a loss to comprend the “profound pain” that would possess a human being to trigger intense hate in them and drive them to deny coevalness, to deny humanity to other human beings:
What’s this pain that a person could nurse so and to come and detest another so gratuitously?
Divine Kinkela on her political engagement in the Communist Party;
What do they tell these people over there to have them dare so gratuitously to insult us? I told myself: no, no, no! It is out of the question that I sit down arms folded. I’ll stand up and go towards people who strive for unity. And I went to the Communist Party. No one was aware of my intention. I arrived [and told them]: “I’ll work in my limited capabilities to help out with the distribution of flyers, to do what I could do…” I’ve been through too much… I’ll tell them we do also exist… There are people like that who don’t want this race fissure… who strive for unity, who want to work together, to live together…