CULTURE DIVERSITY FESTIVAL: CARNAVAL TROPICAL DE PARIS
Putu Ratih Pertiwi
Putu Ratih Pertiwi
Master 2 Tourism and
Hospitality Management
ESTHUA
Université Angers
2013
Today,
in this globalization era we
find cross-culture everywhere, for example we have western culture, eastern
culture, Latin culture, Middle-Eastern culture, and African culture especially
in big city of the country like New York, Paris, London, etc. where the
population come from all over the world and the culture is influenced by the
many groups of people who make up the country.
Culture by it self could be defined as
the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from
language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.[1]
Therefore, we need to be able to tolerate the other foreign culture to be accepted
by the others.
In
this article we will talk about an event in Paris, France “Carnaval Tropical de Paris” where we can see that cross culture is
not always an issue but it can be such a facility to uniting people from all
over the world. To open their mind that they are living in one place with a
rich of culture diversity, so they can understand about each other culture,
each other way of life, to decrease misunderstanding between people from different
countries, and for additions they can preserve their culture for their next
generation even they are living in globalization era.
The Great Feast of Culture Diversity
in Paris
Colored in
the streets, fancy dress parade, and of
course lots of music! Every year we can see the carnival hits an area in Paris.
With the zouké - it is
how they call the Zouk dance and
music and tambourine all of the invited groups from all over the world, they
sing and dance to the rhythm of their beautiful traditional music. By this
carnival with all the costumes that they wore we can feel the authentic flavor
of the tropical in this capital city.
Every July,
The Carnaval Tropical de Paris, takes
places in the streets this event comes just after “World Music Day” always
brings the rhythm and passion from the Caribbean to France. The carnival is a
wonderful celebration of cultural diversity, peace and freedom. Last carnival
took place on 7th of July 2012, it was the 11th edition of this event. There were around 2000 singers, dancers and musicians wore colorful
costumes and made their way from Place de la Nation, it’s a square in Paris on
the11th and 12th arrrondissement
(administrative districts) to Place de Pantin on the 5th arrrondissement.
Groups
of Colombia, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, China or Vietnam
parading alongside of Paris and they already prepared for this event for
several months, they made the parade
on foot or aboard decorated floats followed by Zouk music. The name Zouk
took from the extract of the word Creole
that has the meaning as “feast or festival”, actually it is a dance comes from
Martinique and Guadeloupe islands. But in this carnival they use Zouk music to start and to end the
carnival, where we can see the women and men dance, when the men take the
women’s waist and she linked to her arm around the neck.
A Rich of Ethnic Diversity is How This Event
Comes
As
the biggest immigrant population in Europe, with almost 10 million immigrants
(out of 60 million total) in France and around 1.5 million in Paris itself.[2]
We cannot deny the depth of Paris’s racial and ethnic diversity, which stems
from its colonial past, in 1939 the French colonial empire stretched over all
of West and North Africa across the Sahara desert. We still can see the rest of
the old empire’s diversity in northeast Paris and northern suburbs where you
will find over hundreds of thousands Africans, Asians, Antilleans, and Arabs,
who live and make Paris as their home.
Likewise,
in 13th arrondissement in Paris where the Chinese community is
really significant, it has their own history of Vietnamese Revolution in the
past 1887 until 1954 when the homeland of the Southeast Asian was the part of
French Indochina and it spread throughout the city. Of course we still count
for the native of Guadeloupe and Martinique known as The Antilles who have the
big contribution as well for mixed racial heritage in France.
Martinique
and Guadeloupe are located in the East of Caribbean islands as well as the
small South American nation of French Guiana, these three are registered in the
Caribbean Departments of France. The last but not least is the island of Reunion where located to the
West of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Nowadays, around over than one million
Antilleans, Guyanese, and Réunionese are living in France and most of them
based in Paris Metropolitan area.
The
big immigration from North Africa to France has begun since the 1860 when North
African known as Maghreb (beginning with Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco) are
offered full French citizenship however most of them are refused because to be
a full French citizenship it means has to leave Islam. Then, in 1960s when they
won independence from France by successfully demanded the equal rights for
Muslim in the Maghreb the immigration comes stronger and today more than 6
million Arabs living in France. Majority is living in Paris, Marseilles, and
the other metropolitan cities in southern of France.[3]
By those
histories it is reflecting cultural diversity through this Carnival, the
celebration, the tolerance and the joy. The first goal by this event is to
facilitate the citizen from overseas especially the young generation who live
in France and live so far from their original culture which is their past
generation’s country to remind their culture, so that they will able to
preserve their own culture although they are living in France. Other objective
from this event focus on the promotion of tourism not only in Paris and Ile de
France but also the promotion of tourism and culture development in The
Antilles.
Who are in Charge for This Event?
This carnival organized by Mairie de Paris
(General Overseas Delegation of the City of Paris (DGOM)) part of the Paris
city authority concerned with supporting the welfare and cultural traditions of
Parisians born overseas with
the support of the Federation of Tropical Carnival, Federation of Paris
Tropical Carnival is composed of fifty associations maskers. Where Teddy
Lacroix seats as the President of the Federation of Tropical Carnival of Paris.
There
is also the Queen of Carnival, which elected in eight departments of the
Ile-de-France in March and April. The candidates of the Queen prepare with the
sponsorship of a local association, a member of the Federation of Paris
Tropical Carnival. The sponsor organization supports them in the creation of
their costume, preparing the parade, dances and also gives them their
experience of past elections.
In
addition to them all, they are supported as well by France Antilles Activilong,
FM Space Travel Caribbean that offers gifts to candidates for the title of Queen
of the Carnival Tropical de Paris. Photographer Thierry Coulaud realizes all
photos. With the theme of the last Carnaval Tropical de Paris in 2012 - Le
Sixième Continent - The Sixth Continent, we know that all citizens play a big
role as participants for this carnival. Some 4000 people from Martinique,
Guadeloupe, Mayotte, Island of Reunion, French Polynesia, Brazil, Colombia,
Bolivia, China, Vietnam, and other corners of the globe took part for this
event.
And many of association participated in
this event for example some of them are Alizees 78 The association was founded
July 6, 2006 by Michel Sioul, the President, in order to promote the art and
folklore of the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. There was also Batucada Brasis, was created in 2001 currently
chaired by Mrs
de Araujo
Verginia
Szewczyk
this association aims to develop
“learning and the dissemination of Brazilian culture”.
Bloco de Paris involved as
well for this event, this association inspired by the large groups of Rio de Janeiro, was born of a group of sambistas
(musicians
playing samba) in
Paris.
The
B.K.B was born on October
25, 2007 under the leadership of a
group of young people from the same
culture, the same region, the same
island and found their selves in a
world where the
values are not the same
and where
people around the world meet. It has always
been the heart of promoting youth
meetings around sports and culture,
in particular the
Caribbean culture. Their motto is “The cultures
meet, clash,
speak
differently and in ways just as rewarding as each other”.
Those only some of them and they still
have many others associations who participated for this huge event. It is not
stop by here because there is a Carnival Tropical de Paris in this July 2013
and everybody is waiting for this event not only to watch and enjoy it but they
also excited to participate and get involve to it.
This Carnival Allows The Mixture of All Cultures And Brings People
Together
Sometimes
culture can be a wall for us but when we have an effort to understand and
appreciate the others, certainly we can break the wall. To be accepted in
society, we have to know how to communicate with the others, whether in little
scoop society for example within the family member where we almost have the
same culture or moreover when we are in bigger scoop where we have so many
different culture for example in international society which is going to be
more complicated.
In
this case, we can see that Paris not only as the capital city of France but
also it is one of the big city in the world where its past history will answer
the multicultural citizens who live in this city. How its citizens can be able
to live together even we cannot deny there is still ethnic diversity issue,
fortunately this country - this city still have a number of persons who care
about it and they are not only care, they are working hard on it!
One
of the tangible efforts that we clearly can see is this event, The Carnaval Tropical de Paris is such a biggest festive event in
the world and it allows
the mixture of all
cultures and
brings people together. The objective of this
event of course to boosts the tourism promotion in Paris and the others participants’
countries, to increase the number of tourist arrival in those countries. But
more than that economic reason, by this event it could stimulate people to have
an awareness on cultural diversity, be aware on the other culture is the
foundation of communication on our life.
Firstly,
it could help us to understand ourselves, be aware to our behavior, values,
beliefs, and our point of view. Secondly, after we know where we stand on we
would be able to understand the others, be aware to their behavior, their
values, beliefs, and their perception, so that people can live easily together
even they perfectly come from different country – different culture.
Beside of
that, it is a chance for the citizen from overseas to reminisce their culture
by the traditional music, their traditional dance, their traditional song, and
their traditional costume. And a big chance for the young citizen from overseas
to not forgetting their ancestor, bringing them to their authentic culture that
is really important for the development of the culture in world to preserve it
and prevent the lost of ancient culture, so that we can share it and transmit
it to the future generations.
Putu Ratih Pertiwi
References
Site Officiel de la Fédération du Carnaval Tropical de Paris, http://www.carnavaltropicaldeparis.fr/ retrieving on 22 April 2013.
Culture definition by Kim
Ann Zimmermann, http://www.livescience.com/21478-what-is-culture-definition-of-culture.html retrieving
on Monday 20 May 2013.
Google Book: Kiratiana Freelon. 2010. Kiratiana’s Travel Guide to Black Paris: Get Lost and Get Found.
Retrieving on Sunday 31 May 2013.
Pictures Source by Google Image of Carnaval Tropical de Paris 2012.
[1] Culture definition by Kim Ann Zimmermann, http://www.livescience.com/21478-what-is-culture-definition-of-culture.html , retrieving Monday 20 May
2013.
[2]
Google Book: Kiratiana Freelon. 2010. Kiratiana’s Travel Guide to Black Paris: Get
Lost and Get Found.
[3] Google Book: Kiratiana Freelon. 2010. Kiratiana’s Travel Guide to Black Paris: Get
Lost and Get Found.
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