We met Anas Daif, journalist and Franco-Moroccan activist. With his podcast À l'Intersection ("At the Intersection"), Anas does not simply tell the stories of Afro-descendant, North African and Asian diasporas; the journalist puts things in place. He dissects society and all its articulations of domination in the smallest details and in all the structures of French society, through the prism of history and in particular of his own history, in which all the descendants of colonized people can recognize themselves.
How was your podcast "At the Intersection" born?
"At the Intersection" was born out of frustration with white columnists who talk about police brutality and racial issues when they know nothing about it; who also spoke of class struggle and not of race struggle. It seemed obvious to me that it was essential to give a voice to people who did not have one. I believe that the themes around discrimination and identities are much bigger than me: I bring a microphone and sociological notions to the experiences of the people I interview.
What is your goal with this podcast?
What is important for me is that as many people as possible can free themselves. And then, basically, in this podcast, indirectly, I give my opinion, since I target specific themes, but also through the people I interview. This podcast is also therapy for me. On the one hand, because the racial question has always been part of me, and I became aware of it around the age of 19 or 20, when I arrived at university and was confronted with the reality of people from immigrant backgrounds. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, I did middle school and high school in a ZEP [priority education zone]. We have always been mostly Black and Arab. This is of course due to post-colonial immigration policies that have ghettoized the descendants of post-colonial immigrants.
What is your educational background?
Personally, the national education system tried to send me to a vocational track, but in the end, I did too well at school. They wanted to send me to a "Professional Discovery" class in 4ème, even though I had an average of 12. After the baccalaureate, I wanted to study Anglo-American law, because I was addicted to American TV series. But this is part of the whole problem of racialized people who are not represented, who are not going to be guided in the same way as white people. I lasted a month and a half in the program, then I ended up stopping. There were two Arabs in the class. I didn't feel like I belonged at all. At the time, I still had a very strong accent, and to the teachers I was always the scapegoat. I then went on to study English at university, and when I got to Anglo-American law I hated it, and that's when I realized I had always wanted to be a journalist. Previously, I thought that this path was totally inaccessible for me, for us, due in particular to the lack of representation of racialized people in the media. I ended up taking the ESJ entrance exams and getting accepted. I remain the first in my family to have studied extensively in France; I feel this burden of responsibility. My family's outlook in Morocco has completely changed. But I don't want anyone to put me on a pedestal.
What made you want to be a journalist?
What made me want to be a journalist was the Arab Spring period. In Morocco, there was a beginning of protest, and my aunt had participated. During the summer of 2011, I was 15 years old, and I went with her to one of the demonstrations, in a small town near Rabat called Tiflet. 400 people were demonstrating. I saw the police clubbing the demonstrators. And in the evening, when I came home, I realized that on Moroccan television, no one was talking about it. I told myself that I wanted my job to be to tell the truth.
How did your concrete political awareness come about?
At the same time as I turned to journalism, I started reading books by Black Marxists, who ended up educating me. Reading opened me up considerably to racial issues. I started to really question my place, to put into words what I was going through. I thought my life was complicated [laughs]. I didn't understand why I had to work twice as hard. Finally, political awareness also arises from personal experience. I understood then that I am not the problem, that the problem is systemic. It gave me back confidence. I ended up giving twice as much of myself: proposing blogs, projects, to always stand out.
Was it then that "At the Intersection" was born?
Precisely at that moment, I wondered what role I wanted to play: do I indulge in my individuality and continue to be the Arab who is the exception and blend into the mold of whiteness, or do I think collectively, work to break the chain, push myself and speak publicly? I answered this question naturally. And At the Intersection ended up being born in August 2019, with an episode 0 on "anti-white racism", at the time of the Lilian Thuram controversy. I put out the first episode and started using my Twitter account. I began to take on all the controversies, but I found that it was not enough. I ended up realizing that my positions were disturbing even within the school of journalism. I then asked myself a lot of questions about my place in the industry. Would I have the shoulders to bear this? The first lockdown arrived and at this time, there was the case of police violence in Villeneuve-la-Garenne. I listened to the editorial writers deal with the facts, and to how the police unions were overrepresented in the public debate and not the people concerned, and there I told myself that we had to react. I put out a call for testimony: "You have been the victim of police violence or you have witnessed police violence, come and testify." I then saw lots of people reacting.
It's the start of a long story for "At the Intersection".
Yes, totally. Shortly thereafter, I released an episode on the Adama protest, while the media were only covering the scuffles at the protest. I ended up finding other themes, such as racist microaggressions, or going to see a racialized doctor, but also racial fetishism. Over time, by dint of documenting myself on these themes, I built myself an armor, especially in the face of attacks from the far right, but also in the face of the remarks people could make about my work at the School of Journalism. Gradually, thanks to At the Intersection, my work gained momentum and was taken seriously: media like Les Inrocks ended up talking about it.
At that time, were you less present on Twitter?
I favored Instagram; I found people to be more caring. Yet Twitter has long been seen as the social network for journalists, but At the Intersection grew so important that I ended up no longer needing Twitter. On Instagram we can post more information than on Twitter. There is less violence on Instagram than on Twitter (although I get insults in my DMs every week).
Today, we can say that you have a real community that follows you...
This is something that has helped me a lot, that reassured me a lot, both in my work and personally. I put words to experiences and it spoke to people. A highlight was when I played the episode on racial fetishism to friends, and a friend, who was not yet aware of these issues, told me about her experiences related to fetishism. She hadn't realized the symbolic significance of certain words before my podcast. I had just created something important.
How were your years of studying journalism?
When I arrived at journalism school, I was in full reflection on myself, on my place. I remember that on orientation day I was filled with joy and excitement. I felt like I was breaking social codes, breaking social reproduction. I was walking around the neighborhood with my ESJ bag. But over time, I saw some people, especially in the neighborhood, put me on a pedestal, and it made me uncomfortable. Being the exception and, in quotes, the model of success didn't suit me at all. I was aware of being a class defector, but I didn't want to gain notoriety because of it.
How do you perceive the press, journalism, as a weapon?
The media today, such as podcasts and platforms on Instagram, are tools of reappropriation. Taking back the narrative that is told about us, and giving our point of view. It is a question of decentering the white gaze. Once again, it is post-colonial therapy. But it is also becoming aware of the systemic dynamics at play. And this is one of the reasons why racial questions are discussed in France today, more than 10 years ago. Today, we are finally becoming aware of social and racial realities, by listening to each other. Journalism is a real weapon of reappropriation against whiteness. But paradoxically, I have the impression that we are like internet viruses: we are going to enter a network that we are going to short-circuit.
What can you bring to working-class neighborhoods?
I am going to lead a media education project in the 93, in Villetaneuse, with 4ème classes, in order to create a journalistic production about their neighborhoods. I took off, and everything instinctively brings me back to the basics, to the neighborhoods. Today, thanks to my journey, I see where the problem is, who is to blame, and I see the mechanisms of oppression playing out today and for years, but also the glass ceiling and the broken social elevator. I don't have all the keys, but I have the analysis. I don't care about the rest: if I can help the neighborhood, I do. Journalism can make it so that in ten years, there will be real access for working-class neighborhoods. But things are progressing: I am also thinking of a great report, produced impartially by France 2, on the Adama protest.
What about your struggle?
In my consciousness, there are two phases: one wants to shelter the family and another wants to be an anarchist and sacrifice everything for the struggle, to be an anarchist and fight against this system. At the present time, no party attracts me. My reading grid is Marxist, but as long as we do not talk about race, we cannot work together on social dynamics. In this country, we speak not of race, but of diversity: this word is literally unbearable. It totally reflects the hypocrisy around the racism that reigns in France. This is also the case with communitarianism, which disturbs people here, while this process is essential. I'm so happy when I see businesses of racialized people getting organized, whether in food or fashion. Today, I will naturally favor services run by minorities. Personalities like Nesrine Slaoui have inspired a whole generation. She is cited in oral exams. It is not representation just for the sake of representation. Through her individual journey, she has succeeded in creating a universal force. This is something that we also find in Fatima Daas.
How do you view communitarianism?
What scares the State about communitarianism is not that racialized people are excluded from society, it is that it allows these people to organize themselves and create a balance of power together. For example, in my consumption today, I will favor restaurants that are run by racialized people or any minorities. It has become a conscious choice. This is also the case if friends launch a brand. Moreover, our culture of consumption has evolved. Indeed, from the moment when we minorities have economic power, we begin to break a chain of oppression: this is also revolution, overturning the balance of power.
This comes back to the question of cultural battles, which are not taken seriously in France...
Taking the reins of culture, which is permeated by whiteness, is essential. As N. Slaoui was able to do, inspiring a whole generation. This is partly why I admire the American anti-racist model: the first revolutionaries I read were people like Assata Shakur, but also groups like N.W.A who fed my thinking. It is due to a void: in France, there was not this intellectual effervescence on questions of race.
What topics do you find interesting to cover in your podcast?
Themes such as the sexualization of racialized women. In France, if a woman undresses herself, she is sexualized; if she wears the veil, she is submissive, accompanied by dehumanizing terms such as "panther" or "beurette" [a pejorative slang term referring to women of North African descent born in France]. On this subject, I am thinking of the unveiling ceremonies during the colonial period in Algeria, of French culture and of the literature of Flaubert, who recounted his travels in the Middle East through the prism of sexuality.
That says a lot about how racialized people are perceived in France.
When you are a racialized woman, you are either a sexual object or an object of terror. You will never be master of your own person: it is society that imposes a reality on you that is not yours. This is why the revolution is necessary, because it is a question of attacking the root of the problem directly: the very structures of our colonial state.
