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November 7, 2005Whence France?What I am afraid will happen is that the French authorities will apply the worst possible combination: a short-term crackdown based on profiling together with an agreement to cede the governance of these ghettos to some kind of Islamic councils. That will make the banlieus more opaque while at the same time making them more alien. Yet the attraction of this policy mix is obvious. It throws a bone to the extreme right and left wings of French policy and may quell the disturbances for a moment. It kicks the can down the road into a minefield. It’s a soothing gargle of antiseptic mouthwash prior to flossing with a razor blade. It is imperative that Americans realise that Western Europe has ceased to be a continent of more or less likeminded cousins at the other side of the Atlantic. Immigrants in Europe cannot be compared with immigrants in the U.S. It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion. The demographic data clearly show who is likely to win the impending European civil war. As in the Netherlands, where more people are currently moving out of the country than into it, one can expect a French exodus in the near future. Those who will be leaving France are those who fear that their future is looking bleak, and they are not the Muslims in the suburbs. The Arab European League, a Muslim advocacy group operating in Belgium and the Netherlands, states as part of its ‘vision and philosophy’ that ‘we believe in a multicultural society as a social and political model where different cultures coexist with equal rights under the law.’ It strongly rejects for Muslims any idea of assimilation or integration into European societies: ‘We do not want to assimilate and we do not want to be stuck somewhere in the middle. We want to foster our own identity and culture while being law abiding and worthy citizens of the countries where we live. In order to achieve that it is imperative for us to teach our children the Arabic language and history and the Islamic faith. We will resist any attempt to strip us of our right to our own cultural and religious identity, as we believe it is one of the most fundamental human rights.’ The French and British have deliberately ignored many opportunities to rationally deal with the issues posed by Euro-Islam. If they had perceived, as some of us did, that a prosperous Bosnia could be a center for moderate Islam in Europe, and would help defuse the social appeal of radical Islam, they might have built up Bosnia. They did not. They contributed to the destruction of Bosnia and then forced the handover of Bosnia and Kosovo to the UN, which has allowed the Balkan Muslim lands to degenerate into economic slums on international welfare. Luckily for “Christian Europe” (a term grossly insulting to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, as well as the Balkan wars), the Bosnians in particular have proven more stoic than the new generation of Arab and Black African youths of the Parisian suburbs. It took Chirac ten days to finally say something publicly? Wow. In the US, it would all be Bush’s fault and if he’d waited ten days to say something Katie and Matt would be burning him in effigy on Fifth Avenue. SCA has some advice. “This land belongs to us!” http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/11/07/whence-france/trackback/ 13 Responses to “Whence France?” |
November 7th, 2005 at 7:55 am
If Bush waited ten days while riots went on every night in Washington D.C., he’d be hanged drawn and quartered by the press and rightfully so. However, Katie, Matt, Diane and Charles would still be trying to understand the rioter’s feeeeelings.
I understand they are still rioting. That makes 11 days now.
November 7th, 2005 at 9:22 am
Wretchard is right. There won’t be an Andalusia this time around.
Chirac doesn’t have the stomach to deal with the issue- in no small measure because actually dealing with the issue would chamge the social contract democracies have with their citizens.
Like the AIDS or cancer victim, France will be consumed from withiin.
November 7th, 2005 at 10:45 am
[...] - SAY SOME PRAYERS FOR EUROPE– CNN is now reporting that two churches have been attacked; Thought-provoking round up of various opinion pieces by the Anchoress … (CNN, Anchoress) [...]
November 7th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
“It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion.”
I’ve heard that one before-usually before a major attempt to get rid of the “radically different” religion.
November 7th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Here’s an interesting guy, who’s currently living newar Grenoble…
http://www.randomfate.net/MT/index.php
I do agree with his argument (and that of others studying this) who say that while many of these immigrants may be Muslim, they are not rioting b/c of religion. It’ proven that, while these people are given a gov’t check and a house (in a neighborhood ONLY inhabited by other immigrants, of course) it’s nearly impossible for them to get a job. Idle hands…surely we’ve all heard that one
November 7th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
“The “youths” do not blame the French, they despise them.”| The Brussels Journal
The very best column on the situation. Really hits the US MSM
for the dribble that is their and the BBC’s analysis of the situation.
A must read - Austin Bay provided the original link.
Regards,
Larwyn
Click here: Show Them Who Is the Boss in France | The Brussels Journal
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/444
Show Them Who Is the Boss in France
From the desk of Paul Belien on Sun, 2005-11-06 19:19
Here are today’s headlines in Belgium’s (only) Sunday newspaper De Zondag. Page One: “No Sign of Revolt in Belgium Yet.” Page Five: “Violence Moves Towards Belgium.” It almost sounds like a weather forecast, anticipating the onslaught of a hurricane that is inevitably coming.
What is happening in France has been brewing in Old Europe for years. The BBC speaks of “youths” venting their “anger.” The BBC is wrong. It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The “youths” do not blame the French, they despise them.
Most observers in the mainstream media (MSM) provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the “youths” as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The MSM believe that the “youths” are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them.
This is the marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today. To understand what is going on one cannot look at today’s events from a Western perspective. One has to think like the “youths” in order to understand them. Not imagine oneself in their shoes, but imagine their minds in one’s own head. The important question is: how do these insurgents perceive their relationship with society in France?
A TRUE EYE OPENER - READ IT ALL
November 7th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
UP IN FLAMES
Here’s your Paris is Burning wrap-up: “Banlieues” is the word of the day. The NYTimes reports on the first casualty of the riots, Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, 61. Look for the missing words in the Times piece. Hint: They start with…
November 7th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
“It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion.”
-This is, of course, a piece of foolishness. The Brussels Journal is completely opaque to how much the self-reflexive European definition of “culture” creates the barrier that it claims is due to religion.
-First of all, a plurality, perhaps a majority, of “Christian” Europe is secular when it is not atheist. No one in their right senses would say that an atheist European shares no culture with a Christian one, and the difference between them is a real religious difference and not a mere matter of sentiment or taste, as you, Anchoress, know well.
-In many ways it is a far more profound religious difference than that between Christian and Muslim.
-Second, if you read a little about the European anti-Semitism prior to the 1930’s, you find very quickly that exactly the same argument now being made by the Brussels Journal about the impossibility of sharing culture with Muslims was then being made about “Jewry”.
-This is the same anti-semitism that Freud faced in the Vienna of his day, in the most polyglot (and anti-semitic) country of pre-World War I Europe–Austria-Hungary.
-The demand for “assimilation” is a demand to abandon Islam as the price for European “culture”. That is self-evidently not going to happen. Nobody with a real religion gives up their religion merely on such a whim.
-We want to foster our own identity and culture while being law abiding and worthy citizens of the countries where we live.
-America, at least, asks no more of any immigrant than that. The European immigrant is no different than the American one, the European native simply makes impossible demands on him as a price for a place at the table. “Multiculturalism” and “diversity” are not choices. They are facts.
-For what it’s worth, my town, Columbus, Ohio, now has a large and growing Muslim population, mostly Somali, with a few African-American converts. They keep themselves to themselves and are careful to make no waves whatsoever. These days, who can blame them?
-Because I have largely ceased to care what anyone thinks of my religion or my culture, I frequently chant Buddhist mantras silently in places like building lobbies using my mala of beads to count them with.
-Only two sorts of people have the nerve to ask me about my beads. One is the cops, who are obviously on the lookout for “terrorists” when they talk to me.
-The other is the Muslims, who recognize what I’m doing immediately (they call mantras “dikr”) and are intrigued that any American has the calmness and confidence to practice religion when strangers are looking.
November 8th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
[...] France? Ze Riots In Francais French Lessons Day 13: Paris “Out of Control” [link] Trackback URL for this post:http://alabamawatch.com/2005/11/08/french-intifada-free-paristine/trackback/ [...]
November 8th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
> It took Chirac ten days to finally say something publicly?
Yeah, and he did it in a burkaa…
November 8th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
> It took Chirac ten days to finally say something publicly?
Yeah, and he did it in a burkaa…
BTW, anyone yet checked with Alec Baldwin on his plans to move to France after Bush’s re-election?
Is John Malkovich welcome back after moving there?
November 8th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
> It took Chirac ten days to finally say something publicly?
Yeah, and he did it in a burkaa…
BTW, anyone yet checked with Alec Baldwin on how this affects his plans to move to France after Bush’s re-election?
Is John Malkovich welcome back after moving there?
November 8th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
Oops. Didn’t look like it was taking those. I was getting error messages.