Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Paris riots spread, shaking French government

From the article:

Observers saw the riots as a sign of the growing divisions in French society -- Muslim immigration, poverty, declining education standards in downtrodden areas and joblessness.

Not all is well with the socialist system in France it appears.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

if they'd fight that hard when there's a war they wouldn't be taken over so much -

kidding - [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

all representative governments go thru issues - we have riots too - I wouldn't be plotting the downfall of socialized health care and Social Security or freedom of religion yet -

RB

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

So the socialist system doesn't work so well for the poor and uneducated, and the capitalist system doesn't work so well for the poor and uneducated, where does that leave the debate on how to handle those less fortunate?

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Here a link to pictures and commentary from a non-liberal news source.

Riots are happening in Denmark too.

Europe belongs to Allah.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

What's really sad about this, is that it has developed slowly towards this situation for a long time (at least a decade or so), with the government being aware and worried, still unable to fix it.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

What do people expect letting in a bunch of socialist Muslims into their country? The blame goes to De Gaule for not reconquering Algeria along with those stupid leftists who promote the socialist immigrant agenda without regard for religion or culture. This is only the beginning of something greater.

I just hope the Muslims kill many snobby socialist Frenchmen, which should not be hard to do.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
What do people expect letting in a bunch of socialist Muslims into their country? The blame goes to De Gaule for not reconquering Algeria along with those stupid leftists who promote the socialist immigrant agenda without regard for religion or culture. This is only the beginning of something greater.

I just hope the Muslims kill many snobby socialist Frenchmen, which should not be hard to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, maybe you've not noticed the immigration policy of the U.S.? Or maybe I completely don't understand it.

Discounting the "illegal" immigrants, don't we allow folks to come here without regard to their religion or culture? Or that's been my understanding for a long time.

I'm not saying we have the best regulations (some of which are actually enforced) and I'm not saying the French are the dumbest in their way of doing things. (well, a lot of the things they do anyway) I just think you picked a bad example.

Also, hoping for the death of the Frenchmen, socialist or not, is really not a very nice thing.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

At the obvious: it doesn't work so well to be poor and uneducated. Stop the presses.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

France is trying to build a multicultural society. Multiculturalism is the only way for the future. Leading a country in that direction requires courage, and the French leaders possess that courage. However, Paris is a big city with big differences between rich and poor and severe social problems, and much of the immigrants end up in these sort of ghettos. The French government seems overstretched when facing these problems.

But, they have succeded in turning France in a multicultural direction. The common American prejudices (in common I don't mean everybody) towards many other cultures are not very present in France. More France-like countries and less conservative religious countries like US; and this world would be better.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
France is trying to build a multicultural society. Multiculturalism is the only way for the future. Leading a country in that direction requires courage, and the French leaders possess that courage. However, Paris is a big city with big differences between rich and poor and severe social problems, and much of the immigrants end up in these sort of ghettos. The French government seems overstretched when facing these problems.

But, they have succeded in turning France in a multicultural direction. The common American prejudices (in common I don't mean everybody) towards many other cultures are not very present in France. More France-like countries and less conservative religious countries like US; and this world would be better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think an argument could be made that France is a much more monocultural society than the US. Multi-ethnic, multireligious, but monocultural. Think of the French Academy screening new words for unwanted influences or the repressive anti-religious legislation in the schools. Anyways, check my next post for a smarter guy's take...

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
A Year of Living Dangerously

By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
November 2, 2005; Page A14

One year ago today, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh had his throat ritually slit by Mohamed Bouyeri, a Muslim born in Holland who spoke fluent Dutch. This event has totally transformed Dutch politics, leading to stepped-up police controls that have now virtually shut off new immigration there. Together with the July 7 bombings in London (also perpetrated by second generation Muslims who were British citizens), this event should also change dramatically our view of the nature of the threat from radical Islamism.

We have tended to see jihadist terrorism as something produced in dysfunctional parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Middle East, and exported to Western countries. Protecting ourselves is a matter either of walling ourselves off, or, for the Bush administration, going "over there" and trying to fix the problem at its source by promoting democracy.


There is good reason for thinking, however, that a critical source of contemporary radical Islamism lies not in the Middle East, but in Western Europe. In addition to Bouyeri and the London bombers, the March 11 Madrid bombers and ringleaders of the September 11 attacks such as Mohamed Atta were radicalized in Europe. In the Netherlands, where upwards of 6% of the population is Muslim, there is plenty of radicalism despite the fact that Holland is both modern and democratic. And there exists no option for walling the Netherlands off from this problem.

We profoundly misunderstand contemporary Islamist ideology when we see it as an assertion of traditional Muslim values or culture. In a traditional Muslim country, your religious identity is not a matter of choice; you receive it, along with your social status, customs and habits, even your future marriage partner, from your social environment. In such a society there is no confusion as to who you are, since your identity is given to you and sanctioned by all of the society's institutions, from the family to the mosque to the state.

The same is not true for a Muslim who lives as an immigrant in a suburb of Amsterdam or Paris. All of a sudden, your identity is up for grabs; you have seemingly infinite choices in deciding how far you want to try to integrate into the surrounding, non-Muslim society. In his book "Globalized Islam" (2004), the French scholar Olivier Roy argues persuasively that contemporary radicalism is precisely the product of the "deterritorialization" of Islam, which strips Muslim identity of all of the social supports it receives in a traditional Muslim society.

The identity problem is particularly severe for second- and third-generation children of immigrants. They grow up outside the traditional culture of their parents, but unlike most newcomers to the U.S., few feel truly accepted by the surrounding society.

Contemporary Europeans downplay national identity in favor of an open, tolerant, "post-national" Europeanness. But the Dutch, Germans, French and others all retain a strong sense of their national identity, and, to differing degrees, it is one that is not accessible to people coming from Turkey, Morocco or Pakistan. Integration is further inhibited by the fact that rigid European labor laws have made low-skill jobs hard to find for recent immigrants or their children. A significant proportion of immigrants are on welfare, meaning that they do not have the dignity of contributing through their labor to the surrounding society. They and their children understand themselves as outsiders.

It is in this context that someone like Osama bin Laden appears, offering young converts a universalistic, pure version of Islam that has been stripped of its local saints, customs and traditions. Radical Islamism tells them exactly who they are -- respected members of a global Muslim umma to which they can belong despite their lives in lands of unbelief. Religion is no longer supported, as in a true Muslim society, through conformity to a host of external social customs and observances; rather it is more a question of inward belief. Hence Mr. Roy's comparison of modern Islamism to the Protestant Reformation, which similarly turned religion inward and stripped it of its external rituals and social supports.

If this is in fact an accurate description of an important source of radicalism, several conclusions follow. First, the challenge that Islamism represents is not a strange and unfamiliar one. Rapid transition to modernity has long spawned radicalization; we have seen the exact same forms of alienation among those young people who in earlier generations became anarchists, Bolsheviks, fascists or members of the Bader-Meinhof gang. The ideology changes but the underlying psychology does not.

Further, radical Islamism is as much a product of modernization and globalization as it is a religious phenomenon; it would not be nearly as intense if Muslims could not travel, surf the Web, or become otherwise disconnected from their culture. This means that "fixing" the Middle East by bringing modernization and democracy to countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia will not solve the terrorism problem, but may in the short run make the problem worse. Democracy and modernization in the Muslim world are desirable for their own sake, but we will continue to have a big problem with terrorism in Europe regardless of what happens there.

The real challenge for democracy lies in Europe, where the problem is an internal one of integrating large numbers of angry young Muslims and doing so in a way that does not provoke an even angrier backlash from right-wing populists. Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.

The first has already begun to happen. In recent months, both the Dutch and British have in fact come to an overdue recognition that the old version of multiculturalism they formerly practiced was dangerous and counterproductive. Liberal tolerance was interpreted as respect not for the rights of individuals, but of groups, some of whom were themselves intolerant (by, for example, dictating whom their daughters could befriend or marry). Out of a misplaced sense of respect for other cultures, Muslims minorities were left to regulate their own behavior, an attitude which dovetailed with a traditional European corporatist approaches to social organization. In Holland, where the state supports separate Catholic, Protestant and socialist schools, it was easy enough to add a Muslim "pillar" that quickly turned into a ghetto disconnected from the surrounding society.

New policies to reduce the separateness of the Muslim community, like laws discouraging the importation of brides from the Middle East, have been put in place in the Netherlands. The Dutch and British police have been given new powers to monitor, detain and expel inflammatory clerics. But the much more difficult problem remains of fashioning a national identity that will connect citizens of all religions and ethnicities in a common democratic culture, as the American creed has served to unite new immigrants to the United States.

Since van Gogh's murder, the Dutch have embarked on a vigorous and often impolitic debate on what it means to be Dutch, with some demanding of immigrants not just an ability to speak Dutch, but a detailed knowledge of Dutch history and culture that many Dutch people do not have themselves. But national identity has to be a source of inclusion, not exclusion; nor can it be based, contrary to the assertion of the gay Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn who was assassinated in 2003, on endless tolerance and valuelessness. The Dutch have at least broken through the stifling barrier of political correctness that has prevented most other European countries from even beginning a discussion of the interconnected issues of identity, culture and immigration. But getting the national identity question right is a delicate and elusive task.

Many Europeans assert that the American melting pot cannot be transported to European soil. Identity there remains rooted in blood, soil and ancient shared memory. This may be true, but if so, democracy in Europe will be in big trouble in the future as Muslims become an ever larger percentage of the population. And since Europe is today one of the main battlegrounds of the war on terrorism, this reality will matter for the rest of us as well.

Mr. Fukuyama is professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins and chairman of the editorial board of The American Interest.



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Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Check my wording [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]:
[ QUOTE ]
In a multicultural direction.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not multicultural like i.e. London and Oslo is.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Yeah, this is really a serious potential big problem for Europe (in potential I mean that it lies under the surface but hasn't materialised often). The solution has to be found in shaping the attitudes (in the moslem and nonmoslem population), and how to do this is really a difficult task as much of the mood swings seems to be outside political control.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
The common American prejudices (in common I don't mean everybody) towards many other cultures are not very present in France.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are out of your mind. The French don't have issues with Black Africans, but they most certainly do have prejudice issues with Arabs, including arabs from North Africa.

BTW - I applaud the French effort to force assimilation on immigrant cultures. Sure it's not working perfectly but they have the right idea.

No Surprise.....Muslim Immigrants = Bad Citizens
 

Muslim immigrants come from intolerant cultures, which persecute others with honor killings, honor rapes, murdering non-Muslims, etc..... Is it any surprise they act this way. Obviously I'm not saying ALL Muslims immigrants make poor citizens. To make such a statement would be an absurd exaggeration. To say 100% of all Muslim immigrants make poor citizens is silly. The number is no higher than 98%................

Obviously since France is such a hell-hole, these outstanding citizens will renounce their French citizenship and move to back to Algeria (aka the paradise of the Muslim world).

Felix the Dadaist
 

That was a very nice, nonsensical post.

An hommage to Marcel Duchamp ?



[ QUOTE ]
Muslim immigrants come from intolerant cultures, which persecute others with honor killings, honor rapes, murdering non-Muslims, etc. To say 100% of all Muslim immigrants make poor citizens is silly. The number is no higher than 98%. Obviously since France is such a hell-hole, these outstanding citizens will renounce their French citizenship and move to back to Algeria.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

"Not all is well with the socialist system in France it appears. "

FUnny, I thought France was a mixed economy currently presided over by a right-wing government.

Of course, there have never been any race riots in free market America.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

"hat do people expect letting in a bunch of socialist Muslims into their country?"

Priceless! Yes, only socialists were allowed to emigrate to France.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris

Note when the linked article was written. This situation has been brewing for some time apparently.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

You think fascists would successfully pass through the immigration system? I'd like to see some Neo-Nazi skinheads from Germany try to immigrate legally into France.

There has been a double standard for 40 years. The smellier and worse your culture, the easier you can come in, because that means more votes for socialists.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

"You think fascists would successfully pass through the immigration system? I'd like to see some Neo-Nazi skinheads from Germany try to immigrate legally into France. "

WTF are you talking about?

"The smellier and worse your culture, the easier you can come in, because that means more votes for socialists. "

Somehow I forgot that you aren't worth respondiong to. Thanks for reminding me.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris

Note when the linked article was written. This situation has been brewing for some time apparently.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what you get when you promote socialism. I don't see how anyone with an IQ over 80 could possibly believe socialism is a good idea.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

No need responding to the truth.

You know why the pump don\'t work ?
 

'Cause the vandals took the handles.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]

It is not multicultural like i.e. London and Oslo is.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/lo...icle190268.ece

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
You think fascists would successfully pass through the immigration system? I'd like to see some Neo-Nazi skinheads from Germany try to immigrate legally into France.

There has been a double standard for 40 years. The smellier and worse your culture, the easier you can come in, because that means more votes for socialists.

[/ QUOTE ]

By this logic Fascism is superior to Socialism because it makes it harder to get into France and therefore can not be smelly or "worse".

However the French have perhpas one of the strongest Neo Fasict nationalist parties in Europe. So by extrapolating from your post you would like it there given your high regard for Fascists.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

It is not multicultural like i.e. London and Oslo is.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/lo...icle190268.ece

[/ QUOTE ]

Never claimed that integration is complete and that it is not still problems connected to it. Compared to the scare image of multiculturalism that many preach, it is a success.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Yes, relatively speaking, fascism is better than socialism if the fascist principles are more reasonable.

Political opinion in France however has clearly deemed that Islamic immigration is preferable to French Nationalism. I believe the election Le Pen was involved in netted him 20% of the country's support, while Chirac got 80%. So really, the majority of France is getting what it asked for.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, relatively speaking, fascism is better than socialism if the fascist principles are more reasonable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes fascism is word famous for its "reasonable princples."

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
France is trying to build a multicultural society.

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting everyone to dress and act alike and prohibition of peaceful expression of religion is not multicultural:

[ QUOTE ]
PARIS - Two Muslim girls who refused to remove their head scarves in class have been expelled from school, and two more risked the same fate Wednesday as officials began punishing those who defy a new French law banning conspicuous religious symbols in public schools.


At the start of the week, there were 72 cases of students risking expulsion for refusing to remove conspicuous religious signs or apparel. Most are Muslim girls wearing Islamic head scarves, but Sikh boys wearing turbans are also among them.

[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
Leading a country in that direction requires courage, and the French leaders possess that courage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Courage?? Bah. Try intolerance. I fart in your general direction.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

I don't agree on that decision, the intention behind it was well-meant though, as France saw an increase in religious hatred (mostly directed towards Jews). It was made in an attempt to cool these things down. Again, it comes down to French authorities being overstretched by these problems.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
You think fascists would successfully pass through the immigration system? I'd like to see some Neo-Nazi skinheads from Germany try to immigrate legally into France.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neo-nazi skinheads from Germany could emigrate to France simply by producing a passport. Any EU citizen can settle anywhere within the EU.

[I probably shouldn't be feeding the troll]

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

I would like to see how when anti-semitism,"hate speech", and sexism is against the law in France. Questioning the holocaust leads to job loss and possible imprisonment. Even Noam Chomsky of all people defended French University professors accused of it when this was a big issue.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

Interesting article

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

>> The common American prejudices (in common I don't mean everybody) towards many other cultures are not very present in France. <<

Funny enough, we have millions of Muslims living in the US. They worship as they choose, and the vast majority are assimilated into the larger community to the extent they choose - economically and educationally.

Funny enough, your comments expose your own prejudice and ignorance about life in America.

You would do well to examine, sincerely, your own bigotry. Confront it. Acknowledge it.

Become a better person.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

I have many American relatives and some American friends. I have had the impression of US as relatively open and tolerant to other cultures. However, the last years, I have seen so many prejudiced statements being uttered by Americans that I believe it is quite common. I put "not everybody" since I did not mean something like 80%.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]

Become a better person.


[/ QUOTE ]

I will try. I will post regular updates [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

>> I have seen so many prejudiced statements being uttered by Americans that I believe it is quite common<<

I sure hope you're not assuming message board posters are a representative sample of Americans... or even necessarily Americans...

Anyway, gnite

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

[ QUOTE ]
>> I have seen so many prejudiced statements being uttered by Americans that I believe it is quite common<<

I sure hope you're not assuming message board posters are a representative sample of Americans... or even necessarily Americans...

Anyway, gnite

[/ QUOTE ]

No, more like a sum of everything. There is good and bad people in every building, I know that though.

Re: Paris riots spread, shaking French government
 

I always thought socialists tended towards the intelligent side but with very little common sense.