Posted on 11/11/2005 5:39:28 AM PST by InDissent
As it turns out, France is no better at handling riotous Arabs within its own borders than it thinks we are in Iraq. No gloating, please – riots and a murder aren’t things over which we should gloat – but from this point forward the French would do well to remember they’re in the junior varsity of World governments, and should keep their mouths shut when grown-ups are talking about how to combat terrorism.
Mort Kondracke said Tuesday the French really can be nasty, when properly provoked. Well, France owes it to itself to crush whatever remains of this rebellion beginning at midnight tonight, then inviting its foreign-born elements to return to wherever the hell they came from if they’re so unhappy. (Proposed slogan for the media campaign: “France: We’re Not the Soviet Union, You’re Free to Move.”) This would be a distinctly American styled response, but it pays to remember America has more riots revolving around sports championships than it does police actions.
Then we get into the matter of how “disaffected youth” – as Old Media has been calling them – are supposed to get out of their squalor, let alone France itself. Interesting point. France’s “disaffected youth” have so much free time to set fires at night because they’re not working during the day. It’s true France has 35-hour work weeks and six weeks vacation per year, but one must have a job in order to enjoy those benefits, something much easier said than done.
Generally speaking, if you live in France and don’t already have a job, you’re not going to get one. New jobs don’t exist, and it’s virtually impossible to open new businesses. (This goes for Europe in general. As Joel Kotkin helpfully pointed out in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, America has created 57 million new jobs since the 1970s, while Europe has created only four million, “with most of those … in government.”) Therefore, young people can’t work. Therefore, they have little or no chance of clawing their way out of the Soviet style housing projects they were packed into in the name of keeping non-whites out of the cities that matter, like Paris.
At least that’s the conventional wisdom. For some of those rioting, economic tensions and living conditions may be exactly what they’re worried about. But when entire hordes scream “Allah Akbar!” before setting fire to shops and schools, the focus quickly shifts. Much has been said about widespread Arab refusal to assimilate in France, but not enough has been said about France’s preferring to segregate itself from those same Arabs rather than involve itself in their intimate affairs.
You’ll recall that as the riots began in Clichy-sous-Bois, Arabs were outraged at the very idea of French police entering their neighborhoods, never mind that they were called to end a crime in progress; teenage boys (remember them?) were stealing parts off parked cars. As Amir Taheri described it in the New York Post: “A brief chase took place in the street, and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned-off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted. Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms. With cries of ‘God is great,’ bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.”
Here we have a perfect illustration of my previous point. Arabs in Clichy-sous-Bois honestly believe their silly religious notions have precedence over French civil law, and the French have never done anything to dissuade them of the notion. And amidst all the talk of increased welfare spending in the affected areas, it’s unlikely the French will take this unique opportunity to reset anyone’s civil priorities. Which is sad … it’s one thing to surrender to Nazi Germany, something else altogether to surrender to “disaffected youth” “armed with whatever they could get hold of.”
Max Boot – a lone voice of reason at the Los Angeles Times – quoted former French President Mitterrand in his Wednesday column: “Back in 1992, when cars were burning in Los Angeles … Mitterrand thought he knew why. It was … because of the ‘absence of social legislation and protection’ in a ‘conservative and economically capitalist’ country. ‘There can be no comparison between us and what happens elsewhere, for France is the country where the level of social protection if the highest in the world.’”
So, France, how’s all that social protection working out for you?
"Mort Kondracke said Tuesday the French really can be nasty, when properly provoked."
Really? When was that, Mort? Some time in the 19th century, I guess.
He's no Mark Steyn, but I like him!
Then we get into the matter of how “disaffected youth” – as Old Media has been calling them – are supposed to get out of their squalor,
-----
This is the big lie.
THEY DO NOT WANT TO GET OUT OF SQUALOR JUST LIKE PALIES, COZ IT MAKES IT A CHARIA FULL FRENCH COPLESS ZONE. PERIOD.
They want the ghettos to be their own, they said it in Denmark, "Palestine" and now here.
So, France, how’s all that social protection working out for you?
This author is fairly even handed, but the liberal journalists and spinmiesters are twirling themselves silly trying to make sure we think that the reason for the French lawlessness is attributed to economic deprivation, and doesn't have anything to do with Islam extremism.
It would belie the whole thrust of the liberal argument that countries, like France, who do not help us in the War on Terrorism are immune from reprisals.
Mooslam is Madness. At least this destruction will have the effect of drumming up business for the rebuilding... not. What contractor is going to want to hire these clowns?
Assimilation, assimilation, assimilation
I like hearing your view. Mine is a little different, though. As far as I'm concerned, Muslims who want a better life can complain and demonstrate all they want. It's the killing that needs to be opposed.
There aren't many dead people in the French "riots." Like you, I am worried that there may be killing if France is unable to manage their problems, but I'm not ready to write off their efforts yet. Their short-term effort to let the riots fizzle out on a mix of promises, firm law enforcement (even if it was slow to materialize) and simple exhaustion of the rioter seems pretty smart.
The question is whether they can follow up on the short-term strategy and establish a long-term law enforcement presence to stop the vandalism and unrest, all the while keeping the rioters on the wrong political foot with promises and gestures... Tough but possible I guess.
I think the nub of the thing is that you and I both think that the French "intifada" is founded on a strategy that is well established in Israel. If we are right, the pattern of rioting and appeasement will lead to more violence eventually, even if the government can feel pretty good about getting out of the riots without bombings or other lethal violence.
just damn.......
Islam needs lunitic terrorists and murderers in charge in order to keep the "flock" intact. For you see...I think that the only way islam has gained the foothold and numbers than it has in the last 1400 years is thru terrorism and murder. "You will become a muslum or we will kill you" is precisely the mechanism that has sustained and propigated islam from the beginning, and indeed to this day.
If the threat of a horrible and humiliating public death was removed from islam, most of the people who now call themselves muslum would opt for something somewhat less threatening...especially the women.
Who, exactly, was saying France was a non-racist society three weeks ago, and who is saying it is a wholly racist society now?
Ok, need somebody with computer skills (which I serisously lack) to take that picture of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower and put some rag head in front of it instead...I've been waiting for somebody to do that...
There are twin evils in this story, and it's hard for a single author in a single article to bring them correctly into focus.
On the one hand, there is the evil of parochial Islam, that seems anything outside itself as detestable and impure.
But in this story, I think the bigger evil is actually socialism.
When you build a society that offers zero opportunities for newcomers --- and carves that zero-opportunity into stone --- and then bring in a bunch of newcomers, you are really creating an anti-human situation.
Socialism is anti-human. Those temporarily on the receiving end of its benefits don't perceive that, at least not at first. Everyone else is put in an extreme position. And in this case, the "everyone else" includes a bunch of uneducated young men burning with the fires of parochial Islam.
I think it's very difficult to write about this subject and keep the twin evils in focus, so I know that I am going to be misunderstood when I say this:
On one level, the young fanatics are right to be angry. They are victims of socialism. As bad as Islam is (and I invite you to look at my past posts to see that I think Islam is fundamentally sick), it is not as bad as socialism.
Socialism is the cause of this problem, and France is not going to end socialism. It's problems, therefore, will only get worse.
"I think the nub of the thing is that you and I both think that the French "intifada" is founded on a strategy that is well established in Israel. If we are right, the pattern of rioting and appeasement will lead to more violence eventually, even if the government can feel pretty good about getting out of the riots without bombings or other lethal violence."
I appreciated your post.
This part here is the rub.
You think that this is an intifada. Most of France does not. France has experienced Beur unrest before, in the 1980s, over the same things. The French know nothing has changed: everything is in stasis. And there is a sense of responsibility about that. The lot of the Beurs is pretty bad, and the ideals of the Republic require trying to actually do something about that. Only if a sincere effort is made, and fails, because the Beurs violently reject it and refuse to assimilate or cooperate when the effort is made to actually cooperate with them will the rest of the French mentally make the move to write them off.
At that point, things will get nasty pretty quick. If France carries through on the plans Villepin has laid out, the expectation is that tensions will diminish dramatically, and that the Beurs will begin the process of really assimilating, like every other group in France has.
If, instead, the result is more violence, or worse violence: voir - killings and terrorism - the French will start thinking in terms of Islam and Arab terrorism, and the reaction will be very unpleasant.
For now, the French are not willing to write off the ideals of the Republic, because they believe that the Republican ideals have not really been implemented among the Beurs. The French believe they have been "excluded". Now they intend to do everything possible to include them.
How the Beurs respond to that will determine the future.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.