Posted on 11/03/2005 9:19:33 PM PST by ncountylee
AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, FRANCE The fire engine and police sirens blaring through the darkness Wednesday night, as officers raced to put out yet another fire set by angry youths in this poor Paris suburb, signaled more than an immediate warning of danger.
After a week of nightly disturbances that have left hundreds of cars and buses torched, and several buildings burned down, the horns echoing off the concrete walls of grim housing projects sounded a broader alarm. The spreading violence has lifted the lid on an ugly stew of poverty, discrimination, and desperation amongst immigrant-descended families that most French citizens have long preferred to ignore.
"Frankly I am not surprised by what is happening," says Dounia Bouzar, an expert on French-born Muslims who has worked in the mostly black and North African districts on the outskirts of Paris. "Given the way these kids live, I wonder why it doesn't happen more often."
The outburst of violence, pitting youths throwing stones and Molotov cocktails against riot police, erupted after two teenagers in the nearby suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois - apparently hiding from the police - died by electrocution.
That incident, says social worker Michèle Lereste, "crystallized the hatred" that some of the most disaffected and hopeless young men living in what the government calls "sensitive urban zones" feel toward authority.
In these 751 zones that the government has designated for special programs, unemployment stands at 19.6 percent - double the national average - and at more than 30 percent among 21- to 29- year-olds, according to official figures. Incomes are 75 percent below the average.
Stung by charges that the government has mishandled the wave of unrest in a dozen suburbs, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have both cancelled planned trips abroad. President Jacques Chirac called Wednesday for "dialogue" to cool tempers.
Mr. De Villepin and Mr. Sarkozy met Thursday to discuss ways of dampening the violence beyond deploying more riot police, which has been the government's approach so far. But after two decades of policies that have tried, and often failed, to strengthen schools, provide jobs, and improve housing, critics say it is time authorities took the problems more seriously.
The ugly, often poorly maintained blocks of public housing that have become a nightly battlefield are testament to 40 years of government policy that has concentrated immigrants and their families in well-defined districts away from city centers, as housing there became more expensive.
"Working class suburbs have become ethnic ghettos," says Marc Cheb Sun, who edits "Respect," a magazine aimed mostly at young black and North African readers. "That is the origin of the problem."
And it is not easy for even ambitious young people to break out if they come from a district with a bad reputation, as Jean-Francois Amadieu, a university professor who founded the "Discrimination Observatory" discovered in experiments over the past year.
He sent out fictitious applications for sales jobs, allegedly coming from six different sorts of applicant, ranging from a white male to a woman of North African origins, all with the same résumé.
Applicants writing from addresses known to be in "difficult" areas received half as many invitations to an interview as those from less notorious districts. The "North African" male candidate received five times fewer invitations than his white counterpart, says Prof. Amadieu.
Well, yes. But not just that. This is what happens when you allow your society to deny that it has a common heritage and to deny the importance of this heritage, its beliefs, its values, its morals, and its foundations.
France has been in the business of denying its past for some time now. I'm afraid we're having the same thing happening in this country, as well.
It's the whole, "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything"-syndrome.
"Allah IS NOT the same as theGod of theBible."
You are exactly right. Allah is NOT just the name the Muslims have for God; the Judeo/Christian God; Jehovah. As a matter of fact, Allah was the Meccan moon god. He is not a god of love.
LOL, that says it better than I did. I do understand the Germanic people are a broad assortment and not all arabs are muslims, but viewing some of the photos of the 'rioters', it appears that ethnicity and race do play a role in the "cult of the moon rock".
I wouldn't call gang fights "riots." That's a totally different ballgame.
Sarkozy is not Polish. He is Hungarian, Greek, and Sephardic Jewish.
Thank you. My mistake.
Because some percentage of immigrant gangs do not hijack airliners full of people, kill the pilots and fly them into buildings killing thousands.
Because some percentage of immigrant gangs do not strap explosives to themselves and walk into crowded wedding receptions and blow people into small pieces.
Because some percentage of immigrant gangs do not capture defenseless innocent people and slowly saw their screaming heads off with long knives, while chanting how great their god is.
I suppose I could go on. But that is why.
Did myou know that In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) are against illegal aliens?
Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens. These numbers rival the war on terriosm statistics, but nobody not even the local news will even report it!
Gangs are crossing the Mexican boarder in record numbers and it is so Clinton-ess by our elected officials not to not call these people for whom they really are, terrorists!
There is terrorism along the border states, officers are being shot at, citizens are being plagued with crime and vandalism. Just because nobody wants to call them for what they are, don't make it so!
Given it is next to impossible to find in the media or government to even to label them illegal, its no wonder nobody wants to even associate the word terrorism with this very real problem.
I see what you are driving at, but these are not the same things.
Immigration policy (or lack therof) while intertwined to a degree, is a different subject. We do not expect Mexicans to come into this country and engage in the same kind of activities that Islamic fundamentalists might.
While those statistics are disturbing, they do not surprise me at all. And the 1,500 outstanding warrants for homicide...is that this year alone, or total over what span of years?
Additionally, do you not see a difference between 1,500 deaths by random violence, and 1,500 deaths as the result of a focused, dedicated activity against a group of people who are targeted for no other reason than they are non-subjugated non-muslims?
Any realistic person would recognize that 1500 deaths by beheading, suicide bombing, targeted attacks against non-muslims and so on would elicit a different response from the population at large than would 1,500 deaths due to domestic violence, drunken brawls, acts of passion and perhaps psychotic serial killers (which many believe are in the same category as Muslim extremists).
The same reasons that would compel people to treat that deaths on 9/11 differently than deaths caused by a tsunami or an earthquake are the same reasons that people treat the deaths caused by gang violence differently from deaths caused by a homicide bomber.
Context is not meaningless. Human nature exists, even though Liberals may not recognize that in their search for some kind of unachievable utopia. No matter how much money you give people, how much property you give them, how much love you give them, there will still be murder and theft. People will still be shot for looking different, wearing the wrong clothes, or looking oddly at someone. There will always be people who enjoy mayhem and violence. When we live in a society of laws, we expect people to adhere to those laws, and when they don't we make efforts to punish them.
When murder and mayhem are deliberately caused by external sources, that is when our hard earned tax dollars should be put to work in foreign countries, as they are now.
Much of this article is a big ole steaming crock of ****
The black Catholics, who, according to this logic, ought to be rioting, are not. 'nuff said.
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