The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris (The Underclass in France)

City Journal ^ | Fall 2002 | Theodore Dalrymple

[wardaddy]

saved for manana

[A CA Guy]

"Turd World Nation"

Very good!

[Brian Allen]

<< Theodore Dalrymple .... essays are .... but long >>

[Brian Allen]

<< The Warren Court didn't die, IT just went to France. >>

Nah.

Metastasized.

The original tumor grows out of cotrol.

[MissAmericanPie]

This socialist paradise sounds perfect for Alec Baldwin and Barbara Strisdead someone should strongly insist that they move there and take their good friends with them.

[Stultis]

Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim. But it has separated and isolated immigrants and their descendants geographically into dehumanizing ghettos; it has pursued economic policies to promote unemployment and create dependence among them, with all the inevitable psychological consequences; it has flattered the repellent and worthless culture that they have developed; and it has withdrawn the protection of the law from them, allowing them to create their own lawless order.

Thinking back on the 1970's it strikes me that, had our history (in the United States) worked only a little differently, we might now be well along this same path.

Although an agnostic, I make frequent exceptions to thank God fervently that Ronald Reagan, and also Maggie Thatcher, came to power when they did, had the confidence in their policies that they did, ultimately influencing economic and political reform in many places around the globe. My skins crawls, and I often physically shudder, thinking what the world might now be like without them.

[Stultis]

Reading this stunning essay I'm reminded of my impression on seeing and hearing Rudi's farewell speech: Every official in every large city on the globe should be strapped to a chair and made to watch it over and over till they "get it."

[DBtoo]

Good article. It's sad what has happened to France. It's too bad the elite leftists have ruined things there. Most of the population is furious about what is going on.

[hellinahandcart]

The real criminals, indeed, were the drivers whose coins filled the parking meters

Doesn't that just about say it all...

[hellinahandcart]

Bookmarking and bumping; more people should see this (but heck, it's five in the morning and most are sleeping).

[Madame Dufarge]

Thanks, knighthawk.

Canary in the mine bump.

[dennisw]

But it's true, if you get on the RER and ride to the outlying areas of Paris, it's a whole different world. It's kind of the reverse of a lot of American cities. The affluent people are in the city center itself and the "burbs" are populated by the underclass.

APARTHEID. And the enervated froggys and other Euro lefties have the nerve to call Israel an apartheid nation?

My favorite from this essay:

One rap group, the Ministère amer (Bitter Ministry), won special official praise. Its best-known lyric: “Another woman takes her beating./ This time she’s called Brigitte./ She’s the wife of a cop./ The novices of vice piss on the police./ It’s not just a firework, scratch the clitoris./ Brigitte the cop’s wife likes niggers./ She’s hot, hot in her pants.” This vile rubbish receives accolades for its supposed authenticity: for in the multiculturalist’s mental world, in which the savages are forever noble, there is no criterion by which to distinguish high art from low trash. And if intellectuals, highly trained in the Western tradition, are prepared to praise such degraded and brutal pornography, it is hardly surprising that those who are not so trained come to the conclusion that there cannot be anything of value in that tradition. Cowardly multiculturalism thus makes itself the handmaiden of anti-Western extremism.

[harpseal]

We will see EURABIA in our lifetime, since the Europeans are too tired and beaten to offer resistance

It may well come to pass. A society must take responsibility for preserving itself or it will die or mutate. The type of mutation that is coming in Europe and possibly in the USA is not something I would anticipate with good feelings.

One side or the other inevitably starts to get incredibly violent in these historical shifts and when that happens the result of the war is what determines the future.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[hellinahandcart]

bump for more visibility

[junta]

Respail's novel "The Camp of the Saints" comes to mind easily enough.

[shrinkermd]

"BTW, I went to the City Journal site for a look at the latest, and found a second article by Dalrymple that is, seriously, another masterpiece. Check it out. Oh to be in England - The Starving Criminal"

Yes, it is a marvelous article. Incidentally, I once ran a very large residential facility for the serious and persistently mentally ill. I took a whole city block of "shot shacks" and rehabilitated them along with the homeless mentally ill and chemically dependent. I had hoped by having dwelling units of five with the accoutrements of a kitchen and so forth to obtain a resumption of what I called "family living."

Much to my shock, I found most the residents never had any experience with family living, could not cook, could not shop for balanced meals and could not manage money except to purchase drugs and alcohol. It was a demoralizing experience since I hoped to run a dynamically oriented psychotherapeutically excelllent facility but ended up doing "habilitation" on an educational model.

Dalymple is absolutely correct. Note, that his "underclass" studies in UK and France are almost all white, but the underclass here is almost all minority. Notwithstanding these racial differences the population characteristics for the underclass including welfare are exactly the same with only a few exceptions.

[wardaddy]

Thinking back on the 1970's it strikes me that, had our history (in the United States) worked only a little differently, we might now be well along this same path.

Actually we DO have pockets in this country much like was described in France. Many of our urban areas have parts of which will probably never recover and are isolated by demographically.

Noble of you to give "G-d a Nod"

Regards

[Travis McGee]

The next war may look more like Bosnia times 10,000 more than WW2.

A good reason to BLOAT!

[vnix]

You're right, about ten years ago me and a friend stopped for a case of beer. Right next to the beer dist. there was a plot of ground where several men were "detaining" a younger fella, maybe 20 years old. I got out of the car, not knowing what exactly was going on, and was gonna help the yute, when the men told me that the boy just got done robbing a house and they were waitin for the law to get there, I understood why the boy was a bit bloody. I thought then as I do today, that vigiliance according to need is the best deterrent for crime. I have no sympathy for people who are doing wrong. There is forgiveness, mind you, however true change is needed before any trust can be established. When a amn, or men are out shootin people at random, and the lawmen are tellin you to let them handle it, the lawmen are in need of another type of work. This country was founded on certain principles, we have strayed far away from those principles through ignorance and complacency. Changes now, I fear, are too late. We have allowed ourselves to become a punching bag of sorts, but the consequences are now of fatal value.Stay tuned folks, cause soon there will be an upheaval bigger than most are willing to consider and the only way out now is through God himself.

[El Sordo]

"I did see about 7 cops - with guns - surround and take a guy into custody in one of the Metro stations for something."

He probably was overheard muttering an ethnic slur.