Can you imagine what the cost of that is going to be? Don’t even think about it as the bonfire of the horseless carriages continues with 502 vehicles torched last night, up from a previous night’s 463. Meanwhile:
Some 3,000 police fanned out around Paris on Saturday to prevent any attempts to attack high-profile targets such as the Eiffel Tower after a 16th straight night of unrest and arson.
Police were posted in suburban trains and at strategic points around the capital, where public gatherings considered risky were banned until Sunday morning. The ban followed calls for “violent actions” posted on numerous Internet blogs and in text messages on cell phones.
“This is not a rumor,” said National Police Chief Michel Gaudin. The famed Eiffel Tower and Champs-Elysees avenue were among potential targets, he said. “I think one can easily imagine the places where we must be highly vigilant,” he told reporters Saturday.
So the struggle continues, as we used to say in my marxist days. But speaking of Marx, the question remains is this all motivated by economics? Of course, some of it is. We can stipulate that. And, yes, some of it is a reaction to the racisim of French society. But is there more? Would these “youths” really want to assimilate if they were given the proper chance, replete with affirmative action, etc.?
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26 Comments
1. ShrinkWrapped:There are streets in Jerusalem with signs springing up in French; we should all be prepared to welcome refugees from French Eurabia here as time goes on.
As Mark Steyn points out, demography is destiny. Unless all those Muslim youths wake up one morning and decide to become Christians, Europe as a Western idea is a time-limited construct.
Nov 12, 2005 - 9:08 am 2. kenneth:This bonfire is the visual exhibition of an argument between members of the French elite, and it began as an act of tyrranical weakness aimed at undermining the United States. The rioters could very well consume the country, but are still nothing more than a means to spread fire – frenzied pawns with no personal agenda. Nero may not have really played his lyre while Rome burned around him, but de Villepin and Chiraq are certainly fiddling among the ruins of Paris.
Nov 12, 2005 - 9:41 am 3. Godzilla:When you consider that the MSM desparately wants the world to see the riots in France as purely a response to poor economic conditions and discrimination, and lo, that’s how it does get reported, then it’s difficult to figure out what is really going on. I’m sure that are religious elements to the riots, but not ostentiously. Really, how could the Muslims in France possibly be looking at this as a struggle against a Christian nation? I’m sure there is a large percentage of the Muslims in France that are religious, however, despite protestations by the MSM about how secular the French Muslims are (that’s just the way they want to see it, so that’s the way they write it). Why else is it that France has the most numerous instances of anti-semetism? To reiterate, how could any self-respecting Muslim bent on destroying France ever gin up any popular support by stressing France’s Christianity? That just doesn’t compute.
Nov 12, 2005 - 9:55 am 4. Snippet:I understand the North African supplies the lion’s share of immigrants, but I have some questions for some intrepid, objective, fact-hunting reporter.
1) Are there other “ethnic” groups in France?
2) How are they doing?
3) Are they poor?
4) If they are poor, what are the chances that they will stay that way, or that their children will be poor as well?
5) Are they angry? Are they violent? Any, er…, religious differences… between these people and the “youths” we’re hearing so much about?
6) Are they rioting up one side and down the other?
7) Why don’t we hear anything about them?
Since these are (mostly) reasonable questions, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we see them addressed by the Beeb, NPR, etc..
Nov 12, 2005 - 10:00 am 5. chuck:Youth will invent its own culture. Piled together in the banlieux, lots of time on their hands, they will mix together bits and pieces of music, movies, television, religion, French history, and ethnicity. Add to this the youthful joy in fun and games and blowing stuff up and shake vigorously. What will result is anyone’s guess.
Nov 12, 2005 - 10:02 am 6. timmah!:I still don’t buy either the “Mohammed made them do it” or the “Society made them do it” schools of thought. I think this is more in the mode of “A Clockwork Orange”: ultraviolent males enabled by an emasculated state.
Nov 12, 2005 - 10:06 am 7. ras:Why would the rest of the world want to welcome Eurabian refugees? Look what they did to their last home.
As for a Muslim takeover being inevitable – not necessarily. If continuing immigration and welfare were both curtailed, how much would the demographic projections – which are usually just linear extrapolations based on compound interest calcs – change? Quite a bit, I’d expect.
Let the Eurabians stay and solve their own problems; time they grew up.
Nov 12, 2005 - 10:10 am 8. richard mcenroe:Defendez-vous les trappes du touristes! Screwez les citoyens, la!
Nov 12, 2005 - 10:54 am 9. Knucklehead:For those traveling to France, here are some handy phrases to add to your repertoire:
- Ou sont les pompiers? – Where are the firemen?
- Avez-vous un extincteur? – Do you have a fire extinguisher?
- A quelle heure est le couvre-feu? – What time is the curfew?
- Pourquoi brulez vous ma voiture? – Why are you burning my car?
- Avez-vous du feu pour allumer mon cocktail molotov? – Do you have a light for my petrol bomb?
Nov 12, 2005 - 11:08 am 10. heather:I don’t buy that Mohammed DIDN’T make them do it (and continue to do it) either. Most people are not terribly interested in the nuances of a faith or an ideology. I know one guy who was swept up in WWII and had no idea WHERE the army he was in, was at any one time, let alone where he was going at any one time. He certainly didn’t have a clue about Marx or the theory of Fascism. You don’t need to know all that, in order to run around with molotov cocktails burning things up.
Two items though: it seems that the ‘youths’ avoided burning up Moslem cars, in favour of “White” cars, although I think that didn’t hold true a lot of the time.
The more interesting snippet is what happened when a group of journalists were attacked by the ‘youth’. I am sure I read this via no-pasaran. The journalists were identified as ‘Russian’, but one of them was a South Korean WOMAN. I assume that the Russians were men. Anyway, the WOMAN was knocked to the ground and kicked around. I would expect that although she thought of herself as a professional journalist, the ‘youths’ thought of her as an ‘infidel slut.’
I think even the most excitable and simple minded ‘youth’ can latch onto the woman degrading part of his ‘religion.’
Nov 12, 2005 - 11:17 am 11. chuck:And now no-pasaran informs us that the police are going on a slow down strike. I must admit that I have been looking forward to this for the past two weeks. Am I bad or what?
Nov 12, 2005 - 11:47 am 12. jerry:Timmah!:
It doesn’t have to be entirely about religion to be about Islam. Islam, like Christianity, Judaism or anything faith for that matter, is as much about culture as it is to a particular belief in God. The religious belief system produces a particular social organization. Islma produces a society that is prone to violence, the objectificatiion of women and intolerance of other belief systems.
Muslims choose not to assimilate into European (Judeo-Christian) society when they are not compelled to. Non-muslims, no matter where they are from seem not to be burden by this problem.
Nov 12, 2005 - 11:54 am 13. ras:Chuck,
the police are going on a slow down strike.
Under the circumstances, I do not blame the police.
The State has abdicated its primary responsibility of security, for which it had been granted a monopoly on violence. Abdication ends the monopoly.
Barring a sudden change, streetfighting between Muslims and Gaulois will soon follow.
Jerry,
Yes. Islam teaches contemptuousness of others. Call it religion or call it culture but the result is still the same. Well said.
Nov 12, 2005 - 1:54 pm 14. tefta:“Would these “youths” really want to assimilate if they were given the proper chance, replete with affirmative action, etc.?”
Do you mean this as sarcasm?
Affirmative action is not the path to assimilation, quite the contrary. Assimilation is proactive. The prospective American gets his posterior in motion and through his own hard work and effort succeeds.
Affirmative action gives the recipient an excuse why he can’t succeed and a target, society, to blame for his continued residence at the bottom of the barrel.
Nov 12, 2005 - 2:11 pm 15. ras:French welfare also provides the recipient with loads of free time to sit around with his buddies and escalate the rhetoric, as like-minded groups will do.
Nov 12, 2005 - 2:23 pm 16. Jamie Irons:Jerry,
You wrote:
Islam produces a society that is prone to violence, the objectificatiion of women and intolerance of other belief systems…
If you modify that statement slightly to read “[the Wahabbi sect of] Islam produces…” I am inclined to agree.
I posted about the continuing violence from a slightly different perspective early this morning, wondering about when and whether weapons which may be available to the rioters were going to start being used…
Jamie Irons
Nov 12, 2005 - 3:12 pm 17. estel:I was listening to NPR a while ago and evidently there is nothing to worry about regarding the so called riots in the French suburbs. In jocular tones the announcer inferred to his listeners that on any average night over 80 autos are burned by “youths”, so a slight spike in those numbers from time to time is only to be expected. He went on to quote a French official who stated that the burning of cars is “a particularly French form of protest” in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the Republic.
What a relief! It turns out that these “rioters” are merely engaging in a display of their Frenchness.
Vive Le Assimilacion!!
Nov 12, 2005 - 3:16 pm 18. jerry:Jaimie:
No, I meant all of Islamic culture. Our first taste of Islamic radicalism came from Shiite Iran in 1979. Civil society has nerver been found in Islamic societies. Civil Society as we know it is a product of the Greco-Roman sense of the citizen and Reformation Christianity. It has proven remarkably difficult to transplant. The only large scale successful assimilation of the culture that produced civil society has been India and Japan both of which are the result of prolonged contact with the Anglosphere.
Nov 12, 2005 - 3:41 pm 19. ras:I would agree with Jerry’s meaning of “all of Islam.” The attacks on the rest of the world have occurred throughout Islam’s history.
And as I’ve asked before: can someone name an example of the successful integration of a large number of Muslims to peaceful coexistence in a non-Muslim society? Ever?
Nov 12, 2005 - 4:32 pm 20. richard mcenroe:Police going on a slow-down strike? Aha! The source of another great New Orleans tradition…
Nov 12, 2005 - 5:37 pm 21. richard mcenroe:Police going on a slow-down strike? Aha! The source of another great New Orleans tradition…
Nov 12, 2005 - 5:38 pm 22. Pierre Legrand:Islam hates the secularists the worst of all the many people that it hates. Its not the Frenchman’s Christainity that the “poor misunderstood” muslims hate. Its the fact that the average Frenchman believes that anyone who believes in any sort of deity is a savage. Then our Muslim brothers confirm that belief by chopping off various bits of bodies in an effort to appease a perverted Justice System created by their own religion that the French laugh at, to say its a vicious circle is…well obvious.
Nov 12, 2005 - 6:09 pm 23. quickrob:Do French people have garages? I mean, honestly they DO like to drive tiny cars…right? So a garage should be no more difficult to come by than a walk-in closet, no?
Nov 12, 2005 - 6:38 pm 24. ryoushi:I have trouble believing Lyon was targetted by accident.
Lyon has long been associated with banking and Jews within France.
Big surprise that these hooligans/youths/terrorists/anti-semites would set their sights on that city then.
Nov 12, 2005 - 7:15 pm 25. Gideon7:Islam teaches that Muslims are superior to all other cultures. Yet everyday experience shows that Western society is more successful. This creates a cognitive dissonance. It sets the stage for acceptance of fantasies like Bin Laden’s worldwide Caliphate. If you are an angry young male Muslim living on welfare in France, and you were taught this ideology 7 days a week, what would you do?
Nov 12, 2005 - 8:49 pm 26. tefta:Lyon has a history of hating Jews. It was where the infamous Butcher of Lyon gave up Jewish orphans to the Nazis. That act alone turned me at a very young age against all things French.
I find it incomprehensible that Americans tolerate the French, purchase French goods or spend their money vacationing there. What matter is it if they make good cheese and wine. They preserved their beautiful old buildings by collaborating with the Nazis.
They are anathema because I know they would do the very same thing again to save their miserable skins.
It’ll be really interesting to watch the vaunted French insouciance when the yoots start threatening French lives.
Nov 13, 2005 - 6:52 am