Friday, November 04, 2005
This and That While Paris Still Burns
This (and I believe it worth the free registration to read the article):
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.
The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.
Within hours, the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the “occupied territories.” By midweek, the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris, with a population of 5.5 million.
But who lives in the affected areas? In Clichy itself, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns, the Muslim immigrant community accounts for 30 percent to 60 percent of the population. But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent.
Is an extension of that:
...[T]he crux of the West’s problems with militant, fundamentalist Islamists: that a sub-culture could be so twisted as to believe that vicious, mean crimes could be honorable proves that their system of ethics is so completely out of line with ours that their is no way for them to coexist within the same regions and under the same law. For that matter, it proves the lie of cultural relativism.
The expectations of fundamentalist Muslims who emigrate to the West--sometimes from impoverished North African nations, sometimes from wealthy Middle Eastern families--is that the cultures, laws, and expectations of their new hosts will bend to the will of the immigrants. Western expectation is that the newcomers will peacefully bring the best of their own culture, but not in a way that damages the legal and political body of the host.
Instead of peaceful integration, though, what we have is honor rapes in France, the religiously motivated murder of Theo Van Gogh, and the request that Muslim communities have the opportunity to enforce their own religious laws in Canada. In the UK we see Islamic extremists will to live on the dole--that is, on the welfare provided by a generous host--while supporting the London bombings.
Oddly, the US has been spared much of the problem with it’s immigrant base (while being a huge target for attack from outsiders). Is that just luck? Is it just a matter of time before poorer Islamic communities in the US riot in the same way?
Again, that touchy-feely PC belief that if they just got to know us better, if we just communicated more, we wouldn’t have these cultural clashes is proven to be naive. They know us very well, they respect us very little, and they believe that we heretics are fair game for attack and exploitation. Not every Muslim is a potential enemy of their host state, but those that embrace their religious law and culture above the more secular laws of Western developed nations simply cannot rub elbows with the rest of us without undue strain.
We can’t tolerate some of their religious practices (honor rapes again spring to mind) and they can’t tolerate us in a much broader sense.
We have our own problems with riots, of course (think of the riots following the Rodney King verdict), and the problems in France aren’t entirely religious in nature (having a significant economic component). It would be unwise, though, to ignore the cultural and religious element, especially while we engage in a war against Islamic terror throughout the world.
Comments & Trackbacks
I’m to say this, even though it goes against my “live and let live” credo, but drastic times require drastic measures.
If they (and by “they” I mean muslims) don’t want to, or will not, live by our laws (and by “our” I mean western countries), then we should give them a one way passage back to their own nations. If they were born in say, france, then send them back to the country of their forefathers.
A few years living under crushing poverty, far less employment than western nations, very little law enforcement (even by say, french ghetto standards), and much more restrictive and draconian laws, will show them the error of their ways and reveal to many muslims the enlightened stance of western nations. I bet if their family members are murdered and car-bombed because of comparatively “tolerant” views, they’ll be begging us to come rescue them.
We give and we give and we give, and then get slapped in the face by these yobbos. Let’s face it, their parents are powerless to stop them (or simply won’t), their preachers are so invective and vituperative and the really sad thing is, they do this behind closed doors now, we can’t stop them (unless we bug them, or god forbid, just kick ‘em all out).
When are we going to wake up to this viper in our midst? I agree that not all Muslims are like this, but if they do not wish to follow the secular laws, then they should leave and go to Iran or Saudi Arabia. A few years of their men having to ferry their women around in cars because they’re not allowed to drive, or seeing sons hung from cranes, or children’s arms being crushed for stealing a loaf of bread, will definately change their mind.
It is sad. It really is. Before all of this, I knew muslims (I lived in Kuwait), they were kind, they were generous, and I know deep down that this hatred we see is not symptomatic of ALL muslims. Now? No thank you. I don’t want to associate with muslims, I don’t want to be near them not because of fear, but because of disgust.
Allow me to share an observation I made when I lived in Rome.
Every person in any position of any authority or was ethnically Italian. Every shop owner and businessman was Italian. Bus drivers, police men, street sweepers, secretaries, taxi drivers, construction workers. All of them were Italian. The most notable exceptions to this were the Filipina home health care workers who tended to the rapidly aging and shrinking Italian population. (God bless the Filipinos in Rome. They speak English if they are from the Philippines and not born in Italy and they saved me from getting completely lost or taking the wrong bus many a time.)
I make this observation about the Italian nature of Italy because I think it is similar in other European nations. The good jobs are often limited to the ethnically “correct” members of the working population and the immigrants are excluded. I think the exceptions would be other white Western Europeans (Not Eastern Europeans) and Americans. If you add this racism to the fact that that European countries are small geographically, demographically, and economically relative to a country like the U.S. you can see why there are hoards of unassimilated immigrants. They can’t be assimilated. There is no room for them. Furthermore, I’m not so sure that assimilation of immigrants is part of the European mindset. They are so used to being German, French, Italian, etc. and I don’t think they realize that that had not been a realistic view for many, many years. They have ignored the elephant in the living room and now the elephant is rearing it head and charging through the walls. (The elephant has also had many babies so its power has grown exponentially.)
Of course, I could be completely off…
Patrick, the French brought in muslim immigrants after WW2 to help rebuild the country, as did Germany, mainly from Turkey, but the French also had them brought in from Algeria and former colonies.
They were afforded the same education, the same opportunities, and yes, the same hand-outs. The difference between indigenous French and immigrant French being was where the lived. Muslims always tended to congregate together, hence the ghettoes. They have been inculcated over decades, by pretty prose and eloquent rhetoric from Imams that they are “different” and “separate”.
Now let’s talk about the English. After WW2 many former colonials settled in the UK, but differing from the French, the vast majority were Christians. Forget about issues of race, black or white, they had something in common. Did they gather altogether? No, they slowly spread out, became absorbed in society, and got on with life. Rich bankers in London? You’re likely to see the same percentage of them being black as the same percentage of blacks in English society. You can’t play the race card, because it doesn’t exist.
The one group that -were- different in the UK were Pakistanis and Indians, both racially and religiously “different”. Hence, they congregated together, mainly in middle England, Birmingham and Leeds. Which group were radical and militant? Which group initiated violence in recent riots in the UK? Muslims… Pakistani Muslims. You don’t see Indians rioting, why? Because their religion (Hinduism) has a far more peaceful tone. None of the, “resist the infidels at all costs” prose. And while we’re on about it, who the hell likes being called an infidel?
In both cases, France and the UK: Muslims, and in the same areas, closely gathered, similar religious mindsets that their rules were better, and to essentially ignore secular laws.
I don’t think the problem is that host countries don’t want to assimilate these immigrants. I think the problem is that they don’t want to be assimilated, they want the host country to adapt to THEM. And when it doesn’t, and when they feel even more marginalized, they start to react to it. And yes, the religious rhetoric starts to become more radical. Et voila, la France…
You said that assimilation isn’t in the European mindset, I disagree. It is, but religious tolerance and assimilation is not. Looks at the Jews. They have been forced out of every European country for centuries, murdered in and forced out of the UK, strangled in Spain, massacred in Germany, massacred in Russia, not because they’re racially different, but because they are religiously different. You mentioned Filipinos, but I think one reason Filipinos should not be included, is because they’re Christian. Even in the US where there are a lot, do you see Filipinos getting newstime for radicalization? No, because they’re not.
Even now, the tinderbox in the Middle East isn’t over race, it’s religion.
Someone said something on La Shawn Barber’s blog article on the Paris Riots:
“Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.” - Koran 8:39
There is no end to this. Until they themselves realize that their own preaching precludes any peace with every other religion, it will never end. How can any Christian bow down and submit to Allah? Or Hindu, or Confucianist, or Sikh? The very words in that katra tell us what is to come, “fight them”, fight? How would God tell His followers to fight (kill) everyone else?
We’ll never see a Grand Mufti step up and say, “The Koran is wrong, it needs to be amended.” It will not happen. We can talk and talk until we’re blue in the face, but remember, to Muslims - theirs is a perfect religion. To criticize it is to get your throat cut. To say they are intolerant and murdering bastards will get your family killed.
To go back to what you said, I don’t think they’ve been “ignored”, I just think that what has been offered to them - equality, opportunity, tolerance, education - has been ignored.
I don’t think the problem is that host countries don’t want to assimilate these immigrants. I think the problem is that they don’t want to be assimilated, they want the host country to adapt to THEM. And when it doesn’t, and when they feel even more marginalized, they start to react to it. And yes, the religious rhetoric starts to become more radical.
Bingo.
Again, I wouldn’t make a blanket statement against Islam or Muslims. But there is a connection to a particular, violent, and (even if mistakenly) fundamentalist strain of Muslim.
Honor rapes?
It’s the disgusting idea that some transgressions can be honorably punished by raping a woman or even that there is an obligation in some situations to rape a woman.
This is an excellent post on the subject. And here’s an article about honor killings.