France riots? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

stevo · 11-08-2005, 10:24 AM

Wow. it took 12 days of rioting to impose a curfew.

All of you in the US - be glad you live in america.

powerclown · 11-08-2005, 10:26 AM

Mandatory read:

Quote:

WHY PARIS IS BURNING
By AMIR TAHERI

November 4, 2005 -- AS THE night falls, the "troubles" start — and the pattern is always the same.

Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones and ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. When the police arrive on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats.

The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back — with real bullets.

These scenes are not from the West Bank but from 20 French cities, mostly close to Paris, that have been plunged into a European version of the intifada that at the time of writing appears beyond control.

The troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago. France's bombastic interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to "impose the laws of the republic," and promised to crush "the louts and hooligans" within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no "outburst by criminal elements" that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons.

By Monday, everyone in Paris was speaking of "an unprecedented crisis." Both Sarkozy and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.

How did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week, a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: stealing parts of parked cars.

Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened, as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.

The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something — which meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them.

Once the police arrived on the scene, the youths — who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years — got really angry. 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.

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.

In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see "real French life" only on television.

The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of assimilation, which was supposed to turn immigrants from any background into "proper Frenchmen" within a generation at most.

That policy worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas, fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.

France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: the obligatory military service abolished in the 1990s.

As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places," thus making assimilation still more difficult.

In some areas, it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French, let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.

The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid.

Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.

In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks.

The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.

A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out.

"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community.

That illusion has now been shattered — and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb."

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture," but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life to which all mankind should aspire.

So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an adviser to Chirac on Islamic affairs, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.

The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power. Who will rule this new Andalusia: Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?

Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.

Amir Taheri, editor of the French quarterly "Politique internationale," is a member of Benador Associates.

...President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community....

SHOCKER!

stevo · 11-08-2005, 10:48 AM

You didn't pull this from another satire site, did you?

powerclown · 11-08-2005, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

You didn't pull this from another satire site, did you?

The article is from the New York Post.
What did you think of the article?

stevo · 11-08-2005, 11:13 AM

I thought the NY Post was a satiracle paper.

I thought the article sounded good. Now I'm not a frenchman, and I've never been there and I don't know that much, but from what I have heard so far, it sounds pretty right-on. Looks like the french have a pretty big problem on the hands.

I still say they'll be the first to surrender to islamofacism.

powerclown · 11-08-2005, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

I thought the NY Post was a satiracle paper.

Maybe you are thinking of The New York TIMES...

Rekna · 11-08-2005, 11:38 AM

what bothers me about all of this is the following: if this happend in a muslim country and the two boys were american or christian then it would have been declared an act of Allah and the boys got their punishment. Of course since it happend to muslims it is now an injustice that they ran from police after commiting a crime and hid in a stupid place....

stevo · 11-08-2005, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Maybe you are thinking of The New York TIMES...

No, I means Post. we all know how true the news is that the Times prints

but the Post, that paper cant be serious!

(I suppose smileys make it easier to show sarcasm)

roachboy · 11-08-2005, 03:20 PM

you know, the level of idiocy from the lumpenconservative set--simple idiocy---in this thread is emblematic of the way in which this forum has been deteriorating for some time.

powerclown is adding nothing constructive whatsoever---presumably this functions for him as some kind of theatrical demonstration of the fact that he, like any number of other equally servile conservatives, does not like france, and so feels exempt from trying to understand anything--yet for some reason he keeps posting. why do you waste your time, powerclown? why do you waste my time, and that of everyone else? if you really dont care about this situation enough to even get the most basic facts straight, why dont you go do something else? there must be other things that actually interest you--this clearly does not.

other folk, who have no idea of what they are talking about and who, curiously i suppose, almost always position themselves politically from the right, seem to also feel that because the riots are happening in france that anything goes...so this thread, like this entire forum all too often, is yet another field day for the keep-it-short-and-stupid set, a kind of demonstration of what happens when the lumpenconservatives feel that they do not have to engage, but can post anyway.

i dont know what kind of community you folks want, really---it is more than a little dismaying to wonder if this idiocy might be it, the best that this collective can manage---in which case, you can have it---there are millions of other places to waste time, most of which appear to involve more informed engagement with issues than you get in this thread.

later.

powerclown · 11-08-2005, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

you know, the level of idiocy from the lumpenconservative set--simple idiocy---in this thread is emblematic of the way in which this forum has been deteriorating for some time.

powerclown is adding nothing constructive whatsoever---presumably this functions for him as some kind of theatrical demonstration of the fact that he, like any number of other equally servile conservatives, does not like france, and so feels exempt from trying to understand anything--yet for some reason he keeps posting. why do you waste your time, powerclown? why do you waste my time, and that of everyone else? if you really dont care about this situation enough to even get the most basic facts straight, why dont you go do something else? there must be other things that actually interest you--this clearly does not.

other folk, who have no idea of what they are talking about and who, curiously i suppose, almost always position themselves politically from the right, seem to also feel that because the riots are happening in france that anything goes...so this thread, like this entire forum all too often, is yet another field day for the keep-it-short-and-stupid set, a kind of demonstration of what happens when the lumpenconservatives feel that they do not have to engage, but can post anyway.

i dont know what kind of community you folks want, really---it is more than a little dismaying to wonder if this idiocy might be it, the best that this collective can manage---in which case, you can have it---there are millions of other places to waste time, most of which appear to involve more informed engagement with issues than you get in this thread.

later.

Indeed, I make no effort to hide my (short-term) disdain of France for the way they behaved during the days prior to Iraq War 2, and also for the cynical political show of respect they gave to that lifelong terrorist Yassir Arafat. I freely admit that I enjoy watching France twisting and squirming its way through problems of its own making. I also understand that this is a much larger problem than just whats happening in France at the moment, and ultimately, I consider France an important ally of America, and wish no permanent great ill upon her.

I think by now most of us here have the basic idea down of whats going on in France, regardless of what you or I or anyone else here posts. This isn't rocket science. People gather their own information, and come to their own conclusions independent of this forum I would imagine. As for the rest of your personal ranting and raving, I don't see much that's relevant to it. You make it seem as if you are being forced Malcolm McDowell/Clockwork Orange-style into having to view this thread.

Elphaba · 11-08-2005, 07:30 PM

Powerclown, you have avoided roachboy's question. Why do *you* bother to post here?

roachboy · 11-08-2005, 07:41 PM

nah there's nothing ludivico technique about it, powerclown. no-one forces me to do this.

i stopped posting here for a couple months because i grew tired of how this community was devolving, in my view. this thread indicates that i was right to stop---it is unreasonably difficult to have a serious discussion about much of anything in here--which is a shame because it was not always like this. there are some interesting folk--but there is also a smothering layer of self-satisfied conservative nonsense that is passed off as information and opinion all too often--this would not be problematic in itself if there was any sense that the folk who post this tripe--like you, powerclown--at least actually took seriously even what they post, much less the others who read this forum. but i single you out only because of the thread at hand, and only because i find your posts here all too symptomatic, sadly.
i have simply had enough.

tecoyah · 11-08-2005, 07:43 PM

If it comes to the point where we are at risk of losing members to this forum....because of assenine posting habits.....I will remove the problem.....Period

11-08-2005, 10:24 AM	#41 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	Wow. it took 12 days of rioting to impose a curfew. All of you in the US - be glad you live in america. __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

11-08-2005, 10:48 AM	#43 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	You didn't pull this from another satire site, did you? __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

11-08-2005, 11:13 AM	#45 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	I thought the NY Post was a satiracle paper. I thought the article sounded good. Now I'm not a frenchman, and I've never been there and I don't know that much, but from what I have heard so far, it sounds pretty right-on. Looks like the french have a pretty big problem on the hands. I still say they'll be the first to surrender to islamofacism. __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

11-08-2005, 03:20 PM	#49 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	you know, the level of idiocy from the lumpenconservative set--simple idiocy---in this thread is emblematic of the way in which this forum has been deteriorating for some time. powerclown is adding nothing constructive whatsoever---presumably this functions for him as some kind of theatrical demonstration of the fact that he, like any number of other equally servile conservatives, does not like france, and so feels exempt from trying to understand anything--yet for some reason he keeps posting. why do you waste your time, powerclown? why do you waste my time, and that of everyone else? if you really dont care about this situation enough to even get the most basic facts straight, why dont you go do something else? there must be other things that actually interest you--this clearly does not. other folk, who have no idea of what they are talking about and who, curiously i suppose, almost always position themselves politically from the right, seem to also feel that because the riots are happening in france that anything goes...so this thread, like this entire forum all too often, is yet another field day for the keep-it-short-and-stupid set, a kind of demonstration of what happens when the lumpenconservatives feel that they do not have to engage, but can post anyway. i dont know what kind of community you folks want, really---it is more than a little dismaying to wonder if this idiocy might be it, the best that this collective can manage---in which case, you can have it---there are millions of other places to waste time, most of which appear to involve more informed engagement with issues than you get in this thread. later. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

11-08-2005, 07:41 PM	#52 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	nah there's nothing ludivico technique about it, powerclown. no-one forces me to do this. i stopped posting here for a couple months because i grew tired of how this community was devolving, in my view. this thread indicates that i was right to stop---it is unreasonably difficult to have a serious discussion about much of anything in here--which is a shame because it was not always like this. there are some interesting folk--but there is also a smothering layer of self-satisfied conservative nonsense that is passed off as information and opinion all too often--this would not be problematic in itself if there was any sense that the folk who post this tripe--like you, powerclown--at least actually took seriously even what they post, much less the others who read this forum. but i single you out only because of the thread at hand, and only because i find your posts here all too symptomatic, sadly. i have simply had enough. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 11-08-2005 at 07:44 PM..

11-08-2005, 11:38 AM	#47 (permalink)
Rekna Junkie	what bothers me about all of this is the following: if this happend in a muslim country and the two boys were american or christian then it would have been declared an act of Allah and the boys got their punishment. Of course since it happend to muslims it is now an injustice that they ran from police after commiting a crime and hid in a stupid place....

11-08-2005, 07:30 PM	#51 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Powerclown, you have avoided roachboy's question. Why do you bother to post here?

11-08-2005, 07:43 PM	#53 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	If it comes to the point where we are at risk of losing members to this forum....because of assenine posting habits.....I will remove the problem.....Period __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha