Slashdot Mirror
French Riots Lead to Crackdown on Blogs
Browncoat writes "Wired reports that because of the recent riots in France, authorities have shut down a blog called Hardcore, whose participants have allegedly violating a French law concerning violent speech. Many bloggers fear there will be consequences for them if they are outspoken, even if it is in a nonviolent way. From the article: 'Ahmed Meguinia, a political activist who saw some of the Paris region's hardest-hit areas during the past week, said many bloggers feared prosecution for publishing even nonviolent content. While not condoning blogs that incited violence, he said that there was a lack of media coverage explaining why ethnically segregated inhabitants of some of France's poorest cities have been driven to riot. Instead, the world repeatedly sees CNN images of burning cars and shops, he said.'"
That's a loaded term. Show me where France forced ethnicities into certain parts of the city, Warsaw Ghetto style. People live wherever they can afford to. Guess what? Beverly Hills is 'ethnically segregated' too.
Thought I'd never see the day. Well, the French certainly do need a creative boost, and nothing gets the literary talents of Europe fermenting like a good upheaval of society and oppression of the lower classes. Maybe even ol' Bushie will make a cameo with Chirac and offer the dregs of society some cake 'n pie.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
... we have laws against inciting violence here, and most other places have the same deal.
If some American blog advocated setting fire to police stations and lynching Dick & George, it would also be "cracked down" upon.
Let's not get all hypocritical here.
Of course, the free speach should weigh heavy, but they should dampen the ones that try to fuel the fire.
Bullshit! There is no valid reason to restrict speech unless it presents an immediate danger and serves no valid point of discussion (yelling fire in a movie theater).
Simply banning all speech that might be "violent" is a very slippery slope. It would probably have made it illegal for me to encourage people to take to the streets to protest the Florida fiasco in 2000. They might do better by looking at the reason why these people are rioting in the first place. Perhaps because they feel cheated by the system? Perhaps because they aren't even allowed to wear their religious headwear to school anymore?
As a sidenote: I don't ever want to hear people slime the United States again. It's rather interesting that Muslim youth over here aren't rioting -- even though we are the ones "at war" with certain followers of that faith. Perhaps that's because we have better religious freedom?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So the French Government sticks it to the politically powerless bloggers. Will they also forbid those same images on CNN referenced in the blurb? I would be willing to bet that more potential rioters got their initial impressions from the mainstream media than from blogs.
Of course, you cannot coordinate attacks on CNN, but shutting down blogs will be not only ineffective but counterproductive. A well-informed security service would be monitoring the blogs and spiking them with false info to make arrests.
OK, I'd prefer those who do the wrong thing to be stupid rather than clever...
Using plain ol' text since 1968
France may be a worker's paradise, but only if you if have a job.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
That's like saying Osama Bin Laden was "driven" to attack the WTC. Or the people who attacked London in July were "driven" to it by the victims.
Many ( but centainly not all) of these rioters are racists. The difference between them and other disillusioned youths in their North African homecountries is that they're living close enough to the hated group to actually attack them, in this case their property and the police.
A French War of the Worlds
The author has lived in France for several decades and this is what he says:
In a nation that insists immigrants accept the monolithic secular French culture, a great divide has grown. Part of it is the insular nature of Islamic North African culture. But much of it is that "French" France still rejects its North African countrymen.
They don't get good jobs or decent financial opportunities. Their unemployment rate is often as high as 50%. There isn't a single Frenchman or Frenchwoman of North African origin (or black, for that matter) in the cabinet, and only a handful hold any position of rank in the civil and commercial bureaucracy. There are virtually no black or Arab anchors on French TV, or North African cultural presence in the theater or cinema.
This has further angered the Muslim population, driving it deeper into its own ghetto mentality and to communal violence. When I first came to France 50 years ago, North African immigrants spoke Maghreb Arabic, but their French-born children proudly spoke French. Today, the beurs, the young French-born generation of North Africans, talk to each other in Arabic.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Before anyone starts spouting about how fascist the French government is and how this could never happen in the USA, keep in mind that web sites are routinely taken down in the USA by government AND corporations (as if there is any difference anymore). A site can be taken down entirely because of urging from a [corporation/gov.official], without any judicial oversite whatsoever if they say it threatens [profits/national security]. In addition, who knows how many newsletters, sites, or blogs were never even published due to [corporate/government] intimidation and the threat of [a ruined credit rating/getting on the wrong watch list]?
You must mean the way they pandered to them by banning headscarves...
Anyway, what does the rioting have to do with Islam, anyway? It's a social issue, not a religious one. Many of the rioters come from eastern europe and black africa, not just the magrehb. I suppose you think they all became islamists suddenly...
Chirac will blame this on Bush.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Which idiot modded that insightful? The riots have nothing to do with religion - they're standard poverty riots just like Brixton 1985 and LA 1992, and you seriously have to stop masturbating about trying to evoke a global culture war at every opportunity you see.
Let's examine this statement:
>>he said that there was a lack of media coverage explaining why ethnically segregated inhabitants of some of France's poorest cities have been driven to riot.
>>lack of media coverage explaining
No doubt. From the media, one would think it was just random collections of poor "youth" on a little spree, releasing youthful energy by burning a car or two (thousand). The reality is that it's a well-defined group of people which I'll get to in a moment.
>>ethnically segregated inhabitants
Do you mean the "muslim immigrants (many of whom are illegal aliens), primarily male aged 14-26, who, by choice, are poorly integrated into France's culture (read: hates France, doesn't speak French, disdain for Europeans, etc.) and thus more likely to be unemployed (and living off of France's generous welfare system, placing a burden on the French)?" It's hard to tell, with all those PC buzzwords in the media.
Look, it's what happens when a culture doesn't insist that immigrants conform. They hate their host country and are using this as an excuse to terrorize, burn, loot, and generally express their disdain and hatred for France.
Anything else I can clear up for you?
Actually, from what I've read, unemployment is more like 50%. Add to it that there is little or no represntation of the north african imigrant in the upper echelons of government, and it's understandable why there's dissatisfaction.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
And they leave out the most unforgivable crime: posting a page written exclusively non-French. But they let Roman Polanski, a convicted child rapist, to run around their enlightened nation.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Here's a topic page with links to mostly right wing blog posts about the riots. Also, I recommend reading Jim Dunnigan In France, It's Not Jihad, and Never Has Been who's usually fairly insightful. And of course a link to my favorite blogger, Instapundit and finally The Belmont Club has a few posts about it, just scroll down.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Poverty riots? So they're not on generous welfare? They don't have enough
food to eat? They don't all have TVs? They arn't all , in general , far
better off than if they or their parents had stayed in their backwards
african slum? Gimme a break. These riots are the standard issue "poor little
us" youth riots , with a bunch of witless adolescents feeling sorry for
themselves and so have to take it out on the state because they're too thick
to see the real cause of their unemployment is in the mirror.
That's pretty much it, folks.
If the American media want to blame this on their latest Islamist bogeyman, you might as well go the whole hog and blame the Watts and LA riots on radical Islam too...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Denmark has had really severe problems with that, but so far the groups fight eachother. None of the European countries have faced up to the transmigration problem and still handle them and immigrants alike under antiquated immigration laws designed to handle a slow trickle of individuals back in the 1950's. No system is really in place to get the people new job skills for those that need it, proper language skills, and an acceptance or appreciation of existing values and mores.
As a result, you get situations like in the Netherlands where each of the 4 largest cities in the country have a first generation immigrant/transmigration populations of over 40% each. Or in Malmö, Sweden where Swedes are now the single largest ethnic minority, even counting second generation immigrants/transmigrants as Swedes, regardless of assimilation.
There is also the problem of double standards. Any questioning or criticism of the system results in personal verbal attacks and accusations of intolerance. Any criticism of the behaviour of the new comers is likewise attacked with accusations of intolerance and racism. In contrast, newcomers can get away with statements and actions that would put a 'native' in serious legal trouble, resulting in jail or fines. That has to stop and the reality of the situation be looked at as well as the intended goals.
How does importing 5 million transmigrants into a country of 5 million or even 60 million help the situation for either the people (both new and old) in the new country or those left in the country they have escaped from? We all know what happens to a business if there is high turn over, what about whole cities or countries?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
They should have built a Coliseum before the city hit population 5 then made a bee line for Monotheism to build a cathedral. At the very least, they could have turned a citizen or two into an elvis as a stop gap emergency measure.
Pah. French AI's a joke.
(It's a joke, I think the real situation is horrible.)
"Driven to riot" implies a lack of accountability on the part of the people looting and burning one of history's great civilizations. I find the argument that inflammatory statements from the French government are the direct cause of the riots offensively absurd, esp. in light of France's reputation for pandering to the multicultural tolerance dogma. The sad truth is that it is this so-called "tolerance" that fueled the fire in the first place. Blogs are not sanctified absolutely by virtue of free speech (esp. if those blogs are being used to incite and coordinate violent attacks on the public). Does anyone really believe that freedom of speech extends to tactical communications in promotion of mayhem? And if the police don't stop the riots, the same people protesting the violation of personal freedom are going to protest the inefficacy of the police. It's all so depressingly predictable and pathetic.
Anybody else see that Frontline report about the 911 terrorists? Sure, a lot of them where Saudis, but nearly all of the were radicallized during their time in Europe.
I'm french. I live in Paris.
As I understand it from reading the news today, those blogs (ran by kids respectively 18, 16, and 14 years old) were taken down and their authors were arrested not because they expressed opinions but because they called for more violence and murdering of police officers (namely by setting them on fire).
Which is illegal according to french laws.
Law broken. Law breaker arrested. I fail to see what the big deal is.
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
Most of these youth's, while poorly integrated into French society, are second generation French citizens, who speak French as their first (and largely only) language.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
1. I think by dampen the ones that try to fuel the fire he probably meant the ones that were explicitly inciting further violence. So we're (you, me and parent) are probably in agreement that those specific guys could have their free speech rights truncated in interests of greater public safety.
2. Perhaps that's because we have better religious freedom? I think more than just religious freedom it might have to do with the fact that the French state is a secular one. When they beheaded their king back in the French Revolution they were not just doing away with the monarchy, they were also symbolically dethroning God. Ever since they have had an aggressively secular government. So it's no wonder that a minority group that is extremely religious feels at odds with a government that borders on anti-religious.
This is in contrast with American government, which was not founded as a secular state. People who say it was are misreading the Constitution and ignoring history. I'm not saying it was Christian, but it was at least fundamentally theist. Just read the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, certainly not a Christian by any conventional standard, began attending a Christian church when he was president. Why? He explained that he felt that the Christian faith tended towards the betterment of society and thus it was up to him to set a good example and attent. The "seperation of church and state" was really only intended to be a seperation between the state and any specific establishment of religion - not to set the state against religion or expel God from the state.
There are dangers in giving into the demands of the religious right - ID and all the nonesense. But by the same token, if we allow America to continue to be secularized (ala banning the Pledge of Allegiance and essentially declaring the Declaration of Independence itself to be ruled "unconstitutional") we are perhaps setting the stage to follow France towards an inevitable confrontation between the forces of religion and atheism.
I'm not saying that it is only religious tension that has resulted in the French violence, but it is certainly an exacerbating element.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
A different Wired article explains the official line between free speech and inciting violence. "The Council of Europe has adopted a measure that would criminalize Internet hate speech, including hyperlinks to pages that contain offensive content." "Specifically, the amendment bans "any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for any of these factors."
We are all just people.
Or maybe Europe is closer in location and historic ties to the muslim parts of the world than the US is? Maybe this has nothing to do with a war, but more with a large influx of muslims seeking riches, but not finding it?
That's funny, because just one of our states (Michigan) has a larger Muslim population then any other Western nation save France, and overall we have the largest number of Muslims in the United States then any other Western country. I don't see any riots here.
And it's not just about economics either my friend. I don't see Mexicans/Latinos rioting in the United States when they come here to seek their fortune and don't find it. We embrace other cultures and assimilate them into our own. A lot of other countries just reject them outright.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A majority of them are "muslim" in the sense that it's what they write on census forms in the religion field. They are just as religious as those christians who go to church three times in their life for their baptism, marriage and burial. And as Islam lacks those forced religion moments (other than burial) they probably haven't seen the inside of a mosque in a very long time.
Other than those just-on-paper muslims there are also plenty of christian and diverse animist religion immigrants from central africa that are rioting with them.
There's a difference. See if you can spot it:
Anita Coney is a smelly poopy-head.
That's opinion.
Anita Coney should be shoved through a meat-grinder because he's such an idiot.
That's a threat.
Understand? You can state opinions ("France sucks!") but you can't try and get people to attack France.
By the way, the US works in exactly the same way. It's often refered to as "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" but you can bet that the same blogs would be shut down by US authorities.
Then the idiots should vote. Burning homes/cars/businesses/people isn't they way to go about getting your way.
Especially burning down their OWN neighbourhood. Now if they were trashing some upper-class city, then yeah I'd understand the point of the protest. But burning your neighbour's car, who doesn't make that much of a living in the first place ...
Some people are saying "It's all economics, they're poor / unemployed so they are fighting against the Man the only way they can", while others are saying "It's all religion, they're all middle-eastern, its what they do".... but those are just the talking points of the far Left and far Right. The issue, as always, is more complicated.
What you have are immigrant population from French colonies in North Africa (who happen to be of middle-eastern and african descent) who have entered France through their weaker immigration laws. The French are traditionally very nationalistic (see their Language boards), and the immigrants were discriminated against and were not assimilated into mainstream cultures. Secondly, the middle-eastern culture itself is very prideful, mainly becase of their religious practices and family customs. The net result was that the immigrants self-segretated themselves into comminities of like-minded peoples.
So, the dominant european ethnics (through prejudice) resisted their assimilation, which had the net result of limiting the earning potential of the middle-eastern ethnics. The immigrants resist learning the French language and culture, and because of French law, are denied representation in their governments. When the government does try to "help" them with social programs, their culture see it as insulting / condescending. The net result of this is a hatred of a government that is constantly trying to patronize them and force them to give up their heritage.
So, these neighborhoods tend to have less governmental police prescence than other suburbs of Paris, which tends to lead to more criminal elements. It had gotten so bad, representatives of the federal government of France were claiming that they would "clean up the scum", which didn't go so well with the locals. In the latest chain of events, there were two youths who were fleeing police, hid in a utility station and accidentally electrocuted themselves. The immigrant cultures see this as police brutality & oppression, something denied by the authorities.
Finally, there are now criminal elemnts in the immigrant culture that are rising up and causing damage around the suburbs, fighting their "battle" against the government for making them the way they are... Yet, these people do not see that a share of that responsibility is theirs.
Sitting here reading
Joking aside, there's a long term battle going on here between workers and employers, and the whole french employment and social model is at stake. A powerful CEOs lobby known as MEDEF is pushing hard to shift the model to "Easy to hire, easy to fire", but that is hard to swallow when like those young rioters you have trouble finding anything but short term, underpaid jobs.
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
... would seem to be a no-brainer, in terms of making the distinction. But France (and Germany) has a pretty long post-WWII history of making very strange distinctions (or not) between those things. The mess they're in now is shining a pretty bright light on some of their culture's built-in legal and philosophical oddities. Much is being made about France's supposed inability to integrate immigrants into their wider society, but there's more to it than that.
I spent some time yesterday talking to my neighbor who is from Cameroon, in Africa. Their culture was impacted considerably by German colonialism, and then lurched into Frenchness when the French were handed that German turf after WWII. As a result, many people from his generation head to France for higher education, and indeed, he has relatives there. He fondly recalled traveling there (and across Europe) as a younger man 15 years ago, and says that he hates it now because "it's no longer France."
He's appalled by the unwillingness of many people that move there to even learn French or fully grasp how the country works. He says that some people there do wish that it was easier to snap their fingers and "be" French - with all of the social niceties and better paying work that might suggest - but that the problem is more in the objectives of the immigrants. His personal take on it is that, indeed, it's not Moroccans (as an example) wanting to move to France, it's Morrocans wanting to move Morroco to France.
At any rate, he came here (to the US), and is working his ass off in two different businesses (wireless networking and carpet cleaning!). He came here with very little, and now has a decent house (luxurious, he says, by any standard he would otherwise have enjoyed in Cameroon or in France) and just bought his equally hard working wife a nice Mercedes.
He uses the internet for VoIP chats with his friends in France and Africa, haunts many message boards and blogs in both places, and encourages his relations in France to do the same. His take on it is that the French have become completely schizoid on this entire bundle of issues. They preach a culture/color-blind take on all things governmental (which he applauds), and seem to let into the country pretty much anyone who feels like being there (which he thinks is crazy). But his main observation was that the socialist aspects of the French government/economy are chiefly to blame for everything that's happening. He has a bird feeder out behind his house and laughs when the squirrels fight over the sunflower seeds - but he says that's pretty much what's happening in the immigrant-heavy French suburbs right now... people moving there for the welfare-ish resources, and now erupting into a frenzy over the ramifications of living like that (in contrast to the country's better-off people, but - according to my neighbor - still better off than they would be where they came from). I asked him if his perceptions are typical, and he said that he wishes they were (in the French 'burbs), but that they are among the extended Cameroonian ex-pat community in the DC area. He's shaking his head over the whole thing, and says he wishes that France would lighten up on the whole free speech thing, but that it would tighten up on immigration. The biggest thing, though, is the complete fear (on the part of law enforcement) of even entering some neighborhoods. The police there are completely powerless to deal with the thuggier elements in the public housing ghettos, and have pretty much thrown up their hands.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
from what I read, unemployment is like 250%. Actually no one works, we just sit there, relax, smoke weed, and receive money from the Marshall Plan.
God I like being a Communist !
Since I live in Paris and I used to live in one of those poor suburbs, my humble opinion might be worth more than 2 cents, so here it comes: ... They were not just discussing the problems.
1. There is no country in Europe that does not struggle with immigrants and children from immigrants from African origin. France has the largest number of them, hence the biggest problems. (This is also correlated to the anti-semitism problem in France: the largest arabic and the largest jewish populations of Europe are in France and anti semitism in France comes overwhelmingly from this arabic population)
2. Many of those rioters are simply criminals that do not want the police to be present in these suburbs and are demonstrating that it is their territory.
3. Islam has nothing to do with these rioters. If they were white, would we say it's because of christianity? These criminals are not muslim.
4. These bloggers were calling for physically hurting policemen, burning cars, schools,
5. What is this bullshit about journalists not talking about the causes of the social problems? All French newspapers, TV and radio news are just talking about that!
6. These riots happen almost exclusively in the poor suburbs of France, 99% of the French population has only seen burning cars on TV.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Some of their opponents have found other avenues of protest ...
I was debating how unwholesome KK Donuts are, and came across this defacement of the current Krispy Kreme wiki entry (who says wikis aren't up-to-the-minute)...
I can see bloggers who are afraid to post in their own countries adopting this tactic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krispy_Kreme
No system is really in place to get the people new job skills for those that need it, proper language skills, and an acceptance or appreciation of existing values and mores.
Asians never seem to need assistance from the "state" nor do Eastern European immigrants. They adopt and are often the most successful members of society.
Maybe they should crack down on the rioters first?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The BBC coverage of the rioting has been unapologetically anti-authority, if not ostensibly so then with a clear leftist undertone. They don't condone the rioters' actions, but are not afraid to cite the likely causes - neglect of what have become inner-city ghettoes and discrimination against the inhabitants.* Of course, CNN would be given its marching orders if it was even seen to be being anti-white/Christian/etc. and pro-Islam.
:D
And I for one cannot say that I am even slightly surprised by the rioting. The white French attitude has always been shamelessly xenophobic, and finally it has come back to bite them in the arse, so to speak.
In Britain, anyway, we've always known the French like a bit of authoritarianism. So the censoring of blogs doesn't come as much of a surprise.
iqu
(* This is not to say that the UK is not without its racial tensions. Indeed, that country is at the moment engaged in something of a debate over "multiculturalism" - whatever that is - as it tries to decide how best to respond to the bombings of 7th July. But as so many will attest, in France, there is no shame in xenophobia, and it permeates the entire system, from the layman on the street to the judiciary and the politicians. Perfick tho' it most certainly ain't, there is at least some sense that xenophobia and discrimination are wrong.)
Don't you even bother to evaluate "factoids" before throwing them out to "support" your arguments?
Do you really believe fifty years ago that half of Turkey's inhabitants were atheists? When did the great Secular Turkish migration/exodus occur? Do you believe fifty years ago that America's population was only 50% Christian?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Well, speaking as somebody that has actually BEEN THERE, I can tell you it is totally a Muslim event!
...). Give the youngs some fun, give the older a job and there would be no riot.
When? Where? How long?
There is no religion involded.
There are dozens of different nationalities involved
Wrong. They are french. And most of them don't have another nationality.
but the common denominator is they are Muslims.
Yes some of them are muslims. And what? The police men are 90% christians (were baptized). And what?
My comment may be considered flamebait here
You're right for this point
it is the reality of Muslim immigrants all across Europe
There is hardly any immigrant involved in these riots. Most of the rioters are french. Born in France. Educated in France.
The do not wish to blend in and they are intolerant of other religions, not just the Jews.
Totaly wrong. Would be too long to explain.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with current evets before your next comment.
Instead of familiarizing with events, you should meet people.
I don't want to say there is no problem. Because there is. But it is not a matter of religion. This is a social problem (unemployment, future, integration,
Million Dollar Screenshot
France "rejects" these people he says , and by way of proof he offers
up the fact that they don't have good jobs or are no in the cabinet.
Perhaps , the truth is that not many of them have the education or
ability to have good jobs. Its the same in the UK where certain groups
whine on about discrimition against ethic groups , until you have to point
out to them that hindus, sikhs , chinese etc are all doing very well
thank you. Certain minority groups simply won't admit that its THEIR fault
they're doing badly , and contrary to what they may think or want , society
does NOT owe them a living.
Destroying property Correct, thousands of cars and tens of buildings were set afire
Raping None reported. And god knows that if there were only rumors, far-right would cry it out loud
killing people Zero rioters killed. Zero policemen killed. One (and probably two soon) innocent bystanders killed (which is in the average criminality for a quiet week)
Number of shots fired during the first week : 4. (I didn't followed the events during the second week where I knew there has been shotgun shots in one suburb, without killing people btw)
I believe that what is called "riots" here would be called "life as usual" in America. The only spectacular events are the arsons, which are inacceptables, I agree.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The official islamic body in France has published a fatwa that condemns the rioters. It basically said that a good muslim should not participate in the riots and that several passages of Islam forbid to blindly destroy property.
Remember, the Bible and the Coran (not sure of the english sp.) have the same roots, you can find heinous passages in both of them. But both of them have proven to be able to be the basis of a viable morality.
We share more than most think.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Perhaps these bloggers should consider a change of venue. Say to one of the indymedia sites or the general purpose blog sites like LiveJournal. While LJ would likely comply with a court order, coming from a French (in this case) court would likely be delayed while it was examined etc etc.
Being based outside the country you currently reside in has some usefullness.
Also, it is good to see that, despite living in economically depressed areas of France, they are able to get online at all.
As far as the (US) media coverage of the French riots, I agree, it's been almost all about the damage being done and very little about what they were angry for. I had to ask a friend who is a French national what in the would they were rioting for.
Her response was interesting, mainstream France does not harbor any noticible racism for black Africans. They have been and continue to be integrated into mainstream french society. The flare ups have been towards more recent north african immigrants who happen to be majority arab & muslim decent.
Like elsewhere in the would, people look for scapegoats whereever they can, in this case the more recent immegrants consume french health care and public assistance resources but are not far enough along in integrating (or refusing to integrate) to start contributing taxes and the like to make up for the difference. With unemployment being high in specific parts of France this can lead to problems etc etc.
I can't speak to if there is really any intentional discrimination of anybody. This was all from a 40 YO mother who is more in the world of shopping for dinner at x+3 shops and driving an SUV than anything else.
Have you seen the worst high-rise housing projects outside Paris? They've very similar to the worst projects in Chicago; worse than the worst in New York City. When thousands of Algerians moved to France after WWII (because Algeria was still French territory then), the French government place them in these projects.
Okay, so let's say that you, and a bunch of people of your culture (whatever that is) were displaced to, say, China. The Chinese government built a high-rise ghetto for you all. Schools would not tolerate your children speaking English, and the only jobs available, if any, for you and your children were the most menial. You could not wear the symbols of your religion. The Chinese police would randomly detain and beat your children on the street. When you went into Chinese stores, you'd hear nasty comments, and sometimes the store employees would refuse to even serve you. (Hell, I've had that experience in France merely for being American, years back when they still officially liked us.)
But the Chinese give you enough noodles to stay alive, and even enough cash to buy a cheap TV. The TV shows are all in Chinese, and have no characters who look at all like you. But you should feel so lucky to be in China being treated so generously to housing and noodles and TV. After all, once the Chinese got tired of lending America's immense trade surplus back to us so we could continue to buy cheap Chinese goods, our economy collapsed. Yes, it's 100 years from now, and where you used to live in America is, by modern Chinese standards, a slum.
So when your children riot, you understand why the Chinese don't give you a break. And why conservative in Thailand post to their neoblogs about how your children are "witless adolescents feeling sorry for themselves."
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Paris (APi) - In a stunning development, the french government has decided to end the conflict and surrender to the rioters currently causing minor problems in various french cities.
The rioters immediately re-established the Vichy government and appointed "Chuckles DeGaulle", grand-nephew of Charles and noted mime to head up the new government.
Unless these people are being illegally denied representation in government, I honestly don't give a flying flip about why they feel "driven" to violence. Democracies have mechanisms for peacefully airing grievances; if you can't convince others of your position, you can't get what you want. End of story.
Bandannarama
This is not true.
Until about a decade ago most EU countries gave you nationality/citizenship if you were born in that country, regardless of parents nationality etc. Definitely the UK was like that until quite recently. France certainly doesn't have that rule at least since early nineties - in practice most children of immigrants got french citizenship, but the right wasn't automatic.
Now citizenship cannot be acquired automatically through birth in any EU country. Ireland was the last to get rid of the right one or two years ago. Apparently since they were the only country in the EU to still have it, and since it's now pretty easy to travel anywhere in the EU if you have residence rights in one EU country, they were finding that lots of pregnant mothers were coming to Ireland specifically give birth and obtain EU-country citizenship for their child.
This definitely applies to the 15 'old EU' members, but i would imagine that the new member states have come in line with this since joining.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Also there was never the institutional racism that could've sparked civil distaste for such policies, nor a split value country where one part could be the conscience of the other. There's was never a law against sitting in front of the bus that somebody could've protested against.
Instead, racism in France was always something you did quietly. Many HR managers in low level industries throw applications with north african sounding names directly into the reject pile. If you're a brown skinned male in a white neighborhood, you cannot sit next to a white female on a bus or train or you'll always risk getting beaten up by some white power vigilante group. The police go around immigrant neighborhoods and beat up and arrest youths with the always convenient justification of them "resisting arrest".
If you call anyone up on these occurances, they will brush accusations of racism off and claim they're not happening. Even us college educated north african immigrants who "made it" and generally don't have to deal with racism as much are reminded at least once a week that we're somehow less equal than others either in dealing with random people on the street or the especially fun police harassments.
Just go visit Democrat Underground or Daily Kos. You will find many articles that discuss violence against authority and the death of our President and Vice President. Heck Air America Radio between fundraising breaks and stealing money from poor children has had several commentators advocate the assassination of our President.
I am always amazed at the shouts from the left that they are being "oppressed" in this country. I am going practically deaf from their oppression. Its like a Monty Python sketch. If you want to see truly speech oppressive societies, just look at Europe and their numerous speech codes/laws.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Is it sliming when I say the U.S. president lied about WMD
When did he lie about WMD? Unless you are one of thoses that believe that they knew that WMD did not exist at all; unlike the rest of the world.
responsible for all the civilians being slaughtered there
So Bush is responsible for loading people up with explosive and having them walking into restaurants and then blowing themselves up?
Or that Americans are no better than the Sunnis that ran Abu Graib?
well except for the US arrested thoses that did anything of that nature, and even what they did was not close to standard practive when the sadam ran the place.
It didn't make a lot of sense in the LA riots, either.
What this shows is that rioting is an emotional activity, not a logical one.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Yes, the real cause of unemployment is in the mirror, the color of what it reflects."
Yes , obviously its their colour. Though all those indians doing well in
france obviously must have painted themselves white and used false names
when they went for job interviews, right? Or perhaps you're just dishing out
the usual racism rant because you're as dumb as the rioters and think all
their problems are caused by Nasty White People. Moron.
Then what do you call forbidding Muslim school girls from wearing traditional head scarves in school?
... No exception. This is not about culture, this is about religion at public schools. And this is not targeted to the muslims but it applies to every one. This is the law and it is a very old one.
Laicity. You can not wear religious signs at school and that applies to every one. You can not come with a cross, you can not keep your kipa,
Million Dollar Screenshot
It was not intended to strip ones liberty of faith, but rather put everybody on the same level : no religion (quite) no differences. See it like the UK uniform tradition. Religion being an important matter, it aims not to bring possible 'tensions' at school.
It doesn't strip your liberty of faith to not be able to wear the items of that faith when you attend public school? I presume that school is mandatory for all children in France the way it is in the United States?
Such a law would never survive a court challenge over here. It would never even get passed in the first place.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The perception of the "man in the street" and several national newspapers here in the UK is that Asians and Eastern Europeans are *entirely* reliant on the state. This is not of course true, but is about as valid a viewpoint as yours.
I flew over the comment page and read many of them though not all of them, and I didn't see any French replying to this, so I figured out it'd a good idea to reply. I could tell you guys what I think it is happening here, in our beloved country. As many of you have stated, France built housing projects for the poorest people to live in, and immigrants and their descendance had no other choice than to go live there. Though, in France, when you're down there, you sort of get stuck down there and you can't really expect the same opportunities as the "less poor" people living in houses. It is hard to explain, but these people slowly built their own communitity, they've been cast apart by the rest of us French and ignored for too long; now they're called scum. Wouldn't you be pissed that, not only do you live in housing projects and can't get a job, but you also are ignored by the country ? People living there have a stamp mark on their faces, and are considered as troublemakers. And we can't say that it's about religion or the fact that they came from foreign countries, because white French boys live in those places: they're rioters too. Religion as little to do with all this. Have you people seen the movie "La Haine" - the American title is Hate" - by Matthieu Kassovitz ? It is exactly the same thing, EXACTLY the same - The police injures a young immigrant from the suburbs while interrogating him. He later dies . - This event sparks riots everywhere in Paris suburbs. - The police is everywhere. - Cars are burning. The riots, the burning cars... this is not the point. The point is that the youth have nothing else to do than to fuck around everyday, do drugs, and deal with policemen. The police and the youth hate each other. The only thing they can do to get attention from the whole country is to set it on fire. And that's what they did. La Haine was shot in 1991; we're in 2005, the situation did NOT evolve.
The problem in a nutshell is Islam is not just a religion, it is also a political force that denies the legitimacy of other belief systems and other political orientations.
What utter tripe.
I lived in two predominantly Muslim countries when I was a kid, (Malaysia and Indonesia), and they were just as tolerant of other religions as any other country in the world. For most Indonesians, Islam is about like Christianity is in the USA: something you pay lip service to when your grandma is listening, but you don't let it get in the way of having a good time.
There's a problem of Saudi-bankrolled Wahabbis finding the assholes in every Muslim community and inciting them to cause trouble. It's about the same problem you'd find in the Christian world if somebody dropped a couple billion dollars on that clown with the "god hates fags" web site.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actually, you're wrong. Inciting to riot is illegal in the US, and has been upheld in the Supremes, and it seems pretty clear that the blogs in question were guilty of this.
Here's a link from The First Amendment Center
And here is the Wikipedia Entry for Brandenburg v. Ohio, which was the Supreme Court Case that set the predicent.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It sure is. Turkey is very keen to join the EU as soon as it possibly can. The existing membership is split on the issue, but France is probably the strongest opponent. It's in Turkey's interest to portray the French government as anti-Muslim, because then the other nations in the EU will come to perceive France's opposition to Turkish membership of the EU as a product of an anti-Muslim mindset, and will be less likely to support France in that matter.
What the French are actually against, of course, is the accession to the EU of a country with a population bigger than theirs. The Turks would quite naturally have more seats in the European Parliament than either the French or the Germans, and would tend to vote for policies benefiting the poorer countries of the East who have recently joined. In order to defeat such policies, the French and Germans might actually have to come to agreements with the British... Clearly this is inconceivable if you happen to be French :-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Our INS people randomly stop people all of the time to see if they have green cards. There is no outrage because it rarely happens in places where people are "outraged" by this happening. How do I know this? Texas peace officer for 5 years. I worked with INS on a fairly regular basis. Police officers ask civilians for their ID at almost every encounter without starting massive riots.
The ban on religous headwear was not and is not a case of the muslims being "singled out" or discriminated against. In France you "are" French before you're anything else and it's not like crosses or stars of david get an arms wide open welcome in schools while muslim head coverings are banned. If you immigrate to a country (any country) the onus is on you to comply with the laws of that county. You are also going to find that your success or failure in that county is directly affected by the level to which you integrate into that culture. That's just unavoidable no matter who's country you're talking about and what culture you're coming from.
Now everyone who disagrees with me (and who has mod points) go ahead and mod me down.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
BS.
If you aren't ready to immigrate, then don't immigrate. Period. Don't go to another country, and expect them to learn your language so that they can teach you in schools, and don't expect them to change their TV programming so that you can understand it. None of these people were displaced. They came voluntarily, and instead of assimilating, they're trying to do the assimilation. Hence the friction. I feel very little for them. I sincerely doubt that every other minority group in France is having this problem.
Did you even read the wiki article you linked to? They *reversed* the lower court conviction in an unanimous vote. Let me quote it for you :
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation. The unanimous majority opinion was per curiam ("signed" by the court as a whole rather than by individual justices): it was orginally drafted by Justice Abe Fortas before he had been forced to resign in the midst of an ethics scandal, and Justice William J. Brennan made only minor changes to the opinion before it was published. Justices Black and Douglas concurred separately.
For all the flack that the American's get, our view of freedom of religion and celebration of diversity rather than the forced secular humanism and assimilation of the french is much more palatable. What is going on in france is absolutely shameful.
The beautiful irony is that French attitudes toward multiculturalism are exactly what the Republicans are pursuing over here.
What do I mean by that? The French implement the opposite of affirmative-action type policies; all of their policies are designed to be completely color-blind. The net effect of this, however, is that someone with an african-sounding name with the same qualifications has been show to be a fraction as likely to get the same job as someone with a traditional French-sounding name. This refusal to look at their multiculturalism in the assumption that everything will just work out fine if you ignore it is the fundamental problem.
Also, to attack some of the major myths underlying many people's arguments on here: these are hardly muslim radicals. Most of them, like most French, are not very religious. Most of them don't speak any arabic or any languages other than French. However, their French often isn't mainstream either - there is a "Beur" culture which is sort of the equivalent of American hip-hop culture. They're not immigrants, but the children of immigrants; they're as French as Jennifer Lopez is American. France simply isn't filled with some sort of "pure race"; even the Minister of the Interior is the son of immigrants.
He's just being nice so my real father won't freeze him in carbonite and sell him for spice.
The issue, as always, is more complicated
I live in France and know pretty well the psychology of these people, it's not complicated at all, sorry, it's actually pretty simple.
What you have are immigrant population from French colonies in North Africa who have entered France through their weaker immigration laws
Actually, France needed cheap labor at the time, and promised them work and home. So they came. Reality was hard work and cheap home.
The French are traditionally very nationalistic, and the immigrants were discriminated against and were not assimilated into mainstream cultures. Secondly, the middle-eastern culture itself is very prideful, mainly becase of their religious practices and family customs. The net result was that the immigrants self-segretated themselves into comminities of like-minded peoples
Nonsense. These people, with their hard work (far from their work location), just had no time to do anything other than work. When you're exhausted, it's way harder to integrate yourself (learn the language or educate your children). Immigrants were not self-segregated, they were all put together in the same cheap apartments.
So, the dominant european ethnics (through prejudice) resisted their assimilation, which had the net result of limiting the earning potential of the middle-eastern ethnics
Still true today.
The immigrants resist learning the French language and culture, and because of French law, are denied representation in their governments
Nothing to do with the law, it's a false secret, but access to high education is greatly influenced by where you live, which is greatly influenced by your income. It's nothing like the USA here in France, even for jobs and how they are paid.
When the government does try to "help" them with social programs, their culture see it as insulting / condescending
That's not true. They ask for more.
The net result of this is a hatred of a government that is constantly trying to patronize them and force them to give up their heritage
This is completely wrong. They have no more hatred for our government than other citizen. The problems are well known and here, it is the police forces. See the movie "La Haine" to have a good vision of what the problem is with some police forces (think Rodney King).
So, these neighborhoods tend to have less governmental police prescence than other suburbs of Paris, which tends to lead to more criminal elements
Not true either. Number of police force is dependant on your wealth and popularity (so, given what I said above, where you live).
It had gotten so bad, representatives of the federal government of France were claiming that they would "clean up the scum", which didn't go so well with the locals. In the latest chain of events, there were two youths who were fleeing police, hid in a utility station and accidentally electrocuted themselves. The immigrant cultures see this as police brutality & oppression, something denied by the authorities.
Don't know what USA TV relay, but this is all backwards and partly false.
Everything started when 2 youths died in an utility station. Still no riot. We DO NOT KNOW for now what actually happened. Accident ? Not sure. Pursuit by police ? Not sure. We don't know. But the day after this tragic accident, the very well-known president candidate Sarkozy (for now, think he is Chief of Police) makes a huge mistake. Without any prior investigation, he says : "police was not responsible for the death of these youths". When you know how the people having the same life of these youths think, what they endure, and the fact that these youths never did anything bad in their life, you can immediately see the riots coming. And that's what happened. Bad guys who love to burn and break things go in the middle, they are encouraged by TV which report they deeds, count the number of cars they burnt.
Others in other towns see that, and eve
This is a very good article on some of the reasons behind the rioting
No this is not. The true reason is that 2 innocent youths died during a police intervention, and the "chief of police" said the police had nothing to do with it the day after.
When you are one of those people, enduring bad treatments and discrimination from police, and you hear that, you think : "now the police can kill us and go away with it with a poor excuse or a lie".
That's this fear that started the riot. IMHO the rest is fueled by political groups that jumped on the occasion.
Read it more closely.
"Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
His conviction was overturned because hate speech is still protected, and the assembly was peaceful.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I agree that language can be a part of an illegal activity. For example, if two guys plan a crime, and make a step towards the crime, they can be charged with conspiracy to commit the crime. However, if one guy says to another "we SHOULD rob such and such bank" thats is NOT a conspiracy to commit a crime as it is not specific. The use of "should" does not show an intent to actual carry out the plan.
And furthermore, as I stated, even if the statement is specific enough, there has to be some physical movement to carry out the plan. For example, after saying "Let's go rob the bank." They have to stand up to carry out the plan. Buy some masks. Write out a note. SOMETHING to show an intent to carry it out. Language in and of itself does not justify such a conspiracy.
In the case of inciting a riot, the cases deal with a person IN FRONT OF A CROWD telling them to carry out an act. That is specific enough to warrant a charge.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Taking a look at the comments posted and moderated highly on /. on this thread is a bit horrifying. About 80% of the comments thus far are pointing to the fact that in spite of the fact that America gets so much flack for being a general world class jack ass the american's view of race/minority relations are so much better thought out than some of our european collegues. Let me point out some of the obvious issues here. There is a consensus forming that the "immigrants" have only themselves to blame as they have insulated themselves, refused to assimilate and are just leechers of a welfare state embracing multiculturalism and more over islam is "antidemocratic".
If you replaced "French Riots" w/ Watts Riots in Chicago and "north african/immigrant communities" w/ Black people, would you be so comfortable repeating your statements? Have we after all these years come nowhere? I am not justifying what is going on there but people are burning thousands of cars and rioting that is now spreading all over europe. To not be somewhat self-reflective enough to ask how did it come to this is woefully ignorant.
Might not the idea that the two immigrant hoodlums running from the police who accidentally killed "electrocuted" themselves, might have some what less credibility being that just a few months ago, the police stalked, chased down and gunned down a brazillian immigrant at a subway stop and initially covered it up and blamed the immigrant that allegedly was wearing a coat in summer and acting suspiciously and running away all of which turned out not to be true at all and in fact was a complete fabrication?
How did did it come to this? Tell me why enforced secular humanism seems to be targeted primarily at the muslim community? Tell me about job prospects> and what the french have to do fix this problem. Tell me why the majority of people in french jails are muslim.
And most of all tell me why europe is insisting on creating 2nd and 3rd generation second class non citizens "gast-werkers" who will never be allowed to truly be "french", "german" or more generally european because being born european doesn't make you european. To understand this more clearly I am linking a comparison of citizenship laws for countries around the world. The american so called "myth" is the nation of immigrants, we are all american one. But the europeans (somewhat ironically w/ their neoliberalism) makes you be european by blood or by an arbitrary bureaucracy leading to 2nd and 3rd generation foreigners (witness Germany and the Turks). If what is now going on in france happened here, we would not hear an end to the "shame of the nation" (aka la riots), and I find it mortifying that we collectively do not have enough reflexitivity to go beyond the "they are not us, they are them and they hate us, they are foreign" mentality. And it is shameful.
They really do mean that everyone is equal, and everyone is the same, and everyone will learn the same curriculum in every school in France at the same time of day. And there will be no special treatment for anyone in respect of membership of any group. And no mark of religious observance will be allowed in any school. This is why headscarves are banned. That's why there can be no equal opportunities programs, and no quotas based on ethnicity. There can of course be massive social programs directed at the poor and at deprived areas, and there are. It is not usually realised what an enormous proportion of the French budget goes on social spending. This is what is keeping the suburbs and their housing projects going. But no-one is being forced to live anywhere, except by individual choices of lots of people.
And, incidentally, if you live in a colonial possession, you are French. You are represented in the legislature just as if you were a departement of geographical France, you have the same government, the same schools. You are a citizen, that's all anyone needs to know. The rest is personal
Of course, the problem is, that neither the immigrants nor the native population actually feels this way, and the 18th century is a long time ago. Hence there is indeed widespread discrimination, widespread isolationism and separatism, radical Islam is a real factor. Participation in politics is minimal - though the French electoral system would make it quite easy for immigrant groups to elect representatives, there are almost none.
Its a mess all right. But it is not quite the mess it looks from the US. Its a kind of unfamiliar mess, and Lord knows how you straighten it out, now.
You're assuming that the fact that they have Arab names is what causes them to be rejected more often. Did you ever suppose perhaps some of it's because of everything else on their resumes? The fact that so many are uneducated, inexperienced immigrants perhaps?
I assume you live in the US, as Asian or eastern european immigrants who manage to get there will be the ones who have enough money to pay for their tickets.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the situation in North America, where many poor Mexicans sneak across the US border in a desperate bid to find prosperity and many USians sneak across the Canadian border in a desperate bid to find freedom.
Some quotations from Thomas Jefferson:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
"I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did."
"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences.... If it end in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others it will procure for you."
It appears that Thomas Jefferson was both a theist and diest that respected the ethical system of Jesus Christ. Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible from which he removed the religious dogma and other supernatural elements. It does not appear that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian or ever supported Christianity. It also appears that Thomas Jefferson was a staunch believer in a strict separation of church and state.
Ofcourse, they only condemned "blind" attacks which makes it pretty useless a fatwa since the youths certainly don't think what they're doing is blind (and the 'official islamic body' knows that). The wording works to their advantage and people like you coo when they say it.
Mmmm, this is NOT a terrorist attack, which only requires a handful of people, but a lot of money and organization. It's riots, which require little money, but a lot of people.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Part of it is that certain people in their community "encourage" them not to assimilate. That's the whole problem with multi-culturalism. If you don't assimilate, you don't get the same advanatages as the mainstream. Look, it's fine to be proud of your own culture and roots, but if it prevents you from working in the "normal" society then you're going to be segregated. It's like certain elements of black culture claiming that doing well at school is "acting white". You think those kids who remain "authentic" to their race are going to be employable?
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
You sir, miss the entire point of the post, and that is why you fail it.
The parent post was not saying one group is better then any other. He was using Kos and Democrat underground as an example of the fact we do not have the kind of speech codes that exist in europe. You want to include Freerepublic in that list? Fine, be my guest. You only bolster his point.
I am sick and damn tired of kneejerk rebuttles from partisans, when they aren't even being attacked. (And yes, I am a partisan too.) Ease up people. Drink a glass of lemonade. Smile sometime.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
many USians sneak across the Canadian border in a desperate bid to find freedom.
Speaking as an American, I go to Canada for the beer.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I will have to discount the "nanny-state" part, because everything else you've said perfectly describes the race ghettos of the United States. No jobs, check. Entrenched racism, check. The US Government "telling" people where to live through economics....check (although I feel this point in particular is nothing more than a semantic game).
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
A lot are native born French from imigran parent/grandparents. They were brought in originally for the low end jobs that the citizens thought themselves above (sounds like the Mexican/central american invasion here in the U.S.). They stayed and had kids that became more and more alienated from the culture. And lets admit it - there are certain elements who delibrately encouraged that alienation for their own purposes.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
First let me say you this :
I remmember a group of more violent guys from my lower classes (12-13 years old). They were blackmailing other people, they accused everybody of being racist, they forced a young girl to have oral sex with them (and went in arrest for minor), some went in prison for drug dealing, most of the rest either dead of OD or AIDS. But the bottom line is NONE of them even tryed to study (prof are racist they give me bad notes) they were thieves (supermarket guard are racist they always ask me to empty my pocket) and were quite violent (all white are racist so we have the right to kick their asses).
I do not even count the number of time I have been targeted because I had a skin a slight bit whiter and blue eyes. I nearly lost my left eyes after such an attack. And I was not a single case (one person I knew nearly lost her arm, another got kicked and punched until she gaves her jacket and shoes, and up to this day the way she reacted after I am really asking if this was the only things which hapenned).
That MINORITY of guys did not ever want to be integrated or whatever. They just wanted to be violent and have their own little local "fiefdome". All the other friend I had (non white) we never even thougth about skin, for us it was normal to have various skin color, or eye color, or hair color or taste. So do not take me on "desperate" banlieu. I was there and a lot of my friend went doctor, technician, teacher, or guardsmen, one is even recently promoted police chief. But there is this freaking minority which was always those which burnt auto, grouped in bands, and mostly raised the violence level around and always placed themselves as victim. Those are the one rioting right now.
I won't deny that some people are racist, but this is not the majority of people and certainly it NEVER justified burning car , or attacking innocent people. All those rioter wanted was an excuse to let their violence and they got it. Aynthing else would have done.
As for the blog being closed, well there is law against incitation to violence. Voice an opinion about France official being racist is OK. Yelkl that youn want the bastard policist burn down and you get it [the censure] coming at you, no shit sherlock.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Definitely the best US article on France I've read for a long time.
The author is certainly better informed of the current events and the background than any other US 'journalist' I've heard of, with notable exceptions like Ted Stanger.
I live in Rennes, France. It's a peaceful city of about 350,000 inhabitants, one of the capital cities of the IT industry (it's nicknamed the Telecom Valley). Minitel, Digital TV, DSL, MP3 were (at least partly) invented there. I work in the IT industry (Digital TV). It's green, quiet and pleasant. How surprised and shocked I was today when I saw excerpts of CNN and Fox News (that so-called 'news' TV, bah) about the riots (in the cult TV show 'Zapping').
CNN couldn't even locate the cities properly: Rennes over Chartres, Paris in Champagne, Toulouse in Switzerland, Cannes on the Spanish boundary, Lyons in the middle of the Massif Central mountains, and Strasbourg in Austria! Come on guys, if you pretend to feed the world with news, at least learn to read a map!
Fox News sucked even more, talking about 'Islamic riots', amongst a torrent of anti-French hate speech. Only in the US this parody of News channel is taken seriously, us the rest-of-the-world untermenschen know this is mere Murdoch far-right propaganda. The riots have NOTHING, I tell you, NOTHING to do with Islam. It's a social problem, not a religious one. Even the not-so-moderated local Imams called for the end of the violence.
But back to Rennes. The France map on CNN was covered with fires, including one over my beloved city. Sorry but I see no fire from my windows, and I live in one of the tallest buildings. The total number of cars set on fire is about 50 over the last 12 days, compared to several thousands in the Paris area. I can tell you that, contrary to Paris (actually Seine-Saint-Denis, or 93, or Nine-Three), there is no real ghetto out there, only a excessive concentration of relative poorness in the southern district, but nothing like the 93, which is the largest in Europe. The arsonists were certainly a bunch of jerks with too much free time who tried to enter a 'competition' with other French cities. Anyway 50 is still too much for Rennes, but the city is certainly not on fire. In Strasbourg, about 100 cars are set on fire EVERY YEAR during the New Year's Eve.
So sorry but I'm fed up with the US media who can't get basic facts and make me feel like I live in the Bronx during the 80's. It's Britanny, damnit, we have 100 times less murders than an average US city. If you want facts, call me, I'll give you 10 times more facts than your so-called reporters.
Anyway, a very good article.
(BTW the French don't hate the Americans, but it's not easy everyday)
If you don't want to learn the language of a country then don't move there! Hello, McFly!
The discussion is regarding people who flee their home and go to a different country out of necessity. In some cases it is to flee powerty (as in Mexico) but mostly it is people that flee because they risk being imprisoned or killed in their native country.
It is not so much what they are running towards as what they are running from.
Here in Canada there are actually many inexpensive (and free) classes on learning Engligh (and French I believe).
Of course you can learn Swedish for free as an immigrant here too. However since many immigrants end up in the same geographical place they don't "need" to learn Swedish as they can get around just fine talking in their native language. The downside is of course that this makes it harder for them to communicate outside their own community which further closes them off.
Personally I think that where the Swedish integration politics really fail is ensuring that people are integrated into the country. Not only wrt learning the language but also that many immigrants are not given the jobs they are trained for, which further alienates them and ultimately wastes their talents.