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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.
... 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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
... 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.
"'Driven to riot' implies a lack of accountability on the part of the people looting and burning one of history's great civilizations."
:)
Truer words have seldom been posted here... except that part about history's great civilizations, of course
Think of how many violent acts are carried out here in the USA because someone was "driven" to it? People seem to be "driven" by everything these days; alcohol, work stress, abusive parents, rap music, video games... everything except the most important element: CHARACTER FLAWS.
Maybe if people stopped blaming society for all of their personal shortcomings, we'd be able to fix some of our problems. Until that happens, though, prepare yourself for more of the same.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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.
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'
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