French Riots
LIBERTÉ? French Muslims banned from wearing headscarves in school.
ÉGALITÉ? France's non-whites twice as likely to be unemployed.
FRATERNITÉ? French government admits integration policies have failed.
RÉALITÉ: Riots erupt for eleventh night.
John Litchfield has written this and this about what is happening in France at the moment.
The government is not tackling the situation at all well. It looks like Sarkozy set the ball rolling with his comments about hosing out the scum of violent youth gangs. The gangs got the excuse they needed to react to his comments with the death of the youths fleeing police last week, but this seems to be a little more than an excuse. Many of the rioters involved don't necessarily know the details of the boys who died, and are from existing gangs, apparently trying to defend their terroritory and get their moment of television fame.
Even the parents of the boys who died are calling for an end to all violence and a return to a sense of civic duty on all sides.
The government assertions about Islamic influence are unfounded, the problem seems to be more general resulting from poverty and low level crime rather than specific racial tensions, although the two are often linked.
Dispatching more police to deal with rioters will eventually bring about an end to the current situation but until the French government tackles the social problems which lead to poorer members of society feeling alienated and ignored, the problem won't go away.
It's not just the French who need to deal with these issues either.
posted by Becca @ 11:47 am
5 Comments:
11 days, 4000 cars, 900 arrests. What a nightmare. I can't believe it is still happening. You'd think that after a week of increasing violence the government would realise this is not just some yobbo's getting drunk and roudy.
Now some of the hard core protesters are starting to arm themselves. At what point does this become a civil conflict?
Well, they've ruled out bringing in the army so far but if they introduce the curfews as planned after declaring a state of emergency, I'd say it's getting there.
So you pity the French because, in your view, they are not agressive enough; and you hate the Muslims because, in your view, they are too aggressive.
The history of the world seems pretty violent to me on all sides, involving all religions. Maybe time to try a new tactic?
'Why does fear have a mainstay in all religions?'
It doesn't. Buddhism?
The new tactic I would suggest involves discussion, politics, integration, awareness raising...
Multiculturalism? Very interesting, the jury's still out on that one but I'd give it a chance any day over religious war between the west and Islam
i for one dont like muslims ,ive trained w/them and worked w/them they r the most intolerent ppl in the world ...dont think so !! just tell them u are a jew ..anywasy that prophet mohamed was a child molester .his first wife was 9 yrs old and he took her by force...so how can any one follow a religion w/so much hate in it ? oh wait i forgot iam a infidel i should die...i cant think of one other religion that preaches that much hate .oh and even the moderates muslims r just as bad ,cuz its a sin to speek out against ur muslim brother..well iam done w/my rant
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