French Riots

FranchiseBlade · Nov 9, 2005

NewYorker said:

The fundamental flaw in your case is that there is an underlying "reason" for the rioting.

When a team whens a championship - often there is rioting. It's not because the people were oppressed - it's because left to their own devices and with a certain absence of police vis-a-vis a large number of people - bad people tend to do bad things. That's it. There is no other "underlying reason". People search for a reason because humans want to understand why such behavior exists - another flaw.

But I knew you'd tie this back to the Palestinians and all. I'll let you something - as much as the Israelis don't help the situation - there's little they can do to "uplift" the Palestinians. You see, the real oppressor of Palestinians hasn't been the Israelis - it's been the Palestinians own failed government. They are the ones who need to address the conditions there. And frankly, had that been their focus instead of bombing Israel and making excuses for the Palestinian people to live on - they might have made a viable state by now.

Palestinians are the perfect example when you have leadership that is built on making excuses and playing the blame game instead of trying to make a difference. And yet you wish to play the blame game as well and fault the other side.

There really is no prison imposed on these people...no injustice that's anything but perceived - it's an illusion - these people are caught in a prison that only exists in their own minds. I encourage you not to follow suit.
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There will always be lawlessness in some people. That is true of a championship riot, problems in France, and problems in Israel and the occupied territories.

Israel can kill all the terrorists it wants, it has been. It has been killing plenty of them, but more keep filling their shoes. You are correct that Palestinian leadership had been corrupt and failed their people that plays a role in creating that environment, so does living under an unjust system.

Would creating a just system fix everything for the Palestinians, and these communities in France? Of course it wouldn't. Would it help in getting rid of the problems, and cutting down on the number of incidents? Of course it would. It is strange that bringing up this part of the solution gets someone ridiculed(not by you, but by others in this thread).

NewYorker said:

well, you're asking for some kind of universal coaching or therapy for these people.
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I don't buy the excuse that because we can't do it universally we shouldn't try and do it for as many people as we can.

As I said the fact that these injustices exist does not excuse violent criminal acts. It is also true that eliminating the enviroment of oppression and injustice will help reduce the amount of such acts.

The examples are many. I've listed some real life examples that you can look at.

I'm not saying because Palestinians are oppressed that it is ok for them to target civilians. I'm not saying it is ok to blame their oppressors for everything and not police themselves and do what is right.

I am saying that should be a given and we need to look at what we can do to stop it. If we only address the symptoms and not the disease we haven't cured anything.

mulletman · Nov 9, 2005

i apologize if this was posted before:

link

THE rioting in Paris and other French cities has led to a lot of interpretations and comments, most of them irrelevant. Many see the violence as religiously motivated, the inevitable result of unchecked immigration from Muslim countries; for others the rioters are simply acting out of vengeance at being denied their cultural heritage or a fair share in French society. But the reality is that there is nothing particularly Muslim, or even French, about the violence. Rather, we are witnessing the temporary rising up of one small part of a Western underclass culture that reaches from Paris to London to Los Angeles and beyond.

To understand why this is so, consider two solid facts we do have on the riots. First, this is a youth (and male) uprising. The rioters are generally 12 to 25 years old, and roughly half of those arrested are under 18. The adults keep away from the demonstrations: in fact, they are the first victims (it is their cars, after all, that are burning) and they want security and social services to be restored.

Yet older residents also resent what they see as the unnecessary brutality of the police toward the rioters, the merry-go-round of officials making promises that they know will be quickly forgotten, and the demonization of their communities by the news media. Second, the riots are geographically and socially very circumscribed: all are occurring in about 100 suburbs, or more precisely destitute neighborhoods known here as "cités," "quartiers" or "banlieues." There has long been a strong sense of territorial identity among the young people in these neighborhoods, who have tended to coalesce in loose gangs. The different gangs, often involved in petty delinquency, have typically been reluctant to stroll outside their territories and have vigilantly kept strangers away, be they rival gangs, police officers, firefighters or journalists.

Now, these gangs are for the most part burning their own neighborhoods and seem little interested in extending the rampage to more fashionable areas. They express simmering anger fueled by unemployment and racism. The lesson, then, is that while these riots originate in areas largely populated by immigrants of Islamic heritage, they have little to do with the wrath of a Muslim community.

France has a huge Muslim population living outside these neighborhoods - many of them, people who left them as soon as they could afford it - and they don't identify with the rioters at all. Even within the violent areas, one's local identity (sense of belonging to a particular neighborhood) prevails over larger ethnic and religious affiliation. Most of the rioters are from the second generation of immigrants, they have French citizenship, and they see themselves more as part of a modern Western urban subculture than of any Arab or African heritage.

Just look at the newspaper photographs: the young men wear the same hooded sweatshirts, listen to similar music and use slang in the same way as their counterparts in Los Angeles or Washington. (It is no accident that in French-dubbed versions of Hollywood films, African-American characters usually speak with the accent heard in the Paris banlieues).

Nobody should be surprised that efforts by the government to find "community leaders" have had little success. There are no leaders in these areas for a very simple reason: there is no community in the neighborhoods. Traditional parental control has disappeared and many Muslim families are headed by a single parent. Elders, imams and social workers have lost control. Paradoxically, the youths themselves are often the providers of local social rules, based on aggressive manhood, control of the streets, defense of a territory. Americans (and critics of America in Europe) may see in these riots echoes of the black separatism that fueled the violence in Harlem and Watts in the 1960's. But the French youths are not fighting to be recognized as a minority group, either ethnic or religious; they want to be accepted as full citizens. They have believed in the French model (individual integration through citizenship) but feel cheated because of their social and economic exclusion. Hence they destroy what they see as the tools of failed social promotion: schools, social welfare offices, gymnasiums. Disappointment leads to nihilism. For many, fighting the police is some sort of a game, and a rite of passage.

Contrary to the calls of many liberals, increased emphasis on multiculturalism and respect for other cultures in France is not the answer: this angry young population is highly deculturalized and individualized. There is no reference to Palestine or Iraq in these riots. Although these suburbs have been a recruiting field for jihadists, the fundamentalists are conspicuously absent from the violence. Muslim extremists don't share the youth agenda (from drug dealing to nightclub partying), and the youngsters reject any kind of leadership.

So what is to be done? The politicians have offered the predictable: curfews, platitudes about respect, vague promises of economic aid. But with France having entered its presidential election cycle, any hope for long-term rethinking is misplaced. In the end, we are dealing here with problems found by any culture in which inequities and cultural differences come in conflict with high ideals. Americans, for their part, should take little pleasure in France's agony - the struggle to integrate an angry underclass is one shared across the Western world.

Olivier Roy, a professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, is the author of "Globalized Islam."
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Invisible Fan · Nov 9, 2005

FranchiseBlade said:

If we only address the symptoms and not the disease we haven't cured anything.
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For all the centuries of blood and hatred between the Orange and Green in N. Ireland, the major thing that affected peace between them was improving economic conditions in Ireland and N. Ireland. It gave those involved something tangible to lose should the violence escalate and forced the IRA to reimage themselves (even more) into a legitimate party.

FranchiseBlade · Nov 9, 2005

Invisible Fan said:

For all the centuries of blood and hatred between the Orange and Green in N. Ireland, the major thing that affected peace between them was improving economic conditions in Ireland and N. Ireland. It gave those involved something tangible to lose should the violence escalate and forced the IRA to reimage themselves (even more) into a legitimate party.
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I agree. It is no coincidence that the crime rate in the U.S. started to drop when our economy got better during the 90's. It is no coincidence that areas with the most poverty are the most affected by street crime.

Saying that doesn't mean criminals don't have bare the responsibility for what they do. It doesn't excuse what they do, it isn't saying that it is their fault, but it is pointing out that when certain conditions are absent or present crime and violence will be either more or less likely.

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