Nope. I support the students fighting for freedom. However, I support the steamrolling of these rioting garbage. They are on opposites of the spectrum.
I don't know much about Islam, so can anyone tell me if civil disobedience (peaceful protest) is compatible with that religion? The only voices we seem to hear from Muslim leadership comes from the extreme fundamentalist side advocating terrorism and violence (heck, they even elected one of these wackos in IRAN). Islam may be a "religion of peace", but it's hard for non-Muslims to believe it when all they ever hear are radical views like "death to America (the Great Satan)", "death to Israel", "he insulted Islam; he must be killed." These extreme and violent attitudes are drowning out any message that Islam is peaceful. I mean, where is the great Muslim leader who advocates peaceful resolution of conflict? Where is the Muslim MLK? Or Gandhi? Where is the strident, brave voice for change-through-peace among Muslims? Anwar Sadat gave it a go, but they offed him pretty quick. Now, it seems like nobody else in the Muslim leadership has the guts to risk the ultimate price for peace. F'ing Cowards.
AT least a large part of it is that France doesn't want to assimilate them, or at least isn't willing to try to help them assimilate. They haven't been for over a generation. Would France be Ok if they woke up tomorrow and they were all perfectly assimilated? Sure. Have they ever shown any interest in providing programs, help, laws, funding, education, or assistence in making that assimilation? No.
Did the police regularly go into Little Saigon and start demanding papers, abusing the people who live there? Were the people of little Saigon not given the same educational opportunities as others in the country? You know what might be a good place for you to live? Syria. They are very authoritarian there. They will crush anyone who dissents. Chechnya, or Georgia might do well also. They will literally steamroll people there. You might like it. But other places people have the right to voice their dissent.
I don't blame you for this post, because I'm sure you have no idea what you are talking about, and think that what you are saying is correct. Many of these people do have jobs, they aren't rioting because they want more. They are rioting because they want to stop being treated unfairly by police who stop them at a disproportionate rate, search them with no reason, etc. etc. The list goes on and on. They aren't asking for special treatment just fair treatment. You made another post that I agree with. The rioting doesn't really help their cause. It won't bring much sympathy. Nothing excuses violence upon innocents. If you haven't been in one of these Predominantly N. African enclaves outside of Paris or seen the work and jobs that these folks have, then making a blanket statement about what 'these immigrants' want is just lumping all of them together. That is plain wrong, as well as inacurate.
FB, I understand where you're coming from but don't you think you're being a little one sided? I'll grant that these people don't live in the best conditions, but some of your statements are just too broad to be correct re: france has NO programs to help these people, no policy for education etc. Those just aren't true. Further, you play up the victim angle even though there is a large body of literature that reveals these Muslim youths grow up with a different outlook than you're portraying. They don't want to assimilate, have no alliegance to France, look to take advantage of the system when possible but have no desire to advance within it. I think if one was to form their perspective somewhere between these two viewpoints they'd be more accurate than one pole or the other.
They do have social programs, and an education program, but not one designed to meet the needs of these people when there is an obvious problem. I didn't mean there were no programs, just none that address this specific problem. As far as not wanting to assimilate that partially has to do with feeling welcome. Why try to fit in when you aren't wanted. If I lived some place and the police treated me differently, harrassed me, and discriminated against me regularly, why would I want to try and fit in? I am not excusing violence and you are correct that the problems go both ways, yet some are portraying it as if these people are being offered a gift, and not only refuse it but start attacking those that offer it. That isn't the case. They are being offered unfair treatment and and not being welcomed even after a full generation of living there and contributing. I honestly don't think it is all one sided, but that goes for both sides.
This thread kind of ties in with the "English as an official language" thread. Some of the reasons advanced for the riots are France's policies to let immigrants stay immigrants. By encouraging them to keep their own language (in an effort to be both politically correct and sympathetic to the difficulties immigrants face in a new country) they are also allowing malcontents and trouble makers to breed an "us vs. them" mentallity. People tend to side and empathise with people like themselves. When you don't see yourself as part of the mainstream it's easy to "find" discrimitation if you look hard enough. "It's not YOUR fault that you're poor; it's the governments! They discriminate against us because we're not "truley" French!" One could argue (and I'm not making this argument; just exploring it) that making immigrants learn the native or official language is the first step towards integrating them into the native or local culture. If all state business had to be conducted in English (as required by law) immigrants would be forced to learn the language to get anything (wellfare, SS, whatever). Just a thought.
Good point, I agree it goes both ways. In other totally unrelated news, Terrell Owens is suspended indefinitely (there goes my fantasy team)
I fully support the language requirement, and I don't view that as 'discriminatory' or anything like that, and if anything it's simply preparing those immigrants to have the necessary skills to make their own lives easier and improve their chances of success. The thing is, as I stated earlier, the younger generation of these French North African Arabs are sons of immigrants, and they themselves are French born and raised (meaning they most likely have the requisite language skills). So in this case, I don't think the language issue plays a role. Generally speaking, however, I agree with you that learning English, for ex, if you live in America or Britain or Australia would go a long way in helping smooth over the transition from your native country to your adopted one.
In this case almost all of the immigrants speak French fluently. There isn't a seperation of language. Even the older generations that came from N. Africa spoke French before they arrived in France. I agree that language isn't a role here. The problem is that the seperation has been going on for too long, and it needed to have been addressed sooner.
Most Algerians I've met are much more fluent in French than in Arabic (Moroccans less so, but are similar in that regard), so go figure.
They won't leave. No matter how miserable life is in France, it's probably way better than their fatherland.
Apparently there are also riots going on in Denmark. http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover110405.htm
Franchise Blade, your sympathy and excuses on behalf of these criminals is pretty disgusting. If I had the time I'd want to go back and check the 9/11 threads to see if you were defending the terrorists back then for the repression they've faced, because it's really not that different than what you're doing here... Here's a partial list of your excuses defending these criminals in France... Bottom line is that 9 days of prolonged violence is simply unacceptable behavior. Your continued excuses and defense of these people really does not focus on this point at all. And THIS gem is about the worst thing I've ever seen a liberal write on the bbs, but I have to admit that it's not entirely unexpected. You truly believe that you are smarter than other posters on here. That is incredibly arrogant and pompous of you. Sometimes I wonder if you're Macbeth at times... sheesh
That is exactly what I am defending. I have said over and over again how I think the North African's in France have every right to torch people. Can't you all see how great it is that a woman in a wheel chair was burned. I have spent this whole thread saying how that is justified and finally Gwayneco is able to get that's what I'm talking about. Good job, Gwayneco. Some people might have been confused when I said... I said that on this very page, and I guess most people were fooled by that. It took gwayneco and bigtexxx to realize that I was defending criminal activity. I would write more about it, but I need to go write my congressman so that he can introduce a bill in congress to recognize the these brave souls and encourage more people to burn women in wheelchairs.
bigtexxx please see my quote in gwayneco's post or in my original post about what I am defending. I will patient with you, because I learned long ago that it might take you a few reads to understand what you see. I don't beleive I am smarter than anyone on here. I do believe that I know more about the situation than anyone who made the claim that ben_blazer did. ben_blazer might well be ten times smarter than I could ever dream of. That doesn't change the fact that there was ignorance in the statement. Once again I pointed out some problems that these immigrants faced. I never once defended criminal activity. Ignoring the problems I mentioned is exactly what helped lead to the riots. You can continue to ignore them too if you want. I don't really care.
