From the Financial Times France’s employment minister finds an innovative way of creeping up on the problem without mentioning it. Polygamy, eh? And that is a feature of which world religion?
France’s employment minister on Tuesday fingered polygamy as one reason for the rioting in the country.
Gérard Larcher said multiple marriages among immigrants was one reason for the racial discrimination which ethnic minorities faced in the job market. Overly large polygamous families sometimes led to anti-social behaviour among youths who lacked a father figure, making employers wary of hiring ethnic minorities, he explained.
The minister, speaking to a group of foreign journalists as the government stepped up efforts to improve its image with the foreign media, said: “Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulties finding work ... Efforts must be made by both sides. If people are not employable, they will not be employed.”
France’s employment minister finds an innovative way of creeping up on the problem without mentioning it.
Yup. Expect some more gems to roll out such as:
"Its mandatory ritual butchering of sheep/goats that leads to voilent tendencies among some immigrant youth..."
"Its mandatory 5 tmes a day work interruption thats leading to unemployability ..."
etc.
but even for France, this statement sounds tough:
If people are not employable, they will not be employed.
Any excuse except the truth: in the 1960s the French elite voluntarily served up France on a platter to Arabs and now they are reaping the whirlwhind.
If people are not employable, they will not be employed.
Exactly. More then half the muslim population in the UK is unemployed or unemployable. The other half, for the most, are employed in halal shops and that sort. In other words, they are employed to cater to the unemployed, all of them funded by the Benefit system.
Now unless there is sudden demand for maddrasa trained accountants or IT professionals, I see no real opportunities for muslims in the wealth producing sector. The only way out is to create civil service jobs with titles such
1. Cultural diversity managers
2. Muslim outreach managers
3. Sensitivity Managers
The title of the jobs must show that they are in senior positions, where they can boss over non-muslims. This is vital or else it will set off another round of riots.
Creeping so quietly toward a tiny bit of the truth. But if polygamy can be stamped out, if the monstrous overbreeding (at French taxpayers' expense) be stopped, that is one of the steps that will be necessary to save the situation. A very small step for intelligent mankind.
Now who will discuss a few other things, such as inshallah-fatalism, which colors the world-view, and is tied in with the jizyah-notion, that colors the views even of those who do not attend mosques or have never really read the Qur'an (it can be picked up from others, on the street, in the home) that Infidels owe Muslims a living, since they should be permitted to exist as Infidels, only on the sufferance of Muslims, and not as by right.
And who then will discuss the inculcation of hostility and even murderous hatred toward Infidels? How easy is it to integrate with the very people about whom you are repeatedly told, in a thousand ways including the literal, that "take not the Jews and Christians as friends, for they are friends only with each other" and "Smite the Unbeliever" and things like that? If you were an Unbeliever (i.e. a non-Muslim) asked to hire someone whom you had reason to believe, somewhere in the back or front of his mind, had attitudes essentially formed by such phrases as that "take not...as friends" and "smite the Unbeliever wherever..." then perhaps you too might be just a bit hesitant in employing such a person, or even getting near him? And even if he did not exhibit the outward and visible signs of such belief, how would you know that he was not feigning? How would you know that some act -- say, attempting to discipline him for poor performance on the job -- would not turn into a return to Islam and a renewed appreciation for those particular phrases? And even if he turned out all right, what about his settling in, and then those children he has -- would they forever, as Muslims, remain somehow immune to what those texts, and so many others all over the Qur'an and Hadith, offer? Why should they? Should non-Muslims simply bet their lives, their children's lives, their laws, customs, understandings, their everything, on the dreamy idea that somehow Muslims in their midst will forever remain immune to what is so central to Islam -- the division of the universe between Believer and Infidel, and the need for the former to ultimately subdue and subjugate the latter, by any of the available instruments of Jihad, including Da'wa and demographic conquest?
Is that a bet the Infidels in France, or anywhere else, should make, a risk they should take -- or not?
According to the UN Arab Human Development Report (2003) more than half of the degrees granted by the elite Saudi universities are in "Islamic Studies" and "Islamic Literature". A Ph.D. in either of those makes one eminently suitable for nothing more than night cook on a falafel stand. I'll bet that the numbers are even higher at other Islamic "Ivy League" institutions such as Al Azhar. Imagine if more than half of the graduates churned out of Harvard, Yale and Oxford were theologians. We would all be unemployed because we would be living in a tribal barter economy.
Hmm, the trouble with polygamy is that both genders are born in nearly equal amounts.
So, polygamy means that some guys somewhere lose out and do not get a wife! Note that the mormons chiefs simply kick their young men out of the community, to keep the proportions 'right'. (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1505997,00.html)
Muslims probably just ignore their young males (no money, no wife(s), deal.) and so, there is a certain amount of frustration pent up. With all those muslim girls safely locked away at night and earmarked for the rich suitors, well, the energy has got to go somewhere.
Consider that monogamy was a large factor in our evolution -- males that are liased with a female, will help to tend the brood and make the place homely, wheras a group of excluded, desperate males, trying to dodge a watchful pasha is more of an annoyance than an asset for the group survival.
When man made the chance from troupe to group is when we we began be efficient enough to support the evolution of culture and all that goes with it.
I think that this principle still holds, societies where the women are socially crippled simply do not do as well, because 50% of their workforce is unavailable, and so, output is at least halved.
Imli
Imli-
You really hit the nail on the head here. Others have noted in the past that sexual repression/lack of culturally accepted methods for male sexual release play a huge role in maintaining the machine of Islamic terror. We all know what Mohammed promised his male followers when they reach heaven, even if they never got any on earth: eternal copulation.
So, polygamy means that some guys somewhere lose out and do not get a wife!
I think a lot of them will find idiot dhimmi sluts that feel sorry for the "oppression heaped upon them" to pay their bills, cook their food, drive them to their mosques, and wash the crap out of their skivvies. And some of them will gladly become brood sows, to make more li'l idiots.
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18649/article_detail.asp
Islam has a long history of conquest, but it has also been plagued by revolutions from within. Typically a band of unattached men will go into the desert, decide that the faith being practiced by the urban elites is not the “true Islam,” and burst back upon the cities to conquer them—and take their women as well. Jihad has always been the faith of these efforts.
Today polygamy is not practiced widely in Islamic countries, and only accounts for about ten percent of all marriages. The country where the distribution of wives is most unequal—Saudi Arabia—seems to be the best at producing roving jihadists who roam the world in search of conflict.
The absence of a norm of a “man for every woman, a woman for every man” also creates an entirely different male psychology. At one extreme, men consider their own lives to be worthless and expendable because they will not have the chance to reproduce. At the other extreme, they are promised “72 virgins in heaven.” Sometimes the extremes converge.
Polygamy creates dysfunctional societies. Jihad, with its perpetual social unrest, is unlikely to disappear until it is eliminated. I would suggest the United States propose a “right to reproduce” be added to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN would be the perfect place to initiate a global debate.
---
Historian Conor Cruise O'Brien:
"Arab and Muslim society is sick and has been sick for a long time. At the heart of the matter is the Muslim family, an abominable institution. It looks repulsive because it is repulsive.."
Polygamy causes excess unmarriable men. What to do? Send them off to war. Jihad.
The regions in China that have a ten to one ratio of men to women due to infanticide are buying women and kidnapping from other areas. If this doesn't solve the problem war will be happening there most likely also.
Polygamy also causes poverty. Imagine having to buy four houses for your family. Or worse have several wives all in one house, bickering. Maybe they could get along, since they are usually related? Separate homes leads to no father in the house, the same reason given for the black crime in the US cities.
Or send the excess off to other countries.
Have they started ripping this guy up yet?
The risks of cousin marriage
By Justin Rowlatt
BBC Newsnight
Many people would find the idea of marrying a first cousin shocking, but such marriages are not unusual in some British communities.
Many British Pakistanis celebrate cousin marriage
It is estimated that at least 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins and the tradition is also common among some other South Asian communities and in some Middle Eastern countries.
But there is a problem: marrying someone who is themselves a close family member carries a risk for children - a risk that lies within the code of life; within our genes.
Communities that practice cousin marriage experience higher levels of some very rare but very serious illnesses - illnesses known as recessive genetic disorders.
Open debate
Now, one Labour MP is calling for an end to the practice. "We have to stop this tradition of first cousin marriages," Keighley MP Ann Cryer tells Newsnight.
Family events are really nice because my in-laws and his are related
Neila Butt
Mrs Cryer believes an open debate on the subject is needed because - despite the risks - cousin marriage remains very popular.
Mrs Cryer's constituency is in the Bradford area, where the rates of cousin marriage are well above the national average. It is estimated that three out of four marriages within Bradford's Pakistani community are between first cousins.
The practice remains so popular because the community believes there are real benefits to marrying in the family. Many British Pakistanis celebrate cousin marriage because it is thought to generate more stable relationships.
Strong unions
Such unions are seen as strong, building as they do on already tight family networks.
Myra Ali is against cousin marriage because of the higher risk of illness
"You have an understanding," explains Neila Butt, who married her first cousin, Farooq, nine years ago.
"Family events are really nice because my in-laws and his are related," she says.
"You have the same family history and when you talk about the old times either here or in Pakistan you know who you are talking about. It's just a nicer emotional feel."
But the statistics for recessive genetic illness in cousin marriages make sobering reading.
British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than the general population - they account for just over 3% of all births but have just under a third of all British children with such illnesses.
Indeed, Birmingham Primary Care Trust estimates that one in ten of all children born to first cousins in the city either dies in infancy or goes on to develop serious disability as a result of a recessive genetic disorder.
Variant genes
Recessive genetic disorders are caused by variant genes. There are hundreds of different recessive genetic disorders, many associated with severe disability and sometimes early death, and each caused by a different variant gene.
My skin is really fragile, and can blister very easily with a slight knock or tear
Myra Ali
We all have two copies of every gene. If you inherit one variant gene you will not fall ill.
If, however, a child inherits a copy of the same variant gene from each of its parents it will develop one of these illnesses.
The variant genes that cause genetic illness tend to be very rare. In the general population the likelihood of a couple having the same variant gene is a hundred to one.
In cousin marriages, if one partner has a variant gene the risk that the other has it too is far higher - more like one in eight.
Myra Ali has a very rare recessive genetic condition, known as Epidermolisis Bulosa.
Her parents were first cousins. So were her grandparents.
"My skin is really fragile, and can blister very easily with a slight knock or tear," she says.
Myra has strong views about the practice of cousin marriage as a result. "I'm against it, because there's a high risk of illness occurring", she says.
Denial
We all have to get involved in persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle
Ann Cryer MP
According to Ann Cryer MP, whose Keighley constituency has a large Pakistani population, much of the Pakistani community is in denial about the problem.
She tells Newsnight that she believes it is time for an open debate on the subject: "As we address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity, we say it's a public health issue, and therefore we all have to get involved with it in persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle", she says.
"I think the same should be applied to this problem in the Asian community. They must adopt a different lifestyle. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people."
Paristine.
Ann Cryer is an excellent MP, despite being Labour. As well as cousin marriages, she has strongly criticised the practice of importing spouses from 'back home'. Of course the latter is not just a Muslim problem, but it is very prevalent in Muslim societies. I have personal knowledge of the problems this can bring, particularly if the spouse from the village 'back home' is the husband.
Of course Ann Cryer was called racist for saying all this, even though she is the opposite, and simply wants those unfortunate enough to be born into Muslim families to have the same chances in life as non-Muslims.
She has not, however, worked out that Islam itself is to blame for many of the problems she deals with, believing them to be cultural in origin. Or, at least, that is what she feels obliged to say.
Employers concern themselves about qualifications/fitness to do a job and work ethic.
One would think, wouldn't one, that having a lot of wives* and children would build a work ethic... ...unless the family is actually on social benefits, that is.
If a job applicant gives of the smell of being unreliable and unproductive, they'll be passed over. It's as simple as that.
* I understood that having means to support was a pre-condition to multiple marriages, but I guess as long as the state is prepared to belly up to the bar, even that isn't a concern.
Treehugger,
My wife is Pakistani and her parents are first cousins and as far as we know their parents were first cousins and so on and so on...It really makes the job of a genealogist quite simple. In a word, it is a huge problem in the South Asian Muslim community, and the cause of great mirth among local Hindus and Sikhs. My sister-in-law (married to her first cousin) has had six miscarriages and two of her children were born with genetic illness. They both subsequently died before their second birthdays. However, if you ask them, being closely related had nothing to do with the early death of their children. The Muslim cemetery in east end Montreal is chock-a-block full with tiny graves. Moreover, two of my brother-in-laws are in consanguineous marriage with predictable results.(nice girls from the North-West frontier, but married to ticking timebombs) But, if you try to broach the subject of the dangers of kissing cousins they insist it is western propaganda. I guess if its ok with Islam then there is nothing wrong with it.
from post above: "Ann Cryer ... simply wants those unfortunate enough to be born into Muslim families to have the same chances in life as non-Muslims."
Excuse the pun, but isn't this the crux of the matter? For too long Europeans have indulged in the most self-destructive folly -- perhaps trumping every other lunacy during their long checkered history... The agents of these follies range from terminal "do-gooders" (as this Ann Cryer possibly is) to deluded post modernists who allege that history is over, borders are insignificant, and all cultures and human aspirations are roughly equivalent (of course this type all too often will say this in one breath, and then in the next balefully accuse the West of every calumny and crime that has ever befallen mankind...) There are of course other variants, and most often these are the more malignant ones... The extreme leftists, the anarchists, and the worst of the bunch, the turncoats and abettors of our enemies... All of it is so woefully misguided (and don't get me wrong... Americans are not immune to these foolish false constructs and pathologies) but mostly these are morally dangerous follies.
The very fabric of our society is being shredded both by these foolish and malignant forces, internally and externally... And now, thanks to fatal ignorance and blind blind arrogance, our enemy festers, dissembles, and terrorizes from within our very borders, the ones we have every right to DEMAND remain sovereign and secure...
Although I hold my own countrymen to blame as well, I reserve a fervent disgust for the European idiots who have arrogated to themselves nation destroying notions like the "WORLD" Court, or their hyper addiction to super-national entities like the UN, or the disastrous Franco/German project to project the EU as a counterweights to a so-called "American Hegemony." These things, and many many more have allowed ourshared foundational Western beliefs to be undermined, and have placed our alliance, and indeed our very existence into question -- The West appears to be teetering closer and closer to the abyss --
Treehugger and spencerd:
3% per generation. Adds up, don't it?
I wonder how closely Ia's parents are related?
Pedigree Geoff
JSLA-
did you read about the new EU spy satellites, that will be used in some cases to make sure countries are complying with their EU obligations?
God forbid we ever enter into a "North American Community". The larger the organization, the less accountable.
Spencerd-
How sad. You would think two dead babies and six miscarriages would encourage the mother to research the problem from a medical standpoint....
May you and your wife have many healthy, beautiful children!
If countries subscribe to these supra-state compacts then they are morally obligated to follow the dictates of that subscription... I am mainly preoccupied with the arrogation by mechanisms such as the World Court, which has illustrated its utter incompetence and ilegitimacy by first bringing charges against Milosevic, and then dragging out his illegitimate non-trial charade for 4 years...
In the midst of their own self created Muslim calamity, Belgium tried to pass laws to indict Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush for "war crimes" against Muslims -- by a slim margin this endeavor was defeated -- Nevertheless -- the architects of Europe's cultural collapse and her cesspool of jihad are hardly qualified to grab ANY form of world jurisdiction for ANY reason -- They are sickening examples of failed leadership -- their philosophies are bankrupt as the world can now see -- they are heinous betrayers of their own national and cultural traditions -- their cravenness cannot be measured -- Words fail... Their crimes against their own societies can hardly be comprehended, and the consequences of their crimes will reverberate forever...
These European plutocrats have done more to harm and destroy Europe and the Western World than Hitler, Mao, and Stalin ever did. They are deserving of punishments that have not yet been conceived...
spencerd:
I hesitate to make light of such a tragic matter, but I guess the religious prohibitions Jews have adhered to since who-knows-when against marrying someone too closely related is another prime example of a deviation from what Allah really instructed the faithful to do.
Terrorism and Polygamy
http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/full.php?id=183&speaker=259&summit=31
Cousin marriage:
This pattern of betrothal causes suffering as intense as any I know of. It has terrible consequences. One father prevented his daughter, highly intelligent and ambitious to be a journalist, from attending school, precisely to ensure her lack of Westernization and economic independence. He then took her, aged 16, to Pakistan for the traditional forced marriage (silence, or a lack of open objection, amounts to consent in these circumstances, according to Islamic law) to a first cousin whom she disliked from the first and who forced his attentions on her. Granted a visa to come to Britain, as if the marriage were a bona fide one—the British authorities having turned a cowardly blind eye to the real nature of such marriages in order to avoid the charge of racial discrimination—he was violent toward her.
She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.
Theodore Dalrymple: This pattern of betrothal causes suffering as intense as any I know of. It has terrible consequences. One father prevented his daughter, highly intelligent and ambitious to be a journalist, from attending school, precisely to ensure her lack of Westernization and economic independence. He then took her, aged 16, to Pakistan for the traditional forced marriage (silence, or a lack of open objection, amounts to consent in these circumstances, according to Islamic law) to a first cousin whom she disliked from the first and who forced his attentions on her. Granted a visa to come to Britain, as if the marriage were a bona fide one—the British authorities having turned a cowardly blind eye to the real nature of such marriages in order to avoid the charge of racial discrimination—he was violent toward her.
She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.
This pattern of betrothal causes suffering as intense as any I know of. It has terrible consequences. One father prevented his daughter, highly intelligent and ambitious to be a journalist, from attending school, precisely to ensure her lack of Westernization and economic independence. He then took her, aged 16, to Pakistan for the traditional forced marriage (silence, or a lack of open objection, amounts to consent in these circumstances, according to Islamic law) to a first cousin whom she disliked from the first and who forced his attentions on her. Granted a visa to come to Britain, as if the marriage were a bona fide one—the British authorities having turned a cowardly blind eye to the real nature of such marriages in order to avoid the charge of racial discrimination—he was violent toward her.
She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.
This pattern of betrothal causes suffering as intense as any I know of. It has terrible consequences. One father prevented his daughter, highly intelligent and ambitious to be a journalist, from attending school, precisely to ensure her lack of Westernization and economic independence. He then took her, aged 16, to Pakistan for the traditional forced marriage (silence, or a lack of open objection, amounts to consent in these circumstances, according to Islamic law) to a first cousin whom she disliked from the first and who forced his attentions on her. Granted a visa to come to Britain, as if the marriage were a bona fide one—the British authorities having turned a cowardly blind eye to the real nature of such marriages in order to avoid the charge of racial discrimination—he was violent toward her.
She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.
Theodore Dalrymple:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_when_islam.html
Sorry for the mucked-up posting!
jsla - you need to read my post more carefully, as you seem to have missed the point of what I was saying.
Anne Cryer is not a 'terminal do-gooder'; she is someone who, rightly, judges Muslim and other backward cultures by Western standards rather than by their own defective ones. In this she is in good company, for example, that of Ray Honeyford, the Bradford headteacher who was branded a racist for insisting that Pakistani (Muslim) girls learn to swim against their parents wishes, and, of course, Theodore Dalrymple, peace be upon him.
However, as I said above, she fails to identify Islam as the main problem. In this she is sadly not alone.
Inbreeding also results in higher than normal rates of autoimmune diseases. Examples include Crohn's disease, colitis and Guillain-Barre syndrome.
News clips often show sickly children in hospital as war or sanction victims from islamic countries. Their mothers always look fine. I have often wondered why the mothers don't look like they are starving if their child is starving. Those news clips never looked quite right to me. Genetic illness making the child waste away seems more likely.
With the religious restrictions it would be hard to change.
Hmm, going to family reunions to find a date.....(you might be a redneck!)
Silvester
~a good link there on terrorism and polygamy. My thoughts exactly. I did not realize the ratio's in Saudi Arabia were so off balance. I wonder what the odds are of that being a natural occurance. More likely female infanticide still being practiced.
"She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.)"
-- from an article by Theodore Dalrymple, quoted above
And who pays for the hospitalization and treatment for these children who are the reuslt of "the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages" if not the Infidel taxpayers supporting the whole scheme? Can't the ban on consanguineous marriages be enforced, or are Muslims simply exempt from Infidel laws?
Hmm, going to family reunions to find a date.....(you might be a redneck!)
If you go to a family reunion for a date and you dont check under the burkha first....you just might be a redneck.
Heres yer' sign!
According to this article the social workers help 2nd and 3rd wives move into large, separate apartments. And it's really so sweet, too because the husband and kids in this article come over to visit everyday. Guess that means he's not working, ya think? And neither is wife number 1,2,or 3. A large apartment rent free, food, and you get to have as many kids as you want no questions asked. Hey, it's a wonderful life!
Wasn't there a time when you had to swear out a warrant for arrest for polygamy and non-support before the authorities would help out.
No wonder immigrants will do anything to get to France and England.
THESE BENEFITS HAVE GOT TO STOP
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1664241,00.html
France banned polygamy in 1993, but that didn't stop it
Between 150,000 and 400,000 people live in polygamous households in France, in which a man is married to more than one woman. The French state is trying to change the situation -- with mixed results.
The government argues that living in polygamy prevents immigrants from becoming integrated into French society and that it goes against the principles of gender equality enshrined in the constitution. Polygamy was made illegal in France in 1993. Those who still live in polygamy have either been doing so since before the law was passed or they married abroad.
Though polygamy isn't very common in the northern Paris suburb of Cergy, most people in the African community there seem to know at least one polygamous family, usually with roots in Mali.
"I'm against polygamy, even though I'm African," explained Kofi Jumeau, who, along with his 43 brothers and sisters, could speak from first-hand experience. "My father had between nine and 11 wives. And unfortunately it really hurt us kids, because there was no family cohesion. It was really bad for us."
The French authorities employ a strategy they call "de-cohabitation" to reduce the numbers of polygamous households. It involves social workers helping second and third wives move into separate apartments with their children, breaking up the polygamous arrangement.
A personal issue
Mamalea Bapuwa is an intercultural mediator at the Association of African Women, one of the groups that helps women want to leave polygamous homes.
"It's a question of choice," she explained. "We can't push people in this direction. Once a woman has made up her mind and has decided she wants to de-cohabitate, she comes to see us."
The government offers women large, subsidized apartments to encourage them to leave polygamous families. They may also receive the 10-year-residence permits issued to other foreign residents. Polygamous families are only eligible for permits that must be renewed every year, which can make it difficult to find a job or travel internationally.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: From Mali to FranceFatima Camara, 39, is a mother of five and the second wife in a polygamous marriage. She was living in Mali with her family when her cousin came to visit from France in 1987. He was already married, but Camara's family told her to marry him anyway, as is the custom in many Muslim communities in Mali.
"I couldn't really say no to my parents. So I said, that I would agree to whatever they decided. We went ahead with the marriage," Camara, who lives in Cergy, said.
13 people in three rooms
She said that things worked out wonderfully until her children became older. But three adults and 10 children in a three-room apartment grew increasingly more difficult to handle. Camara finally moved into a six-room apartment she was assigned in the spring of 2004. But she continues to live in semi-polygamy; her husband and the children belonging to his first wife come over every day. And she's happy with the set-up.
"I like living in a polygamous family. We aren't alone. We can discuss our problems. There are a lot of things I like," she said.
The French government, however, wants Camara to go a step further -- to divorce her husband. Only then, would she receive a 10-year residence permit. But Camara would rather be forced to renew her permit every year. She says she loves her husband and wants to stay married to him.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: There are no official national statistics on the number of polygamous families who have been separated. But a government agency that oversees housing in the Paris region says that of the roughly 500 families known to be living in polygamy in the area, only 81 women have moved out in the past five years, and 24 of them have divorced their husbands. Many more polygamous families are thought to be living in the shadows.
Taking action
Parliamentarian Chantal Brunel has taken up the issue and would like the government to be more aggressive in dealing with it. "I think we have to send a strong message to other countries and to foreigners who live here and don't respect the laws on our soil. Polygamy is completely illegal in France, and yet it exists."
Brunel sponsored legislation last year calling for state tutors to manage the welfare benefits of polygamous families. Though the bill didn't pass, she did manage to draw attention to the issue of polygamy and continued to lobby her colleagues for more action in tackling it. There's now a growing sense that France's current policy isn't working, and that the country needs to take a tougher stance if it wants polygamy to become a thing of the past.
Watching the Borg
~watching it grow on our nickle.
Very interesting articles about the problems caused by polygamy and marriages between first cousins.Unless something has changed marriages between first cousins are illegal in the US precisely because of the genetic problems associated with the practice. Marriages between first cousins are also socially taboo and would get those involved kicked out of most families.
I also had no idea about the numbers of surplus males in Saudia Arabia, 125 males for every 100 females is a huge. Thanks to the social engineering and the "one child" family the same issue of surplus males exists in China. The problem in China has been described as a time bomb waiting to explode.
The French authorities employ a strategy they call "de-cohabitation" to reduce the numbers of polygamous households. It involves social workers helping second and third wives move into separate apartments with their children, breaking up the polygamous arrangement.
Is it just me or is this the exact opposite strategy that they need to use? Wouldn't financial pressure and lack of space be a better strategy?
And another interesting polygamy story. This is in France, but it's coming to other countries soon.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20051111-021914-3739r
Experts who work with France's black community point to a different kind of family breakdown. Sonia Imloul of Respect 93, a non-governmental organization, says one of the biggest problems is polygamy, and cites the example of one family she knows with one father, four wives and thirty children, all living in the same standard 4-room apartment of French public housing.
"The kids sleep in shifts, and when others are asleep, they are on the streets because there is nowhere else to go," she says, adding the new curfew imposed under the government's state of emergency regulations is simply adding to the pressure.
THIS NEEDS TO BE STOPPED
Watching the Borg
~growing exponentially
The national motto of Paristine:
I thought polygamy was outlawed in the West except in certain towns in Utah and I think it ain't kosher their either. France should pass a law outlawying that practice, and, in doing so, make all kids of such unions non-citizens, who cannot get the benifits of the state. It's ludicrous that such a practice occurs to such an extent in a Western democracy, or maybe I'm just completely naive.
Hugh, the problem is where is the will. Le Pen will pick up seats . . . that is for sure. I'm friends with a Jewish Frenchman who will vote for him next time around! and he ain't the only one. Riots or explosions cause a temporary retreat from insanity, but to combat this demographic nightmare . . . only mass forced migrations out of Europe are in order. Do you see this happening . . . under ANY circumstances. I hope the GOP runs on a hold on all immigration to the US since it's politically incorect to target only the believers. Eurabia is here in the now . . . with no backpeddling on the horizen that I can see.
I laughed my butt off at this one. Polygamy is one of the main reasons why islam is expanding. I've heard muslim after muslim claim that islam is the fastest growing religion. I doubt that claim, but even if it were true, it's not because they're gaining converts, it's because they breed like rats. Of course, on the other hand, I have yet to see a Mormon riding around on their bikes with bombs strapped to their chests carrying Kalishnikov rifles. It's not polygamy, it's MUSLIM polygamy that is the problem, and it's only part of the problem. France thought they could get away from islamism by not taking part in the war in Iraq, being the good little dhimmis they are. Now, muslims do what comes natural; they don't live under sharia law, so they have to change it. And it's happening all over Europe. And now Turkey wants to be part of the EU? That's just asking for islamist expansion even further. I could care less if Turkey's government is secular or not. They country is still majority muslim.