Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a provocative analysis of the latest riots in France:
This week’s riots in France may seem to have nothing to do with the general unpleasantness, unease, and disruption of life that the large-scale presence, and demands, of Muslims has caused.What, after all, is the proposed law that the protestors are denouncing all about? It is about giving work to the unemployed. Which unemployed? Oh, all the unemployed, of course. But with special attention to the young Muslims whose failure to enter the work-force, it is claimed and even believed by some, is what prompts their murderous hostility to the circumambient society, to the Infidel nation-state, and to non-Muslims. Few dare to look at the texts, the attitudes, and the atmospherics of Islam for an alternative explanation. But it is understood that employers will not wish to be saddled with young employees who reveal, as they most likely would, either unfitness for work, as some young non-Muslims would, or perhaps fitness but a dangerous attitude of hostility toward non-Muslim workers, or give signs of other cause for alarm (perhaps unwillingness to do what an Infidel shop-steward, or employer, demands).
This does not mean that the rioters are Muslim. This does not mean that the law in question is prompted only by considerations of giving Muslims a chance to be hired. Yet there is an unstated but clear connection of the disruption to general understandings of what France is and what its social and economic covenant is. There is even a connection to questions about the possibility of retaining the current system of entitlements given the existence of a large, growing, and unintegrable population – a population that has been completely unscrupulous in its exploitation of the welfare state set up, paid for, administered, and maintained by Infidels who never thought that the system would be bled of resources by a discrete and hostile population.
Here is what the Sunday edition of The New Duranty Times, reports: "In Lyon, French youths protesting the law clashed with Turks demonstrating against the construction of a memorial to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre, Reuters reported. The youths shouted, 'Fascists!' and "Go home!'"Now that is mere reporting. What should we make of it? Nothing? Something? When French students suddenly shout at Turks "Go home!" is there anything else going on? Is this merely indignation over a Turkish protest at an Armenian memorial? Or is it something else, an as yet confused, not quite comprehended, expression of a "Go home" intended not so much for Turks as for Muslims in general? Was it to Muslims that those students were shouting, or thinking, or not even consciously thinking but feeling -- "Go home! -- leave us in peace”?
For that Muslim presence is what is responsible for the collapse, in France and elsewhere, of the social compact and the entitlements that are now leading to economic ruin. It is a presence that consists of a fast-breeding population, supported with free education, free medical care, and subsidized housing (I have seen that housing, and it is far beyond what is available as public housing in America). That population is itself inclined to inshallah-fatalism and to a hostility directed at Infidels that makes many, though not all, Muslims, difficult for employers and co-workers alike, and brings tension to the workplace.
That same large-scale presence forces the French state to defend its laicity, to worry about the indiscipline and riotous behavior by Muslims that in so many places has caused such havoc in French public schools -- once the pride of France. And then one must add to the physical danger to teachers and to fellow, but non-Muslim students, the refusal to allow the government-mandated curriculum to be followed either because it is deemed by Muslims to be anti-Muslim (reading Voltaire for example), or treats of subjects to which they are indifferent or hostile (the Kings of France, the Holocaust and World War II from any perspective that appears to deplore the former, and celebrate the Allied victory in the latter).
And to all that one must also add the mistreatment of women, both Muslim women and those "brigittes" who are regarded as fair game for every sort of degradation. Many places are now simply unwalkable by women at night or during the day. When one realizes that Muslims have been encouraged by their belief-system to regard Infidels as a source for loot, whose property rightly belongs, and can be taken by, the "best of people," the People of Allah, the members of the umma al-Islamiyya, not because "property is theft" as Proudhon said, but because Infidel property is not really their property at all -- it belongs to Allah and to his people, and taking it whenever possible is licit because it is, essentially, helping oneself to the Jizyah that must be paid. For one example of a Norwegian imam preaching this openly, read Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept.
There are events. They are reported. And then there is the significance of those events -- their true meaning, or the meaning that is often hidden within. That is the duty of the columnist, the analyst, the person who makes sense of things. The New Duranty Times, and almost all of the major press, fails to report much of the news about Jihad and dhimmitude. And it also fails to connect events that may seem to have nothing to do with Islam, but when looked at more closely, may in fact have a connection.
"There is even a connection to questions about the possibility of retaining the current system of entitlements given the existence of a large, growing, and unintegrable population – a population that has been completely unscrupulous in its exploitation of the welfare state set up, paid for, administered, and maintained by Infidels who never thought that the system would be bled of resources by a discrete and hostile population."
France?
Considering the historic demonstration in Chicago last week, and the willingness of Kennedy,McCain,etc.,etc. -- to grant legal status to MILLIONS; this piece might just as well be talking about America.
BTW -- many of these "new citizens" are converting to islam!
Great column, Hugh. Right on the money. I sat and watched all of this unfold over the weekend and thought the same thing-that this new policy would rook people out of their jobs, giving employment opportunities to the "French youths" we saw acting like uncaged animals, torching cars and handicapped people just months ago.
The French are going to run into problems though, because the quality of work stands a chance of going into the toilet. Unless, of course, they hire the Muslim youths to start fires, break windows, and throw rocks at people.
I keep being reminded of that twisted version of a saying by Lao Tzu:
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
The recent riots have nothing to do with jihad or Islam, the work culture in France is different from that in the United States, where job security is unheard of here, there people expect craddle to grave benefits from the state and employment. The images of rioting we see now are young white Catholic Frenchmen, not African Muslim second-generation Frenchmen.
This has to do with double digit unemployment, which is common throughout much of Western Europe, a youth bulge in the population, a state slowly taking away social entitlements from its citizens, globalization, and the job market/labor.
This is social dislocation, the kind we saw in the nineteenth century with Enclosure Acts in the English countryside. The nineteenth century was filled with violent labor disputes from the Luddites to anarchists. Again, these movements were not motivated by devotion to religion, but man's fear and insecurity in the face of uncertainty.
pikachu, right now Europe needs to do "tough love" with their immigrants.. so work no pay, able bodied people need to work.. no welfare.. you have more kids.. you get less money.. called welfare reform..
This is European history repeating itself, that's how I see it.
I think America should get tough with this alien Hispanic population, I watched the demonstrations on Spanish TV and read the papers (something I rarely do because of their ant-American bias), it was appalling.
Immigrants to this country and I am a legal one, should embrace it's institutions and culture not create a rival society.
As an American citizen my loyalties are with the constitution and civic culture that I choose to be a part of and to which I was generously allowed to enter.
Hugh I agree the demonstrations by students could quickly evolve to anti-Muslim one and may have already started too.
A clash in France is coming and I hope the true French can keep their culture.
I was not going to post for a while, but I saw pictures of the rioters, those that were setting fire to cars and attacking police, the majority of them looked more like North Africans. It was vastly different to the crowds of people earlier in the day. Though of course many of them could be the extreme left who are very good at rioting, violence and destruction, such as at the University at Nanterre, where many old and valuable books were destroyed out of hand before they were removed by the CRS.
I think that our peace loving brothers were refining their skills, was it no co-incidence that 34 police was injured as compared to 28 rioters.
I understand very well the stupidity of this law it is tinkering with employment law that causes massive labor distortions, it is better to rip it up and start again, something simillar to that which exists in the UK would work. I talked recently to a couple of young French people living and working in London, who were bemoaning about the impossibility of getting a job in France and how it was easy in London. Its because there is no protection for those already in a job above what you would expect in a civilised society that still believes that people have to work and companies need to be able to earn enough to pay their workers.
By the way, on 14/03/06 400 French soldiers were practicing dealing with a civil war in a built up area in Mulhouse and it was evidently against Islamics. I happen to think that the French authorities can smell the coffee, but are moving slowly so as to get ready.
As for shouting at the Turks, note that there is a very large Armenian population in France, so that could be a factor, but I do believe that some on the left now see the issue.
I expect the riots to kick off in the near future, I expect that these rioters will not be setting fire to cars in Muslim areas, but infidel areas instead, perhaps some of those arms that French police routinely find in Muslim areas will be used, who know?
hello everybody,
it is funny to see how people abroad take any attention about French students reaction about CPE (first employement plan ) .it doesn't deserve it.
Is it because last november riots ?
You should not mismatch November riots with the present events .
I can remember that the last time one of our government tried to implement a number X plan to help young people employment , it was the same story .
each time a government try something to help first job expecting to tackle youth unemployment, the marxist bastards push the students (with concerns for their future )into street to demonstrate against what they call precarious jobs.
as funny it is , my bet that many of those demonstrating students will cross the channel to find a job in England where people can be fired very easily .. but can find another job as easily.
Our stupid government should learn on England and former prime minister Mrs THATCHER , as well as asking the companies which guenine measures can help to employ.
no need to be "un grand clerc" ( a PHD graduate)to know the required measures to tackle unemployment :
1/ Kick ALL marxists bastards teachers from Schools and University
2/ Implement job training in companies as soon as age 14 for young people who doesn't want to go on their studies further.
3 / Ease the firing procedure for companies .
4/ Reduce the social-welfare tax burden for companies and employees
5 / Reduce the number of holidays and put an end to this silly and suicidal 35 hours scheme .
6/ Push retirement age to 65 years
and this will need also to cut the government expenses and social welfare expenses :
1/ Not only stop immigration but reverse it knowing that muslim immigrants are one of the main cost.
2/ Fire 1.5 milions State employees .
The whole will require a French government with bigger balls than Mrs THATCHER's in order to get rid off all Marxist shits from Medias to schools .
Anyway , it is like a disease , the longer you wait the tougher the necessary surgical operation will be .Ruling French politicians should have known for 30 years that tough measures can't be avoided ,and that is pure irresponsabilty to postpone them to the next ice-period .
Curious to see 2007 election result .
Best regards
It does seem to me that many Americans have a very strange view of the VARIOUS DIFFERENT benefit systems in operation throughout the many countries both within and without the European Union (EU). There is NOT a homogenous animal called the European State Welfare System. Most, but not all, of the welfare systems in Europe (EU and greater) barely provide enough money to enable the recipient of welfare to eat and stay warm and dry. Such systems have historically been viewed as being only to stop the recipient from starving to death whilst going about the process of finding another job (the welfare paid to the elderly or the disabled is, of course, generaly more generous).
Most organised groups, such as the mohammedans, who appear to be receiving large amounts of welfare are doing so because they are systematically cheating and defrauding the state. I have alluded on a different thread to the fact that some evidence is emerging that such fraud is usually co-ordinated and organised by the mosques and the clerics. Fraud is a criminal activity and such people will be prosecuted when the evidence has been gathered - or so we all hope - and I have no reason to suppose, as yet, that such prosecutions will not take place in France in due course. Remember, the law is a slow and cumbersome beast, but like the mills of God ...
Having said all that - slightly off topic, I know - I have to say that I found Mr. Fitzgerald's analysis of the rioting to be trenchant. In my opinion, and my experience of living in the EU, he has joined up the dots, so to speak, really rather well. Of course, I am quite sure that the mere presence of large numbers of unemployed mohammedan youth was not the whole reason for the rioting and I am equally sure that Mr. Fitzgerald would not claim such a thing. He has merely pointed out, with his customary panache, that there is a significant mohammedan connection that can be, and should be made.
Indeed, given the number of mohammedans in the EU (20 million in a population of 350 million) and greater Europe (25-30 million in a population of half-a-billion) it is right that every piece of news should be looked at and analysed from the jihad watch point of view. The numbers are now in the millions and such substantial figures are going to impact on all aspects of European life. Mr. Fitzgerald is obviously aware of this and has done a sterling job in this short piece of uncovering the potential connections between the mohammedan presence and the rioting.
I take issue with those people who wilfully pervert the unemployment statistics inside the EU. The only country within the EU that has provable double digit unemployment is Spain. The latest available RELIABLE figures are for 2002 (the 2003 figures will be released later this year) and they are:
Austria 4.1%
Belgium 6.9%
Denmark 4.2%
Finland 8.9%
France 9.2%
Germany 8.3%
Ireland 4.4%
Italy 9.2%
Netherlands 2.8%
Portugal 4.4%
Spain 11.2%
Sweden 5.0%
UK 5.2%
The US figure for the same year is 5.6%
(Please note that Norway is not in the EU and its unemployment figure for 2002 was 3.6% nor is Switzerland and its figure was 2.6%). There is every indication that all these figures, including the US figure, have considerably improved over the last twenty-four months. the figures are from "A picture of European Unemployment" by Stephen Nickell of the Bank of England and the London School of Economics.
Regarding welfare reform, the last thing European countries need at this moment is to dislocate their economies by reducing their unemployed to starving paupers. There are fewer jobs than there are people to fill them and frequently unemployed people are concentrated in geographically small areas. The only thing that removing welfare would do in those areas is destroy the infrastructure by taking away the consumers. A really smart move for future prosperity? I think not!
"The recent riots have nothing to do with jihad or Islam, the work culture in France is different from that in the United States, where job security is unheard of here, there people expect craddle to grave benefits from the state and employment. The images of rioting we see now are young white Catholic Frenchmen, not African Muslim second-generation Frenchmen."
-- from a posting above
France, and not only France, has a political climate that tolerates, encourages, almost needs, demonstrations in the street. Of course this was a demonstration that was about employment. Of course it reflected the lack of economic understanding by non-Muslim French, who on the face of it are simply continuing in the tradition of, say, the 1968 riots.
My point was not, as some appear to think, to mistake these demonstrations largely by the non-Muslim French young, for the Muslim rioters of recent memory.
It was, rather, to suggest that there is a general unease in the Western world. In this country, the unease is over the war in Iraq, but not only over the war in Iraq. The unease comes from confusion, from a failure of anyone in public life to state things truthfully and coherently, to provide a model that explains the data. The model exists. It can be found in the texts and history of Islam. You can piece the puzzle together yourself, or with the aid of others, at this and other websites.
In France, the government's proposal is intended to make it easier for employers to hire young workers. If, as now, they are essentially hired for life -- for it is difficult to fire people - that does not encouragement employers to hire at all. They are not fools. They don't want to be saddled with someone for a long period. And the most pressing matter, some in France appear to think, is to deal with the threat of Muslim unrest by "integrating" Muslims, which means, apparently, now making it easier for them to be hired. The policy overlooks the nature of Islam. It overlooks the fact that Muslims in France, as elsewhere in welfare-state Europe, have been quite adept at milking the system of everything it offers, and then some and it is not clear that everyone is just dying to have a job, or would be delighted now to have one, as an alternative to the social benefits of the state.
But if the law may be general in its seeming application, I suggest that it has been prompted, now, by the desire to do something that might diminish not only unemployment among those just entering (as the word is optimistically used) the work force, but especially the young Muslims just entering (used even more optimistically here) the work force.
And the ease with which the demonstrations spread, and the general social disarray, reflects other concerns, seldom stated, and seldom recognized. In the same way, the ferocious reaction to the Dubai Ports was about the Dubai Ports, but was about more than the Dubai Ports. It was about the ease with which official Washington permits investments by Arabs in this country. It was resentment at all those in official Washington, all those officials who then become ex-officials, who themselves, or their relatives, or their friends, end up recycling "petrodollars" for their own benefit, by making the case for this or that deal (Dubai Ports today, the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia yesterday), or to promote the fiction that we don't need, and never have needed, high gasoline taxes or other taxes on oil use, no need to put on a war footing, with wartime spending, the government's promotion of solar, wind, and nuclear energy, because -- a succession of well-connected people, having lost all dignity (Dole flogging Viagra is one example) in their search for even greater sums, are ready, willing, and able to overlook the need to work entirely for the good of the United States, for Infidel interests, and not to shill for the Saudis or others.
My point, which some French correspondents may regard as ridiculous, and others regard as acute (google "Douce France" or find it in the articles above and see if this article, written two years ago, appears ridiculous, or acute in light of what has happened in France since), is that where there seems to be nothing about Islam in European desarroi, there is everything about Islam. From the lack of discipline in many schools, and consequent decline in the morale of teachers, to the changes in employment laws, to the higher expenses associated with anti-terror measures and with maintaining on a permanent dole millions of Muslims -- much of what can be discussed as "problems in the schools, in the economy, in the system of benefits" without any mention of Muslims or Islam, often are very much all about Muslims and Islam.
Many in France, and not only those demonstrating, are anxious, worried about the future, keen to sense encroachments on established social rights. Some of them think this has nothing to do with Islam, that it is, as the poster whose words are quoted above, says, "the recent riots have nothing to do with Jihad or Islam." Others may find that an unacknowledged source of dismay and worry is that Muslim presence that makes life so much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically insecure for so many Infidels. They are the people who differ.
I think those who differ have it right.
Most, but not all, of the welfare systems in Europe (EU and greater) barely provide enough money to enable the recipient of welfare to eat and stay warm and dry. Such systems have historically been viewed as being only to stop the recipient from starving to death whilst going about the process of finding another job (the welfare paid to the elderly or the disabled is, of course, generaly more generous).
If welfare in the EU is so distasteful then why are some Muslims lifetime welfare recipients? It was noted that some of the bombers in the UK lived in subsidized apartments. It was also noted that some of the rioting Muslims in France had cellphones. Why are young unemployed Muslim males living for years in subsidized apartments and carrying cellphones? Apt and cellphones that they did not pay for? Welfare was reformed and welfare roles plunged in the US when recipients were required to work for their welfare checks and time limits were placed on benefits. Many got off the welfare rolls when they decided they might as well work for better money then they could get on welfare.
It's inexcusable that Muslims males in particular and young Muslims in general are allowed to lay around and not work for their benefits. Why not put them to work cleaning the streets or other undesirable or menial jobs in exchange for their benefits? Those who don't want to work or don't like their jobs will get off the dole as has happened in the US. Others will leave the country and live lazy in their native homelands.The idea that rooting out welfare fraud takes time is also not acceptable. If there are welfare recipients obviously living above their means it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.Welfare "as we know it" was reformed in the US when the American taxpayer got tired of paying people not to work. The world didn't end and life actually improved for those on welfare.
Roxane -
I also pointed out the following (and it is not a small or isolated problem):
"Most organised groups, such as the mohammedans, who appear to be receiving large amounts of welfare are doing so because they are systematically cheating and defrauding the state. I have alluded on a different thread to the fact that some evidence is emerging that such fraud is usually co-ordinated and organised by the mosques and the clerics."
It would have helped if you had read on then you would have seen what I was driving at. I was talking about the actual levels of welfare laid down by law not the amount that a dishonest person - such as these organised gangs of mohammedans appear to be - might be able to screw out of the system using the techniques of systematic fraud.
I hope this answers your query.
Theodore Dalrymple has an interesting take and he sees connections, too - though different ones:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-03-17td.html
I think there is something in what he says, but I also think he is being surprisingly naive in seeing the "Muslim problem" in France in primarily economic terms. The Chinese and Vietnamese minorities seem to make a good living and apparently have no interest in rioting, however badly arranged the French economy is. Likewise, Britain, (while it is heading in the wrong way economically) has an economy that is not so burdened as that of the French but it still has a substantial (if largely unacknowledged) "Muslim problem". (And again, the comparison with other minorities - Chinese, Hindus, and Sikhs is instructive.)
Mr. Dalrymple is, of course, aware of all this, but he still seems to persist in the belief that "sound economics" would be the cure.
Certiorari,
I read your post you also claimed that rooting out fraud takes time.It doesn't take time if there is the political will to do it.Welfare "as we know it" was entrenched for decades in the US then the American taxpayer got fed up with paying people not to work. Politicians got the message and moved quickly to end the practice. Welfare fraud was also a problem in the US but fewer welfare recipients also leads to less fraud. Making recipients work for their benefits and placing time limits on benefits caused welfare rolls to plunge. Put the Muslims to work and watch how quickly they get off the dole.There are also side benifits to making Muslims work like less time for jihad and overbreeding.
I fail to see in what way Britain is heading in the wrong direction economically. Falling unemployment, rising productivity, increasing exports, financial sector 'invisibles' at an all time high (London accounting for over half of all the world's financial transactions), privatisation of the state sector almost complete, massive ownership of foreign firms by British firms leading to profit repatriation on a colossal scale, all this has given the UK the world's fourth (yes, fourth) largest economy. Not bad for a collection of insignificant little islands stuck out in the inhospitable Atlantic Ocean with just under 60 million people on board. Person for person, the UK does better economically than most, but not all, of its major competitors.
Not only that, but we are tackling poverty, ill-health and under-education the best way we know how. We are still managing to find some money for infrastructure development (not enough, granted, but still huge amounts). British people are, believe it or not, pretty well off. For example, our poverty levels, in percentage terms, are nowhere near as high as the US for example.
Roxane -
We looked at what you propose and compared it to the actuality of those on benefits and how long THE MAJORITY spend on benefits and figured that it just wasn't the solution for us. The USA and the UK are two entirely different countries containing different peoples with different expectations. What is wanted in one can be rejected in the other.
Incidentally, there are severe penalties for not actively seeking work if you are able to work. We're not fools, much as you seem to think that we are. There are also time limits. There are also very good programmes for helping people to find work. Consequently the average time spent on benefit by THE MAJORITY of claimants is now under ten months - amongst the lowest in the developed world. The American tax-payer's refusal to fund has also created a disease and poverty gap of quite unprecedented proportions for any country in the developed world.
Fraud by organised gangs is the problem for us - like it or not. The problems in the USA might have been different. Fewer claimants lead to less fraud is catchy but actually it doesn't take a great brain to spot the fallacy in that argument.
I fail to see in what way Britain is heading in the wrong direction economically.
Because it is moving towards the French model rather than away from it.
Some bad indicators:
But this is a side-issue and not really relevant to the thread.
Roxane -
I didn't claim that rooting out fraud takes time (although it can because proof is required), I claimed that due process takes time. Are you advocating that we abandon the rule of law? Or perhaps you are just advocating that we abandon the rule of law for mohammedans. tempting, I must admit, but I think not, regrettably.
Yojimbo -
As you say, side issue. Thanks for the link, though. There are as many opinions as there are pundits. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" as somebody once said (I think it was L.H. Courtney).
Certiorari, I know people who work in the benefits offices, as far as I concerned they only apply the law to those that fill the forms in correctly...
I didn't claim that rooting out fraud takes time (although it can because proof is required), I claimed that due process takes time. Are you advocating that we abandon the rule of law? Or perhaps you are just advocating that we abandon the rule of law for mohammedans. tempting, I must admit, but I think not, regrettably.
Certiorari,
I guess you didn't read my post. What it takes is the political will to reform welfare not abandoning the rule of law. Once American taxpayers got fed up with paying people not to work and politicians saw their own jobs were in jeopardy welfare reform moved quickly through Congress and became the law.Fraud can also be rooted out in a variety of ways. For example there are some welfare recipients who are not going to work 30-40 hours a week at an assigned job in exchange for benefits.Those people who refuse to work can then be kicked off the dole. They've essentially removed themselves from the system and whatever happens to them is their problem.Time limits on benefits have also gotten rid of some dishonest recipients.
In the US once welfare reform was passed conditions improved not just for recipients but also for the overburdened American taxpayer.There are former welfare recipients who received job training acquired skills and jobs. So instead of collecting benefits they pay taxes, spend their wages and contribute to the economy. Welfare rolls and costs have also plunged.
Roxane -
Good points, although I disagree with your overall thrust of argument. We've gone way off topic, though.
I'd love to debate this issue with you further at some point, somewhere else perhaps.
Anyway, all power to jihad watch. We are all now thinking about this, at least.
Got to go now. I'm heading up to town (London) this evening for the Freedom March on Saturday and then staying up in town for a while.
Daffersd -
Please see my last post to Roxane. Thank-you.
Simon
1/ Kick ALL marxists bastards teachers from Schools and University
They are clamped onto the universities like bloodsucking leeches. My dream would be to seem evicted here too (USA) and forced to get real jobs. Outside of the university they are only qualified to flip hamburgers
"Outside of the university they are only qualified to flip hamburgers.."
-- from a heated posting above
Not all, but some. A Marxist of the old Pyotr-Struve school (he, Struve, died as he lived, at his desk at the Bibliotheque Nationale) should be welcome on a university campus. Or some gentleman-marxist of the old school, Barrington Moore-ish, could and should be represented. But the most doubtful characters of the old days seem like Giants in the Earth compared to what we have now. That "fit only for flipping hamburgers" fate you suggest disturbs me, because it carries with it an implied insult to people who do this rather than that for a living. I have known too many garbage men, too many cooks, including those who flip hamburgers, whose lives were not always fashioned by themselves alone, but by fatidic dates, and expensive and faithless mates, and any number of things. To propose that some are good enough "only to flip hamburgers" is not only to inadvertently insult those who do, but also to inadvertently exalt those who happen to enjoy positions of prestige that, more and more, we have evidence they do not merit. The reverse of your medal is to accept the self-image, say, of the tenured professor. That professor may be Jacques Barzun, or he may be Cornel West or Ward Churchill or Hamid Dabashi of Said-eulogy fame. There is a difference.
Still, it would be wonderful, wouldn't it, to go into a hamburger place located just off some campus, and see the present-day version of yesterday's apologists for Marxism, and today's apologists for Islam -- say, Professors William Graham or Diana Eck -- scraping the encaked grease from the stoves at Bartley's Burgers.
Anybody in here who recalls the classic near future novel Snow Crash will remember the grand flotilla of retired U.S. Navy vessels lashed together and set afloat in the ocean. A tossing, seething, floating city that rode the steering currents across the pond, taking months to make the crossing.
Let's unretire every mothballed big boat we have, lash them together, herd our Moslem friends on board, and tug push them out on the slow float to Normandy. 4 more million benighted souls to help Europe attain cultural diversity heaven.
It all reminds me of the scene in Casablanca where the German officers stand around the piano singing “Wacht am Rhein”
Finally Laszlo speaks to the orchestra and says “Play the Marseillaise! Play it!” Soon the crowd shouts "Vive La France! Vive la democracie!
Strasser was angry of course, but it didn’t matter.
Unfortunately, that was a movie in an earlier time when people stood up against NAZIs; today it is islam and I am not sure people in the West have the stomach or the courage to really stand up.
Hope I’m wrong – otherwise, I’m afraid I will be as cynical as Rick.
"Here's lookin at you kid!"
I caught some of the riot coverage on the TV this weekend and I gleaned that the rioters were predominantly native French union activists and students of a leftist political persuasion. That confused me for the reason that I assumed that the purpose of this proposed legislation was precisely to address some of the barriers to employment which, from these same folks perspective, was the grievance or root cause of the Muslim riots of last year. After all, isn't it leftists who most consistently deny that Islam the ideology has anything to do with any of the numerous Muslim/infidel conflicts raging worldwide? Isn't it leftists who keep looking for economic explanations for these worldwide events? And isn't it leftists who have generally viewed Muslims as an ally in the fight against globalization and the Big and Little Satan?
But so here is a case in which France is trying to enact sensible measures that will increase the likelihood of Muslims getting hired and who is rioting? Native french union activists and leftists.
This strikes me as a rather interesting situation. Because on the surface (and I admit that this is a very superficial view of the matter) it would appear to me that this could signal a split between these 2 heretofore allied factions in the sense that leftists who expect to be able to continue with their generous socialist entitlements now find those entitlements threatened by the very need to accomodate the demands (backed up by VIOLENCE!) of folks whom they presumably viewed as allies in their anti-capitalist struggle. In order to accomodate those demands, it would appear that these leftists will have to lose something in the bargain.
Please note. I am not trying to ride a hobbyhorse here. I am merely trying to make sense of the players in these riots and where they are coming from and where their respective demands may be clashing with eachother as fantasy (in terms of what they expect and demand) meets reality (how much there actually is to go around). What seems clear is that both groups are prone to resorting to violence in order to have their demands met. I can't help but wonder what that foretells for the French street down the road.
These new riots in France could be a sign that Europe is starting to show a much more conservitive side.
Caroline,
This is Theodore Dalrymple's view, too:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-03-17td.html
It is interesting, as you say, in that one can see a fault-line opening here, between groups whose interests are more divergent than they might at first have themselves believed them to be.
Yojimbo - wow! I hadn't seen that Dalrymple article. So maybe my crude and naive take on this wasn't so far off the mark after all. I must say I do adore Dalrymple as a voice of reason in a sea of insanity, plus he is a terrific writer. So in short, "Yeah. What he said!":-)
Actually, it occurs to me that part of the problem here - the confusion, as it were, on the part of the protesting leftists and trade unionists and amongst infidel leftists worldwide - is that they haven't yet figured out that it is their obligation (under the new Islamic world that they are moving towards in their attempts to undermine the western order) - to work their posteriors off, in order to pay the jizya to their masters. I wonder if they'll figure out that little inconvenient fact (that would certainly be the ultimate point at which their interests would diverge from their Muslim so-called "allies) before it's too late.
El Cid,
I take offense to your condemnation of Latino undocumented workers in this country, they may form the majority of people entering this country illegally, but we have 90,000 illegal Canadians, an estimated 50,000-70,000 Irishmen, and their President has butted his nose into US immigration policy by encouraging Bush to endorse an immigration amnesty program during the annual White House Presentation of the Shamrocks.
There is general distress in the West period, the US and Europe show rifts in their worldview, the US operates from a position of power while Europe operates from a position of weakness and is therefore willing to forego military confrontation and conclusive results for negotiation even if that means not outright addressing a problem or finding a resolution per se.
The global shift of power is in favor of Asia, India and China, two nations poised to resume their former position of world power/hegemony and influence.
The 21st century will see the browning of the West, as darker skinned peoples constitute a majority, via higher fertility rates and the decline of the European/Caucasian races due to lowered birth rates that do not meet replacement level.
I guess members of the Aryan Nation are right, unless whites reproduce, Western civilization is threatened if you perceive racial composition as a key to preserving the Western legacy.
As Europeans leave their Christian roots for the EU's promoted supra-national religion of secularism and as Islam makes a home again in Europe as it did in Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, and Russia in the past, things are going to look different.
"...India and China, two nations poised to resume their former position of world power/hegemony and influence."
-pikachu
When exactly was that again?
Forced conversion has meant, means, and always will mean the destruction of churches, the killing of men and the rape of women. Case in point to Balkan war. How in God's name did the West wind up on the same side as the Jihadists?
The great thing about this is that the French showed they have spirit and when the day comes that muslims get there numbers up to a point where they can attempt to impose islamic way of life on France they will be resisted.
Pikachu, I know the Latino community, this is not about the documentation status of certain Latino's, it's about their attitude to the norms and culture of this country.
It is wrong of them (many here legally) to talk about the taking back what was once Mexico,
I feel it my obligation as a Latino who respects and admires this country, to condem groups like "La Raza" which means "the race" as in the superior race, in Spanish.
Be honest with yourself, "undocumented" is a duplicitous term for illegal immigration, it presupposes that a nation like the US has no right to control its border. Try telling that to a country like China and you will find yourself contemplating double speak from the confines of cell.
As an immigrant, who believes in immigration and it's contribution to this country, I must speak out that it be fair, orderly, and respect the institutions of this country.
Otherwise, immigrants become colonizers of an alien culture.
At that démonstration the protestes were trying to impose their will and an aberration of tis countries laws.
I feel obligated to support the civic culture of this country, if I wanted to replicate the civic culture of Mexico I would have stayed there.
By the way many Latinos feel the same, We want to be Americans and take our place in this great society.
My grandchildren appreciate their Hispanic roots, but they more strongly about being Americans
I am the product of immigration to this country too, being the son of a Mexican immigrant.
The notion of La Raza Cosmica comes from the Mexican modernist and philosopher Vasconcelos. La Raza has nothing to do with supremacism, it is merely an expression of pride and resistance to European and American domination.
Mexicans view this land as theirs, period. In many Spanish language newspapers, Mexicans say, "Somos todos palestinos." (We're all Palestinians).
You are right, Latin America is right now intensely anti-American, the intelligentia and the ruling elites have been quite critical in recent years against the US and the globalization policies, which have uprooted people from my father's colonia. Half his ranchito now reside in the US, since NAFTA, the foreign import of American corn has undercut the profits of farmers, forcing them to go to the cities, not finding work, many have made the trek north.
Mexico does not invest in its human capital. Mexican children are denied entrance into a school if they have no proper shoes to wear, sometimes teachers are not available for more remote villages, etc.
But yes, Mexicans do see the American Southwest as theirs, they see themselves as being Palestinians, but their weapon of choice is reproduction, not suicide bombings.
Pikachu, the exchange is off topic to this thread, but I must set straight the "La Raza" issue.
The did not say "La Raza Cosmica or La Raza Humana" which would indicate all of mankind.
The La Raza group in the US on their website talks about supremacism of the Brown race "La Raza". That's who they refer to with this term.
They didn't say "El Pueblo", the people, or "La gente". they had signs that read "Mi Pueblo" my people, "Lo Nuestro" our thing, "La Raza" all exclusive of others in this case other Americans.
I am offended when even ads in Spanish language publications promoting things like banks start off with "Mi Pueblo".
We can take pride in the contributions of Latinos, a truly made up term, because someone from Argentina has very different culture then a resident of Honduras, although the educated classes have more in coman, without excluding non-Latinos.
I am critical of globalization, but the problems of corruption, underdevelopment, lack of rule of law and crime can only be blamed on the societies that Latins have created for themselves and the legacy of Spanish colonization.
Until we become critical of ourselves, build on the strengths that Latino cultures possess and stop this La Raza nonsense, we will always condem the people of Latin countries to poverty and insecurity.
It is up to us to make that change, not knee-jerk attacks on the US and the change should start in Mexico,
Forced conversion has meant, means, and always will mean the destruction of churches, the killing of men and the rape of women. Case in point to Balkan war. How in God's name did the West wind up on the same side as the Jihadists?
Posted by: MikeCipolla at March 20, 2006 09:54 PM
Indeed, how did we?
The slide show over at Serbianna shows some of the Bosnian Muslim atrocities suffered by the Serbs that the poltically correct western media forgot to show us for some reason.
If you have a strong stomach...
http://www.serbianna.com/features/srebrenica/
The thing that amazes me about many of the posters here is there eagerness to always paint Islam in a negative light.
Yugoslavia was the victim of sectarianism, there is no denying that and both Christians and Muslims committed atrocities against one another.
In Nagaland, India, Christian terrorists are fighting New Delhi in the goal of obtaining national self-determination. Christian terrorists are active in Thailand and Myanmar.
But in your quest to paint all Muslims as evil, therefore sub-human, you have to show how all Muslims even in their suffering as the perpetrators of violence.
Caroline, I am a leftist, and therefore I have a tendency of viewing the world through economic determinism (a nice euphemism for socialist) perspective.
I disagree with Huntington's thesis that the world is headed into a clash of civilizations from the decline of Western hegemony, the rise of Islamic revivalism, and the emergence of Asia as a superpower.
I was in Paris not long ago and saw men sleeping in doorways in some neighborhoods. I saw a soup kitchen in the early evening on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. They were giving out some greenish pasty stuff that may have been pea soup without much water. There must have been about a hundred people, mostly but not only, men waiting for this green goo, which may have been tasty for all I know. So the EU has dreadful, humiliating poverty. Yet the EU has plenty of money for the palestinian authority, which now is led by the Hamas, as if the hamas had not been allied with arafat all along, as if fatah and hamas were not the same in their goals. The EU has donated more than 5 billion dollars to the PA since 1994 when it first took power. [This is not to mention the big $$ that the PA gets from USA, Japan, and Arab states]. So it seems that the EU would rather finance Arab terrorists than help their own poor.
pikachu-- if some of the Latinos think that "somos todos palestinos," and see the Arabs who usurped Israel as "natives" whom they can identify with, then these Latinos have been subject to intense indoctrination in lies. The Jews were the natives of the country invaded by Arabs in the 7th century. The Arabs displaced Jews from the country, although Crusaders too massacred and persecuted Jews in Israel. I suggest that Latinos consider the implications of what Cervantes wrote: No te fies de ningun moro, porque son todos marfuces! [Don't trust any Moor {=Arab}, because they are all deceivers!]. This applies to historical claims made by the PLO and palestinian authority, and all of their Western and Communist apologists. Accusations are made against Israel which are totally fraudulent, such as "apartheid" state, "Jenin massacre," etc. The Arabs and their friends also claim an ancient, even prehistoric history in this country, which is a spurious claim, even according to the Quran and Arab historians, like Ibn Khaldun. They also sometimes claim to have always treated Jews well, kindly, generously, etc. Some charges against Israel are made by Westerners. One such is the claim that Israel conspired in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, which someone made on DW the other day. If he has any real information, then I'd be willing to consider it.
as to the Caucasian race-- this term did not refer to a skin color. Rather, certain early anthropologists were pointing to the Caucasus region as a place where typical representatives of the race common to India, Europe, and Middle East dwelled. So Indians were also considered Caucasians, although they are not usually pale-skinned. Likewise Semites.
Correction: there must have been MORE THAN A HUNDRED people waiting for the green goo on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir.
Will the EU ever take care of its own poor?
Che Guevara is a Palestinian folk hero as well as Fidel Castro. I was struck that Arabs identify with Leftist movements in Latin America, and throughout much of Latin America, the reverse relationship also exists.
Recently, Latin American nations and Arab nations had a conference in Venezuela or Brazil, both Leftist regimes right now, but Latinos view the world through economic determinism and have a socialist view of the world while the Arab world lamented about humiliation in Palestine and Iraq.
So though the two worlds share common resistance heroes, they have different ways of seeing and interacting with the world. You can argue that Latinos are Western in their approach, even if it is now tilted to the Left.
The only thing that is economically determined, is the poverty, corruption, waste of human talent when educated people of Latin America prattle on about socialism, and failed economic theories, while the vast majority of Latinos suffer.
Ask how many Cubans would exchange Havana for Miami and people would vote with their feet.
Pikachu, Jihad Is a threat to Latinos too.
I suspect just as the Nazis had allies in Latin America during the war, the Jihadist will find sympathetic eyes in many Latin countries.
I am for freeing the world from the Jihadist menace, Da'wa and Sharia law, just as Marxism and right wing totalitarian dictatorships, have condemned the people of Latin America., so has Islam condemned the Arab world to grinding poverty.
I say let's free them both! We can start this by speaking the truth and this site sure does that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4829576.stm
This guy is now in a coma, he told the police medic that the rioters attacked him, another reason to believe that those guys were not the original demonstrators.
I have seen Arab Communists wearing T-shirts with Che Guevara's face; you know the one, wearing the beret, longish hair, etc. But I have not seen any with Castro's face. So Guevara is a hero to them, but Castro much less, maybe because he is still alive and no longer glamorous. Actually, they both worshipped death with the slogan: Patria o muerte! But then Franco's general, Millan Astray, and his admirers said something similar: Viva la muerte!
Of course, the Latin Americans in general and the Marxists in particular fundamentally belong to Western culture. But the fascination with death is common ground for Spanish fascists, Latin American leftists [incluso --o sobretodo-- los guevaristas], and the Islamofascists.
At the famous gathering at the Univ of Salamanca where Millan Astray and his followers cheered death [1936], Unamuno, the philosopher, answered:
"Acabo de oír el necrófilo e insensato
grito, viva la muerte"- - Now isn't there a strong necrophiliac element in Islam? Didn't both arafat and khomeini say: To kill and be killed is the highest joy in Islam. Can these quotes alone justify the notion of an "Islamofascism"?
Eliyahu
islam-o-facism is redundant.
>" to kill and be killed is the highest joy of islam."
I think mostly they prefer killing but they are going to have to develope a taste for dying as the west begins to awaken.