| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Robert Spencer | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog |  |
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
Anthony Daniels, also known as Theodore Dalrymple, writes in National Review (subscription required):
For the last two weeks, the French have been watching the numbers of cars burnt the night before in the suburbs the way New Yorkers watch the Dow Jones index. Does 463 mean that the riots are now in recession, or is the reduction compared with the previous night merely what stockbrokers call a technical correction? Could the senior policeman be right who said that the downward trend was “the beginning of a classic mobilization at the weekend”? In other words, could les jeunes be conserving their energy for a further assault on French complacency?Certainly, the police intercepted e-mails calling on les jeunes to assemble in the Champs-Elysées and under the Eiffel Tower, which would really set the matches among the gasoline. The French Social Model would then have no choice but to swing into action, and send in the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (the feared CRS), all batons flailing: the continuation of social work by other means.
It must be admitted that les jeunes have a strange way of trying to prove to the world that they are not what the outspoken interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, so perceptively (but unadvisedly) called scum. Having long pondered the delicately balanced question of whether it is more humiliating to be justly or unjustly accused, I suspect that les jeunes have reacted with such fury to M. Sarkozy’s epithet precisely because they knew themselves that it was accurate. For how else do you describe people who are prepared to burn the cars of 6,000 of their neighbors, and a bus with a 56-year-old handicapped woman in it who was unable to escape and was severely burned as a result; people who did not take this horrific incident as an indication to desist, and whose subculture is a transposition of that of the American underclass at its worst?
But a descriptive term is not an explanation, unless you believe — as I do not — that large numbers of people are scum by nature, by unchangeable essence (and even that essence would require explanation). Whatever reservations one might have about the culture that the parents of les jeunes brought with them to France when they immigrated there, they — the parents — were definitely a more attractive group of human beings than their offspring, brought up in the banlieues of French cities and towns. At the very least, they were hard-working, law-abiding, decent, polite, and optimistic about improving their condition and that of their future children. Things have turned out very differently, of course: Many of their children, no doubt larger and healthier than their North African counterparts, have grown into alien beings whom they have long since ceased to understand.The French banlieues are in effect prisons, but prisons that are ruled by the prisoners who live in them — generally the worst and most brutalizing kind of prisons there are. These prisons have metaphysical walls rather than real ones, though they are geographically isolated from the towns and cities to which they are attached. The metaphysical walls are patrolled by a combination of rigid French labor laws, which make it so difficult for the young to find employment in France, and the subculture of les jeunes themselves, which is conducive to nothing except idleness punctuated by insensate rage.
As in all prisons, an us-and-them attitude develops, in which anyone who is not one of us is one of them, and with whom any decent relations are a form of treachery toward us. In prison, it is the wardens and the prisoners who are in binary opposition; in the banlieues it is les jeunes and any other member of French society who are irreconcilably opposed. I have rarely felt such immediate and reflexive hostility as when I visited the banlieues of Paris, not even in African townships at the height of apartheid.
Of course, the hostility is entirely reciprocated by the police, who suspect all of les jeunes of everything, and behave accordingly: more like an army of occupation trying to repress the discontents of the natives than a force to protect everyone equally. It is sometimes said that the hostility of les jeunes has been caused by this attitude of the police. But this does not explain the almost equal hostility toward the sapeurs-pompiers, the firemen, whose job is to put out fires and rescue people who are trapped, and even toward the crews of ambulances sent to evacuate the ill and injured to the hospital. The rage is an existential one, worsened perhaps by particular instances of humiliation, but fundamentally independent of them.
Of course, just as prisoners know themselves to be in an intrinsically less powerful position than the wardens of their prison, so les jeunes know themselves to be in an intrinsically powerless position vis-à-vis the French state. For one thing, many of them are completely dependent upon that state for everything they possess and everything they eat. Even the drug dealers, whose business is practically the only economic activity of the banlieues, know that, at base, they are dependent on the French state: If their customers, les jeunes, were not in receipt of state subventions, the dealers would have no market for their wares.
The humiliation of such dependence hardly needs emphasis; nothing is left to les jeunes but endlessly to distract themselves in their uneducated, crude, and tasteless way, and to soothe their inflamed egos with the balm of “respect,” which in practice means making others fear them, both individually and collectively.
Of course, when I talk of les jeunes, I refer only to the male of the species. There has been a marked lack of curiosity in the world’s press about the absence of women from the scenes that, for a time, have made Clichy-sous-Bois as famous as Paris itself. There has also been little attempt to canvass the opinion of the young women of the banlieues about developments in the streets. Here truly is the dog that did not bark, for many of them might have told a story of oppression by les jeunes that would make the French state seem a model of equity and compassion by comparison. Indeed, to anyone even moderately alert to social meanings, the mere difficulty of canvassing female opinion in the banlieues would have represented an important story.
The part played by Islam in the riots is bound in an age of Islamist terrorism to preoccupy us, but in my opinion it played at most a peripheral or enabling role. Young men of Islamic background are perhaps more sensitive to humiliation, and more likely to react violently, than others, since they are habituated to thinking of themselves as superior beings to women, the elect of creation. They are also determined to preserve their domination of women. This is the principal interest that Islam has for the young Muslim men of both Britain and France, and probably Holland as well, who are in all other respects almost as highly secularized as their non-Muslim counterparts. Islam also helps to keep their resentment warm, to give it shape; and resentment is, of all human emotions, by far the most dependable — but also the most counterproductive. But les jeunes are not religious fanatics: They are not religious at all. When French Islamic clerics issued a fatwa condemning the riots, it had absolutely no effect. Only a fatwa calling for riots might have had some effect, but only because there existed an inclination to riot in the first place.
This is not to say that the situation is not extremely dangerous. Les jeunes of all descriptions are often looking for supposedly complete answers to their existential problems, and an obvious one lies close at hand in the French banlieues. It would be surprising indeed if fundamentalists did not try to take advantage of the discontents to further their designs — if an impossible and primitive utopian daydream can be called a design.
Of course, the French state has been living a daydream of its own, namely that welfare can be extended indefinitely without adverse social, economic, and psychological consequences. It now finds itself with a very painful dilemma. The situation in the banlieues can be improved only by a liberalization of the French labor market; but years of propaganda from the French intelligentsia have made the majority of Frenchmen deeply hostile to economic liberalization. A recent poll conducted for the newspaper Libération showed that the word “socialism” had better connotations for Frenchmen than the word “capitalism,” and that economic liberalism was viewed with great distaste.
At a recent conference, I heard an eminent French intellectual say that the French government needed to introduce entrepreneurs into the banlieues. He was a representative of French liberalism (comparatively speaking), yet his view was still essentially Colbertian. Even he had not yet grasped that the state was the problem, not the solution, that it was the state that had enclosed les jeunes in an existential prison. Unfortunately, most of the French population benefits — or believes that it benefits — from the regulations that maintain that prison. Riots in les banlieues or marches down the Boulevard Saint-Germain: That is the choice facing the French government, and my guess is that they will prefer the former to the latter, even if in the end it means sending in the CRS, no holds barred.
Posted by Rebecca at November 19, 2005 7:51 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
A very good article in Saturday's National Post on France's Jewish exodus.
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=d81b7fd5-743a-4534-b5ec-eed3251d0b2e
Posted by: spencerd![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 19, 2005 8:33 AM
Much as I admire Theodore Dalrymple's writing I think he is wrong when he says:
"The part played by Islam in the riots is bound in an age of Islamist terrorism to preoccupy us, but in my opinion it played at most a peripheral or enabling role."
A similar mistake is made in an otherwise sensible column by Frank Johnson in The Spectator:
"All we know about riots is that, for the 3,000 years or so of well-recorded European history, from time to time in all the European countries of which we have knowledge, the less well-off have indulged in them or been provoked into them by the forces of authority. Authority then suppresses them. In modern times, authority follows suppression by inquiring into the riots’ causes and occasionally doing some good for the places where the riots take place. That is what happened in, among other British riot venues, Brixton, which has not rioted for a long time. Something like that will happen in France."
Islam is far more intractable than other problems. Race relations in Britain are much better than they were at the time of the Brixton riots. Brixton still has problems, of course. Deciding which wine bar to go to or what kind of bling to wear is very tricky. But problems of racism and poverty are amenable to political and economic solutions. The problem of Islam is not. Dalrymple acknowledges that "Young men of Islamic background are perhaps more sensitive to humiliation, and more likely to react violently, than others, since they are habituated to thinking of themselves as superior beings to women, the elect of creation". However, he does not go on to ask why, and has not considered that this mindset is firmly rooted in Islam and cannot change.
What works with other problems, does not work with Islam. Various solutions are proposed - better integration, empowerment of women, better education, more money. Integration? Better taqiyya. Empowerment of women? They support their jihadi brothers. Education? Many terrorists, including Omar Sheikh, the ex public schoolboy involved in Daniel Pearl's murder, are highly educated. More money? More mosques.
Still, you have to love him. Darlymple, that is, not Omar Sheikh. Anyone who can say "resentment is, of all human emotions, by far the most dependable — but also the most counterproductive", gets my undying adoration.
Posted by: Interested at November 19, 2005 8:53 AM
The following is a link to another important article on the French riots from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. It is pretty long, but worth a full read.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/646938.html
Posted by: Howard, Fine & Howard at November 19, 2005 8:54 AM
"The part played by Islam in the riots is bound in an age of Islamist terrorism to preoccupy us, but in my opinion it played at most a peripheral or enabling role."
This I do not agree with at all.
"Young men of Islamic background are perhaps more sensitive to humiliation, and more likely to react violently, than others, since they are habituated to thinking of themselves as superior beings to women, the elect of creation. They are also determined to preserve their domination of women."
Not only women, but infidels as well.
"Islam also helps to keep their resentment warm, to give it shape; and resentment is, of all human emotions, by far the most dependable — but also the most counterproductive. But les jeunes are not religious fanatics: They are not religious at all."
I think this has been mentioned on this site several times over. "Ryan" used this same excuse as well, that the Muslims who were rioting were not pious, so Islam had nothing to do with it. Let's forget the fact that they were shouting "Allahu Akbar" whilst rioting and that Muslim cultural institutions were spared from being torched whereas there was no regard for Christian or Jewish institutions. Ok, let's just forget all that and pretend it never happened. These "youths" may not be pious but they are still culturally Muslim, they are not ex-Muslims or apostates, but they still identify as Muslim. The infidel hatred is so entrenched in Islam that you don't need to be as pious as Qaradawi or Sistani in order to think ill of Christians, Jews, Hindus, or Buddhists. It is so clear, so apparent, in Islam that the infidels are the enemy that are oppressing the Muslims in one way or another and cannot be trusted. And in this case, the "humiliation" is caused by the infidels, the French, because they live in better houses and have better lives than the "youths" in the suburbs. They don't care that they are on welfare, they care that the French infidels have more than them, and since all wealth belongs to Allah and by extension to his followers, the Sons of Allah, they find this situation intolerable and "unjust". Dalrymple needs to understand that there are cases of nominal Muslims holding an implacable hatred for infidels. Look at how the Azeris hate the Armenians, how the Albanians hate the Serbs, and how even some of the most secularized Turks hate the Greeks. Yes, these groups all had wars that fueled their hatred, but the Muslim hostility was still there prior to these wars.
Darlrymple goes on about how the fatwa had no effect. Without getting into political aspects of the fatwa and how it would look good on the Muslims if they issued one in order to assuage infidel doubts that they were "on the other side", it should be remembered that fatwas are not binding, especially during a conflict. A political Muslim body will have tremendous difficulty controlling the "immoderates" in their midst during an armed conflict, only charismatic and well respected leaders can hope to have any effect. Even pious Muslims can ignore fatwas if it stands in the way of their goals, this is not exclusive only to nominal Muslims.
This has been a depressing read. I expected better from Dalrymple, but he devoted just one paragraph to the contribution of Islam to the riots and still he consigned it to the periphery. Coming from a man who is not afraid to step into un-PC territory, this is not good. He needs to educate himself on Islam, and quickly.
Posted by: igor at November 19, 2005 9:02 AM
Howard, Fine & Howard
Thank's for the link to Haaretz. I love this quote from Alain Finkielkraut.
"When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism. I'm 'color blind.' Evil is evil, no matter what color it is. And this evil, for the Jew that I am, is completely intolerable."
at November 19, 2005 10:39 AM
Spencerd,
I am really impressed with Finkielkraut, too. It is a long piece, but worth it. I think it is the best expose I've seen in a long time of moral double-standards in the world today.
at November 19, 2005 10:56 AM
"This is impossible for a French Jew. Many of us consider ourselves equally French and Jewish -- this balanced, mixed identity, for many centuries, has been our description, our key to success and ease in this country."
The French have seen fit to drive people like this away from France, to Israel, to Quebec, and to Miami, and replace them with people who not only don't think of themselves as French, even after three generations, but who in fact hate the French. As Seinfeld would say, "good luck with all that!"
Posted by: Infidel33 at November 19, 2005 12:09 PM
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”-George Santayana-
The dynamics of nation-states and cultures is not a mystery. The eclipse of civilizations by others, superior and inferior, has occurred countless times in history recorded and unrecorded. The current dominant European culture may dismiss the posibility of its extermination by islam at its own mortal peril.
The contempt and violence visited upon contemporary Europe by its permanent, alien, incompatible, and virulently aggressive islamic sub-culture will be an unending feature of european life until one side or the other prevails. Unfortunately, only one side is intent upon prevailing. Total, intolerant domination is the uncompromising goal of only one side in this clash of cultures. The worst is yet to come. The secular Gods of Multiculturalism and Tolerance condemn their Euro acolytes to ultimate submission to those who would destroy them.
The fate of France, indeed, the fate of Europe, is a mathematical certainty based upon demography alone. Islam need only be patient. It needs no help. Europe is intent on helping anyway.
A tidal wave of unassimilated third world, mainly muslim, immigration possesing developing world bithrates and catastrophically imploding birthrates among every native European population have sealed the fate of European civilization. Demographically, it is dead, it just has not hit the ground yet. Caucasian european humans are doomed to a racial extinction as certain as that of the dinosaur. Dhimmitude is only a stop along the way to racial and cultural oblivion. Why such a fate is either unrecognized or actually embraced by its victims is a question that has no rational answer.
France and the whole of Europe's dysfunctional, politically correct, oh so racially sensitive response to the muslim assault on the West will only serve to accelerate its own cultural demise. Its fetish for post-modern cultural relativism does not allow it to defend itself from domination by its enemies. It adheres to the self-destructive illogic of its limited, politically correct repetoir of responses to the assualt with as much fanaticism as the most fanatic of its future islamist masters. The dominant European cultural and intellectual elite embrace cultural suicide. Why?
Why did so many millions walk like sheep into the ovens in the previous century. Their principle tormentor made his plans for them quite clear in his "holy book". They either did not read 'Mein Kampf' or their refined, educated, civilized, culturally evolved, twentieth century European sensibilities prevented them from comprehending that, sometimes, barbarians will do exactly what they say they will do if given the opportunity.
Today, Europeans do not even have to take the time to read the Quran to discern what fate it has in store for them. They have only to listen to the ayatollas and imams and take them at their words.
A delusional, self-destructive world view extends to European geopolitics as well. What will Europe do when confronted by fundamentalist Iran in possession of a holy nuke? It is unwilling to confront a militarily impotent Iran now. One can only imagine the submissive posture it will assume when threatened by the pretenders to the new caliphate. Instead, they reserve their highest outrage for their genetic and cultural relatives in America. They feel safe bearding the "Great Satan" in a way they do not when dealing with islam and its demands.
Go figure
Posted by: THw6kds at November 19, 2005 3:35 PM
I found a review of Finkielkraut in a piece on Julien Benda at the link below. I'm not familiar with Finkielkraut, but from the review I think I'd like to know more. If anyone here is interested in posting a review or essay on his work I'd be happy to post it.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/11/dec92/treason.htm
Benda is timely today, and it seems that Finkielkraut is his successor. I had to cut him from my blog till I read his work or find somone else who has. If you're interested in reaching my vast readership, please send your essay to:
dag.walker at gmail dot com
Posted by: sonofwalker at November 19, 2005 4:05 PM
THw6kds, great post. I'm in New Zealand and am wondering if we'll see an increase in immigration in the coming years to both here and Australia from Europeans who have had enough. I fear for the future. We seem to be sleepwalking to disaster and few want to admit it. Islamic Terrorists with WOMDs and Muslim demographics don't paint a pretty picture. Will this be earth's final war?
Posted by: leelion at November 19, 2005 5:12 PM
I read Benda's "Treason of the intellecuals" eons ago. I'll have to start digging though some boxes to find it so I can read it again.
Posted by: spencerd at November 19, 2005 9:36 PM
(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dhimmi Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)