Muslim leaders, defying the well-established fact that the riots in France have nothing to do with Islam, order the rioters to desist in the name of Allah. The mainstream media in the United States obligingly looks the other way. It will be interesting to see if the rioters heed this call after ignoring calls for calm from Chirac and other non-Muslim French authorities.
From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Romy:
BEARDED Muslim activists have been wading into the night-time mayhem of the housing estates, megaphone in hand, and addressing the rioters “in the name of Allah”.
Far from inciting the violence, they have been urging the rioting teenagers to stop destroying property and go home. For the Government, the Muslim mediators have been playing a useful role calming youngsters from the mainly Arab estates who respect their authority far more than that of the police and local officials.
However, the Muslim mentors, who style themselves “big brothers”, are also causing unease in France because they symbolise what many see as a root of the unrest: the isolation of the ethnic Arab and black minorities into ghettos where Muslim law and outlook prevails. There is also a widespread belief “” denied by the authorities “” that the unrest is being fostered by the Islamists.