I have visited Paris many times and have always loved that city, warts and all. I proposed to my future wife there earlier this year. I have noticed, however, over the years of my going there that the place does not have that relaxed atmosphere that I recall when I first went there in my early teens. I could not always put my finger on it.
Well, people are definitely noticing that Paris is not “all right” now. U.S. blogger Roger L. Simon (who writes excellent crime fiction) has some thoughts about the wave of riots breaking out in the outer suburbs of the city. There is also plenty of food for thought via the wonderfully entitled Merde in France blog for some observations close to what is going on.
(UPDATE: link to this instead of the Merde in France site. The url has changed, as spotted by a commenter. Thanks. Mea culpa).
I watched the British Channel 4 news programme tonight, which devoted about five minutes to the mayhem, now in its seventh consecutive night. The report stated that at least 177 vehicles have been damaged, in some cases set on fire. Security services have been fired upon with guns. A primary school has been burned to the ground. This is the sort of thing one expects to read about in Iraq, or, perhaps the Watts area of LA back in the late 1960s. The Channel 4 programme skated over the possible reasons for the mayhem, also ignoring a number of salient facts about life in the area, such as the massive concentration of immigrants of mostly north African descent, the huge drug trade, the lack of assimilation into broader French society and the chronic and relentlessly high levels of youth unemployment.
This vast housing estates are totally in contrast with the elegant, touristy bits of Paris that you see in the travel brochures. I was chatting with fellow contributor Michael Jennings about this over lunch today and he actually makes a point of going to the less salubrious bits of cities like Paris to see what life is really like. I have often noticed, either during car journeys or while taking the Eurostar train, just how grimy and cheerless the environ developments are. These are not places a sane person should spend a lot of time in, given the choice.
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a fine piece about the outskirts of Paris a while back here. Definitely worth checking out.
I heartily hope that order can be restored before that great city starts resembling one of the more violent parts of a Victor Hugo novel.
Jonathan writes: “… just how grimy and cheerless the environ developments are. These are not places a sane person should spend a lot of time in, given the choice. “
But, Jonathan – they do have a choice: Get a job and move into better quarters. They choose to stay in the ghettoes because they can hang out with the the guys all day, smoking and looking cool and jeering and calling names at non-Muslim girls for not wearing a hijab. For Muslim girls not wearing a hijab, this displeases them and they burn her with lighted cigarettes or gang rape her and leave her in a dumpster as punishment. Their mothers cook for them and do their laundry. What more could a young pasha want?
Why would they want to leave their burrows when they’re the little lords of all they survey, and the state pays them just for being alive?
Verity
You are absolutely right. The first change France must make to bring civilization to those Muslim areas is to stop their welfare payments.
Actually, Jake, France did make the first, and very intelligent and brave decision to ban the hijab in schools. That was step number one. (And one which most Muslim women of around age 40 and below approved on – in polls taken away from the Muslim menfolk. Having suffered the separation from their classmates of being forced to wear the hijab in school themselves, they don’t want it for their daughters.)
Next step should be limits on the time an able working man can remain on welfare. Of course, that would cause more riots, such is now the attitude of entitlement of these aliens.
By the way, no one working in a government building in France, from national government to small town mairies, can come to work in a hijab.
A thought just struck me – do Muslim drag queens dress up in burqas? Not a lot to work with …
The Eurabian civil war has begun.
In Denmark too, BTW:
http://viking-observer.blogspot.com/2005/10/war-in-france-war-in-denmark.html
Deliberately planned weeks ago as a response to some mildly insulting cartoons a Danish newspaper printed of Muhammad.
Yep! time to go to the mat with these goddam scum!
Just on general principles!!
As a great writer once said.
My two French aunts would agree. That’s why they’ve lived in Wales since 1940.
I agree that one thing to admire about France is that they do insist on immigrant assimilation. They take it a bit far for my taste – but I’m sure I feel better about the way they handle it than the way the US does (blame ourselves for everything and encourage any kind of public display of foreign loyalty available). And Canada is just all kinds of ridiculous with the “cultural mosaic” crap.
That said – I can’t feel enthusiastic about public dress codes. The anti-hijab law is wrong: people should be allowed to dress as they like. It’s maybe true that muslim women feel “liberated” by this, but it’s a false liberation – since it’s ultimately not the government’s responsibility to help them stand up to their husbands and the oppressive traditions of their aggressive religion. Public expression must be protected – regardless of medium (provided no one’s rights are violated in the process).
Most of what is being said here could equally as well have been said about e.g. the poor in Liverpool in the 1980s. Issues about race / religion / immigration play a part but remember that there are white / Christian / natives going along for the ride now in France, just as there were in Bradford in 2001 and Verity’s comments about the mentality of the rioters apply equally as well to them.
The root cause of this is an overmighty state. A state that wants to control every aspect of its subjects’ lives through welfare and conducts identity checks which irritate people enough to make them want to risk their lives to escape.
Erm, maaaaybe. I tend to think that the rioters probably aren’t trying to escape the welfare checks, though. As another commenter pointed out, if that were the case, they are all perfectly capable of finding jobs. Admittedly, the job market in France probably isn’t the best in Europe, but there’s enough work around to keep most of these revelers off social help.
What’s causing these riots is irrational at its root. Sure – poverty, being socially marginalized, whatever – these are sparks for the powderkeg – but the fact of actual rioting can’t be explained away very easily. I think it’s a complex of causes, not the least of which is an undue, irrational, and unrealistic sense of entitlement. They’re not rioting to “escape,” they’re rioting to have paradise handed to them on a platter.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Robert Alderson writes:
“The root cause of this is an overmighty state. A state that wants to control every aspect of its subjects’ lives through welfare and conducts identity checks which irritate people enough to make them want to risk their lives to escape.”
I await the imminent Jewish riots in Golders Green.
I hear the Amish in Pennsylvania are starting to get pretty ticked off, too.
And the Mormons are just about to blow also. Don’t go anywhere near Utah anyone — they’re lethal when they get riled.
GCooper, Susan,
Golders Green, Lancaster County and Utah don’t have an overmighty state which treats its subjects as poor dependent vassals. People there get up and work for a living because it is the best choice open to them and there is real economic freedom.
Islamic fundamentalism does play a part in these riots but it is not the biggest cause. Poor people who don’t think they have much of a future have rioted throughout history various causes exploit that tendency.
True, Robert, but it’s funny how one certain religion seems to attract irredentism and civil wars like shit attracts flies. Add France to the growing list: Nigeria, Indonesia, Philippines, Israel, Sudan, Russia, The Balkans, The Indian Sub-Continent. Did I leave anybody out?
Thailand, I left out Thailand.
Them nasty old Buddhists just can’t get along with the peaceful and tolerant you-know-what down there in the south.
Robert Alderson writes:
“Golders Green, Lancaster County and Utah don’t have an overmighty state which treats its subjects as poor dependent vassals.”
What utter, total rot! The same rules pertain in Golders Green as pertain in Bradford. And they most certainly pertained in the East End in the early years ofthe 20th centruy, when Jewish immigrants were busily working their way out of the area.
You’re just making the usual Left/liberal excuses for bad behaviour, while turning a convenient eye to the many exceptions that prove the opposite case.
The poor french,one would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
Susan wonders:
” Did I leave anybody out?”
Denmark, apparently. The beardied crazies have been at it there, too.
Of course, it’s just a coincidence….
I think you meant to link to No Pasaran. The “Merde in France” blog went dormant a year ago when he joined the “No Pasaran” group blog.
I posted the link about Denmark upthread. Didn’t see the need to repeat myself G. Coop.
I’m not worried about Denmark. They’re kicking butt on all sorts of fronts that the rest of the West don’t dare even talk about.
@joshua
“And Canada is just all kinds of ridiculous with the “cultural mosaic” crap.”
Ever been to Canada Joshua? More legal immigrants per capita than almost any country on earth, and general harmony. It’s a learning experience.
Susan writes:
“I posted the link about Denmark upthread. Didn’t see the need to repeat myself G. Coop.”
My bad.
Fiona writes:
” More legal immigrants per capita than almost any country on earth, and general harmony. It’s a learning experience. ”
Be patient. By all precedents your turn will come.
Robert Alderson is correct to identify the real problem as being an overmighty state – and I fear that this is a problem of which the West really now has no means of divesting itself. The state, in effect, through the welfare rolls and gigantic public sectors, pays people to vote for them. This disenfranchises the wealth creators.
I’ve said before that public sector workers should sacrifice the vote in return for the financial security they enjoy. And long-term welfare recipients, as wards of the state and thus, technically, juveniles, should also be denied the vote. We’re on a hiding to the end of having any control whatsoever over our governments unless they are reined in very soon.
Joshua – France is a secular nation. They don’t allow religious symbolism on public property. Anyone who wants to work in a mairie knows that they can’t parade their religiosity on property paid for by taxpayers who may not agree with it. In some states in Germany, teachers aren’t allowed to wear hijabs.
PS – The Danes are kicking ass. Two thousand years and Viking blood still flowing in their veins. I love it!
Fiona what dreamland do you occupy in the Great White North?
Come to the Niagara region where I live which has had unprecedented Islamic immigration in the past ten years. You’d be hard pressed to find any of these people in the workforce but you will find them in large numbers photographing the Niagara gorge hydro installations with their cam corders.
Furthermore although they’ve hardly been here a decade they spew anti-Jewish rhetoric and did I forget to mention that six – yes six recent immigrant young folk from St. Catharines are languishing in jails in Singapore and other overseas places being held on terrorist charges.
Finally the last year I taught at the University of Montreal I nearly fell off my chair as two young men passed my desk embroiled in a fierce argument – one a Quebecois, the other a recent Islamic immigrant. What caused my temporary unhinging? I heard the latter say and I’m not making up this delusional nonsense – we (meaning he and fellow Islamics) had to come here and build your country up for you.
How can one possibly deal with such insanity except to place the purveyors of such as far from our civilization as possible.
Generally spot-on re Muslims, but don’t give buddhists a good name by mistake. They only thing they have against muslims is interfering with their waging of civil wars against themselves.
To be fair, a lot of them probably can’t get a job – although there is plenty of dishwashing etc out there, there is no real manufacturing sector left. But a lot more of them could than do, certainly.
Patrick, I’m sure there’s plenty of manufacturing which has moved out of Europe to Pakistan, Morocco and Algeria to provide these individuals with work. The only problem is, they would have to return to Pakistan, Morocco and Algeria to secure those jobs and those countries don’t have available girls in low cut skirts with their thongs showing and low cut blouses with lacy bras showing. And probably no welfare if you quit your job to pursue your vocation of watching daytime TV and standing around on street corners with your mates. Hmmmm, sounds like employment in the manufacturing sector may be a non-starter.
Just saw a photo of the Danish prime minister Fogh Rasmussen on No Pasaran and I must say, a Viking BABE. He told 11 ambassadors from a little cabal of Muslim countries who wanted to demand action because some newspapers printed cartoons of Mohammad, to get lost, citing freedom of the press. He refused to meet with 11 accredited ambassadors to discuss curtailments to the freedom of the Danish press. I love it!
Sorry. The photo of Rasmussen is in The Telegraph, not No Pasaran. (Link)
Don’t quite understand Patrick.
What civil wars are Buddhists waging against themselves?
As I understand it Buddhism is a philosophy not a religion. That’s what they kept telling me in Sri Lanka anyway.
It in no way equates with the chucklesome RELIGION of Submit or Die.
Buddhists , in the main couldn’t give a monkey’s what you believe. They are intent on their path and have no reason or , indeed wish , for you to believe it too.
They figure you either get it or you don’t.
Big sharp swords shouldnt come into it.
RAB – my thoughts exactly. I was wondering what Patrick was going on about with his civil war comment, too. There is a schism of sorts in the practice of Buddhism between Theravada and Mahayana – Zen Buddhism fits somewhere, too – but they all get along reasonably well. For example, Theravada monks still venerate the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Mahayana Buddhism, as a highly realised Buddhist.
Try getting a committed Orthodox Christian to venerate the Pope. Many of them believe he’s a manifestation of the devil.
RAB – Agree. Buddhists haven’t the slightest interest in what other people believe. Neither do Hindus. And it’s a matter of absolute indifference to Jews what people outside their faith believe in. And, other than a tiny prosyletising minority, neither do Christians want to interfere (by words, not swords) in the religious beliefs of other people.
Hmmm, that just leaves one group … as always …
>>I watched the British Channel 4 news programme tonight, which devoted about five minutes to the mayhem, now in its seventh consecutive night. << and how many hours of coverage would there be if it was the Washington riots? that blessed euro social model seems to get the volume turned down when needed.
The mainstream news has been full of the usual PC hogwash about “this is all caused by social deprivation and discrimination against Muslims” etc etc whilst perceptive social commentators like Dalrymple know how to expose this line of argument for the BS that it patently is.
Jonathan Fenby (author of ‘France on the Brink’) said last night on CNN that the number of cars that have been torched so far this year in France is 28,000. It’s worse that even I had dared to imagine…
But, Verity, you really should ask yourself the question “Why? What are we doing to make them do this?”
I am so sick of hearing progressives ask these questions. Yet it’s standard fare at a lefty love-in.
Tim Blair amusingly tagged them “why-ners”.
I’m somewhat surprised that none of the comments reflect a reading of the Theodore Dalrymple link. He ascribes the problems to totally differenct reasons – nothing to do woth religion.
Verity, in response to your remark right at the very top of this thread, note that I said “no sane person….”. Many of the people who choose to live there seem to have a few slates loose, from what I can gather. I agree wholeheartedly with you about the motivations of some – not all – of the people who live there.
And of course it goes without saying that life is particularly grim for women in these areas. Choice does not come into the equation.
I also agree that the French welfare system only encourages this sort of mindless pathology.
John Rippengal, I have read the Dalrymple article I linked to and I did not suggest in my post that it focussed primarily on the Islamic faith of the people who live in the areas he wrote about. He does mention it, however.
There is a good link to Theodore Dalrymple’s most recent article on the mindset and motivations of some young Muslim men in European cities plus a good compendium of links to other articles on the Paris situation – and related stories from Denmark and Brussels – here, by Paul Belien, editor-in-chief of The Brussels Journal.
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4709.html
Rippengal:
Dalrymple does ascribe it to their religion and culture, although he gives a weak (and implausible) nod to economic reasons. Read it again.
Any who view this as a matter of economics, should remember that Indians in Britain are much better off than the Pakistanis and much less prone to civil disobedience, although having run through the same gauntlet of discrimination and even having been mistaken for the other often enough.
In the end, discrimination is always just an excuse–it has never held back minority cultures who truly prize accomplishment. Chinese are just such a minority culture in many places in the Pacific region, including America and Indonesia, and treated shabbily even to this day in places like Malaysia, yet they form a very successful segment of the populace in all these places; meanwhile the Jews have been hated minorities nearly everywhere, constantly ever since the diaspora, but have never needed a welfare net and a shoulder to cry on. Only the cultures whose own slovenly attributes contribute to their stagnation need to hold forth the false spectre of discrimination as their meal ticket to new government entitlements.
and how many hours of coverage would there be if it was the Washington riots?
Washington? Har. If there were riots in the US that had been going on for 7 days running, it’d be getting the full-blown Katrina treatment.
that blessed euro social model seems to get the volume turned down when needed.
Indeed it does.
By the way, I challenge those trying to establish the root causes for the unrest among the Muslim “youths” in Europe to broaden their view a bit.
It is not enough for you to speak of unemployment, discrimination, and overmighty states: in order to be taken seriously, you must be able to develop a kind of “unified field theory” for Muslim unrest–a theory that is broad enough in its conclusions so as to cover the sources of this unrest, not only in the developed West, but also in places such as Indonesia and Thailand, among others on Susan’s list, places where in each case an entirely separate set of circumstances surrounds the restless Muslim populations.
Expand your elegant theories to those restless and strife-ridden places where no such fashionable overmightiness of states can be said to exist, and even to places where all the discrimination, if it does exist at all, is directed by the large Muslim majorities towards peaceful minorities of Buddhists and Christians. When a social critique can unify the rioting in Paris with the beheadings of Indonesian schoolgirls, only then will it have potential validity.
Shalmanessar, you have made a number of excellent points. I’ll only add that I am a bit wary of “unified field theory” explanations of anything outside of physics and the demise of Manchester United Football Club.
What I love about the coverage of the French insurrection in the US media – now that they’ve finally got around to it, after a week of arson, looting, &c, &c – is how they refer to the French government as ‘conservative’.
I’m not making this up. Watch the CNN coverage.
One of the most relentlessly socialist, statist governments in the world, which taxes its citizens until they squeak and has never found a program of government control it didn’t like – but when a bunch of Muslim soap-dodging spongers start burning cars and shooting at firefighters – now, all of a sudden, it’s because the government is ‘conservative’.
You can’t make this stuff up.
llater,
llamas
PS I think that commentators like Dalrymple and our very own Verity have much the right way of it when it comes to the root causes of these sorts of outbreaks.
The great and the good pontificate enlessly about discrimination, alienation, hopelessness and a thousand other high-minded ‘-ism’s’, but these are mostly projections – college professors postulating the things which would make them go out and behave in this way.
What is so hard for them to grasp is the idea that maybe many young Muslim men – indeed, many young men of whatever religious background – rather like the idea of not having to do much work, hanging out with their buddies, drinking or doing dope, ogling pretty girls and trying to conquer them, and the odd spot of mindless violence. Verity’s ‘young pashas’ remark is spot on – these vapid, shiftless young sh*theads are, literally, the kings of their domains, and every now and then, they have to go to war to prove their position. Lozells last week, ‘les cites’ this week, next week – who knows? It’s just that Muslim culture is often peculiarly well-adapted to the cultivation of this particular breed of young, male wastrels, with its common emphases on male superiority, the place of women, and the peculiar simultaneous dichotomies of Islam, where a young man can break every one of the rules about his own behaviour but can still be honoured for murdering a female relative who goes out without a headscarf.
I live not a million miles from Dearborn, MI, which has the largest Arab population anywhere outside the Middle East, and even after generations of integration and the generally-healthy influences of US culture and the diversity of the immigrants there, the area still produces the recognizable stereotype of the ‘young pasha’. 19 years old, exquisitely groomed, fancy car, ladies’ man, no job, lives at home, mother cooks and cleans for him, his entire life revolves around drinking, partying and chasing women.
Around here, of course, the ‘young pashas’ go on to work for their uncles at the party store or the gas station, and most of them move on from this recognized phase of their lives. In ‘les cites’ – apparently not.
llater,
llamas
Hasn’t rioting – on a local level, and terrorism – on a national level, been proven as being one hundred percent successful as a means of extracting concessions and other favourable treatment from ‘the powers that be’.
It is hard to find any incidence since WWl, where such tactics have failed, whether the reason for the discontent is fair and reasonable, or totally idiotic, matters little, the ‘powers that be’, will ultimately concede the day, all in the interests of, so-called ‘public safety’. Anything rather than actually cure the problem.
That most mayhem is caused between immigrants and indigenes, would indicate that the fashion for multiculturism really does not work – for whatever reason, particularly when indulged in ‘en masse’.
But then, the politicians know best – don’t they?
Llamas,
“but when a bunch of Muslim soap-dodging spongers start burning cars ”
the irony of this is that they have not just *started*.
According to Jonathan Fenby (author of ‘France on the Brink’) last night on CNN, the number of cars that have been torched so far this year in France is 28,000.
Llamas,
“Lozells last week, ‘les cites’ this week, next week – who knows?”
You’ve missed out the Danish riots of the last few days (well, they’ve had very little international coverage) and the ‘steaming’ of a whole block of shops in Brussels central shopping district this week when scores of ‘youths’ barricaded the road, shop-lifted, robbed and smashed up cafes with impunity before the hapless police eventually responded (when the shop-lifters had departed) to emergency calls from terrified shop-keepers…
Unlike Jon I think Paris smells like urine and is full of vile people. It expensive and dirty. The only reason people thinks its “romantic” is because they are told to.
I take great pleasure in seeing rioting in France. Considering the smug rubbish coming from the French about everything “Anglo-Saxon” its rather wonderful to watch their distress. The next time France falls to foreign forces no one is going to really care.
Burn Paris Burn!
Andrew Ian Dodge,
“Considering the smug rubbish coming from the French about everything “Anglo-Saxon” its rather wonderful to watch their distress.”
Yes, except it’s not the distress of the political elites in their leafy suburbs – whom I guess are the targets of your tongue-in-cheek invective and who are very well protected, thank you, from the mobs – but the appalling distress of ordinary, law-abiding Parisians who are unfortunate to have to share the areas getting torched with those doing the torching. I should think that worrying about their property / local school being destroyed is weighing rather more heavily on their minds just now than abstract debates about the pros and cons of Anglo-Saxonism vs ‘dirigisme’.
Two things surprised me in this story. It wasn’t the headline “Riots, unrest, violence etc.” This is to be expected by anyone who isn’t a multi-culti with their heads firmly inserted up their backsides.
Firstly, when this story had been running for about four or five days, the BBC and Sky channels felt it impossible to explain what could possibly be the cause of the Paris riots. In all the reports I saw the rioters were simply referred to as “youths”. OK, it may have been obvious that North Africans and/or Islam featured strongly, but this information was being suppressed as long as possible by the media. Shocking.
Secondly, it’s interesting to see how far our ruling elites will tolerate mayhem rather than admit that their multi-culti obsession might be ill judged. I fear the French example shows that we have some way to go before realisation dawns.
Perhaps it’s just as well Nulabour have begun to crack down on the National Front. Right wing organisations are sure to gain more support as society fragments.
Andrew Ian Dodge, old chap, you sound like Denis Leary on crack. And remarks like “Burn Paris Burn” are awful.
Stop press: I just watched the BBC news a few minutes ago, and the social engineers, sorry journalists, are still referring to the rioters as “youths”.
Sadly, the BBC interviewed a French politician and the big secret got out. The politician described the rioters as “immigrants.”
Oh well, at least the BBC tried to protect our sensibilities.
John East,
“Secondly, it’s interesting to see how far our ruling elites will tolerate mayhem rather than admit that their multi-culti obsession might be ill judged. I fear the French example shows that we have some way to go before realisation dawns.”
NuLab’s decision to introduce censorship – the incitement to religious hatred Bill – in return for Muslim votes shows that their heads are still sinking into – rather than emerging from – the sand and that they cannot kick the multi-culti drug (they are, after all, surrounded by dealers).
NuLab politicians have not once publicly pledged to protect our hard-won freedoms of expression from domestic theocratic fascists – in fact, they welcomed the (now-knighted) Iqbal Sacranie – the man who said that “death was too good” for Salman Rushdie – to the highest echelons of the establishment.
Given this rewarding of those of the fatwa-tendency, it is little surprise that British artists who want to mount *controversial* (to Islamists) items at exhibitions have them withdrawn (see TATE Modern, recently) and that broadcasters and writers tend to think twice before offending Islamists, given their penchant for issuing (and carrying out) death threats (SEE Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali etc).
Add to this that most European governments are so worried about a demographics-fuelled pensions crisis that they have come to rely on Muslim immigration as a fail safe and have therefore boxed themselves into a corner when it comes to being tough on Islamism.
Expect, therefore, a lot more inappropriate misguided ‘outreach’ by politicians to ‘the Muslim community’ rather than plain speaking boundary-setting about unacceptable law-breaking behaviour.
When voters start to get the feeling that the political establishment is no longer really commited to protecting them from the kind of chaos that is now taking place in Paris, they naturally start to look at the extreme right with different eyes. This is exactly what is now happening in France, Belgium and The Netherlands (and why the recent ‘Non’ and ‘Nee’ were carefully-aimed kicks in the teeth to the political establishment), the three European countries with large cities that most closely mirror the Parisian social conditions.
Several points: someone said above that the French in their leafy suburbs are well protected. This is absolutely incorrect. If that slime decided to ooze into a “leafy suburbs”, the French police would be just as careful not to hurt any “youthful protesters” as they are in the banlieus. So, with respect, that is a silly remark based on nothing except your gut feeling.
David Bruno said the French government, like all short-sighted, blind-as-a-mole EU governments, is worried about its ability to pay off on pensions and taxes the French until the pips squeak. This is correct. Taxes are breathtaking. My house, which I just sold, was taxed at 33 1/3% despite the fact that when it was sold, it was my primary residence and I am a citizen of an EU country. This whack totally laid to waste my profit.
The French government, in all its ineptitude – god, no wonder the French have such an affinity with Jerry Lewis – started a scheme of paying off a big bonus for having a baby. As the indigenous French population, to survive taxes, needs two incomes to maintain any kind of standard of living, the white people do not really take advantage of these nice payoffs. Guess who does, though, and have flats equipped with double-doored refrigerators with ice-makers, giant plasma TVs and the latest in all other new technology.
Yes, the mothers are slaves to these grand young men, not only cleaning, marketing, cooking and doing their laundry, but ironing to their exacting standards. What they need is a clip round the ear which may tragically impact on a delicate part of their brain and accidentally render them dead.
Shalmanessar makes an ignorant statement which can’t be allowed to stand. He/she says the Chinese are a minority in Malaysia and badly treated.
Population in Malaysia is around 58% (I may be slightly off, but this is close) native/Bhumiputera/Muslim. The next 25% or so is Chinese, mainly Buddhist or Christian. The rest is the Indians. All, under the constitution are treated equally and the rule of law is adhered to. There are a couple of differences built into the constitution (in other words it’s not secret or under the table). One is, to protect the Bhumis, and in recognitition that they are not generally as bright as the two immigrant groups, they can get their university degree with 20% fewer marks than the Indians and Chinese. (This is why the Indians and Chinese, if they can afford it, send their children to Australia or Britain for their degrees, where the competition is fairer.)
If memory serves, they also get some advantages purchasing property, as this was their soil until the arrival of the immigrants 150 years ago.
Otherwise, tell a successful (and they all are) Chinese businessman drawing up in his chauffeur-driven top-of-the-line Mercedes limousine to the Shangri-La Hotel for dinner that he is disadvantaged and his eyes would turn quite round with amazement. There are Chinese and Indians in the government, heading departments and as MPs and ministers, and they both dominate the judiciary. So pulleeeze.
Andrew Ian Dodge, your remarks are vile. The ordinary French people have no choice. The vast public sector gets the laws it wants through sheer voting power.
David B – You would be amazed who votes for Marine LePen’s party. I am talking professional people. It’s their only way out. I think their percentage of the vote will go way up in the next election.
Regarding the referrence to Canada, waaaay up in the thread … being Canadian, I have to say that the reason multiculturalism seems to be working (so far) in Canada is that we import our immigrants from everywhere. Thus, no one group gets big enough to exert serious influence on its own, the majority of groups have a strong incentive to assimilate, and as a result society stays more or less stable.
That said, the only immigrants that seem to cause problems are the Muslims, and that mostly in Quebec. Quel surprise. Luckily, they’re outnumbered by the far more productive Chinese, Koreans, and Indians.
Shalmanessar makes an ignorant statement which can’t be allowed to stand. He/she says the Chinese are a minority in Malaysia and badly treated. All, under the constitution are treated equally and the rule of law is adhered to.
One is, to protect the Bhumis, and in recognitition that they are not generally as bright as the two immigrant groups, they can get their university degree with 20% fewer marks than the Indians and Chinese.
If memory serves, they also get some advantages purchasing property
If Muslims get significant landowning and educational advantages, that’s not “equality”
When I went to Malaysia in 2002, I spoke mostly to middle-class Indians (mostly professional, lawyers, doctors) and Chinese (mostly businessmen), and their resentment towards local Muslims was pretty overwhelming. Their resentment could be based on laws like this:
“In Malaysia, the “jizya” is disguised. It is called the “Bumiputra” (“Sons of the Soil”), and it supposedly was intended to help the indigenous Malays. But the indigenous tribes, the real Malays, are Christianized. In fact, the “Bumiputra” system helps only the Muslims in Malaysia. By its terms, those who are Chinese or Hindus (i.e., non-Muslims) must include in all of their economic undertakings, as equal partners, Malaysian Muslims. So, for example, if two Malaysian Chinese were to open, say, an architectural office, they would have to take on as a full partner a Malaysian Muslim, who would receive a share even if he contributed little or nothing to the enterprise”
Speaking of riots here are some more riots, in Addis Ababa; 100 or more dead. Again those pesky Africans, but wait, where is the conservative government ? Whom can we blame ?
Re: Canada – while I agree that most immigrants to Canada are hard-working and a huge net gain for the country, there are certain groups that through large local populations can have a negative effect on politics. I am thinking about Canada’s rather tolerant attitude to the terrorist tamil tigers – and the large tamil populations in several key ridings (including the PM’s). The takeover of certain liberal riding associations by people of Indian descent in BC is also noteworthy, though, as yet, there has been no international implications.
holdfast: couldn’t agree more. Immigration is fine, so long as you’re careful about who you let in. Asians and Indians generally work out okay, as do South Americans … actually when you get down to it, everyone but Muslims (remember the palestinian students rioting in Montreal when Concordia University tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to speak?) Things would go fine if you just banned Muslims, or maybe just Muslim men. But, of course, that would be racist.
Matt Shultz (on Canada) – “the only immigrants that seem to cause problems are the Muslims”
Most of the gun crimes in Toronto (and there have been a lot this year) are committed by Caribbean immigrants, mostly Jamaicans. East Indians along with blacks have set up no-go areas for white students (who are often bullied) and even teachers in one Brampton school I’m aware of. It’s not the kind of thing that the MSM reports on but I suspect it is more widespread than most people think.
holdfast – You say immigrants are a net gain for the country. How do you come that conclusion? It’s certainly out of step with recent scholarship on the issue. (I’m speaking here about economics).
Stop press2: It gets worse. I just heard the French rioters described as, “young people” on Sky News. Apparently the BBC appellation, “youths” is too sexist for Sky
Matra:Fair enough. I should have mentioned the Jamaican issue. Actually it caused quite a furor in Toronto’s liberal press, with the Toronto city cops being accused of racial profiling and such. My view on that is that it was essentially a one-off. There was a crackdown on organized crime in Jamaica not too long ago, with the result that many of Jamaica’s gangsters opted to move to Canada and Britain.
Crime isn’t so much the issue, though. Immigrant communities regularly come with their own set of unsavory characters. The Italians brought the mafia, the Chinese brought the triads, and I seem to remember hearing something about the Irish being difficult to handle for quite a while after they arrived. But criminals can generally be controlled through standard law-and-order practices, and when you get down to it they’re fundamentally interested in making money. Not in, for instance, taking over the host society. In the end, all those groups assimilated. It might take a couple of generations – immigrants are naturally pretty clannish when they first arrive – but it happens. Always.
Except with Muslims.
They’ve recently been campaigning for the introduction of shari’a for intra-faith civil settlements, for instance (something that Muslim women are very much against, at least if you get them off the record, when the menfolk aren’t around.)
A simple litmus test is this: I could walk around Toronto’s campuses and downtown areas, and rarely see, say, Indian women dressed in traditional clothing. If I did, invariably it was an older woman. Their youth adopt western dress, and if an Indian woman wants to date or marry a non-Indian, well, the family generally doesn’t put up too much of a fight. Not so with the Muslims. Hijabs were not uncommon, and on one frightening instance I even saw a chador.
Here’s another: the prevalence of inter-racial couples. It’s very common to see a white-asian couple, or a white-Indian couple, or a white-black couple (in the first two cases, mostly white guy/ethnic girl, in the second mostly black male/white girl.) The number of muslim-white couples, going either way, is significantly lower.
Muslims just don’t assimilate. Islam’s memes are too strong to let them; it’s a sophisticated beast, far more virulent than, say, Christianity.
Mary – Shalmanessar said that the Chinese “are treated shabbily even to this day in places like Malaysia,”. They are not “treated” in any particular way, as they are citizens with a vote. To say that people with four-car garages, swimming pools, live-in staff, designer clothes and lavish holidays in Australia and Europe are being treated “shabbily” is ridiculous. Oh, and most of the editors of the newspapers are Chinese, and most TV producers are Chinese or Indian. This is “shabby”?
When it was clear that te Bhumis were falling farther and farther behind, the government created “reverse discrimination” to bring them along. Yes, they get a seat on boards of publicly listed companies. They get a degree with something like 20% fewer marks – thus rendering a degree at a Malaysian university worthless as all the clever Indians and Chinese go overseas for degrees that actually mean something.
Only companies over a certain size have to have a Bhumi on the board. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but they are generally not as bright, and most assuredly not as industrious, as the immigrants and the constitution tries to give them some small advantage in their own country. The Chinese and Indians – who dominate the professions and the business world – are not disadvantaged by it.
I am sorry, Mary, but I do not believe that Chinese and Indian resentment – expressed to a foreigner – was “overwhelming”. This is not the Asian way, so perhaps you misunderstood.
However, now that Mahathir is gone, I have a feeling that this harmonious state of affairs may not last, given today’s climate.
The reason multiculturalism is working in Canada is because Canada has had stringent entry requirements for immigrants, meaning that only the smartest, best-educated immigrants from Hong Kong, China and India have been admitted in large numbers. The number of illiterate, ignorant Muslims and others has been kept very low, but that may be changing soon. In twenty years Canada will probably have the same problems as Britain and France today.
Also, Canada may be more socialist than the US, but it is still far more capitalist and decentralized than Europe. That is our saving grace.
@Libations
“Canada may be more socialist than the US, but it is still far more capitalist and decentralized than Europe. That is our saving grace.”
If you count the US military as a form of socialism, Canada’s level of socialism is roughly equal to the US, probably lower after five years of Bush.
I don’t see Canada’s entry requirements changing soon. Looking at the Canadian immigration websites, you still have to have skills to get in. So I doubt they’ll have the same problems as France 20 years from now.
Andrew Ian Dodge, your remarks are vile. The ordinary French people have no choice. The vast public sector gets the laws it wants through sheer voting power.
Funny last time I checked France was still a democracy. Those “political elites” are put there by the voters. Its not just political elites who are so sanctimonious how much better things are in France/relations with their Muslims.
AID – As I said in the same post, France is a democracy the way Phony B Liar intends Britain to be a democracy: overwhelming votes for the government by the vast public sector and the Muslims in return for constant concessions.
This is not a democracy. It is a combination of theocracy and bureaucracy and I say the hell with it. The French productive sector is, like the British wealth creating sector, being disenfranchised.
According to the wholly trustworthy BBC, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said it will take time to resolve the problems underlying eight nights of rioting around Paris. As in, how long M Sarkozy? Twenty years? Thirty years? It came as a surprise to the French government that the banlieus are infested?
Here is a comment from a stupid schoolgirl (again, from the Beeb): ” It is a war of religion. Islam is targeted through the headscarf.” – Amira Zitouni, student.
Surely it is time the French respond: “Well, yes, actually; it is a war of religion, and you get to lose.”
When the mosques empty tonight all hell will break loose again. Its the Muslim way. Fridays are holy riot days. I presume, given the tone, al-Guardian thinks the French should throw money at them to relieve their “simmering frustration” and give them back their fabled Muslim pride. “I will not accept organized gangs making the law in some neighborhoods. I will not accept having crime networks and drug trafficking profiting from disorder” Et je certainement ne prends pas lAmerican Express. – de Villepin (a man, by some accounts). The unrest cast a cloud over the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month Next up: rampaging Christians on Christmas followed by arson and raping for Easter. “Frankistan Intifada” is freakin’ hilarious. Dominique de Villepin, who is a man with a womans’ name, has not said it yet but I assume these riots are because of the humiliation muslims have endured over the U.S. occupation of Iraq. That’s why they’re rioting in Mosul and Baghdad right now too, correct ? btw, how can something blacker than a black hole Muslim holy month have a cloud cast over it?
Already it seems to have spread to other towns in the south and west of France, so tonight could be the night to bring in the CRS… Or not. Put your feet up and watch it on TV. Popcorn anyone?
A police union official proposed establishing a curfew and bringing in the military to help handle the rioting, while some members of the opposition ‘crypto commie’ Socialist Party have suggested the police should withdraw from the communities to quell the unrest. Then bend over and apply their own KY Jelly to their assholes. “Its the French thing to do” the Socialist Minister said solemnly. Speaking to parliament Wednesday, de Villepin demanded punishment for lawbreakers but used calmer language than that used by Sarkozy… “Lets avoid stigmatizing areas …. lets treat petty crime differently to major crime, lets fight all discrimination with firmness, and avoid confusing a disruptive minority with the vast majority of youngsters who want to integrate into society and succeed,” he said. Then he took a sip of his Vichy water and sat down. “Its the French thing to do.” the Socialist Minister said solemnly. Jean-Louis Borloo, minister for social cohesion, said officials need to react “firmly” to the unrest but that France also must acknowledge its failure to deal with decades of simmering anger in the impoverished suburbs of Paris. “We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough,” he told France-2 television, AP reported. Borloo also urged people not to have a one-sided view of the suburbs. “One must not think for one second that this is the life of these neighborhoods, ” Reuters quoted him as saying. “They are an integral part of our country. It is in these neighborhoods that most companies are being founded.” CNN. Screw the popcorn. This calls for a full-on BBQ. Fire up the grill. Bring the beer. This could take a while.
Jean-Louis Borloo, minister for social cohesion? Why doesn’t the U.S. take a page from Fwench LUCIDE and we should have a Minister of Social Cohesion. I nominate Al Sharpton! I know its mean, but I can’t stop laughing. Have you tried Krazy glue?
Darn, I picked a bad week for a diet. But perhaps this signifies that Chirac is willing to bow before his masters and cough up the appea$$ement money so that the clerics will now tell their soldiers to stand down. Got any lo-car beer Raphael?
Napoleon was wise enough to have the crooked winding streets of Paris straightened for just such an occasion as now. “A whiff of grape will stop a mob.” Why stop with just a whiff. Give em a snootfull. A big French nose full, I mean. It would be almost funny were it not that we are seeing the beginnings of the reaping of the whirlwind liberal-socialist societies like France have produced. This will cause immeasurable damage to Europe before these scum are made to take their “dirt naps” wrapped in the pigskins they well deserve. How sad that all the REAL men in France died in the Great War. No can do – the Imams have already tried this, and got pelted with rocks for their efforts. It seems as if this will end only when the rioters have got bored and decide they’ve had enough. The Fwench won’t fight. They have their faces too tightly fixed between Marcelles hips.
Ah, to heck with the diet. Whats on the barbie?
No, I see something else coming, and soon. I don’t think the French are going to let this go on much longer. I think the rioters are going to get that “whiff of the grape” and a bit more. There are going to be lots of dead Muzzy bodies in the streets, even more in the jails, and a hell of a lot more on boats back to the Maghreb and other third world piss-holes back in the Islamic Paradise, and its going to start soon. The French are often rude and arrogant–now they’re going to display those qualities to the Muzzy parasitical scum rioting in the streets. This is just the opening act in an expulsion play that’s been advertised for a long time now.
If they don’t act decisively, soon, it will likely spread to other countries. You know there are millions of the same sort watching. Closely. Like in Denmark? #16 yikes, .com. You are right about that. This is like watching a gasoline truck and a cement truck hurtling toward each other in slow motion. Still a chance they might miss, but if they dont….
Of course the French people deserve better than this. After all, they pay enough in taxes…
The French people might have enough spine to deal with this, but the prissy French elites don’t. As long as the elites stay in charge, France is on a one way trip to Islamic Hell. Charles Martel is spinning in his grave. There is no modern day Roland. France is going to Dhimmi. They are spineless fags merci beau coup.
A friend of mine lives right on the fringe of one such community in London – old run-down high-rise estate – what they call projects in the U.S. – It’s chock-full of Somalis and North Africans and assorted Islamic immigrants, and completely no go for whites. A real powder keg in the making. The area is affluent and largely white British in demographic terms. When the UK economy falters as it surely must “the shit will hit the fan” on a large scale there. I hear some native locals have already formed vigilante squads in the face of the petty crime these communities have brought with them. Be careful Johnny Londoner! Here’s to hoping that your weekend is boring.
But here is the REAL point to all of this: all in all, this rioting thing is relatively “minor”, no death so far (of course having for example 27 buses, 400 cars and 3 warehouses torched in one night isn’t exactly “minor”), this is but a surge in an ongoing, worsening situation since at least 10 years. The *REAL* danger comes from the appeasement of the pussy French authorities : – they’ve caved in to the narrative of the start of this (the two youths who stoopidly electrocuted themselves hiding in an obviously dangerous place labelled as such, after running away from an ID control… note they werent even pursued!) and if I were to joke I’d say that soon the policemen will be accused of non-assistance to endangered youths. – the local authorities are overhelmed, and have put all their hopes into “mediators”, often from religious background; this “outsourcing” of sovereignty has been a staple of local political life in such areas for a long time (in north of France you’ve got the Lille mayor who protects Islamist bastards who associate with terror-related Islamic charities to get social peace, in heavily Isalmized Roubazix you’ve got an alliance between left-leaning pols and Islamists,…), but this is a new step. -in 30 months or so, there will be municipal elections, and this new arrangement will not be forgotten; the Islamists have flexed their muscle, and to get peace, the powers-that-be will be ready to do any concessions they will be asked to do. -same thing in national politics; the drive toward affirmative action, funding of mosques by the State, multiculturalism,… will only go stronger (and there is no true difference between Sarkozy and “de Villepin” there, the only thing is that the first says what he wishes to do, while the second acts under the radar, see the “fondation de lislam de France” or the formation of imam by the Sorbonnes university). What you must understand is there is a continous push, a “global jihad” that is mainly cultural, and that such surges in violence are only the “stick” to the usual carrot. Its a multi-faceted strategy, a culture war where only one of the side fight, while the other caves in. It goes straight from the street level (where street violence, anti-judeochristian/anti-white prejudice drives out “Gauls” from the hood, allows Islamic businessmen to buy cheap real estate, to replace shops by hallal businesses,… and thus create muslim-controlled areas), to the cultural level (where there is an established “antiracist” apparatus that enforces the multiculturalist, islamically correct ideololgy, complete with rewriting of school books to present a “positive side of Islam” or a terrorism-friendly curruculum in which the 9/11 attacks are a “contestation of the US hegemony”, law against discrimination,…), or to the political level (power and sovereignty-sharing with the muslims).Give your sovereignty to a Moslem. I repeat, the USA are the main opponent of the whole “WOT”, but Europe is the prize and the main target. Both sides of the pond do not face the same dangers, and the USA are much less exposed (unless the terrs get their paws on WMD). There are lots of potential traitors in America also.
In my US centered memory the closest thing to these riots in the U.S. was the riots after Dr. King died. I seem to recall that Johnson sent Nat Guards with TANKS into the street and stuff quieted down rather quickly. Now I’ve seen the TV of the French doing much much worse recently in the Ivory Coast. Do they have the balls to be tough at home?
Also, Im 100% there is a concerted, organized, willful effort at subverting european societies; I’m not paranoid enough to think each and every Euro-Muslim is part of it (though Im paranoid enough to believe in Eurabia), but there HAS been recovered documents seized by French or Swiss Intelligence which show the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates ARE planning to conquer Europe using dawa, subversion (political, cultural,… using the Wests own guilt, laws and institution) and demography (number is power). Again, it is probably not one huge single conspiracy, but rather a continouus “process” enabled by an ideology (and God knows “classical” Islam itself is an ideology of conquest, so imagine for the fascist-like “organic” version of the Muslim Brotherhood, or the jihadist Salafism). The USA get a taste of this through CAIR, but there is absolutely not the same abyss facing you. I mean, this is a war of conquest that is met by a deathwish! The French want to die. You can smell it. Recall how the French deal with protests. Remember how the trash collectors, police, transit workers, farmers, you name the group…. go on strike — how there seems to be a strike every freakin month. The French government and culture fuels protest, which, till now, has resulted in nothing more than inconvenience. This is different. The French have no effective way of understanding how to deal with this and so, I suspect, will fall back on “tried and true” methods of: appeasing, dialogue, acceptance, etc., all of which CANNOT WORK, ultimately. And if they DO crack down, that will further inflame the rioters. In short, there is NO way, apart from abject Dhimmitude, for the French to get out from under. The rioters are feeling a newfound sense of power. And they won’t give that up easily.You really are seeing the real Islam here. Raw and uncensored. I suspect Frances’ nightmare is far from over. Oh Contraire, Pepe le Pue. This is only the beginning.
“Do they have the balls to be tough at home?”. French cops have balls and are quite able and ready to bust heads when necessary (or fun), riots or anti-gang cops are quite brave given the odds they daily face… and I’m not talking about this particular surge, which is not exceptional (except in the international media coverage) They dont have the means to cope if the situation gets out of hands, but so far, this is manageable. Fact is, they aren’t getting any support from the pols, now or before (there are numerous reports of police officers harassed at home by youths and forced to move out, and their hierarchy doesnt support them at all)… So all in all, response is “NO” in my humble opinion, but perhaps I’m overly pessimistic? Overall the French elite are pussified and will remain so.
As the Muslim population grows, they can expand the no-go areas into formerly more affluent areas by this method. Over the years, the no-go zones become mini Islamic states. The French are getting what only people like the French deserve. They are being made to eat some serious Moslem joystick. Don’t forget to swallow, Marcelle.
Well, well, Faust’s back.
Remember last time when you claimed to hold patents but refused to give the numbers so people could check out your tales?
Have you managed to remember what those patent numbers are yet?
EG
“You can live on your feet or on your knees.
You can be a member of the Remnant or of the Herd.
Your weapon can be a rifle or a spoon for eating shit.”
Phillip Kingry. “The Monk and the Marines.”
Buy it here: http://www.biblioz.com/b25773233.html
Have a nice day Chickaboo.
Iran next…
Lets hope this period of rioting might actually get the French to wake up to the menace that lies within so they might do something about it. I have heard France refered in glowing terms because of its treatment of Muslims.
This series of events puts paid to that assertion. I am sure that there are as many shocked French people as there were shocked British after 7/7; ditto in Holland and in the US.
Maybe, just maybe we might see a turn around in French attitudes towards the Islamists in their midst.
Faust – I enjoyed your free-association post. There was a lot of truth in there. And it was funny, too.
Andrew ID – What I have been saying throughout this thread, and once in answer to you specifically, is, the French do not want this mess. They do not want Muslims in France – oh, maybe one or two nicely dressed ones who speak lovely French and make a nice shop window for French tolerance – they do not want to pay horrendous taxes to house, feed and clothe these ignorant, hissing, aggressive vipers. Do you really think a French surgeon or a French lawyer wants these people in his civilisation, of which he is rightly proud? Are you kidding? They hate it!
But this has been a fabulous sales promotion for Marine LePen’s party – especially as she has massaged her father’s more outspoken views to make them more acceptable to the middle class. (Not that the middle class wasn’t voting for Jean-Marie LePen before, anyway ….) And never forget, so low has France been brought by its own government, that Jacques Chirac is looked on as a right-winger.
Good, very frank, column in The Times: (Link)
I find the argument that France is not “a real” democracy a bit weak. The French people vote for these people and don’t vote for others like Le Pen (not that he is any better his polices are socialist like the rest of them).
To say that its merely the “political elites” fault for the mess that France is in is clearly nonsense. If there is a chance in France it will have to be forced by its citizens. Bottom up not top down.
Andrew Ian Dodge – can you read, as well as write? Or do you just come barrelling in with your exremely important thoughts without referencing people who have written before?
Do you read fellow posters who have referenced your comments?
The French people vote for these people and don’t vote for others like Le Pen (not that he is any better his polices are socialist like the rest of them).
Well, M LePen, who is not the head of his party any more, so do sit up and pay attention, is more in tune with the indigenous French than is any other party.
Take a deep breath and try to read this before your eyes begin swivelling again: The public sector, which is huge, voters vote for the status quo. That means, to keep things the way they are.
The public sector is vast. Huge. They’re the boss. They decide when to close the counry down with strikes. They’re the ones who decide government policy. They’re the ones who make common accord with the Muslims.
I wanted to post something, but I’ve been laughing so hard these last few days, I didn’t have the strength to type.
This is almost as good as the tragic and entirely unforeseen “Summer when it got hot in August.”
C’est la vie.
I must say, as Verity points out, the most delicious part will be Le Pen’s showing in 2007!! The communists were all worried about presenting a united candidate to avoid Le Pen in the second round; but oops, they’ve already split! Fabius and Hollande are never going to make up, so it comes down to de Villepin and Sarkovzy – -if those two can’t declare a winner between them, then conceivably, Le Pen for president!!
Happily, I don’t live there anymore, so I can sit back and watch a) the understrength aussies thrash them at rugby, b) the racaille thrash them in the streets and c) the rest of Europe (eventually, being Europe) thrash them on the CAP.
And the final act? Chirac stripped of immnunity and in jail with Alain Juppé et cie.
Patrick – my guess – Sarkovzy has the backing of the French. The French have never wanted any of this immigration imposed on them; the French have never wanted “les deux rives de la Mediterranée”.
I mean, give me a break!
“If you count the US military as a form of socialism, Canada’s level of socialism is roughly equal to the US, probably lower after five years of Bush.”
WHAAAAT????
The ONLY reason Canada can afford its socialism is that the US provides military security to Canada.
If Canada paid its fair share, maybe then Canada would (of necessity) be nearer to the Socialist level of the US.
To claim that US expenditures on the military equates to Socialism is just false.
Man, you people talking about Canuckistan live in an alternate universe.
If Martin actually does decide to nationalize Alberta’s oil sands, we’ll see if Alberta has the balls to secede.
The ONLY reason Canada still exists is its southern neighbor. 80-85% of its trade and it relies on our hospitals to take care of canuckies “elective surgeries.” They free-ride off our military and our prescription drugs. They’ve threatened to break patents if they get charged more.
They do not define themselves by what they are, but what they are not.
Verity,
“someone said above that the French in their leafy suburbs are well protected. This is absolutely incorrect”.
That was me. What I actually said was that the political elites in their leafy suburbs are not affected by the current situation as the rioters are burning the kinds of areas in which they live. My point was two-fold (and mainly in response to AID):
— it is the people who are trapped in the areas where the rioters are burning and destroying who are the main victims;
— the French l elites live in a world – and have done for years – that is totally separated from the hell of these ghettos and until they are directly affected they will continue to regard the victims of these disturbances as ‘little people’ and to disregard them.
As the elites continue to brush the consequences of the mass Muslim immigration into French cities under the carpet and fail to deal with it effectively, there will now be, as you suggest, a huge swing to the right.
The Dutch and Belgian political elites have for decades made similar mistakes – hence the recent swings to the right now being seen in the NL and Belgium (where Vlaams Belang recently took 40% of the votes in Antwerp (which has some of the same social problems – in common with Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam – as Paris).
This is now a law and order issue: the less the French government is able to guarantee law and order, the more that ordinary citizens will lose faith and shift towards the political extremes.
If senior French politicians are not having long sleepness nights about the future of France over this, they damned well ought to be.
When I was deciding which northern mediterranean country to shift to, the clear choices were France (cheap property, less pressured rural spaces) or Italy (expensive property, more urban). However, at the time of my researches, I started to hear of some rather interesting rumours and stories emerging from Southern France. Apparently, American tourists and expat property owners were being increasingly harassed by what was then described to me as “arab youths” (clearly these “youths” would be now much more accurately described by the BBC as “French children”) when they went into their local towns for shopping trips. Note that this was ihis was in February 2001.
Largely because of this, I chose Italy. Not perfect, not immune, but I suspect a probable late starter on the sort of thing hitting England and France right now, for a variety of reasons.
Ah, yes. The work of mass-market fiction Faust claims to be his autobiography…
EG
One thought kept running through my mind as I read about the Paris riots: Chickens coming home to roost.
Not just multiculturalism. But leftism, socialism, and all the various memes intellectuals have deemed superior. In France, the poster nation for the left, with its enlightened social policy and ‘concern for the common man’, no less.
Well now, how do they like their policies now? If ever there was a dis-advertisement for the left, this would be it. A clear sign where their methods did not lead to the desired outcomes. A cognitive dissonant opportunity to revise their premises.
Will they ever admit that they were wrong?
Jonathan,
I mentioned Theodore Dalrymple’s article because it brought in another dimension to the problem of the French underclass: the rigid labour laws, high minimum wage and other socialist claptrap which favour the established worker and discriminate against the newcomer.
Don’t for a moment think however that I do not see the Islamic dimension as being the principal problem. Islam is not only a terrible danger to western civilisation but also to Islamic countries themselves.
My first personal brush with Muslim mayhem was shortly after leaving Singapore for East Africa in December 1950. Two days into the voyage I heard one of my great friends had been killed in Muslim riots. The mob disagreed with a long running court case concerning who had legal guardianship over a thirteen year old Dutch girl who had been separated from her parents in the Dutch East Indies by the Japanese invasion. Her Javanese ‘amah’ had brought her up and was proposing to marry her at 13 to a 30 year old Javanese. The case went to the parents. The Muslim crowd as is their usual practice just looked around for who they could kill and they managed to kill quite a few Europeans. This is quintessential Islam- we don’t agree let’s kill – otherwise known as the ‘peaceful religion’.
Virtually all Islamic countries are failed societies – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt,
Syria, Algeria, Morocco. They are all failed cultures and I think there is good reason to believe that their religion is an important part of the cultural failure.
The oil states have a temporary buffer.
I have not mentioned sub Saharan Africa because there is another set of cultural failures separately operating there. Don’t mention Malaysia because the non muslim minorities support them.
I believe you can make judgements about cultures and place them in inferior or superior categories without any complex plilosophical value judgements simply by seeing which are the countries people are hell bent on leaving and which are the countries with cultures which attract them. The major problem with Islam is that there is a complete failure to recognise what it is that made them the poor and downtrodden. Perversely they of all immigrants try to set up the same cultural hell on earth that they were so keen on leaving.
Verity, by the way, the favourable bias for Bhumi Putras was initiated by the colonial government well before the war.
John Rippengal – Verity, by the way, the favourable bias for Bhumi Putras was initiated by the colonial government well before the war.
I didn’t know that, John. I thought it was Mahathir. That’s very interesting. The policy has been largely (to date) successful. Certainly the Bhumis would never have been able to maintain parity – or almost maintain parity – with the more intelligent and energetic Chinese and Indians without it. It does mildly irk the Chinese and Indians sometimes, but by and large, I think everyone recognises that this policy is effective in maintaining order and a pleasant relationship between the races.
You are right that all Islamic societies are failed societies. The one exception that I can think of is Malaysia, and that is because smart immigrants, who number around 45%, have made the country wealthy for everyone. There is one state in the north of the country where they have shariah law and, needless to say, no one who is not Islamic would dream of living there. Consequently, it’s a basket case.
Tuscan Tony – I was harassed in the town I lived in in southern France. So harassed, in fact, that I sold up and moved to a village. The attitude of the police was: “Well, we only have your word for it.” (As you may know, most villages are under the protection of the Gendarmes, and these guys are way harder and much smarter.)
David Bruno, am I writing in some language that was beamed into my head when I was kidnapped by aliens for 24 hours? I keep writing that the French do not want this garbage in their beautiful and civilised country and they don’t want them to have concessions, but their government has its own agenda. The vast public sector in tandem with the Islamics now have a big enough vote to overwhelm the wishes of normal French middle class people, small business people, workmen, etc.
Marine LePen has modified some of her father’s more (publicly) unacceptable stances. She bills herself as a different generation, thus making it easier for people to justify voting for her. I think there will be a vast surge in votes for LePen and I think it will scare Chirac and de Villepin shitless. I can’t wait.
I happen to know a French Canadian who lived quite a bit of time in France and returns frequently. He told me about the “colonisation” of parts of France by Muslims.
There were areas that he would have gone to 20 years ago that are no-go areas. Right now “community” leaders are asking the French goverment to “withdraw their forces” from the areas of rioting. Reporters are refering to what some call rioting as “urban-warfare” with shots being fired.
I suspect there will be a surge in support for the FN (which is socialist except for its anti-multiculturalist stance) after this whole mess. It will be fascinating to see if the anti-NF alliance will hold and keep them out of power.
I think Andrew’s prediction is highly plausible. This is just going to get more and more messy.
No, I think it will get more and more messy unless a halt is called to this lunacy, and I think Marine Le Pen is just the person to do it. I will bet this view is shared by millions of French people, too.
More professionals than you might think already vote for the FN. When Marine is in charge (her father will formally step down next year and she will probably win the top spot), people will be able to vote for the FN with a clear conscience. If they don’t win a large number of seats, I will be astounded. The French are very, very unhappy and they have learned that the conventional politicians accord more rights to the parasitic Muslims than to the French.
As B’at Yeor has chronicled, these wierd agreements with Islamic governments go back for 40 years or more, and include promises never to try to make Islamic immigrants integrate. We are living through a very strange time in history and the sooner we come out the other side, the sooner everyone can regain their balance. I think Denmark will be a key player.
I’ve just read on the BBC site (so we know it’s been watered down) that on the NINTH night of mad dog violence, the Muslims damaged almost 900 vehicles! In one night! Well, I guess they’re not running out of steam, then.
Those big, bold, important pashas, sultans, nizams and nabobs also attacked two nurseries and a school. Oh, and an emergency services vehicle. Oh, and a fire station. Oh and they set a disabled woman on fire as she tried to get off a bus. Gosh. I’m impressed.
Per the script, there have been the usual appeals for calm, but “But youths at the rally in the suburb’s rundown Mitry estate predicted violence would continue until Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy resigned.” So now they’re adjudicating on who can remain in office.
Marine LePen: “Bring it on!”
John Rippengal-Hey, what a minute. That story of the dutch girl riots was in Singapore, right? It’s often shown in schools as a warning of racial disharmony. Of course, nobody wanted to outright claim that Islam was the cause, but there is, I think, a hidden subtext that whoever disrupts the peace will be brought down swiftly by the government. Hence the bloggers who got imprisoned for making politically incorrect remarks. Maybe it’s not libertrarian, but it does keep things under control.
And hey, I didn’t know about British colonial policy favoring the Malays either. And according to my mom, who was born in Malaysia, the population of chinese and indians was actually higher in the past, but Malay birthrates still far outstrip the chinese and indians. IIRC, only 30% of Malaysia’s population is non-Malay now, as compared to 45% in the 60s(before Separation).
How is the situation like in the other European paradises? Is Germany in any such danger? Is the UK?
Wobbly – No, no! I think France is worst off with around 9%. Britain has around 2%. In any event, it’s a totally different scenario. Chinese and Indian immigrants made Malaysia what it is today. If they hadn’t come, the Bhumis would still be lolling around in the jungle waiting for a papaya to fall on their head for lunch.
The indigenous Europeans, on the other hand, are what made Europe today, and unlike Malaysia, we have 2,000 years plus of history. We were civilisations before Islam happened.
Yes ‘Wobbly’ it was Singapore which I mentioned I had just left. But it was 55 years ago so no bloggers then. I would add that the case was by no means settled in any haste. There were appeals and counter appeals with lawyers provided at massive state expense.
I can be quite sure of the Malay bias as I heard it from my father-in-law who was in the colonial education service and was head master at Victoria Instituion in KL pre-war and after the war at Raffles Institution in
Singapore, both being the top secondary schools for boys in those cities.
The French are always bragging about their high levels of “social protection.” But they don’t even have the most essential and basic form of “social protection” — protection from criminal violence and sedition.
John Rippengal-RI is still the top secondary level school in Singapore. I almost got into their Gifted Education Programme… before they told me they had no vacancies left, even though I fulfilled all their requirements. Outstanding scores, passed the special test etc. B******s.
Verity-9%, eh? Hmmm… what about Denmark and Holland? Is there a speculative threshold percentage that would indicate a critical mass for a low level civil conflict?
And yes, I think at this point in time, there should be no doubt at all as to the nature of the ‘riots’. They are low intensity battles, the opening phases of a civil war in Europe. When will the French government counterattack?
Wobbly – They won’t. If Sarkozy were in charge, they would, but I think if he sent in the military with orders to shoot to kill – just writing it warms the cockles of my heart – Chirac would countermand it. This is why the FN is going to see a huge leap at the next election. Marine LePen would have no hesitation in sending in tanks.
I think you are correct, though, that these are the first skirmishes of an outright civil war in Europe. But the French (if Chirac is still in charge) will pull their punches and lose. The Northern European countries, mainly comprising Vikings, will not pull their punches.
BTW, RI is for both sexes now, isn’t it? But it is undoubtedly one of the outstanding schools of Asia (not just SE Asia).
Verity-I think Chirac should see the writing on the wall just as well as everybody else. From all accounts, he’s a power-hungry opportunist, not a principled leftist fool.
He should recognise that in order to hold onto the reigns of power, he’d have to take decisive action soon, or else lose a whole chunk of voters.
Unless, of course, he’s really such a principled leftist that he’d keep on using their old, tired mantras of negotiate, understand, sing kumbya.
RI is still a boy’s only school. There’s their sister school for girls, Raffles Girls Secondary, RGS, similarly meant for the top girls in Singapore. In fact, there has been more girls scoring 10 As in the O levels than guys in recent years. The best students in Singapore then go onto the Junior Colleges, which are all co-ed.
Needless to say, the best JC is Raffles Junior College. They recently moved to my constituency, and since then we’ve had(counts quickly) three new bus lines, and a new library under construction after years of procrastinating. And their students, from what my friends teaching there tell me, are scary smart.
Wobbly – Chirac has to stay in power because he is going to be arrested and put on trial the minute he is out of office. Yet I still do not see him taking decisive action, or allowing the interior minister to take decisive action (although this may be his only option if he doesn’t want to get voted out). This is a tragedy of the left’s devising and I think it will now be played out inexorably.
The British pandered to Muslim separatism, and the Muslims separated.
The French pretended they were all French together, and the Muslims separated.
Neither assimilation nor segregation work. Black, brown, yellow and white do not get along together. The majority of whites in all countries which have been subjected to mass coloured immigration were never asked if they wanted it, and would reverse it in a heartbeat if they could.
The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial. They are extended families with no interlopers.
We Europeans can waste another half century trying to acculturate the unassimilable, or we can start repatriating them.
“The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial.”
Truth to tell, there is some truth to that(Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland), but there are also counterexamples-United States, Malaysia.
What is the individualist take on immigration? A free movement of peoples, or a regulated one with criteria decided by voters?
Other than around 250,000 Native Americans, mostly, although not all, nomads, the United States had no indigenous peoples. European countries have been settled by the same people since the Stone Age. The same is true of Japan and Korea.
Re: “The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial.”
Truth to tell, there is some truth to that (Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland), but there are also counterexamples -United States, Malaysia.”
In fact the US is anything but monoracial. Aside from the African-American community, the cultural roots may be somewhat more similar than different, but we come in all colors except purple.
As for assimilation issues in the US, consider than many African-Americans still have not fully assimilated since being ‘freed’ 150 years ago. On the other hand, Asians as a group have assimilated rather well, and Hispanics are doing so.
It ain’t about race, it’s about your cultural roots.
That’s why I am so afraid for Europe, which is, from one point of view, under frank Islamic attack. Said attack appears to be aided and abetted by EU immigration policy.
James B – did you read Wobbly’s post?
“The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial. Truth to tell, there is some truth to that(Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland), but there are also counterexamples-United States, Malaysia.”
Now do you get it?
This is an excerpt of an article very appropriate to this discussion. The whole manuscript can be found here: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18087.
One has to recall the effect of Toynbee’s ‘external proletariat’ when reading something like this. It’s disturbing stuff:
“An official report dealing with religious expression in French schools has become a must read for anyone interested in the Islamization of France. Written under the auspices of the top national education official, Jean-Pierre Obin, the report was not initially released by the Ministry of Education. But it was leaked on the Internet in March and now can be found in its entirety at http://www.proche-orient.info and other web sites.
“In primary schools, the report cites instances of first grade boys’ refusing to participate in coed activities and Muslim children’s refusing to sing, dance, or draw a face. In one school, restrooms were segregated: some for Muslim students and some for “French.” Some lunchrooms were segregated, by section or table. Some students required halal meat; at one school, the principal provided only halal meat for everyone.
“Inevitably, the report records rampant “Judeophobia,” to use the term in vogue in France. Among even the youngest students, the term “Jew” has become the all-purpose insult. Obin deplores the fact that principals and teachers do not strenuously object to this, treating it simply as part of the youth culture. Even more serious is the increase in assaults on Jews or those presumed to be Jewish. Usually the assailants are Muslim students. Sometimes the victims are, too: One Turkish high-school girl was relentlessly harassed and bullied at school because her country is an ally of Israel. The section of the report on anti-Semitism winds up with this sad conclusion: In France today, Jewish kids are not welcome at every school. Many are forced to switch schools or even conceal their identity to escape anti-Semitism.
“According to the report, Muslim students perceive a large gap between the French and themselves. Even though most of the Muslim kids are actually French citizens, they see themselves as Muslims first, and more and more of them hail Osama bin Laden as their hero. In their eyes, he represents a victorious Islam triumphing over the West.
“Finally, the report discusses a host of difficulties teachers encounter in dealing with specific subjects in the classroom. Most Muslim kids refuse to participate in sports or swimming, the girls out of modesty, the boys because they do not want to swim in “girls’ water” or “non-Muslim water.” When it comes to literature, French philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau are very often boycotted because of their supposed Islamophobia. Molière, the father of French satiric comedy, is among the writers most often boycotted.
“As for history, Muslim students object to its ‘Judeo-Christian bias’ and ‘blatant falsehood.’ They loudly protest the Crusades, and commonly deny the Holocaust. Under the circumstances, many teachers censor their own material, often skipping entire topics, like the history of Israel or of Christianity. The report cites one teacher who keeps a Koran on his desk for reference whenever a thorny issue arises. It cites Muslim students who refuse to use the plus sign in mathematics because it looks like a cross. Field trips, especially to churches, cathedrals, and monasteries, are boycotted.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, these pathologies are now present across France.”
Hi Verity,
“James B – did you read Wobbly’s post?”
Oh yes, but viewed from a stateside perspective this counter-example cuts both ways. For the most part, we are more culturally homogeneous than not.
Even those not rooted in the old Classical ideals tend to adopt them. What is worrysome about the States is the failure of that cultural heritage to be maintained through recent generations, post-assimilation. We’re losing many of our kids.
A lot of what Theodore Dalrymple has to say about the UK in “Our Culture, What’s Left of It” applies to the US just as well.
Jim B writes: “Even though most of the Muslim kids are actually French citizens, they see themselves as Muslims first,”
Well, yes. That is because they do not recognise national boundaries. They belong to the nation of Islam. End of story. Everyone else is Dar al Harb – the nation of Not-Islam. National boundaries don’t mean a thing to them, so anyone who expects them to take an oath of citizenship can also expect them to have their mental fingers crossed behind their backs. (It’s OK to lie, or even swear a lie on the Koran if you’re doing it for Islam.) These people are beyond bonkers.
Hi, James B – Forgive me for sniping, but I thought Wobbly had a good point. Monoracial cultures are, in the main, the most law abiding and the kindest because everyone in that country is part of a huge tribe.
I do think it is interesting that the US has managed to coagulate into a national identity, but I think that may be because everyone is new. There was no settled civilisation in America (barring Mexico and Central America), so everyone arrived within a couple of hundred years of each other. This produced a different kind of national identity. In Europe and Britain our identity is tribal.
Verity,
I think you could have left out one word and I would agree.
Monocultures are, in the main, the most…
I think efforts to put strife down to race are misguided at best. They are part of an offensively collectivist mind set that doesn’t recognize individualism.
Strife comes from conflicting cultures, not conflicting colors.
In a sense you are right, Midwesterner, but our people (the British and Europeans) have been on our soil, among people who look exactly like us since the Stone Age. Whether you approve or not, that has made us extremely clannish.
Certainly, however, Indians who come to Britain get integrated very readily because they have adopted a lot of British characteristics over the 400 years of our association in India, despite having their own culture and looking very different from us. Yet the Brits, by and large, like the Indians and are pleased to have them among us.
The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial.
Race is irrelevant, this is about ideology (and what is religion but an ideology founded on stupidity). Hindu Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Jews, Slavs have all emigrated into and then integrated into British and other European societies. Muslims have not been able to integrate because of their ideology forbids it. There have been Arab suicide bombers, Black suicide bombers, even white suicide bombers. The connection is not race, it is they all belong to the same death cult. According to their ideology Islam creates the perfect society, like the broken backward societies they are fleeing from, so they must impose it on their hosts by, or any means necessary including violence. I hope that Britain wakes up to the threat that Islam poses, but I don’t think the Blair government ever will, the New Labour project has always been to gain and retain power so to them the Fascists of Islam seem natural allies (hence the laws against offending Islam Blair is pushing though). Hopefully they will kicked out next time and we can start to repair our society before it is too late.
I take your point, Verity.
Yes, we were/are almost all new to the hemisphere. On the other hand, as newcomers, we brought a full set of European memes with us (a good thing in my opinion, and in Victor Hanson’s).
And there are subgroups that really don’t buy into the national identity at all. Fortunately for the country they are quite small. So, I think of us as being like a loaf of bread with lots of raisons in it, or marble cake. Not as homogeneous as we might appear on the surface despite having much in common.
As an aside, I do wish that the US would leave some of its ethnocentric ideas behind it and realize how closely coupled we are to Europe, and frankly, how much we could learn from Europe if we would just listen a bit. But the average American is a rather inward-looking person who’s political and cultural world often ends at the water’s edge.
Sad, that.
Wobbly’s point was good too, and upon re-reading I see I misunderstood it, either fully or partially. I now see what he was driving at, and don’t disagree. It’s just that it’s a little more complex than a racial issue, and in my personal view, culture always trumps race. I agree with Midwesterner on that.
As for Euro-tribalism, I wonder if the tribes aren’t underpinned by a set of common memes evolved over the last 2500 years or so. Under the skin, the tribes may be more similar than they seem. Whatever, it’s a very respectable bunch, and I would hate to see it lose its cultural primacy in the world. And especially hate to see it replaced by a multicultural, semi-Islamic Europe.
It’s culture, not race. Japan’s civil wars went on for millennia, and were vicious beyond our ken.
China has a similar history of repression and bloodshed during the course of its history, both from invasion and internal conflict.
For that matter, Europe had inflicted a never ending series of civil wars on its own people, and wars of conqust on others, until the last civil war was ended by the SU from Asia and the US from the Americas.
The key in all cases can be boiled down to a few basic cultural values, the most important of which is: does the individual belong to himself or to the collective? If the latter, violence is inevitable, and will be as horrific as the pathologies driving the head lunatic can make it.
The thing about Muslims in Europe is that they self-ghettoise they were not forced into these areas with the little contact with the rest of the population. In the UK both parties and governments of both ilks have tried to reach out to them as they have to other minority groups to no avail.
BTW I would recomend you read this piece; an interview with Steyn about the riots in France. There are some rather interesting things going on in the Islamic areas around Paris.
The most peaceful, honest, contented, prosperous nations in the world are monoracial.
Explain Switzerland to me: 65% German, 18% French, 10% Italian, 7% other.
(Oh, yeah, and particularly stiff gun control: every adult male is required to own a rifle and to practice shooting it.)
Some cultures (e.g. ours) are more individualistic than others. The concept of the individual is recent in the West and non-existent in most Asiatic countries which have aped those parts of the western way of doing things that are relatively value-free, e.g. applied technology.
China is proving right now that a racially homogeneous nation state can advance by leaps and bounds economically without a shred of what passes for political freedom in the West. No multiracialism or mass immigration for them, or for Japan or India. *They* don’t feel obligated to let the world and his arranged-marriage wife flood in.
‘Culture’ is largely an outcropping of genetic inheritance anyway. The idea that it is magically transplantable between people whose phenotypes are way different is being disproved right now in Clichy-sur-Bois and Lozells, Birmingham. Putting a Pakistani or a Jamaican into England does not make him an Englishman, nor his kids or grandkids, unless they interbreed with whites and become physically indistinguishable. Otherwise, the face and voice brand them as, at best, guests of the nation.
Libertarians cling to the tabula rasa fantasy about human nature, but all modern genetics is against it. We are what we are largely because of what our forebears did, and that goes for Ayn Rand as much as Steven Pinker. If you pretend to be a totally free spirit, you wind up impotent and irrelevant. You have to work with the grain of your inheritance.
For half a century the white working class in Britain has been told that it can and should live happily cheek by jowl with complete strangers, and that these imports will easily cotton on to our ways. It never happened, and the minorities are now so large and self-contained that it never will. Pay ’em to go home, that’s the only way. If millions of Europeans emigrated to strange lands successfully in the 19th century, why is it so unthinkable that shallowly rooted blacks and Asians should go to the countries of their ancestors, to help build them up as whites built up the New World? When are we going to stop skimming the Third World’s cream?
America was only a success as a multiracial country when it had only one big non-white segment, blacks, and they were only around one-tenth of the population and locked down by segregation. As soon as they were emancipated and coloured immigration encouraged, 40 years ago, the USA began to turn into the socialist warfare-welfare state groaning under the burden of government debt that alarms the world’s financial markets today.
Presently Britain is only >=10% non-white, but unless we act swiftly we will end up in as disastrous a mess as the USA, where the non-white fraction is becoming too big for the majority to hide away from as it has traditionally done. New Orleans, a city totally ruined by being given over to African governance, is a portent. By 2050 whites will be less than half the US population and the welfare and crime costs of carrying the rest will be intolerable. The US will be Brazil or Mexico writ larger. It wouldn’t be happening if the blank-slate theory worked– if Latinos and blacks were constantly converging in behaviour with whites and orientals under exposure to a shared environment– but it doesn’t. Whites, Hispanics and African Americans still lead largely separate lives. E pluribus plures.
As for whoever held out Malaysia as a successful case of a multiracial nation– you must be joking. The Chinese and Malays are daggers drawn. Besides, which are the contented countries where more than one major race– not just variants within European or Asiatic– coexist? South Africa? Russia?
Julie Nilsson,
Please excuse me while I vomit. You are full of something that smells really bad.
Steven den Beste – Regarding Switzerland and monoraciality, I don’t get your point. You say: Explain Switzerland to me: 65% German, 18% French, 10% Italian, 7% other
And?
German = Caucasian. French = Caucasian. Italian = Caucasian. Other – who knows, but it’s a small percentage.
James B – I do agree with you and the other gentlemen above. Culture trumps race. Yes. That is a fair comment.
I think the problems with the Muslims are threefold: their religion is absolutely and totally alien to all the tenets of the enlightened, civilised West. Second, as Andrew ID said, “they self-ghettoise”. They have a bizarre air of entitlement to continue their primitive lifestyle on the ticket provided by the taxes of Westerners they despise. Third, they came in big wadges too large to be assimilated – although I think Point Three is largely irrelevant because they had no intention of assimilating anyway.
And they bring absolutely nothing with them that anyone would want. Female genital mutilation. “Honour” murders. Suicide bombers. Stoning to death (there have been two in France). Bigamy. Forced marriage. Burqas. Endless grievances. Nothing a society would want.
And, finally, no sense of humour. None. Has there ever been a Muslim comedian (I mean, intentionally)? Everything in their world is grim.
Verity, I’m really trying to hear this race idea with an open mind but it just doesn’t fly.
If so, then it would explain why the Pakistani Muslims get on so famously with Indian Hindus.
And meanwhile, those those Spanish and Irish who look so very different, are always terrorizing each other. No?
It’s culture, not race.
Some points to make on this culture versus race argument:
1.) Black Americans were not allowed to join the melting pot for much of the 150 years after slavery, that is why they formed ghettoes. Now that they are being accepted into the melting pot they are doing a lot better both financially and socially. True there are problem areas such as Detroit and New Orleans, but that is down more to socialism, victim-culture, and horrible educational policies designed to keep them dependent on welfare , rather than race.
2.) There has been little friction between East Asians and whites in the US. East Asians have high rates of intermarriage with whites (my daughter has no fewer than five Eurasian kids in her 2nd Grade class — a class of only 20), high rates of education, and high rates of economic achievement. Most of the Japanese in California for instance are completely assimilated into the host culture after three generations — the only thing remotely Japanese about them is often their surname.
3.) Christian Arabs and secular Iranians, for instance, have also done quite well in the US and assimilated nicely.
I think that multi-ethnic societies can succeed if the cultures are compatible. If cultures are not compatible then there is trouble.
Julie-
There is definitely something to your assessment of where America went wrong. The so-called “balkanization” of the country since the 60s is definitely fueling the welfare state.
That said, I have a couple of quibbles.
(1) I don’t many actual geneticists would attribute different cultural attitudes to race. More likely, it’s a feedback loop giving the impression that genetics have something to do with it. Humans are a visually-oriented species to begin with – and since races have historically been separated, culture still tends to correlate with race. This is starting to change, however.
(2) China is not racially homogenous – and it is way behind schedule to be an “emerging power,” thanks mostly to how ineptly they’ve managed their own country until the last decade or so.
(3) The problem with America is mostly white guilt. This country has the potential to be a model of multicultural integration. That was, by the way, my point wrt to Canada about 100 posts ago – that their model (which basically involves leaving well alone and letting various ethnic groups live as though they were in the home country – even to the extent, in some cases, of having their own laws) will never work. The American model of everyone sort of blending together (within a Britain-inspired framework) can and will – as soon as the white majority kicks its wussy attitude and stops accepting responsibility for things it never did. More importantly, if it starts once again taking pride in all the great things it HAS done.
I don’t think Britain is in any lasting trouble. The problem is not the presence of muslims per se, it’s the way native Britons react to them – and I’m talking specifically here about Tony Blair and Labour etc. etc. It’s important to be tough on such groups – but in a principled way. Banning hijabs and such as France has done is NOT the way to go about it. Getting along with another group means respecting their right to be different, but not to the extent that you ignore moral failings or distort the truth in any way. A good example is all this crap about Islam being a “peaceful” religion. That, simply stated, is a lie, and everyone knows it, and it’s therefore not surprising that Muslims are starting to get aggressive in Britain – because they sense a real weakness in the strain of the culture that produced the Blair government. Ditto blacks in America. The profussion of affirmative action schemes and ‘african diaspora studies’ programs in universities signals a weakness – which certain corrupt black politicians know they can exploit. Muslims don’t respect the West because we are currently giving them no good reason to.
The best cure for all of this is calling a spade a spade – but not in a spiteful or combative way. Simply telling the truth about people – starting with the fact that Islam is NOT a religion of peace, that blacks DO commit more crime than anyone else in the US (and, more importantly, that white oppression 50 years ago is no excuse for this), etc.
I think the various races of the planet can get along and forrm meaningful societies together. There are no genetic barriers here. There are only barriers in attitudes – but NOT in the way the leftists think. The leftists are right that western attitudes are the souce of the problem – but the problem is not that westerners are intolerant. Rather, the problem is that we have been too tolerant. Time to take a step back.
I would endorse Susan’s comments. Some cultures are compatible. Certainly, the Chinese have done well in Britain for generations. And the most successful race to integrate, contribute massively to the original host society and yet somehow maintain its own identity are the Jews. The Hindus and Sikhs have done well and are well liked. Most indigenous Brits would be perfectly happy to have a Hindu or Sikh neighbour.
Perhaps the same race may fight amongst each other for cultural reasons, but different races will fight amongst each other for tribal reasons. What people see in the mirror is a very strong motivation, no matter how much anyone finds it irrational or distasteful.
It seems to me that ignoring human nature is the first step along the road to disaster.
Andy.
I should add to my comments above that the diversity and multi-culti ideology has been a disaster for the US. I actually took in a “diversity training” session once at a company I worked at about 10 years ago. One of the things I learned in this session from the “diversity trainers” was that the melting pot was bad, bad, bad. I was a lot more politically liberal — read naive — in those days but even then, that idea just didn’t set right with me.
How could the melting pot be wrong? It’s an essential part of American culture. It’s responsible for our strength, our peace and prosperity. We haven’t had a real war on our shores since 1865.
Then the multi-culti cult came along and started sweeping all that away. That’s what Julie is seeing now, the stripping away of our melting pot culture and the breakdown along tribal lines encouraged by the ridiculous “diversity” cult — even that old liberal Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noticed the trend with alarm in a book he wrote years ago called “The Disunited States.”
Our strength and superpower status will be assured if we can recover and re-embrace our old melting pot culture. If not, we are in a heap of trouble, as the US is probably more racially, religiously and ethnically diverse than any other nation on earth, and race/ethnic wars here would make Bosnia look like a Baptist church picnic.
(I should add that of course the Gramsians would target the US melting pot for destruction, as being one of the strongest bullwarks of our culture.)
When Britain handed back India in 1948 it didn’t hand back the whole thing. It had to partition what was once a whole into three bits.
India, East Pakistan and West Pakistan ( now Bangladesh…even some muslims cant stand each other!).
Why? because our little Muslim friends never back down, or give up, they just nibble away.
What happened?
The biggest bloodbath India suffered in 400 years!
Forget the Mutiny, that was Carry On Up the Kyber by comparison.
The Muslims came for the Hindus and the Hindus retliated— not a shade of skin tone or biological DNA between them.
Strange thing is they left the hated “Oppressors” alone and adopted the very same system of Parliamentary Govt they’d left behind after they’d gone, basically because they couldn’t hink of a better one.
In conclusion it’s culture not colour.
Joshua – I have said this many times, France was absolutely right, and brave, to ban the hijab ON PUBLIC PROPERTY like schools, that all taxpayers contribute to. And employees who work for the government, likewise, cannot wear the hijab at work because many taxpayers don’t want it. Private firms make their own arrangements, which is – no hijab. I have never encountered a private company with a hijabbed employee in France.
And, oh, the roiling and social unrest that was going to happen! The marches! The fury! Well, with around 5m Muslims, they managed to get around 20,000 to Paris to march with the women used as the hijab-wearing props, and Muslim men running alongside directing them where to go to look like a larger crowd. What a hoot!
The hijab is horrible for little girls who don’t want it (their fathers and their brothers do, though) in that it stamps them with a negative identity and reinforces it. They can put their hijab back on when they step off school property. The only thing I have ever admired Jacques Chirac for was this. And education minister Jack Lange was also absolutely unwavering. The two of them stood together and faced down MPs who had Muslim constituencies. My hat is off to both of them. And little schoolgirls in France now sit in the classroom as people, not as a walking religious symbol.
Verity: “That is because they do not recognise national boundaries.”
Anarco-capitalist or anarcho-socialist?
I despise racial collectivization and reject it utterly.
Anyone who wants to trumpet caucasion superiority will first have to explain the 100 million and more killed in the 20th century’s wars and political lunacies by those very same oh-so-superior white aristcrats and racists. They talked a lot about breeding and bloodlines, too.
I am pleased to see so many regulars here also rejecting this vile, racialist nonsense.
I despise racial collectivization and reject it utterly.
Anyone who wants to trumpet caucasion superiority will first have to explain the 100 million and more killed in the 20th century’s wars and political lunacies by those very same oh-so-superior white aristcrats and racists. They talked a lot about breeding and bloodlines, too.
I am pleased to see so many regulars here also rejecting this vile, racialist nonsense.
Verity-
I understand the sentiment behind banning the hijab – and I personally find them a bit offensive (they’ve cropped up a lot in America since 9/11 as some sort of perverse fashion statement). I would be a lot more comfortable with an outright ban here too.
But the bottom line is that hijabs don’t technically hurt anyone. I fail to see how it violates anyone’s rights that someone comes to school in one.
Surely parents have the right to raise their children according to the dictates of their religion? Once the child is 18 and legally a full citizen, then the young adult can make her own decision – but until then I don’t see this as different from any other parental perrogative.
Banning the hijab sets a nasty precedent. Rights should always trump feelings. It’s true that Islam needs this kind of slap in the face (and I admit to having enjoyed watching the reaction when the law passed), but this is a poor basis for legal reasoning.
Symbolic speech is speech too and deserves all the same protections. I’m opposed to banning hijabs for the same reason I believe people should have the right to burn the flag. My personal distaste for flag-burning does not give me or anyone else the right to curtail free speech. Yes – free speech extends to advertising one’s religious affiliation.
If the muslim women in France are so opposed to wearing hijabs, then they need to start throwing them away for themselves. If they are brave enough to stage a protest supporting the law, then I think they are probably also brave enough to tell their husbands to grow up and get over it. The state has a great many duties to its people/subjects/citizens, but enforcing “comfort zones” is not one of them.
Verity-
Oops! It seems I misread your comment about the protest. Apologies. Scratch that bit from my last post please.
If the muslim women in France are so opposed to wearing hijabs, then they need to start throwing them away for themselves. — says Joshua with laserlike insight.
Gosh, Joshua, I think you may have missed the argument. A lot of Muslim women in France don’t screw about with the veil and they wear make-up to the max, and good for them! But we are talking about little six year old girls being indoctrinated to being “different” – apart. Presented to the world as something hidden, and inferior …
These aren’t Muslim women. They are little children. It’s the same as having Islam tattooed on their foreheads because it is going to mark them for life.
France is a secular society. All are equal. Some are not more hidden, more covered, more inferior than others. If those insanely controlling Islamic fathers and brothers can’t take this on board, they are free to leave.
It is only the males in these families who want to subvert little girls into submissiveness and insist on them wearing the veil. These kids are free to get that veil back on to please their fathers and brothers once they leave the protection of the school gates. But while they are inside the property of the state school, they are just ordinary children, not marked as being “separate” in some hideous way.
Chirac and Lang were absolutely right to insist on this against enormous opposition from our friends the Islamic lobby.
I was living in France at the time, and on tv discussion programmes, there was always a judgemental Islamic couple. He was always dressed in a snappy western suit and glistening with grooming products. The woman was always overweight – those robes encourage comfort eating – and had a scarf on her head as she sat dumpily agreeing with everything her husband said, with a self-righteous, lecturey expression.
Anyone who wanted this for advocates had no case.
Yes – well, I DID post a comment immediately after admitting that I’d misread the bit about the protest.
As to the subject of little muslim girls who can’t make their own decisions about this – we agree that making them wear hijabs is a loathesome practice. But then, so, in my opinion, is raising one’s children Amish and denying them exposure to the modern world or Christian Scientist and denying them medical care. What I don’t want is the state telling parents how to raise their children. Now, granted, there are cases of abuses of rights and responsibility (physical/sexual abuse, neglect, etc.) that necessitate govt. intervention – but barring these cases, the last thing we want is to give the state too many excuses to step outside its bounds.
I don’t care one way or the other what they do in France. Their nation, their culture, their decision. My comments – both of them – about this issue were to reject banning hijabs as an appropriate strategy for our respective countries.
We need to fight Islam (at least the virulent strains of it, which seem to be the majority across the world at the moment), and we need to start soon. We also need to be sure we do it in a principled way. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t cross any lines we don’t have to. I would prefer to keep the principle that government shouldn’t interfere with childrearing more than is absolutely necessary.
As a secondary point – I don’t know whether this ban extends to adults in public buildings in France, but if it does it shouldn’t. As regards adults capable of making their own decisions – the hijab is (or should be) protected free speech, and these people should be allowed to wear them wherever they like (though not in my house!!!).
Joshua says – We need to fight Islam (at least the virulent strains of it.
There is no other. There is no “moderate majority”. They are all ineffably silent in the face of murderous outrages in the name of their religion. They believe that the world has to become dar es salaam. Maybe they wouldn’t personally blow themselves and 100 innocent people up, but someone else doing it is god’s will. It’s time people realised: there is no “vast majority of moderate” Islam.
You can walk into a public building in France wearing anything you damn well feel like wearing, and god knows they do. You cannot work in a public building, like a mairie, wearing a hijab because it is a religious statement and many taxpayers – most, in fact – do not support this religion. Wear your hijab and your burqa in your own time.
Same with school teachers. Most taxpaying parents do not want their children taught by someone advertising that they are adherents of a primitive religion. The teachers can wear their black pillowcases and serge blankets in their own time, in supermarkets, on the streets, parking lots, parks, concert halls – oops! they don’t approve of music – but no religious statements on school property.
Several states in Germany have also forbidden teachers to wear a hijab at school. There are bylaws in the works in other European countries.
They can look as ridiculous as they like, as submissive as they like, as religious as they like in their own time, but not on taxpayer money.
Schoolgirls are allowed to don their repressive garb the minute they step outside the school gates, so daddy and her brothers will just have to live with this tiny curtailment of their lofty right to keep their womenfolk, and girlfolk, hidden from the eyes of other men. Pathetic, inadequate little shits.
There is also the point that it is best that teachers not be forced to consider the religion of one child – or even to know what that religion is. The children sitting at the desks waiting to be taught are just children.
This is far more pragmatic than the English habit of having a special uniform for Muslim girls (not boys). Why do they need a special uniform for coming to class?
I have no interest in the Amish or Christian Scientists because they are not impacting on public property and they are not trying to force themselves down other people’s throats. You say: “What I don’t want is the state telling parents how to raise their children.” This is a totally separate issue and finds no resonance with me in this context.
Verity writes:
Now let’s read the rest of what “Joshua says:”
I appreciate that you don’t share my position on hijab laws – but I think it’s possible for you to do that without leaving out things I’ve said or otherwise changing my position. I certainly never said that there was a “moderate majority,” much less a “vast majority of moderate Islam!!!”
midwesterner writes: “Julie Nilsson,
Please excuse me while I vomit. You are full of something that smells really bad.”
How very constructive. Glad to see some of the other commenters are prepared to think outside the ‘we’re all the same under the skin’ blather which is being torched at this moment on the rues de Paris.
I think Julie N. is on the right lines. Despite the official melting pot rhetoric, left to their own devices people separate into tribes, families, whatever. Look at Europe: without Big Brother forcing them to stay together, the components of Yugoslavia soon split, as did the Czechs and Slovaks and various nationalities of the old Soviet Union. OTOH, after the commies gave up, nothing could keep Germans apart for long.
In Africa, where corrupt elites hold sway over nations artificially divided by 19th century white colonists, civil wars between tribes who’d rather be apart have killed millions in Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and the Sudan. Much of the guerilla war and tyranny in southern Africa (for example Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe) is thinly disguised tribal rivalry.
As the American poet wrote, ‘good fences make good neighbours’. All the PC rubbish Susan complains about, all the schemes for disfavouring the white majority in its own country, wouldn’t be needed if Americans naturally integrated and interbred. Most of them don’t. The whites and their culturally compatible cohorts– Jews and Chinese– pay sullen lip service to multiculti from the safety of gated communities and mountain states.
The French, whose revolution influenced America’s ideology of human rights and equality under the law, turned their former colonies into overseas departements and let crowds of blacks and Berbers into metropolitan France, thinking that a good dose of cultural conditioning and colour blindness would soon turn them all into black and brown Francais. It never did, and all the huffing and puffing in the world about evil racists doesn’t alter that.
The mainstream solutions put forward to the problem of non-assimilation and mounting, voluntary segregation seem to fall into
(1) Carrots: more handouts from white people’s taxes to self-appointed community leaders, more ‘positive discrimination’, more hectoring everyone to be nice to each other.
(2) Sticks: cut the rioters’ benefits, use more stun guns and water cannon.
Neither strikes at the root of the problem, which is (as Andy said) that it is part of our nature to prefer our own kind. The optimists about race relations told us 20-30 years ago that we would gradually cease to notice colour. But today the Commission for Racial Equality says that 95% of whites have no close non-white friends.
Bernie Grant, the black socialist MP, used to advocate that West Indians should be compensated for the heritage of slavery by being given grants to retire to their home in the sun. Whatever, why not stop lavishing overseas aid on foreign tyrants and kleptocrats and use the money to give immigrants a helping hand in returning to their ancestral lands? That way we would lose the vipers we are nusing to our bosom– Yardies, mad mullahs and their flocks, Balkan pimps and gangsters– and the other countries would get an influx of enterprise and education.
Anyone who refused repatriation would be perfectly free to stay in Britain on condition that he accepted it’s our way or the highway. No more trying to turn us into an Islamic republic or a ‘hood full of gangstas or a province of the EU.
If we set up reasonably generous, non-coercive packages for British-born people who would prefer to try their luck in another part of the globe, we would find out how deep their attachment is to the UK, as opposed to their love of its welfare benefits and (relative) freedom from crime and graft.
Joshua – I was addressing both you and the meme being put about by Tony Bliar and the thugs who surround him, the repulsive “Muslim Council” and the usual “community leaders” – that “the vast majority” of Muslims are shocked by violence.
Probably, the “vast majority” would not personally kidnap a school full of children and murder them, fly a plane into an iconic skyscraper, blow up London Transport, blow up nightclubs in Bali, blah blah blah – they’ve got plenty of stupid young men to perform these missions – but “the vast majority” does not, ignorant Tony’s view to the contrary, wholly disapprove. They believe with all their hearts that the world must be made Islamic. That it’s a holy mission. That it will happen.
You should also understand that they’re not really bothered about us dying, because to be a human being, you have to be Islamic. Otherwise, you don’t count.
They don’t integrate in the West because the West is Dar al Harb – “Not Islam”. There is only one legitimate nation on earth and that is the nation of Islam. Islam has been an aggressive, bloodthirsty religion since it was invented.
Until people can get their heads around this alien thinking, they will seek the wrong solutions because they’re misperceiving the problem.
I did not “change your position” because I was only tangentially addressing you and your quixotic views of the hijab laws in France and Germany. That you conflate this critical issue with Amish and Christian Science tells me you do not understand the depth of the problem. I think you have never lived in France, or spent much time there, because you misapprehend the situation and you are addressing the problem from a sunny, American point of view.
There was an email on my computer this morning from my French friends in Paris, and they told me what is happening is “terrifying”. She wrote that now they have the firefighters, the gendarmes, the CRS (I don’t know what that is – does anyone else? Is it like the SAS and Delta Force?) and the army fighting the rioters, but they are so numerous, it is impossible. She says last night, another 1,000 cars were burned. And 900 the night before. She says that her neighbourhood is calm, “mais pour combien de temps!!!!!! Nous nous demandons comment faire, car un rien et c’est l’affrontement, ont dirait qu’il attendait cette chose pour tout casser.”
Until you understand that the hijab is a weapon, Joshua, you will be puzzled by the attitude of the French government. No offence.
Matt-Interesting. I never really thought of Africa’s troubles that way. I know that the current African states are artifical constructs of the European colonial powers, but your point about the internecine warfare as a result of tribes being forced together is new to me.
Perhaps Africa should be repartitioned according to their tribal allegiances rather than according to lines drawn on a map. Probably it’ll lead to war between tribally-pure states, but I think at least such conflicts are somewhat easier to mediate than civil wars that are anything but civil.
That’s also the solution to the current mess. Deportation, and a firm swat of the stick on the back should ensure that this doesn’t happen again. But will the French do so?
Wobbly – Will the French do so? I don’t think so. They see themselves as the leader of the EU, setting a civilised French example for the grateful peasants in Copenhagen and Milan. Therefore, they have to demonstrate how tolerant and understanding they are. OTOH, they do ship out undesirable mullahs by the planeload, regardless of the Human Rights Act. So who knows what the hell the French will do?
Compagnie Republicaine de Securite. It’s part of the French national police system, a separate department used principally for riot control (they’re often referred to as the “riot police” although that’s not strictly accurate) and special police operations.
EG
Matt O’Halloran,
Every time culture wars break out somewhere the fascists and communists come out of the woodwork, pretend to be rational, moderate solution providers and hijack the root causes to their own ends.
Racists are but one common strain of fascists. You record a litany of tribal conflicts among people of the same races and put them down to race, apparently. These tribal conflicts are in all cases attributable to differing cultures, not skin color.
And as for my characterization of ‘Julie Nilsson’, I stand by it. If you have any doubts, here is what ‘she’ said. Try and find something defensible in this bilge.
If you believe all that phenotype nonsense, you’re probably someone who looks at themselves and can’t find anything ‘good’ except their skin color.
It is most emphatically and undeniably culture, not even a little bit race. And yes, I am a cultural elitist. I believe we have the best culture ever, by any standard. I don’t care if someone is white, black, brown, yellow, red, or even martian. If you share my culture, you are my friend and ally. If you oppose it, you are my enemy. My culture is based on individualism, life liberty and property. I have many enemies trying to change it. I also have many friends trying to preserve it.
Racism has no place in an individualist culture. It’s a non-negotiable. They are antithetical. Every person is one person, not a race. Laws must be practiced that treat everyone equally. Conduct, and only conduct must decide who is free and who is imprisoned or expelled. You can find plenty of grounds for those options in people’s conduct, there is no need to qualify them by race.
Guilty as charged. I’ve never even been to France, let alone lived there. In my defense, though, I did say the following:
Meaning “the USA” and “the UK.” I also think that banning hijabs would be a merely cosmetic solution even in France – but as you say, I know nothing of France.
It’s just that this strikes me as a ripe issue for “the law of unintended consequences” to come into play. It isn’t the hijabs themselves that are the problem: it’s the cultural chauvinistic attitude of the muslim minority. Banning hijabs seems at first blush a good way to force at least a symbolic assimilation, but in order to accomplish it, you have to include bans on all such religious displays. Maybe that’s appropriate for France – which is traditionally proud of its secular society – but it would obviously be inappropriate for the US, where religious expressions are protected free speech, and where raising one’s children according to the dictates of one’s religion is an individual perogative.
I resent the word “sunny” a little bit for the following reason. What effect do you think a ban on hijabs in the US would have? As I said, hijabs have cropped up in force since 9/11 where you rarely saw them before (so it’s clearly a display of muslim chauvinism more than a religious obligation – though I’m sure it is a religious obligation for many). Well – I guess we don’t know ’till we try, but I would bet a pretty penny that all it would do is give the lib-left something “substantial” to cry about – thus strengthening the extent to which they delude themselves about Islam. They’d be happy as pigs in shit to finally have a concrete example of the “oppression” of muslims – and muslim agitators, for their part, would have something to point to (after all, we’re not going to ban displays of crosses in America!). And the hijab itself would become even more fashionable than it already is now – probably becoming as ubiquitous as those ridiculous “Che” shirts. In other words, it isn’t that I have a “can’t we all just get along?” naivete – it’s that I think such a law would be counterproductive here.
I’ll defer to your experience on the subject of whether banning hijabs is a good idea for France. But it’s a bad idea for America and a bad idea (I imagine) for the UK. Whatever else it’s doing, France is obviously not handling the problem of what I think it’s fair to call an Islamic “insurgency” at this point very well on the whole. The riots are now in their tenth day. When this starts happening in America – I want us to cut straight to the chase and not get entangled in constitutionally difficult issues involving displays of religious symbols.
But fine – maybe it’s a good idea in France. You’re right – I don’t know about France.
Completely agree with Midwesterner’s comment. Bravo!
“It’s the culture, stupid,” so to speak. That it has anything to do with race is an illusion brought on by the fact that races were separated into their various corners of the globe forming their own widely differing cultures until very recently (in historical terms).
I would also add that half of Matt’s evidence doesn’t really work anyway. I don’t think anyone who lived through the Soviet Union would tell you, for example, that the government was practising assimilation. In fact, that society was dominated by a culturally chauvinistic Russia. There’s a real sense in which the Estonians et al were conquered peoples. The Russians ceratinly treated them that way. It’s not surprising they ran the other direction as soon as the prison guards blinked.
Joshua – Please point out where I suggested the hijab be banned in the United States. The thought never entered my head. France is the former colonial power in N Africa. They know what they are dealing with. I’m not going to go into all this again, because you have no hook of reference on which to hang my points but I will say, one last time, little girls do not ask to wear a hijab. It is forced on them by their fathers and brothers. (In a survey away from the men, something like 60% of Muslim women aged 40 and under fully endorse the ban. These will be second generation themselves and will have gone through school in a hijab and know the misery and isolation it causes. They do not want this for their daughters. But women have no position in Muslim society so they cannot lay down the law about their own children in their own home. The French government knows this and has done it for them.)
Second, you have no idea of the hijab as intimidating. The banlieus that are in flames now – if a Muslim girl is told to run out to the corner store by her mother for cooking oil or whatever, if she forgets to put on her hijab, she will stands a good chance of being raped by the local lords of the manor. Sometimes they throw lighter fluid on them after they’ve gang raped them then flick their lit cigarettes onto the girl. Sometimes they just trash her in a dumpster. What does the poor little girl and her family do? Nothing. If they go to the police, yes, the police will come round but amazingly enough, no one will have seen or heard anything. “Ahmad? No, he wasn’t here. He was down at the mosque all evening.” “No, Ali’s over staying with his cousin. He hasn’t been here all day.” Etc.
It has now reached the point that a native French girl, a Catholic, may also be punished by rape for the effrontery of leaving her home unveiled in these areas. Islam is very aggressive, as you may have noticed.
Don’t say something simplistic like, “Well we must change perceptions” like you instantaneously understand Islam better than the French government.
This religion is 1500 years old and these are their beliefs. They are not open to happy clappy group hugs or closely reasoned arguments. The French government has been trying to deal with these issues for 20 years. Chirac and Lang were very brave in banning the hijab ON SCHOOL PREMISES. Sadly, they also had to ban the kippat (sp?) among well-behaved Jewish boys in the name of fairness.
When the teacher looks at a little girl in her class now, the girl is not wearing a giant sign saying ISLAMIC. DIFFERENT AND SUPERIOR TO YOU.
In the south, where I lived, oddly enough because it is the closest to N Africa, Islamic schoolgirls didn’t wear hijabs even before they were banned. The result – they mixed around with native French girls, walking home from school together, shrieking and pushing one another around to attract the attention of boys – just normal girls. They even put trendy ornaments in their hair. In northern France, the hijab acts as a barrier between girls – which is also what the fathers want. They don’t want them getting ideas from the enlightened West, even though they live in it.
Just a point or two about some hoary old myths that have appeared in these comments. India was divided into TWO – India and Pakistan although the latter had a non contiguous east and west at the end of the British raj. This was solely at the insistence of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and against all political powers that be in England who tried to prevent the divisiion right up the end. An American of my acquaintance who teaches at a middle east university assured me that the whole thing was a dastardly plot cooked up by the British. Their old ‘divide and rule’ ploy he said. What advantage there would be he did not mention.
The separation into Pakistan and Bangladesh was after a particularly savage and nasty war between the two; both Islamic of course.
Then there is the hoary old story about the false boundaries of colonial Africa. Nonsense. Before colonisation most of sub-Saharan Africa was a thinly populated set of tribes whose fortunes and populations waxed and waned according to famine, pestilence, disease and warfare. Where else was the source of the slaves that were so willingly supplied to Arabs in the East and European traders in the west.
The one terrible thing that colonisation brought was an immense step change in the quality of life which allowed an explosion of population. African culture is just not able to cope with this level and you have Malthus’s predictions coming true. In the west we escaped it by technology and the capitalist organisation of our economies.
To join the culture versus race argument I emphatically endorse the idea that it is cultural difference that leads to incompatibility NOT racial.
I suspect EVERYBODY understands Islam better than the French government. Unless you think these riots are the goal of the politicians.
I think the law of unintended consequences is being vigorously inforced in France. How long have they been telling us what we are doing wrong?
He has the hijab in the US thing right on, I think. Others can opinionate whether it is right for UK.
Midwesterner – We are discussing the riots in France. They are being caused by N African immigrants. We are discussing what has caused them and why they will not integrate. We are discussing the hijab in this context.
You and Joshua want to turn everything round and relate it to America because clearly, this is all you know. We are not discussing hijabs in America because it is not relevant to the riots in Paris. Personally, I don’t give a monkey’s what Islamics wear in the US. We are discussing France, the French situation and French laws. Not America. We are also not discussing the hijab in the UK. You may have noticed, it has not been mentioned.
France. Riots. Focus.
Verity, I was pointing out your inexplicable defense of the French government’s superior knowledge of Islam.
I’m pretty sure you are the same Verity that was roundly trashing the French government earlier.
You say to me now
I said
Clearly the French government has been doing something, maybe everything wrong. The mere fact that it was the French government that banned the hijab makes me suspect the wisdom of the action.
John Rippengal – Interesting. Djinnah was always drawn as this drawling sophisticate who was above petty squabbling.
But what a trio, eh? Gandhi (“let’s all go back to the 1600s. Progress is bad for India”) and lefty Nehru and Djinnah! No wonder India fell behind for 40 years!
I discrimate. The French do some short-sighted things for short-term advantage. And they are not loyal to their allies. These things I condemn.
Re Islam, they have made the same mistakes the rest of Europe has made – by thinking that once the Islamics get accustomed to Western civilisation, they will develop a taste for it and settle in. That is a very major, unforgivable mistake. I condemn this.
It was brought home to them what the hijab means in the banlieus and they did something about it. Chirac and Jack Lang fought a lot of opposition and threats, but they stuck to their guns and did it anyway. They did what was right.
“The mere fact that it was the French government that banned the hijab makes me suspect the wisdom of the action.”
I despair.
Euan-Riot police duty is tough, and it requires a special set of skills. No wonder there is a separate division for riot troops in France.
It’s not fun being a front rank riot trooper if you’re only five foot six and less than 150 pounds soaking wet. I should know, I went through the training. Only those at the rear ranks, holding the M203s firing tear gas rounds, have any fun.
John Rippengal-Colonial Europe did improve the lives of the Africans while they were there. But the drawing of arbitrary lines on the map to create the ‘modern’ african states after the colonial withdrawal was in hindsight a big mistake, and a major contributor to the present ills of the continent, though it would be hardpressed to find an alternative solution in those days.
Would the rioters actually get the independent state they ask for in France if they demanded it? Or would the millet system be what they want instead?
Nor did I suggest it had. (Though, now that you bring it up, you did say something to the effect of being opposed to special school uniforms for muslims in Britain.) I was talking about the US and the UK as a way of clarifying my original point – which I intended to be about the proper course of action for the West in general in response to Islam, not France in particular. Adopting the French approach to this doesn’t seem like a good idea. Anyway – apologies if I gave you the impression I was suggesting you were saying something you didn’t.
I am well aware of the kind of thuggery that goes on in Islamic societies regarding enforcement of the hijab thing – counting certain neighborhoods in France as “islamic societies.” The ban in schools has done NOTHING to alleviate this problem. Girls still get raped in their neighborhoods for so much as looking at men the wrong way – much less forgetting their hijabs. Resentment of the hijab rule is likely to have sharpened this tendency, sad to say – especially, I suspect, as applies to non-muslim girls.
If raping girls is the real problem, then why is France focusing on school dress codes? It seems to me that a better solution would be to attack this problem at its root. Send the troops in to the neighborhoods in question to make the point that rape is against the law in France. I would have no problem with a couple of militiamen standing on every streetcorner in known problem districts. In fact, if the next election goes the way you say, it may well come to that – and then we’ll have empirical evidence for which is the best policy course.
My beef here is with comments like this:
I think you have me confused with someone else. I am not a muslim sympathizer and have never given the impression anywhere in these comments that I am. Furthermore, if you’ll kindly look my past comments, I have repeatedly said that what the French government does in France in response to situations in France is its own business. I don’t advocate extension of the policy beyond France, certainly not to the US – but what France does in France is, I completely agree with you, best decided by France. Currently, as Midwesterner says, their policies don’t seem to be working out. The rest of us can possibly look to them for examples of how not to handle the situation. After the next election, maybe they will have something to teach us – but not now, it seems.
Or would the millet system be what they want instead?
Some have already asked for the millet. Self-rule by Isalmic law — but please keep sending the secular Republican welfare checks — that’s one aspect of secularisam we like! That was it in a nutshell.
Oh, I weep for France.
But at the same time, to the people who laughed at me on this talkboard three years ago when I tried to warn some of the Europeans about the hopeless irredentism of Islam, I can’t help but say, “I told you so!”
Verity-
I just read your last comment after mine had finished posting. This:
is way out of line. I have lived in South Korea, Germany and Japan for over a year each and speak all three languages fluently. America is far from “all I know.”
Not to mention – my previous comments conceded (repeatedly at this point) that I don’t know the situation in France.
So I’d appreciate it if you’d stick to the issues and stuff the (unfounded) ad hominems.
Joshua – I apologise for thinking you are an untravelled American, but I am afraid your comments about France came across as very naive – which is why I got that impression. Clearly that is wrong, and you are not insular.
But, despite saying frankly that you know nothing about France, you kept bringing the argument about the hijab back to the United States when that is not, and was not, the issue. No one suggested banning the veil in the US and I don’t know how that floated into the discussion.
I hardly think that opining that someone is naive counts as an ad hominem!
If your time in Germany was fairly recent, you will be aware that they are banning teachers from wearing hijabs in the classroom in some areas.
Verity,
I’m afraid that India’s 50 years of stagnation had a lot to do with Atlee socialism.
Susan – I have only known you on the internet for around two years, but everything you have said about Islam has been borne out by events during that time.
Yes, the welfare cheques and free housing is the one thing about the West they can relate to. It beggars belief that now they are talking about letting Turkey into the EU.
I think we are seeing the preliminary skirmishes in what will become an all-out civil war, and I say, bring it on! If nothing else, it will wreck the EU.
In the short term, I do not see how Chirac can win another election. That means the socialists (I mean, even more socialist than Chirac, who counts as a right winger in France), who make common accord with the Islamics for some reason, or a prominent role for the FN. I suspect that the anti-immigration parties will begin to flourish after these events in Paris and Denmark. And in Holland, Hirsi Ali having said publicly that the Dutch government must recognise that the problem is not a few Islamic nutjobs (aren’t they all), but Islam itself.
How do you see the Islamics reacting to this?
John Rippengal – How so?
The thing is, Nehru and then Indira both followed an idiotic policy of “non-alignment” – meaning, they were aligned with the Soviets while pretending to be neutral. In other words, they picked the wrong team.
They went with the communist programme all the way. I would be interested in how Atlee’s socialism impacted on them, though. I think Gandhi, with his anti-progress message got them into totally the wrong mindset right from the start. I mean, weaving a bit of khadi every day, for god’s sake! How bloody backward!
How do you see the Islamics reacting to this?
More violence, more rioting, more demands for special privileges and special pleading (but keep those welfare checks coming!). Already there has been an assasination attempt on Rita Verdonck (Dutch minister of immigration) and also on a Danish immigration official as well. I forget what the Dane’s name is, though, but both she and her children were threatened and menaced.
The Danes have tightened up on their residency requirements, their citizenship qualifications, their marriage requirements for bringing in foreign spouses, and soon they’ll be cutting back on their welfare policies too — they have too. Their small Muslim population (5 percent) already sucks up some 30-40 percent of their welfare budget.
All European countries should be doing the same thing, most especially France and the UK.
Verity-
OK – glad we’re no longer misunderstanding each other.
The last time I was in Germany was last August (in formerly “East” Berlin – my how things have changed!!!), but only for 4 days. So the Germany I know firsthand was 1994-1996 – and Wuerzburg at that, so I didn’t have much chance to confront whatever Turkish/muslim problems they now have there.
I tend to think that the hijab law is probably not necessary in Germany, though, because the police have a pretty free hand there and definitely use it. (However, free speech doesn’t really exist in Germany that I noticed, so my argument on the basis of religious freedom is kind of moot I think. If you can’t read Mein Kampf or sing the first verse of the anthem in public, then there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t prohibit hijabs too.)
I don’t know whether they still have this – but when I was in Germany the police regularly stopped anyone wandering around after 10pm to question you, run your ID, etc. I remember one time I was walking down a street one direction late at night, and a Turk was walking down the other side. A police car pulled over to ask me all the usual questions – but then they apparently noticed the Turk because they suddenly sped off to the other side of the street and stopped him instead.
At the time I remember thinking what kind of a stink that would have caused in the States. But now I think perhaps this is one reason why these riots are happening in France and not Germany. Of course – I don’t know much about the French police and their practices, so you can fill the details in here. The point being, of course, that the German police are completely unashamed of racial profiling – and of beating people who cross them senseless, it must be added.
midwesterner: “If you believe all that phenotype nonsense, you’re probably someone who looks at themselves and can’t find anything ‘good’ except their skin color.”
Ad hominems and paperback psychology don’t make it. If you think the way people feel and act is unrelated to their genetic inheritance and can be rapidly reprogrammed, you’ve got to prove it. ‘All that phenotype nonsense’– DNA analysis and evolutionary psychology– is the future of Man’s self-understanding even if it hasn’t trickled down to the Midwest yet. I recommend you start with Pinker’s ‘The Blank Slate’.
“It is most emphatically and undeniably culture, not even a little bit race.”
Again, sheer assertion.
“And yes, I am a cultural elitist. I believe we have the best culture ever, by any standard. I don’t care if someone is white, black, brown, yellow, red, or even martian. If you share my culture, you are my friend and ally. If you oppose it, you are my enemy.”
What does a goofy pledge of allegiance such as this have to do with what’s happening on the streets, for chrissake? When are you going to stop shrieking about what a wunnerful ooman bein’ you are and start thinking about practical politics? Ok, maybe assisted voluntary repatriation isn’t the answer. Then what is? Telling the Africans and Asians one more time that they’ve got to shape up?
“My culture is based on individualism, life liberty and property. I have many enemies trying to change it. I also have many friends trying to preserve it.”
So friggin’ what?
“Racism has no place in an individualist culture. It’s a non-negotiable. They are antithetical. Every person is one person, not a race. Laws must be practiced that treat everyone equally. Conduct, and only conduct must decide who is free and who is imprisoned or expelled. You can find plenty of grounds for those options in people’s conduct, there is no need to qualify them by race.”
Nobody’s talking about imprisoning or expelling anyone for their colour, just Matt O’Halloran and little me suggesting that some people might be happier elsewhere than in an unfamiliar country they despise, and that they should be given incentives if they want to emigrate. Are you going to force everybody to stay put where they were born and act the same? Funny kind of non-negotiable individualism that is.
Get real. ‘Laws must be practiced that treat everyone equally’! Not in the States, where there is an institutionalised system of discrimination against whites, the stuff Susan’s PO’ed by. The USA is riddled with ‘racism’ if you define that as officially fitting everyone into ethnic pigeonholes and treating them unequally. So tnat isn’t your kind of American individualism– you want to go to 100% colour-blindness? Fair enough, but that’s what the French had, and look where it landed them.
Stop patting yourself on the back and be CONSTRUCTIVE.
BTW, that’s what irritates me about Theodore Dalrymple. All he does is catalogue the horrors of modern inner-city life from his lordly perch of superiority and make us all feel thoroughly depressed. We know it’s a mess. What’s to do?
Not in the States, where there is an institutionalised system of discrimination against whites, the stuff Susan’s PO’ed by.
You are putting words in my mouth Julie. I do not approve of laws, customs and ideologies that treat citizens of nation states as groups rather than as individuals. This is state-encouraged tribalism, and will result in blood and tears and separatism in the long run. The only “group” the government should encourage Americans to identify with are fellow citizens of the United States of America, full stop.
The French “color-blindness” did not encourage or cause the rioters. It was multi-culti — allowing the Islamic migrants to “keep” their culture and values rather than encouraging them — nay forcing them, if need be — to assimilate into the French culture.
The welfare system aligned with multi-culti also encouraged the seperatism. If you have to go and get a job, you have to assimilate to some degree just to get a job. If you can stay home all day and listen to Arabic soap operas on the satellite dish, only going out to cash your welfare check or be treated by your free government provided healthcare, you don’t have to.
Julie-
I think you can’t have read Pinker very closely. Pinker is talking about a general genetic basis for human psychology, specifically as it applies to language. I haven’t read “the Blank Slate” specifically, but I am familiar with his linguistic theories. Generally his agenda is to provide scientific evidence in support of Chomsky’s innateness hypothesis. This hypothesis says in unambiguous terms that everyone across the globe is born with exactly the same internal language (they call it Universal Grammar). The idea is that you have an innate language faculty which gets activated by exposure to real spoken language. On the basis of this exposure you set internal parameters (such as whether the verb should come first in the sentence, in the middle, at the end, etc.), and these become fixed. This hypothesis is meant to explain why children are able to learn language as quickly as they do with such a polluted stimulus. Both Chomsky and Pinker are unambiguous on the subject of whether any particular language is encoded in your genes, and the answer is an emphatic NO. A white child born and raised in Japan will speak Japanese as a native language and will have the same trouble learning English that racially Japanese native speakers have – will make the same mistkes, etc. In “The Language Instinct,” Pinker even spends a good bit of time making fun of his Hebrew teacher for apparently being under the impression that his jewish students learned Hebrew faster than the others.
As I said, I haven’t read “the Blank Slate” specifically, but if Pinker had suddenly changed his game so radically I’m sure I would have heard about it.
Joshua – Interesting comment about Germany. I think another reason they seem to have fewer problems than the rest of the EU is, they never accorded the Turks citizenship. Some, of course, formally petitioned to become citizens, so there are some, but by and large they and their children and grandchildren are still Turks and can be deported any time. This, I am sure, serves to concentrate their minds.
The French police have become rather dainty. They go for sensitivity training, which is too bad. France was much safer in the old days when they knew how to deliver punches to the kidneys without leaving a mark. The Gendarmes haven’t, as far as I know, yet been forced into politically correct straightjackets, but I fear they may follow the police down the road to ineffectiveness. As it stands at the moment, they are fairly robust. I lived in a village and most of the villages are under the protection of the Gendarmes, whereas towns and cities have the police. I would far rather have the Gendarmes. They’re harder and entry requirements are much more rigorous.
I don’t think racial profiling would be allowed in France these days – too sensitive, don’t you know – but who knows what goes on in the back rooms.
Actualy, now that you bring this up, I’m sure this is a better explanation than police practices. The power to deport someone at whim is non-trivial, and no doubt very effective at keeping the Turkish minority in line.
What was that quote from two years ago? There was an Elian Gonzales-type case there involving some cute little girl (who, if memory serves, did end up being one of the few to get citizenship), and a high-placed judge said something very frank in a press interview like “The immigration rules are made against foreigners, not for them.”
They don’t beat about the bush, these Germans!
Meanwhile, here’s the lead paragraph on events in Paris on the BBC site:
“President Jacques Chirac says France is determined to prevail in the face of widespread rioting that has gripped mostly African and Arab communities.”
The widespread rioting has “gripped” those communities! It’s not their fault.
Hmmm, I wonder what it is about the “mostly African and Arab communities” that gives them common cause? Anything to do with religion, for example?
Joshua: The main thrust of Prof. Pinker’s ‘The Blank Slate’ is not to champion Chomsky (that was ‘The Language Instinct’) but to deride utopian projects for converting people into whatever social engineers want them to be within a few years of one lifetime. ‘Homo sovieticus’ and all that. The same objection– that we are hardwired not to change our inherited habits much– confounds those wishful British mainstreamers who think an intensive course in ‘our way of life’ will straighten out the rioters in Lozells or the Yorkshire-accented Pakistani yobs of Manningham.
The idea that you make a Brit Japanese by letting him grow up speaking the language is as dubious as thinking that a British-born Indian or Pakistani is an Englishman because he speaks English, as we say, ‘like a native’.
The *children* of a Brit married to a Japanese and raised in Japan might seem more Japanese than British (if not to the echt-Japanese), but that sort of miscegenation isn’t going on much in Europe between whites and the problem kids: crime-prone blacks and Muslim fanatics from North Africa or the Middle East.
Susan: “The French “color-blindness” did not encourage or cause the rioters. It was multi-culti — allowing the Islamic migrants to “keep” their culture and values rather than encouraging them — nay forcing them, if need be — to assimilate into the French culture.”
So you’d discriminate against Muslim French by cutting off their welfare payments, assuming it’s really true that the system keeps them in idleness? Maybe they just have sub-rosa ways of making a bare living in their communities. if so, how else could you ‘force’ Muslim lads to be more French (whatever that means) in ways compatible with tolerance, respect for individuality, all the things that this culture is supposed to uphold? Are you going to give them regular exams in haute cuisine and the history of the Revolution before they can get their dole?
You guys are flailing around in the dark. You can’t think of any practical solutions because you are so hipped on this platonic concept of ‘The Individual’ and so terrified of admitting that human beings run in packs and breeds for preference. Like the libertarian nostrum for every problem, your cure for the rioters begins with “first create a different kind of mankind, then it’ll be easy-peasy for us all to get along.”
I still think my “good neighbours on separate patches” policy is more practical. As I said, it’s what’s actually going down in the real world, despite all the like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing propaganda. There are more sovereignties today than at any time in history, and they are more and more assorted ethnically. If it’s good for Israel, why not for the rest of us?
Matt-
OK, thanks for the update on Pinker’s book. I didn’t know he was writing political commentary now.
I still find it hard to believe, in light of his linguistic theories, that Pinker thinks people are born fundamentally different from each other based on race. Probably what he means by “homus sovieticus” is that the Soviets were trying to make people into something they aren’t.
That isn’t the same thing as saying that there is no ordering among societies as to which ones suit humans and their nature better. Nor does opposition to social engineering commit one to the position that people cannot assimilate into new societies – it just depends on the nature of the society into which they are assimilating.
I will want to read the book before saying anything else, of course, but I will indeed be surprised if I find that Pinker is saying anything like what Julie was suggesting.
This discussion seems to have declined into a review of race versus culture, and liberal versus conservative views of social policy.
I suggest that both threads are less important than the fact that after ten nights Paris is still surrounded by what now must be called an insurgency.
See ‘Arab News’ web site, taking the soft line–except for:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=72803&d=7&m=11&y=2005
Quote:
“For all their frightening dimensions the riots have not taken on the qualities of a full-scale rebellion. But because of the sheer speed by which the riots are spreading and the inability of the authorities to halt them, there is a sense that a revolution of sorts is in the making.”
Question:
How can people who refuse to assimilate, who are by definition non-stakeholders in a society, who are, frankly, refuse to take part in it, rebel against it? Rebellion is the right of the citizen; these people refuse the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Are those who use that word (rebellion) confusing rebellion with assault or insurgency?
Personal opinion:
1) Invasion or insurgency may be a better word than revolution. The rioters are an external and hostile culture attempting to alter France through violence.
2) The first imperative of a modern government is to preserve, protect, and defend the lives and property of its citizens. Why is the French government not doing so?
It is quickly reaching the point where a military solution is the only one available. I contend that accommodation simply will not work with a group that refuses to assimilate, recognizes no local law, and which not only demands local autonomy, but which would most likely use its enclaves as assembly points for further assault.
If this goes on, or even if it does not, mass deportation may be the only realistic solution that would save France as France.
Where is Charles Martel when you need him?
If this is a mamifestation of genetics, how exactly do you explain the rapid expantion of Islam hundred years after the death of the prophet? A retro virus passed on though sword wounds perhaps? Nor does it explain how so many genetically different people can get along and trade (Non-muslim indians, sihks, jews etc) in one country but the members of one particular culture cannot, no matter their race? Perhaps race has nothing to do with it and it is culture that is important.
Perhaps you want some ways of dealing with it then that are about dealing with people as they are.
First thing give them some insentives, integration is hard, as a culture is a big complex beast to get your head around. So they are going to need a reason to do it rather than the easy path of sitting back and being medival.
No more of the multicult saying that medival life is better than that of the west.
No more government money to support the medival death cult. Lets cut back on the wefare state, if people have to get jobs and most jobs are in the native culture they will have to adapt to more of the native culture to get them.
Joshua: “Nor does opposition to social engineering commit one to the position that people cannot assimilate into new societies – it just depends on the nature of the society into which they are assimilating.”
Well then, what’s wrong with Britain and France that prevents Muslims and bottom-of-the-heap West Indians from flourishing in it?
I keep hearing these vague generalisations about how ‘they’ have to be more like ‘us’, but nobody ever defines what ‘we’ are except by saying that the great virtue of western civilisation is its adaptability.
Could it be that the exaltation of individualism, freethinking, tolerance as the supreme virtue, market forces etc etc has left us with our defences down? These things may be nice, but men don’t fight and die for them. They go to war for all those things you superior intellects think are out of date: faith, family, soil and (gulp) nation.
I detect an inchoate impatience with ‘classical liberalism’ among some commenters, but they won’t face the implications of leaving pre-Darwinian dreams of Universal Infinitely Adaptable Man behind.
chris: “If this is a mamifestation of genetics, how exactly do you explain the rapid expantion of Islam hundred years after the death of the prophet? A retro virus passed on though sword wounds perhaps?”
Obviously some religions are of supranational interest, but Islam makes little appeal to Caucasoids or Mongoloids (eg Japanese, northern Chinese) and its militant form has very little traction outside the Arab world. The funloving folks of Bali and the Balkans are Muslims too, and a few may become terrorists or suicide bombers, but the great majority don’t support and shelter Islamism. Not even North Africa gives it much time. It is essentially an Arab, Egyptian and Persian reaction to being infiltrated by the West– just as American ‘evangelical’ Christianity is an outcropping of the paranoid style in right-wing politics, with its ‘End of Days’ vision of a world purged of Satan (formerly the commies, now the ‘Islamofascists’) by nuclear Armageddon.
People who lead sheltered lives, whether in Texas or Teheran, have to explain complicated economically driven enterprises (such as oil prospecting or shipping cheap labour from continent to continent) in terms of angels and devils. We isolationists prefer a poorer and quieter way of living with more private piety and less enthusiasm, in the 18th century sense.
It is the uncomfortable, coerced juxtaposition of different ways of life in multiracial countries that produces banal frictions that are exalted by being clothed in the language of religious war or played down by multiculti propaganda about how great ‘diversity’ is if only we could see it. When ‘we’ went oil-hunting in the ME we imported cultural ‘viruses’ that unsettled the locals.
Obviously each individual’s own experiences profoundly affect the way he sees the world. But we know, for example, that by adulthood 80% of our IQ can be attributed to heredity. And general intelligence is hardly irrelevant when considering how we view life. The idea that culture floats free of genetic inheritance is not only without any support among psychometricians or geneticists; it is quaint coming from a school of political thought which prides itself on its scientific rationality and materialism.
Apparently we are to treat the brain– and maybe the soul and spirit?– as entities independent of biology, and human beings as uniquely non-subspeciated mammals. Ah well. The failure of racial integration since the 1960s, so sadly evident in the news, suffices to convict the blank-slaters of over-optimism.
Keep blathering about teaching the rioters to be good citizens without stating how or why. I’m sure they’ll put down their Molotov cocktails and listen– when they’ve run out of cars to ignite.
Matt O’
The people of BALI are not Muslim. They are Hindus.
The bombers came from other parts of Indonesia. The Phillipines has both Christian and Muslim populations.
The Indonesians were mostly Hindu and animist before conversion by Arab traders.
Apart from that you do not make your case for genetic foundation of religion. For a start a lot of Europeans
(Caucasians in US parlance) are Muslim – Albanians, Bosnians, Kosovans for a start and south of the Sahara there are totally different genetic types which are both Chistian and Muslim as well as their old style juju. There is a whole swathe of Turco/Mongoloid set of people in central Asia who are mostly muslim.
There is probably no detectable difference genetically between northern Indians and Pakistanis, nor between many Bengalis and Bangladeshis.
I think kyou need more facts and less words.
One might as well ask what’s wrong with muslim and bottom-of-the-heap West Indian culture. My point being that none of the examples you’re citing decides this issue for race over culture. It might just as easily be the culture they come from that keeps them from doing well. And indeed, given the great variation from individual to individual in terms of ability within races, culture does seem the more likely explanation, no?
All that one can really say about racial advantages is that they more or less guarantee that, say, a black north african of some kind is more likely than not to be the best runner on the planet in any given year. They tell you nothing, absolutely nothing whatever, about whether the white or the black contestant will win in any head-to-head race.
If race is so important, I rather think the burden of proof is on you to explain how it is that certain members of these supposedly “inferior” groups ARE able to come to the UK and flourish. Because every such group has produced at least one example. And the one thing they all seem to have in common is their willingness to embrace their host country and not get too bogged down in their native culture. I know plenty of successful Arab businessmen here in America, for example. What I have never seen an example of is a successful Arab muslim businessman (outside of Saudi Arabia, where the government insures his success, mind you) who walks around in robes talking about how Allah will grant him virgins when he dies all the time.
Culture is the difference.
Joshua – I read a survey that indicated that the overwhelming majority of successful Arab businessmen in the US are of Christian origin. They probably emigrated to get away from the Muslims.
Matt O’Halleran – How can anyone take you seriously when you dub the people of Bali Muslim? It is well known that they are Hindu – the only Hindu enclave in Indonesia. That’s why people go there of their own free will. This major error renders the rest of your argument fragile.
The people rioting in France are Muslim. It’s a religious thing. They come from the Magreb, which is mainly genetically an Arab mix, and Africans from below the Sahel, who are black. They are united by their dipshit religion, not by race.
Verity and Rippengal: If you will reread what I wrote, I talked about ‘funloving Muslims of Bali and the Balkans’. I didn’t say the entire population of either place was Muslim.
As it happens, there is a sizeable Muslim minority on Bali which the tourist industry played down for fear of alarming white visitors. Bali is yet another example of the inadvisability of jumbling up incompatible peoples, and the bombings didn’t come out of the blue:
“The international media that covered the bombings invariably mentioned that Bali is ‘Indonesia’s only Hindu island.’ Most of these reports described Bali as a legendary oasis of peace and harmony, home to an ancient civilization that now seemed to be under threat from its Muslim neighbors, who make up the majority of Indonesia’s population. Few noted the violence that had marked Bali’s history-from the pre-colonial conflicts between rival kingdoms to the armed resistance against the Dutch to the state-sponsored terror of 1965, in which some 100,000 Balinese were massacred in the space of a few months, to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which used Bali as its military logistics base. Nor did many reporters note that what had come under attack in Kuta was not the mythical traditional Bali portrayed in tourist guidebooks, but a modern, multicultural hub inhabited by people from all around the world. And even fewer acknowledged that while the majority of Bali’s population is indeed Hindu, the island has long been home to Buddhists, Christians and Muslims as well.
“This last omission was perhaps not surprising. Little ink has been spilled, either in academic journals or tourism industry promotions, about Bali’s ethnic and religious diversity. While tourism in Bali depended on a steady influx of labor from neighboring islands, postcards of Bali’s fabled charms featured the pageantry of Hindu religious rituals and images from Hindu myth and legend. Tour buses brought visitors to don sarongs and ceremonial sashes and traipse through temples-not to listen to the Christian liturgy or to watch Muslims praying in mosques. Hinduism-colorful, complex, mystical-became an image that could be marketed to tourists in search of exotic difference, attracting a very different kind of attention than Christianity-perceived in the West as familiar and fundamentally universal-or Islam-seen as alien and vaguely threatening…”
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Indonesian/Islam/Islam%20in%20Bali%20%20Latitudes%20Magazine.htm
So the straw Verity grasps to avoid thought out to be illusory. ho hum. I’ll leave you ‘culturalists’ to carry on theorising in a vacuum about how to turn black and brown rioters into white hooligans, but with one proposal from isteve.com which Julie Nilsson would appreciate:
“Offer Muslim residents, say, $25,000 each to go away. Permanently.
“A family of five festering in the slums of slums of Paris, Rotterdam, and Birmingham could live in North Algeria, Pakistan, or Indonesia like local gentry if they had $125,000 in the bank.”
Matt O – It’s true that the Kuta area is a mishmash mainly of Western dropouts, so I wouldn’t necessarily call them Christians. But the whole ethos of Bali is Hindu. I did think your comments interesting, though.
Matt O’
You quote at length a magazine article but I do not see any single point in it that re-inforces your argument for an ethnic basis for religion. Most of Indonesia was Hindu but it changed to Islam. Did the the genes change too?? In anycase up until quite recently Islam was worn very lightly in Indonesia. they clung a lot to their ancient gods and were more worried about ‘hantu’ than Allah. Very few women wore headscarves or any other such covering and there were no screaming calls to prayer 5 times a day. Also there are substation pockets of Christianity for example in Sulawesi. Are they genetically different?
What was the significance of the violence over historical times in Bali. Is this some genetic indicator. The American civil war was the most violent and costly in history. Is that down to faulty genes? The Russian crushing of the German military machine in world war 2 was one of the most savagely violent of wars. What does that mean in your theory.
And the history you learn from magazines is faulty. You should have some other sources. The Dutch reoccupation of Bali was accomplished without a shot being fired. I know because I was there at Sanaa beach when the Dutch went back there in March 1946 when the Japoanese were still in control. This was in contrast to Java where the Bitish Army held the perimeters of Soerabaya and Batavia against Indonesian rebels while waiting for the Dutch to take over. The 60s massacres were directed mainly against the Chinese and were political not religious. Moreover Soekarno was equally threatening towards his brother Muslims in Malaysia in the concurrent ‘Confrontasi’.
There is no logic or coherence in your theories.
And a large percentage of Chinese in Singapore are Christian. So they must also be suffering from Altered Gene Syndrome.
It is painfully obvious, that at it’s heart, Islam is a religion of violence, not peace. Because France has bent over backwards for it and opened the immigration floodgates, the chickens are now coming home to roost. Likewise with Denmark. If Muslims cannot live harmoniously in two of the most “socialistic utopias” in Europe, how can they live peacebly anywhere in the West? When will we in the West wake up to the worldwide Jihad?
Back in the 1980’s West Germany sought to deal with its excess Turkish ‘guest worker’ problem by offering migrants a large sum of DM to go back home. Not surprisingly the scheme was wildly successful until they hit a big stumbling block … Brussels. The EU had decided that whereas it was ok for Germany to compensate its ‘gastarbeiter’ they didn’t have the right to prevent said guest workers from returning to find work.
Unless you can ensure that their quality of life will be measurably increased by their return home (not something that is going to happen in most of Saharan/Sub-Saharan Africa) then compensating immigrants to leave your country doesn’t generally work. With the EU’s ridiculous concept of border security all that happens these days is that people feel free to return, only this time richer and with an even bigger grudge to bear.
Julian Taylor – or anyone else who knows – what would happen if you sent them back anyway? What is Brussels going to do? Send in the Belgian army?
It is time we started running Brussels to suit ourselves and take the French smorgasbord approach. One thing would be to withhold our £1bn a day when they displease us by trying to reprimand us.
Verity, midwesterner, Rippengal & Co- You seem to be arguing that because there may be other bases than race for conflict, race should be ignored. I say: why up the risk of conflict needlessly, if we’ve already got other kinds to cope with?
People fight each other for all sorts of reasons, but plonking a bunch of obvious aliens down cheek by jowl with a home population that had barely altered its racial mix for 1,000 years is no recipe for sweetness and light. The alleged economic benefits are no consolation.
Britain does not want or need millions of non-white cuckoos in our overcrowded nest with their starnge ways. If this country were truly a democracy they would never have been allowed to get their feet under the table. Once we get out of the EU we can consider the sort of scheme for bribing them to clear out which Julian Taylor mentions. But as Matt O’Halloran said when you trotted out the boring ‘racism’ card for the millionth time, you lot have no sensible ideas for integrating immigrants, you just keep rattling on about Us and Them and how They can be more like Us if we order or cajole them into doing it. But all the evidence is that they are becoming more, not less, different as their numbers swell and they can form more self-contained communities. This is an emergency for British identity and you have no realistic ideas for tackling it.
Luniversal, I can only speak of my US midwestern experience. By ‘obvious’ I assume you mean the ‘wrong’ color.
Yes, there are aliens among us. But they are not so easy to spot as by checking their skin color. We have restaurants where the menus are numbered and only the cashier speaks english. Industrious entreprenuers vigorously practicing free enterprise.
A very high percentage of start-up small businesses here are owned by immigrants. They fit our culture very well. They are, even with their accents, us.
I also get to occasionally meet some of our Euro-cousins. You want to start a fight, try planting a Euro-socialist in our community. As soon as that kind starts telling us what we’re doing wrong, you’ll hear the epithets.
Whether you are US born or not, you seem to forget that we here are a nation of immigrants. My mother’s ancestors started arriving here almost 400 years ago. My father’s parents came through Ellis Island.
We can tell you positively, from 4 centuries of experience, that conflict comes from culture, not color.
Luniversal – Well, they have to leave, obviously. You write: you lot have no sensible ideas for integrating immigrants.
It’s not our business to integrate immigrants. It’s any immigrants’ business, anywhere in the world, to fit in. End of story. They don’t want to fit in, leave.
The left has initiated most of these problems by nurturing these people’s grievances, giving them an elevated idea of their worth and praising their valuable “culture”, which we won’t go in to yet again. But this is a problem of the left’s devising and it was intended to weaken our culture and our society. The left continues to be the most dangerous agent in the world.
It’s going to come down to payoffs to leave, so we can get every dangerous malcontent out of our hair. Once one country starts doing it, I guarantee that others will follow.
We need to get their DNA as they leave, preferably pre-boarding hold area, so they cannot switch identities and sneak back in.