UPDATED:Chirac Promises “Arrests”
French President Jacques Chirac threatens the rioters with arrest.
The lede:
French President Jacques Chirac on Sunday promised arrests, trials and punishment for those sowing “violence or fear” across France _ as the urban unrest that has triggered attacks on vehicles, nursery schools and other targets hit central Paris for the first time.
And:
“What we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized,” arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs…
UPDATE: Steven Den Beste points out a post in the Brussels Journal. Read it.
A few grafs:
What is happening in France has been brewing in Old Europe for years. The BBC speaks of “youths” venting their “anger.” The BBC is wrong. It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The “youths” do not blame the French, they despise them.
Most observers in the mainstream media (MSM) provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the “youths” as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The MSM believe that the “youths” are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them.
This is the marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today. To understand what is going on one cannot look at today’s events from a Western perspective. One has to think like the “youths” in order to understand them. Not imagine oneself in their shoes, but imagine their minds in one’s own head. The important question is: how do these insurgents perceive their relationship with society in France?
Unlike their fathers, who came to France from Muslim countries, accepting that, whilst remaining Muslims themselves, they had come to live in a non-Muslim country, the rioters see France as their country. They were born here. This land is their land. And since they are Muslims, this land, or at least a part of it, is Muslim as well…
Brussels Journal has a very discerning analysis of the attitudes of the rioters.
Comment by Steven Den Beste — 11/6/2005 @ 6:47 pm
Chirac Calls Security Meeting Over Riots French President Jacques Chirac called a security meeting of his top ministers Sunday after urban ri
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — 11/6/2005 @ 7:48 pm
The evidence of a ‘bomb factory’ is very disturbing. Especially disturbing are the hoods stashed there. Molotov cocktails can be fashioned quickly, and the supplies can be acquired easily. The hoods require time and planning. Are there enough French to save France? France fell in 1940 to both the German army and to Fascism.
Comment by Boghie — 11/6/2005 @ 10:40 pm
The French Will Have to Shoot But the question remains: does France have the moral capability of defending itself? Jacques Chirac today called an emergency security meeting after France’s worst night of violence yet, during which rioting spread across the country and a petrol bomb…
Trackback by Blogs for Bush: The White House Of The Blogosphere — 11/6/2005 @ 11:13 pm
You might also find Pudita’s POV thought-provoking. I often do. http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/11/its-on.html
Comment by Annlee — 11/7/2005 @ 4:11 am
For what its worth … many (perhaps up to 50%) of the rioters are Africans, not muslim Arabs. Africans are also the main instigators. This is because the African community in France is made up largely of unattached, single males, recently arrived. The muslim population, even the recent immigrants, is more rooted. The Africans are also a lot angrier, in fact, they bring this anger with them from their native ecountries where resentment towards France has risen very sharply over the last ten years, as a result of (1) the rapid deterioration of the political situation in countries that had been stable (Ivory Coast, Senegal), (2) the continued meddling of France in African affairs (as opposed to North Africa where French influence is a lot more benevolent) and (3) the increasing weakness of France as an international power which encourages these attitudes. These Africans despise the French and have no intention of integrating. They also avidly appropriate for themselves American and English stereotype of the French as cowardly, weak, etc … which just fuels their hatred.
Comment by Jean-Francois — 11/7/2005 @ 6:07 pm
Jean-Francois, it’s thinking like that which has propelled your country to 2nd place finishes in every war it’s fought over the last 2 or 3 centuries. Your country is in a war now, and your countrymen (I am conspicuously omitting the Muslim insurrectionists here) clearly lack the stomach for fighting it. I am reminded of the way your left wing politicians and chattering classes behaved during their fomentation of the French army mutiny of World War I. You had other, better armies in country then to cover your backsides- which ain’t gonna happen in your present conflict. Can you spell the word “dhimmi”? Better look it up and get used to it- you’re going to be hearing it a lot in the not to distant future.
Comment by Jean-Francois — 11/8/2005 @ 10:13 am
I’m not sure what you object to in my post — I’m simply stating that immigrants of African origin have a large part in the current events, a leadership role in many cases, something that is not frequently mentioned in U.S. press accounts. And you reply by bringing up the performance of French armies over the last two centuries. Sure, the French have been a declining military power over that course of time. So what? It’s a matter of historical record, an interesting one, well documented in books (some of them written by remarkable American historians e.g. Robert Paxton). I didn’t fight in those wars and I don’t think that many French people feel that historical events have bearing on their own personal moral fortitude. And you’re right, France was saved by foreign armies. What this has to do with the current plight of immigrants in contemporary France, I don’t know.
Comment by Jean Francois — 11/8/2005 @ 8:43 pm