Whle I would tend to agree with both Tim and Jeff that the majority of the cause of this rioting are issues dealing with French nationalism, French citizenship, and rampant and persistent and rampant poverty, this is a troubling sign:
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has linked the ban on the wearing of Muslim head scarves in French schools to the unrest inflaming poor suburbs of French cities, according to a press report Monday.
In an interview with Milliyet newspaper, Erdogan said “the process begun in France in the schools” was one explanation for the worsening violence marked by the destruction of thousands of vehicles, vandalism of schools and attacks on police stations.
Erdogan, who became involved in Turkish politics through the now-disbanded Islamist National Salvation Party and in 1999 was jailed for four months on a charge of inciting religious hatred, said the law banning the hijab in
schools had contributed to migrants’ sense of exclusion and “stirred up” the violence.
“We have always defended the alliance of civilisations (between the Islamic world and the West) and to demonstrate how the accession of Turkey to the European Union was important in this respect. But some did not want to understand, above all the French,” Erdogan said.
This is troubling to me for two reasons. First, it is a sign that some will use the widespread rioting as the basis for a nascent intifada. Second, the while world may be moderately sympathetic (oddly enough) to poor people rioting for economic ‘justice,’ opinions will quickly harden if this becomes a Palestine in Paris sort of situation, with which we will see a real escalation of violence. As the police have been remarkably restrained to date, that is not something I am looking forward to.
Just my 3 cents.
ape
Don’t believe it!
Noone who knows anything about it – ie french people, mostly, thinks it has anything to do with radical Islam.
Try going to some of these suburbs if you want to get an impression of what people are p’d off about.
Another thing: car-burning is something of a ‘fad’ in France and has been for a while.. there were 100s burnt last new year, for example.
This problem is about urban planning, unemployment, segregation, and, yes, racism, but don’t be too quick to blame Islam.
If you want a ‘red meat’ angle, perhaps you should look into the difficulties imposed by French labour law on employing and laying off staff and the huge burden of the unemployment bill. The way I hear it, France is just not a good place to do business.
Gratefulcub
Even if it is somewhat related to the head scarf ban, it isn’t related to Islamic fundamentalism. It is more cultural that religious. The North African population of France is second and third generation French, and they are second class citizens in their own country. The head scarf ban was probably seen as a slight against their culture as opposed to their religion. This is much more similar to LA Watts riots than the palestinian situation.
Another Jeff
It’s a fad here in the States too, but usually reserved for when your team wins either the NCAA Tournament, NBA Finals, or Super Bowl.
ape
anyway – there’s an easy response to stirrers like Erdogan –
ask him how many girls are involved in the rioting. they’re the ones affected by the ban. in truth, they are all, to a close approximation, quite happy about it.
Erdogan and his Islamists failed in Turkey, failed in Algeria, failed in Eygpt, failed in Afghanistan.. it is their proven inability to actually govern anywhere that means they can do not better than terrorism, or, in this case, ‘claiming’ events that have nothing to do with them.
demimondian
I also don’t think that this is about citizenship. Most of the rioters are second-generation residents, and thus are citizens. This is about racism, both explicit (Le Pen) and implicit (internal economic protectionism). The issues that people are talking about are symptoms of that racism.
Viewed in that light, Ergodan’s focus on the banning of the hijab is valid. That law, for all it talked about other religious symbols, was clearly aimed at head scarves in particular. It was an essentially racist law, and it did serve as an (unwarranted) slap in the face to the immigrant suburbs, where the hijab is both religious and cultural — in much the same way that “unobtrusive crosses” are.
CJ
Why is it that whenever Islamic people anywhere start acting the least bit uncivilized, folks seem to automatically dismiss whatever real or imagined slights might have given rise, at least in part, to their behavior in favor is simply condemning the uncivilized behavior?
Asking whether any girls/women are involved in the rioting, as if they were the only people affected by the ban, is a bit simiplistic, wouldn’t you agree?
CJ
Steve S
I was listening to the BBC last night. There was some French woman on, being asked by the Brit about the situation.
Basically this is the jist of what I got out of it.
It basically boils down to this strange belief by the French. They feel that when these people moved to France they needed to abandon their past culture. They are now french, they should behave like french.
The BBC journalist talked about how in America we have Africa-American, or Latino-Americans, German-Americans, etc….. recognizing the cultural differences of the melting pot. This does not exist in France.
This frustration appears to be at the heart of the issue. I don’t know what you call it. But it reminds me of my ex-girlfriend who explained in Russia there are two types of people. Those who are Russian, and those who are not. The implication being that those who were not Russian were the ethnic minorities who they had assimilated in the past(Mongols, Asians, Muslims, etc from the border -istan nations and such. Oh, and also Jews.). They were treated as second class citizens.
And what have you seen there? The istans broke off. Georgia broke off. Even Ukraine broke off, which you have to understand is a big deal to them because they feel that Russia started in Ukraine.
Oh yeah, and Chechnya… An area which Stalin tried to “purify” by sending all the locals to the gulags in Siberia. For some reason they’re still pissed off.
ape
If Men are p’d off about the head scarf ban and Women aren’t, this is proof that the Headscarf is a imposition of patriarchy, rather than a women’s (or a child’s) choice.
Men have no legitimate interest in whether women wear veils.
If men are worried than men may look at women in a lustful way, then the disabling intervention should fall upon men.
They should have to stay in the house, maybe wear helmets like Luke wears for practice in Star Wars. Or they should be instructed to be pious by looking at the ground.
Telling little girls that they have to wear hijabs etc.. but their brothers don’t is to tell them that they are inferior in terms of the law/ social regulations and there’s no two ways about it.
If any men are angry that their ability to control women is being challenged then that’s a bullet that we’ll all have to bite no matter what the consequences. Women’s freedom is not an optional adjunct of freedom, and no state which claims to uphold liberty can permit any compromise with it.
John S.
Behold, the 21st century ghetto lives.
But seriously, I don’t really think it is about racism. It seems to me that it is more about 1) class and 2) religion. Seeing as how the White French and the Arab French are both members of the caucasoid sub-classification, I don’t think the race card is being played.
I do see a lot of ethnocentrism by the “true” French versus the recently immigrated French, and a lot of the usual divisions caused by the rift between the have and have-nots. Add to that a little religious spat and you have the recipe for the disaster we see unfolding.
This was the very point I was trying to make in the other thread. In America, our primary divisions are still seen in terms of race (i.e. skin color) and increasingly in terms of wealth distribution. Our European counterparts do not struggle as much with skin color as much as they do with nationality and religion (and antiquated aristocratic sytems of wealth distributiion):
Northern Ireland vs. Ireland – Religion and Ethnicity
Bosnia vs. Serbia – Ethnicity and Religion
These are the two examples that leap out at me (I’m sure there are others), but I tend to think they illustrate that the primary cause of Europe’s struggles are not racial.
stickler
Erdogan sounds like he’s talking about France. He’s not. He’s an Islamist in Turkey, whose Islamist party was dissolved and who knows that his political career will be dissolved as well the moment the Army thinks he’s getting too far off the reservation.
I’ll bet that Erdogan was actually talking about Turkey, where the hijab is also now an issue, and where on many university campuses it is still forbidden. It was a hallmark of Ataturk’s nationalism in the 1920s that all Muslim garb disappear from public life — men wearing the fez and long skirtlike shirts, women in the hijab, etc. Since the 1990s, Islamists have made this a bone of contention.
To me, Erdogan is firing a shot across the Army’s bow: “See, even the sophisticated French can’t impose a ban on headscarves. The same resentment could happen here…”
David T. Beito
Both the right (who blame Islam) and the left (who blame the free market (in France?) and lack of racial preferences) miss the mark.
The riots are a logical byproduct of France’s “generous” welfare/regulatory state. For decades, the the French government has packed the poor into public housing, destroyed potential jobs through regulations, belittled business values, the work ethic, and the “maintained” these dependents as wards of the state. Should it be any surprise that these conditions have led to idleness, resentment, anger and finally riots?
demimondian
John S. — You’re being disingenuous. Racism has nothing to do with biology or physical anthropology. As far as either of those disciplines is concerned, there’s no objective correlate for “race”. Racism has to do with enthnicity, which is frequently, but not always, associated with appearance.
John S.
Demimondian-
Why do you immediately jump to a personal attack by calling me disingenous (which in fact I am not, since I believe every damn word I wrote)? I could have started off by calling you a stupid asshole, but I don’t think this is an appropriate way to kick off a dialogue.
Never mind the fact that you offer NOTHING that even remotely comes close to making a logical argument that completely refutes my points. Let’s be clear about some actual definitions of the terms we are throwing around:
rac·ism n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Now if you want to argue the merit of your point based on the fact that race is defined as:
1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
Then I can concede there is a racist element at play here based on the second definition. However we can see that your claim of:
Is false. Furthermore, as I mentioned, I can agree with your assertion that:
It’s just that I happen to see this situation more accurately described as ethnocentrism rather than straight up racism (since I happen to see the latter as more the first definition of race rather than second).
You however seem to prefer writing off people’s arguments when they don’t agree with you by insulting them. I have no use for people such as you.
scs
I heard an Australian official on TV last night who was talking about disrupting therecent potential terrorist attack in Australia. He said that the Austrailians had had information for a while about the Ramadan rioting in France and had warned France repeatedly. Haven’t heard much about it on the news since. But if true, it seems that this may be not as spontaneous as it first seemed.
demimondian
John S. — you are being disingenuous. Repeat after me: there is no valid biological or anthropological notion of race. Here’s a simple question: is the child of an interractial marriage between a white woman and a black man white or black? If you were honest, you answered “black”.
The problem is that biologically and anthropologically, the correct answer is to point out that the question itself is nonsensical: the child is neither white nor black.
neil
He’s right — the ban on Muslim headscarves _is_ relevant, but because it is one of many explicit signals of disrespect that the French government doles out on a regular basis. Religious respect is one of the changes France needs to make — it is what has kept America safe, anyway.
John S.
Demimondian-
You are now lying to attempt to overcome the fact that your claim is wrong. Repeat after me: Racism is discrimination based on race. Race is defined as a local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
Here’s an answer to your strawman question: A child of a black and white parent is racially BOTH black and white because they would have the genetically transmitted physical characteristics of both parents.
I agree that the question is nonsensical, but no more nonsensical than your conclusion that the child is neither white nor black, because in fact, the child is BOTH.
If you don’t like how race is defined, take it up with the folks that print the dictionary. Tell them that they are being disingenous, too, because you simply do not accept their definitions.
Addison
“Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has linked the ban on the wearing of Muslim head scarves in French schools to the unrest inflaming poor suburbs of French cities, according to a press report Monday.”
According to the Turks in school here – the headscarf is outlawed in Turkey, as well?
Sebastian Holsclaw
“Seeing as how the White French and the Arab French are both members of the caucasoid sub-classification, I don’t think the race card is being played.”
I don’t think you are being disingenuous, but I think your statement is wrong. Racism can be expressed in multiple visble and heritable traits which people choose to focus on. The fact (if it is a fact) that White French and Arab French are from what you see as a similar sub-classification doesn’t mean that they see each other in the same light.
John S.
Sebastian-
I suppose (as much as I have stated in my statements to demimondian) that it all hinges on how a person defines race, and there are many definitions. Therefore, my statement is correct inasmuch as how I view race, but may be wrong for you or anybody else based on how you see it.
The real question is whether the White French look down upon the Arab French (as we can surmise many of them do) as a result of 1) Ethnicity 2) Religion or 3) Social Class. And on the flipside, one has to wonder if the anger that the Arab French are expressing towards the White French is a result of 1) Ethnicity 2) Religion or 3) Social Class.
Not being French myself (either White or Arab), I cannot really answer what light they see each other in.
Darrell
All 3, and French prejudices are further exacerbated by the fact that unlike over here, a disproportionate amount of crime in France is committed by their muslims. Strange how muslims here in the US tend to be pretty much straight laced, whereas over in France, they are much more heavily involved in drugs, crime, and other anti-social behavior. Oh, and they tend to harass and rape women who don’t wear officially sanctioned religious clothing, and they also drive away/burn-to-the-ground French shops in their neighborhoods which sell pork. But there’s always the internet
John S.
Darrell, I love it when you paint those beautiful generalizations with your 2×4 of Truth®.