Islamic Propensity For Terrorism (Parisian Riots)

Ursula Plassnik, who opened the conference, warned on the other hand that the importance of faith is being overestimated: "The riots in France had nothing to do with Islam, but everything to do with youth unemployment. Muslim clerics have clearly spoken out against the violence."

Yep. And in that battle, I'm on the same side as you. I just dont agree that the French riots were particularly identifiable as part of that battle. There's several other obvious battles it is an expression of (ghetto vs police, poor vs rich, angry young men against everyone) that are at least as pertinent in understanding what happened - and what needs to be done now.

The danger with your perspective is that you seem to have started seeing everything as necessarily further manifestations of That One Battle. In such a perspective, one tends to start brushing aside all the details that do not fit the binary picture of the war that everything must be part of.

It is a narrowing of awareness that's had many manifestations in history as well: Communists who saw every fisticuff as an expression of the upcoming revolution; anti-Communists who, every time there was some popular demonstration, some riot, or some Third World uprising, succeeded in identifying the communists who could invariably be found somewhere in the masses, and concluded that it was another attempted Communist take-over. (Thats the obvious parallel.)

Current expressions of that distortion of perception by concentration of focus are Bush's mental categorisation of everyone as either with us or against us, and bin Ladens unwavering ability to place every unrest in the world in the context of the Jihadist struggle.

I do not think it is particularly an expression of "Factual Rational Explanation", however. The identification of the French street riots as an ut-Tahrir uprising for the Islamic Caliphate strikes me as lacking in fact and ratio, actually.

Lash wrote:

nimh--

Writing about the Muslim element of this story would be seen by politicians as lighting the fuse of what they are frantically trying to diffuse.

Wow, I never knew that the international media were such a tightly organised cabal with a stringently controlled common agenda ... you would have thought that in the ever-murderous competition for scoops and audience ratings, some TV station or newspaper would have exposed the overarching Hizb ut-Tahrir conspiracy thats been directing these multi-ethnic groups of dead-end youths across the country ... what discipline!

I'm sorry. I'm more than willing to acknowledge the threat in how Islamist extremists will capitalise on the whole situation (see my "pied piper" paragraph). But the suggestion that "these rioters" were a) Muslim (all the ghetto dwellers of other colours/backgrounds that appeared before camera lenses or microphones apparently constituting freak exceptions), b) organised by Islamist groups and c) out to establish an Islamic caliphate, and that all of that takes place without any of the commercial, competing press agencies etc picking up on it as the major context behind it, leaves me only with biting sarcasm to keep from crying...

Projection. Leaves you powerless.

it seems that a distressingly high proportion of Muslims in this country have chosen to support jihad, though few admit it openly.

steve said:

Quote:

it seems that a distressingly high proportion of Muslims in this country have chosen to support jihad, though few admit it openly.

But the question is, how can we credit this as a valid assumption?

steve

Not simple, this matter. I frequently argue that there is a radical version of christianity which has evolved in the US (for various historical and sociological reasons) which makes it a clear danger to a pluralist and democratic society. And, I've argued (along with many in Israel) that there is a version of Judaism there which presents similar dangers to that society. Pretty obviously, Muslim societies are beset by a radical version of that faith which presents equal or, it seems, even greater threats to civil and democratic arrangements.

It won't be easy sorting these things out. But let's not accept the invitations to hate.

Where do you think the media get all their quotes? I'm not ruffled or anything--or even trying to change your POV--but I'd just say that I'm sure you are well acquainted with talking points--and an administration can quite easily choose their words to give a certain perception.

But, I think it is a reasonable suggestion that the "millet" lifestyle--and the no-go status of many of these Muslim neighborhoods is the LEADING reason this began, and the leading reason it continues.

I don't understand why people seem afraid to admit this.

But real reportage is about journalists NOT relying on quotes and going out there themselves to find out whats going on.

And to my pleasant surprise there's been plenty of that, not just in European media but in American papers as well. The Spectator journalist Steve that mentioned was hardly the only one who "actually went there". One Molly Moore in the WaPo did a series of good reportage from within the French suburbs.

While other French cities were under curfew this weekend, Marseille suffered little violence during the flare-up that shook France. One night, arsonists torched 35 cars, but that was about the extent of it.

History is one source of this stability. While other cities fret about the arrival of immigrants over the past 50 years, Marseille has been a magnet for outsiders for well over 100. Residents say they miss the diversity when they leave their city: "France does not attract me," said Ghazi, whose family fled Haifa.

When he referred to France as something distinct from Marseille, he was not speaking loosely. In some ways, it is a pride typical in cities that existed independently for centuries - Barcelona and Naples, for example.

Unlike municipal leaders elsewhere, recent mayors of Marseille have given official recognition to communal diversity, rather than trying to fit everyone into one box of Frenchness.

One final element contributes to the peculiar cohesiveness of the city: No part of town is off-limits or off-putting to the poor. The stadium of wildly popular Olympique Marseille stands in a wealthy neighborhood, but hordes of fans from all social classes flock there without a second thought.

Muslim leaders denounced efforts to blame Islam for riots in France's rundown suburbs. Many rioters may have been Muslim, but their violence was a protest against unemployment, poor housing and discrimination, they said.

Some media abroad portrayed the violence as a kind of Muslim uprising. Some conservative politicians suggested radical Islamists were behind the unrest. When little proof for that emerged, some pointed to polygamy - which is illegal but practiced among an estimated 15,000 African immigrant families.

Many French Muslims are culturally Islamic but not very religious. French media mostly called the rioters "youths" while foreign media described them more frequently as Muslims. At a Vienna conference on Islam, speakers mentioned the riots together with last week's bombings in Amman, even though there was no link. In fact, French imams often sought out young rioters to calm them down.

Finding someone to blame is a hot issue because of looming elections. Most experts see it resulting from the failure by governments of both left and right to integrate immigrants in recent decades.

The head of the National Federation of French Muslims said leaders were concerned about the rioting but disagreed with how local officials turned to religious leaders: "We refuse to be sub-contractors". He said politicians should "stop Islamising all problems concerning Muslims ... We don't want to be the scapegoats for the failures of integration policy."

Lash wrote:

Where do you think the media get all their quotes? I'm not ruffled or anything--or even trying to change your POV--but I'd just say that I'm sure you are well acquainted with talking points--and an administration can quite easily choose their words to give a certain perception.

Quotes? Sure, never believe any official quotes at face value, and one of the reasons I dont like current US journalism is that it's often nothing but a he-said-she-said summary of this party's and that party's comments.

Code:I'm glad you see where I'm coming from on this aspect.

But real reportage is about journalists NOT relying on quotes and going out there themselves to find out whats going on.

And to my pleasant surprise there's been plenty of that, not just in European media but in American papers as well. The Spectator journalist Steve that mentioned was hardly the only one who "actually went there". One Molly Moore in the WaPo did a series of good reportage from within the French suburbs.

And the on-the-spot reporting I've read, relying on conversations with rioters, local residents, imams and policemen, overwhelmingly sketched a situation of random violence by angry but unfocused ghetto youths. Not a mention of bearded fundamentalists urging them on, but instead descriptions of how the local mosques actually tried to keep the youths at home, distributing leaflets, going door to door (perhaps not wholly charitably, but also to bolster their own social authority). Hell, the largest Muslim organisation in France issued a fatwa against the riots.

Code:This is where we differ. I've seen on-the-scene reports or violence in Lyons, when the gov said it hadn't happened. I've also seen stories about a network of Muslims planning for the riots by computer. I'm not tlking about some terrorist hierarchy. I'm talking about young Muslims. I base my opinion on what I see and hear, just like you do. I've heard reportage and seen footage that belied the French gov's issued statements that the past night had neglible violence. We saw pictures and heard local commentary.

(Odd how, back when the mosques did not immediately issue a fatwa against terrorist violence on 9/11 and elsewhere, many here were indignant about why they "didnt speak up" - but now that they did, rapidly, it's just glossed over.)

Code:You must have missed it. Close to the beginning of I think Steve's 'Bombing in London" thread, several members, including me, acknowledged it. You seem to think I WANT this to be true. That's incomprehensible to me. I THINK it is true, based evidence I've seen

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I mean, I must have read dozens of reports in different countries' newspapers from the rioting neighbourhoods themselves, and I just havent gotten any of what Steve mentioned. It seems like a template of expectation thats rather forcibly imposed on the French riots.

Code:This is precisely what has happened to you. A template of automatic assumption of expectation.

Lash wrote:

But, I think it is a reasonable suggestion that the "millet" lifestyle--and the no-go status of many of these Muslim neighborhoods is the LEADING reason this began, and the leading reason it continues.

I don't understand why people seem afraid to admit this.

The no-go status of these, what you call "Muslim" neighbourhoods, is definitely the underlying reason for the riots, but the no-go status, IMO, springs primarily from massive unemployment, disaffection with the majority society, police violence, gang culture, discrimination and even spatial separation from mainstream society - not from the "millet lifestyle".

Code:...and further down the chain is one of the leading reasons Muslims aggregate in millets, as well as why they aren't hired or accepted. The (earned) stereotype of a worker who "can't follow this job duty", or "that aspect of the job" [U]because of his religion[/U], and he MUST pray five times a day. Does he have to take a ritualistic bath, too, after each prayer? You wanna hire one?? Their religion dictates they cannot accept someone of another religion--how does that work in the workplace? Their (fundamentalist's) women are not allowed to benefit from equal rights--so the men will not subject themselves to secular law. How would you like Abdul throwing rocks at the female working beside him, or OK, maybe just calling her a whore, because of how she's dressed? These are VALID complaints by prospective employers. Can you imagine leading a sensitivity training session with some of these guys. :lol: You saw what happened with something as simple as a headscarf. They will protect their ritualistic mutilation of their daughters--especially more recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The percentage of girls mutilated there is in the 90th percentile!! It pisses me off. If this were a band of white neo-nazis doing this to their children and wives, you would demand the gov to stop it immediately. Don't think family services will protect these children. They reject secular law--and they can't be allowed to do so. A fundamentalist Muslim cannot exist under secular law. Another foundational reason for the segregation is most Muslims have been shielded from life as it is in the first world--of course, you know. Advertisements, billboards alone must cause yelling and praying and great fiery speeches in Mosques of the first world countries receiving Islamic immigrants. We all know this is true. Because of the previous shielding from "sex sells" and "women showing knee", when these people enter a first world country, I can't imagine the culture shock. They can go two ways. Assimilate and liberalise their religion, or harden their fundamentalism.

Code:Those aspects, in my opinion, are central to the no-go problem. Why would disaffected youths force liquor stores out of neighborhoods?

There are definitely Muslim-specific elements to the troubles in these communities - for sure. Communities do leave their cultural mark, after all. For example, the large-scale violence against women in the banlieues (I'll post an item about that in a minute). But for these ghettoes to have become no-go areas nobody needed the Muslim element - massive discrimination, unemployment, poverty and crime does that quite easily by itself, as the situation in your country's black ghettoes shows.

As you knew, Walter, my evidence is from the news.

Call me silly, but I also don't imagine a kid planning violence is going to tell you--