Islamic Rioting in France

Are the assimilation problems one-sided?

Apart from poverty, feminists say the dominance of traditional cultures among families of Arab and black African origin, combined with the growing role of Islam in the suburbs, have contributed to the harsh treatment girls get there.

Pressure is mounting for Muslim women to wear veils. Forced marriages that snatch them from college and career -- where they do much better than their male schoolmates -- are on the rise.

The support group "Ni Putes, Ni Soumises" ("Neither Whores nor Submissives") says the number of forced marriages has risen in recent years, with roughly 70,000 girls pressured into unwanted relationships each year in France.

link

It would seem no matter what they want to force their traditions even if members of the community choose to become more “western”. To complain about not being treated like a citizen and then lash at your own community for becoming more “western” is hypocrisy..

I’m just saying the issue here is deeper than people not being treated fairly.




[edit on 10-11-2005 by CogitoErgoSum1]

Originally posted by CogitoErgoSum1
It would seem no matter what they want to force their traditions even if members of the community choose to become more “western”.

- Some of that is a predictable and natural (and often seen) backlash against what some take to be an erosion of identity and culture.

It is an especially difficult subject in France because the French have an unusually determined approach where everybody is simply a French citizen and that is that (collecting stats about 'ethnic groups' for instance is something banned by French law).

It is a completely different idea than the British one of 'multi-culturalism'.

(and so much for those who claim assimilation is the answer to all ills).

To complain about not being treated like a citizen and then lash at your own community for becoming more “western” is hypocrisy.

- No, I don't think that is the point at all.

A large part of this is all about not being treated like any other citizen when it comes to opportunity, living standards and the day to day treatement by your supposedly fellow citizens.

But I also think cultures have a complete right to maintain their identity, within the law.
(clearly if you try and claim you culture entitles you to slaughter the first born whenever you feel like it you're in major trouble in any society etc etc)

But once again, let's just stop the nonsense and take a bit of time to tune into reality and wake up to what really happens (with every 'people').
This is nothing new.

When under what they see as threat (especially away from their 'native land') the tendancy is to become 'more *xyz* than the *xyz*' and is a 'defence mechanism' regularly seen......even amongst Europeans.

(Witness the 'more British than the British' in India during the time of the Raj, for instance)

I’m just saying the issue here is deeper than people not being treated fairly.

- Well of course, you're right, it is indeed a complex and layered problem but I think ignoring the obvious factual social aspects to go chasing theoretical religious shadows is really to waste ones' time and effort.


[edit on 10-11-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

The Rioters are not Muslim. Because of stereotypical racism people are labeling them as Islamic and Muslim . most are 3 generation French...!

Originally posted by marivingian
The Rioters are not Muslim. Because of stereotypical racism people are labeling them as Islamic and Muslim . most are 3 generation French...!

They are still muslim in the same way that I'm a Christian, even though I don't go to church.

Quit trying to pretend that these are not muslims who are doing this.
You don't have to walk around with prayer beads and a Koran to be a muslim.

Well, some enterprising person is trying to cash in on this by selling French rioter action figures on Ebay.


He is young, angry , and unemployed. Turn him loose and your other figures will struggle for weeks to stop him.
CUSTOM FRENCH RIOTER FIGURE WITH MOLOTOV ONE OF A KIND


Pretty funny actually

Originally posted by AceOfBase
They are still muslim in the same way that I'm a Christian, even though I don't go to church.

So then the inference would be that they are not that concerned with Islam, just as with Englands Christian population it is just something that you happen to be born into rather than any particularly strong conviction you hold yourself. Rather it is just a convenient bandwagon for people to jump on exploiting the current 'War on Terror' climate. I agree. So the root cause of this rioting would be something else, perhaps frustration at the situation they find themselves in?

Clichy's 'les miserables'

He listed the rampant unemployment, heavy-handed policing, discrimination, poor housing and a concentration of large numbers of immigrants from North and West Africa, along with their descendents.

Many feel that the state ignores them at best and at worst stands in the way of their attempts to escape the estates....

Grievances

The run-down, graffiti-ridden tower-blocks, some with broken and boarded-up windows, stretch for miles and miles.

Those who live there say that when they go for a job, as soon as they give their name as "Mamadou" and say they live in Clichy, they are immediately told that the vacancy has been taken.






French govt meets over riots

The violence has been seen as the expression of pent-up anger by youths, many Muslims of North African and black African origin, at police treatment, racism, unemployment and their marginal place in French society.

"Violence is not a solution," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, accused of stoking passions by calling troublemakers "scum", told reporters after the Villepin meeting.

"Once the crisis is over, everyone will have to understand there are a certain number of injustices in some neighbourhoods. We are trying to be firm and avoid any provocation. We have to avoid any risk of explosion," he said.






Sarkozy pledges police crackdown after riots in Paris

"This isn't how we resolve these problems," a former Socialist prime minister, Laurent Fabius, said on French radio. "We need to act at the same time on prevention, education, housing, jobs ... and not play the cowboy."






French unrest spreads outside Paris


The unrest started on October 27 when young people of mainly north or black African origin took to the streets over the deaths of two teenagers - Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17 - who were electrocuted in a power substation where they hid thinking they were being chased by police.

Bouna's brother, Siyakah Traore, today called for the rioters to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," he told RTL radio.

The rioting has grown into a broader challenge for the French state. It has laid bare discontent simmering in suburbs that are heavily populated by poor African Muslim immigrants and their French-born children, many trapped by poverty, crime and poor education...







Youths torch 900 cars in Paris riots

``The movement is mainly directed against the institutions of the republic _ but it does not have any ethnic character,'' he (Mr Sarkozy) added.

However, most observers and sociologists say that the unrest is the result of 30 years of France's failed integration policies.

Experts believe long-simmering resentment over government neglect, high unemployment and relegation to ghetto-like suburbs provided dry tinder for the flare-up of violence among the largely North African and African immigrant communities.






Paris violence spreads

The violence - sparked after the Oct. 27 accidental electrocution of two teenagers who believed police were chasing them in Seine-Saint-Denis - has laid bare discontent simmering in France's poor suburbs ringing big cities. Those areas are home to large populations of African Muslim immigrants and their children living in low-income housing projects marked by high unemployment, crime and despair.

In none of the links above will you see anyone [tulip walkers or otherwise ] justifying the recent troubles, even with the most determined intent. Instead you will read of genuine concerns and an honest want to determine the ultimate cause of these riots in the hope of preventing any future outbreaks. I can't find 'Greedy, lazy Muslim immigrants riot for free stuff'

I hope the words of Bouna Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore are noted too. Someone far closer to this than any of us.

Jak

There is a very simple solution to all the ills that have befallen on the world, and it is the eradication of the following:

a. Islam
b. Muslims
c. Arabs
d. Immigrants
e. Foreigners
f. Indigenous peoples

When the entire cosmos has been rid of the of all of the above, only then will it be safe for habitation by those who feel that they are the rightful owners.

this is ridiclulous, please, since you apparently know everything better than us 'racists' (duh, noone used 'Xenophobe' yet, what's up?), will you kindly enlighten us what rioting Turks, Palestinians and, north African Arabs have in common?

from article
...
Two of them are Turks, and it is the first time, that Turks and Palestinians act together, the 19-year-old says.
...

i asked this question before (although i used 'Muslim', apparently a word on political 'prescription' now), tbh, i don't care what you call it, suggest another term, i'm all ears!

The young rioters are not practising Islam and did not riot because of Islam, but they respect Islam.
And Islam as a philosophy of life tells them that they live in an impure land (dar-al-harb, the land where it is allowed to make war). With the help of Islam, they come to believe that they live in a void, that they are not surrounded by others (real living people like them), by political realities that they don't understand.
Islam certainly is not helping them.