The Bells of Ys 2
Francis Fukuyama writes about the Paris riots in Opinion Journal. He says the enemy is us.
We have tended to see jihadist terrorism as something produced in dysfunctional parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Middle East, and exported to Western countries. Protecting ourselves is a matter either of walling ourselves off, or, for the Bush administration, going "over there" and trying to fix the problem at its source by promoting democracy.
There is good reason for thinking, however, that a critical source of contemporary radical Islamism lies not in the Middle East, but in Western Europe. In addition to Bouyeri and the London bombers, the March 11 Madrid bombers and ringleaders of the September 11 attacks such as Mohamed Atta were radicalized in Europe. In the Netherlands, where upwards of 6% of the population is Muslim, there is plenty of radicalism despite the fact that Holland is both modern and democratic. And there exists no option for walling the Netherlands off from this problem.
He might be right, but think about what the proposition does to his thesis of the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy: it locates the seeds of its destruction in the same place as its strengths. No longer is it possible to simply contain radical Islamism the way one would a cheap copy of 20th century Bolshevism and await the inevitable vindication of events. In order to survive against Islam, the West, at least its European branch, has to reform itself.
Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.
Commentary
The Opinion Journal piece illustrates [in my opinion] a theory in transition, a point of view being held together by a patch. Is it possible to "reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists" and then "reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds"? Or isn't that rather like taking two aspirins prior to massaging your head with a claw hammer? Nevertheless, Mr. Fukuyama's article is a welcome sign that the "police action" policy towards radical Islamic terrorism is following the "earth is flat" theory into its final intellectual moments.
The events in France may turn out to have a greater strategic impact than September 11. French policies, however maddening, had the virtue of serving as the control case to the American experiment of attempting to reform the Islamic world. The latter acknowledged, however shyly, that it was facing an aggression which had to be met at the root; which had to be resolved by building viable societies in Islamic homelands. The former, and France in particular, maintained there was nothing that temporizing and appeasement, in one form or another, could not solve. What events in France have done is discredit the liberal recipe so badly that even those who are not prepared to admit that American policy may have been right must now root around for an alternative theory. Fukuyama's essay is a good step in that direction. Faster please.
More Commentary
More reading has made me more familiar with the purely 'social' aspects of the Parisian rioting, i.e. hidden French racism, the failure of its economy to efficiently create jobs, etc. Juan Cole, for example, sees events in Paris as a simple "race riot". Others see it as the consequence of the French social model. From that point of view, the "Islamic" aspects are purely coincidental or of minor importance in comparison to the 'real' causes.
One argument for derogating the Islamic factor has been the absence, so far, of any direct link to terrorist masterminds. It could be counter-argued that Islam figures more broadly by fostering a sense of apartness or entitlement, etc. which then provokes the resented discrimination. I'll leave these caveats as they are for the readers to think about, although I am personally unpersuaded that Islamic cultural factors are irrelevant to the disturbances in France.
posted by wretchardthecat at 11/02/2005 10:24:00 PM
50 Comments:
Strongly recommend Dalrymple's essay "The Suicide Bombers Among Us" at City-Journal.org for a further dissection of the disconnect between Western (British) culture and Muslim youth.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html
ghoullio - bin Laden is/was a gazillionaire. Mohammad Atta, et al, were well-educated upper-middle class. Most the Saudi terrorists are also wealthy. Poverty gots nothing to do with nothing.
ghoullio -- and the 4 London mujahadeen were also middle-class and one of them climbed out of a newly purchased red Mercedes convertible to strap on his bomb/back-pack.
ghoullio,
There is that aspect to it -- the economic one, the racist one. And that in part flows from the idea that postwar Europe could augment its demography by importing people and never turning them into "true" Frenchmen, for ideological and economic reasons. It was cheaper to leave them as they were, and more picturesque too.
Now Europe needs the Muslims. The demography admits of no alternative, unless some French politician proposes to abolish the 35-hour week, or social welfare. The entire edifice of that welfare state is built, in part, on the poorly paid Muslim; men who will continue to be poorly paid because it is insensitive to turn them into regular educated Frenchmen. This process was called enlightened social policy. If the French were ever good at anything, it was perfume.
But now the bulbs are beginning to dim. And for a variety of reasons the Muslims are angry and those dinky little government benefits don't cut it any more.
About the radical Islamism:
The following conversation took place the afternoon of the London bombing on BBC radio. The BBC host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company. Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official.
A Coincidence?
POWER: At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now.
HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this, and it happened while you were running the exercise?
POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning. We planned this for a company, and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met. And so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one, and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking.
Mr. Power repeats these statements on ITN television. The two-minute video clip is available here.
ghoullio,
The Watts rioters of the 60s didn't have a global identity though people like Malcolm X thought they might. The Civil Rights movement was really part of a much longer historical cycle that included Abolition, the Civil War and beyond. The people who rioted in Watts were probably descended from people who had been in America four or five generations. What they were fighting for was part of the American dream.
Maybe the key difference is that the Paris rioters don't want the European package; the job, the atheism, the vacation. Perhaps they want belief, transcendance, family. Perhaps they want Islam. They want a different dream.
The next few days will probably see Villepin offering more of the same. Apologies, a rise in benefits, some new housing, restrictions on police. I'd be surprised if it got Villepin anything in return but contempt. The bread they want may not be the bread he can give them.
Cedarford,
Islam brings it on. It's impossible to ignore them. Not facing them (I won't saying confronting) is not an option. Retreat from Iraq, meet them in Detroit. If you can't make Algiers like Paris, then Paris can become like Algiers.
It is perfectly possible to coexist with Islam provided that you have beliefs of your own. They will keep their distance if you are worth respecting. The longer this goes on, the more I start to suspect that the War is less the result of Islam's militance; it has always been so, as about the West's neurosis. Islam, by all indications, deserves to survive. Does Europe?
It is customary for many Europeans to criticize American imperial hubris. But I think that the real hubris in the West remains in its natural home: Western Europe. How was it anything less than colossal hubris for Europeans, whose history is one of almost continual inter-tribal slaughter, to imagine that they could absorb without tragedy millions of not only culturally, ethnically and religiously alien people, but culturally, ethnically and religiously inimical people? In the US, with our founding mythology of newness and immigration, even we find it a huge strain to incorporate immigrants, but we do it because it is who we are. It is not who Europeans are (nor indeed most humans). I fear that Fukiyama's call for a post-ethnic national identity there is ungrounded in reality. A disastrous clash between Europe and Eurabia may be unavoidable, with many Theo Van Gough's on both sides. Idealism which outstrips reality always leads to disaster.
And while I'm at it, this is another one of Fukuyama's half-right theories. Remember the End of History? Why do people read this guy?
Seventh night of violence hits Paris suburbs:
At a nearby market stall, Mouloud, 70, said he was deeply shocked by the interior minister's comments last month, when he vowed to "clean up" the "rabble" in the suburbs, using a water-cannon.
"For Sarkozy, people are dirt," he charged.
For the most part, as in previous nights, calm was restored in the restive areas before dawn.
7th Night
Cedarford,
In principle, you are right. Practically speaking the Muslims are now part of the scenery. Strategy Unit is quoting some pundits who argue that Europe will now oppose the US more resolutely and offer more concessions because they "fear" their Islamic street, a street which has substantial voting power. Stragegy Unit says Europe will compensate, to some extent, by increasing police surveillance, etc.
I don't know how things will turn out, but the scenario of more concessions balanced by a growing police apparatus is a pretty volatile mix.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Wretchard writes: Islam, by all indications, deserves to survive. Does Europe?
Islam does not "survive". Islam is death by definition. But Europe does deserve to survive. Europe contributed to our civilization more than most. If Europe wants to rest now, it deserves to do so in peace. To keep Islam, the Grim Ripper, ever waiting in a dark corner, ready for its victim(s) to tire and fall asleep so it can to do its ghastly deed, is a discredit and a disgrace to those of us still awake and have our eyes open. Europe deserves its days of Sabbath. We all deserve our days of rest!
And Wretchard, if you haven't seen it yet, I'd like to bring your attention to an excellent post by Michael McCanles on "The Long War" thread. (7:56 AM).
Interestingly, there is nothing on my RSS feed from Reuters about anything in Paris. They do note that that are protests against Bush in some major US cities, however.
Could the riots in Paris be connected to the recent banning of the headscarf in France? Banning religious headdress all over the West would be huge as I state in my blog:
BLOODLESS CULTURAL LINCHPINS OF ISLAMIC FASCIST TERRORISM
The violent subjegation of women is an integral part of the lethal supremisist script of Islamofascism world domination.
Whoops I meant supremacist
Out of sight, out of mind. When a story appears that does not fit the story line, well, the MSM can just ignore it 'til it goes away.
If they have a story line and no story, they can fabricate it. Inaccurate but possible, the "new" standard for the News.
There is an element of truth in the "we have met the enemy, and he's us" ideas that Fukiyama's article put's forth. But it is not the whole truth.
Just as in Iraq, we are both part of the cause, as well as the solution, to the challenges there.
As we have been discussing, our system puts greater risks upon the individual, but allows for much greater rewards. The Mohammedan and to a lesser extent European systems attempts to limit the risks an individual may take, claiming "Social Justice" in redistributing "wealth", but leaves the rewards to the elite.
This is exampled by the French "Summer of Death", where a heat wave killed over 10,000 elderly, while the Government officials where at the beach, on Holiday.
Makes the Katrina death toll look tame by comparison and the Government's response to the hurricane, at ALL levels, spectacular. Even the NO Mayor, he stayed on the job, in the City, rather than fly to Aspen for the "Summer Season".
Algiers has come to Paris. How appropriate, cosmic karma or divine justice?
Is it social evolution, the normal ebb and flow of history or is it intelligent design, events flowing along a predetermined path to a prophesied outcome?
I think perhaps the main opposition to even the "treating of the symptom" approach taken in Europe and the U.S. is what it implies on a broader scale about treasured liberal concepts.
1. Multiculturalism doesn't work, bceause some cultures have no right to exist and should be eradicated.
2. All Men are not equal. Some are dirtbags.
3. Military power is an absolute necessity for the survival of polite society.
4. The world operats in more of a Hobbsian way than a Marxist way.
5. Given all of the above "conservative" principles are a necessity.
Recognition of all of these facts would send their world crashing down - even more than it has over the last 20 years.
I.E. The Asprin and Hammer treatment are merely fruitless attempts to avoid surgery for the tumor.
BTW - What on earth are the indications that Islam, in your opinion, deserves to survive?
Because they're willing to fight for their existence and nine times out of ten, that beats the side that is unwilling to fight for its existence. Should Europe decide their way of life is worth preserving then other factors, such as worth may come into play.
But worth alone does not guarantee survival. Nothing survives simply because it is beautiful.
Well, yes, we did allow the Mohammedans to believe they could attack US with impunity. They have been doing so for decades, with out sufficent response.
From the Collapse of the Shah, through the Hostage taking by Iran, the Oil Embargo, Somalia, Yeman, Ghadafi's disco and plane bombers, the first attack on the WTC, aQ's African attacks on US Embassies, the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, the bombings of US sites in KSA, USS Cole, etc. The list is almost endless, of US and "Western" submission to assualts committed by Mohammedan Soldiers of God.
We have yet to prove our mettle, in this new millenium. The Mohammedans are at least acting on their believes, we act as if we are ashamed of ours.
That really is the crux of the battle, in Iraq, the broader Mohammedan world, Europe and even here within US.
The Mohammedans make no apologies because they are firm in their convictions and rightousness, we constantly apologize for acts that require none.
The Mohammedans have a Goal and are acting to make it happen, we do not articulate a Goal, a definition of Victory, and are weaker for it.
DO,
I'd find it hard to dispute your argument that "social" rather than religious factors are at work behind the riots because a variety of attributes like religion, ethnicity and income are packaged together. Positively correlated, if you like.
That means you can use any one of these attributes in your model and get roughly the same explanatory power. The press, for example, describes the root cause of the riots as "racism" and others as "unemployment". Even when you expand the frame of reference and ask, why similar but smaller riots are taking place in Denmark, you can say racism also, social alienation also and have a viable argument.
It is quite possible to describe the Arab-Israeli problem, indeed the Abu Sayaf problem in terms of economic disadvantage and it would be hard to rebut as statement of correlation.
Do we have the causal arrows right? I'm not sure. But my instinct says that Islam, not in its strictly religious sense, but in its larger cultural sense, plays a big part in this equation. That's why many rioters use it to characterize their identity and one should take them at their word.
do
how are the ethnic groups divided? Country of origin, race or religion?
Is it just the Algierians rioting or is it "all" the "Arabs" or all the "darkies" or just the Mohammedans, with the Christian Africans staying home?
Are the riots in suburbs or slums?
Are there suburban slums in France?
Is Paris Burning?
You report the fires are in ghettos outside the City Center, from W's aerial photo the rioting seems wide spread, how far are the airports from the City?
desert rat,
It doesn't cover a solid area, rather a narrow arc that looks like a giant right parentheses on the map. It's hard to show because I can't get a good inline image on the blog.
The Washington Post suggests the phenomenon is more complex than a straight religious conflict:
"Many of the residents of the northern suburban areas where the violence has been most intense are Muslim. The street fighting threatened to take on religious overtones Sunday when a police tear gas canister was thrown inside a mosque where about 700 worshipers were taking part in prayers. Local Islamic leaders said they have attempted to persuade local youths -- particularly Muslims -- to refrain from violence."
As can be seen from the quote, many pleas for calm by imams are disregarded and the kids are listening to another piper. Islam being a world religion, it is many things to many people. But alienated people full of anger often look for an identity, a banner to rally under. Give people a banner and they will march under it. Nations have been formed on the basis of less.
Wretchard,
And some people are born under banners that lead them to alienation and anger.
I saw a piece of this in The Australian yesterday. Fukuyama's (he of the-end-of-history fame) notion that The Netherlands and Britain
...need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds...
is about as wrong-headed as he can get. And he's had some doozers. In a retrospective on Theo van Gogh and the eruptions in Europe in the year since his death, I took note of a Netherland's "inclusionary" ruling: they are now going to permit something called the samenlevingscontract...in other words polygamy is now legal.
Dalrymple had is right (in 2004). Multi-culti is a dishonest pretension:
The multiculturalist preaches that, in an age of mass migration, society can (and should) be a kind of salad bowl, a receptacle for wonderful exotic ingredients from around the world, the more the better, each bringing its special flavor to the cultural mix. For the salad to be delicious, no ingredient should predominate and impose its flavor on the others...
Bah. As he says, they're frivilous. And to me, that included Theo van Gogh. It's what got him slaughtered.
Here's my take:
The Multi-Culti Death Trap
The Jacksonian American-flavored problem solving approach may have its flaws, but it has the Darwinian advantage of not being a death sentence.
~D
"The next few days will probably see Villepin offering more of the same. Apologies, a rise in benefits, some new housing, restrictions on police. I'd be surprised if it got Villepin anything in return but contempt."
While I agree with much of the analysis here pinning the Paris riots on Muslims, it should also be noted that the toxic combination of measures favoring older people at the expense of the young extends much more broadly across Europe.
My niece lives in one of the wealthiest villages in England, yet as is typical across the whole country it has its own vicious and unruly underclass of uneducated, mostly unemployed youths living on state benefits. The local authorities built them a youth recreation center in an effort to divert them from their favorite pastime of stealing cars. They immediately smashed a stolen car into it and burned it down.
This is superior to the actions of Paris' Muslim immigrants exactly how?
As for your first commenter's remark about them living in ghettoes, he ought to visit some of the rural compounds of Jihad extremists in America. They wall themselves off from the world.
At least for the moment...
As for the links between terrorism and poverty, Osama is anything but poor. The killers in the 9/11 planes all came from middle-class or better homes. Atta had a college degree.
That is definitely an out-moded theory, though it doesn't stop getting preached. I read it in a Saudi newspaper a few months ago. Almost fell off the chair laughing.
Poverty causes terrorism?? Right. Marx lives!
Meme Chose,
Of course the two phenomena are related. The income and generational redistribution policies you describe are part of the dual of the problem. If ethnic Europeans can't sign on to the faceless welfare state without being alienated; when all that state offers in the way of personal fulfillment is a cheesey youth center then why should Muslim immigrants embrace that condition?
Young people are looking for something to live for, something worthy of their dreams. Islam may not provide any billiard tables, but they hand out heady visions by the bushel. The welfare state, on the other hand, creates the incentive for memoryless behavior. The welfare check comes at the price of what used to be called the soul.
Allowing/encouraging any demographic group to "fail to assimilate" is a recipe for societal failure.
Societies are held together by a universally accepted set of social contracts.
I.E. State provided education will prepare you sufficiently to get a job.
Basic manners will ensure that an interaction with someone outside of your tribe will be at least neutral.
Without a clear cut set of "Rules of the Game" enforced and enunciated clearly, those demographic groups with different "rules to the game" will fail in any society where they are not the dominant culture.
By encouraging minority groups to retain their cultural identity, the minority group is left with the only option of attempting to become the dominant culture.
Multi-culturalism is fine for University Profressors. For the poor kid who's opportunities in life will extend as far as semi-skilled employment, it is a dismal failure.
Why should the Dutch, the French or the Brits abandon their cultural identity for the sake of criminals? The idea is nothing more than appeasement in spades.
The population of Muslims in these countries arrived there for one reason only: economic opportunity. Now, some generations later, if they find themselves at the mercy of the welfare state, it is a result of the choices they made. For them to blame it on the culture they CHOSE to become a part of is crazy.
Islam is not a religion of peace nor was it ever. It is all about bullying others into submission of their own worldview. The alternative for those fortunate enough to be given a choice, is death.
This mindset is now being played out in Europe only because these immigrants feel they have the POWER to overcome their hosts. They are nothing if not patient and opportunistic. If the west does not summon the will to resist them in kind, the results will eventually be theirs to determine.
The world wide asymetrical war continues. The opfor, without uniform or rank, masses and disperses at will. Still protected by each host country's "Civil Rights". What was once a shield for the public from oppresive Government becomes a club to be beaten with. Well not for to long.
Scratch the veneer of civilization from the current crop of Europeans, the Barbarians of the past lurk beneath. The Elites of Europe are more afraid of the ghosts of their past than they are of the Mohammedans. The people, well they can be led astray for only so long.
As Mr Lincoln said:
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time."
A few more riots, bombings and school siezures and the Franks will find a new Charlemagne to lead them. To Victory hopefully.
Its comforting to know that the Person who declared the end of history a smidgen early is again wowing us with his acumen. I remain unimpressed but then again I have a minority view that the problem isnt the conditions that Islam finds itself that cause its horrible behavior. But Islams horrible behavior that causes the conditions it finds itself in.
Long before there was such a thing as modernity Islam was wrecking havoc against humans. One need only ask the Hindu's how they feel about the Muslims. Or perhaps one might question the Armenians if one can find enough of them left over from the great massacre of which we cannot speak officially lest we upset Turkey, that pillar of Islamic moderation.
Until the problem is identified as Islam itself all the rest of this is spinning wheels and burying your head in the sand.
Pierre Legrand
From that point of view, the "Islamic" aspects are purely coincidental or of minor importance in comparison to the 'real' causes.
Many of the arrested people I have seen in photos have been black. Are these neighborhoods primarily Muslim, or are there non-Muslims, say from French West Africa, participating as well? The latter would favor a broader indictment with respect to France and all its nonwhites, rather than an exclusively Islamist explanation. During the assault on those high-school marchers in Paris some months back there were at least as many blacks as Arabs, although I suppose most of the former could've been Muslim too.
In London the Mohammedans bus bomb attack, British involvement in Iraq was reportedly at the "root" of their motivation. In France, which with threat of veto kept US from a UN Resolution to use Force in Iraq, economic and political discrimination is the "root" cause of Mohammedan violence.
They are only rioting, now, because they have been called "SCUM" that needed to be "Cleaned Out". Yeah, that is reason to fire bomb a Police Station, alright.
If only the Government had been more polite, nothing would have happened.
Blame the victim, just choose your victims carefully. The Mohammedans will play the oppressed victims of Gaullic/ European discrimination.
European Intafada, if not now, when?
I don't think the composition of race riots or Muslim riots is really that different. Both depend on group instead of individual identity, both use awareness of ostensible status as a foundation for grievances, a status that is conferred to the group and therefore transmuted to the individual. Segregation heightens this perception of collective grievance, and also reinforces the group identity at the expense of the individual's.
Sociologically, the conditions are the same for both types of unrests. It is dangerous to combine group identity, segregation, descrimination, and grievances within walking distance of their causes. The determinative variables, if one starts with the premise that a group is in fact subject to the above situations, are the strength of that particular group identification and the immediacy or primacy of the catalyzing injury.
Islam is unique because it is so successful at supplanted the self with the ideas and loyalties of "Muslimness," which, as Wretchard points out, provides a reckless vitality to Islamic mass movements. It is a lesson worth learning, because if one has a Muslim minority exposed to the sociological tripwires mentioned above, the admixture is uniquely toxic and flammable and might be uncontainable once ignited.
So the answer is that the riots are sociological in their origins, but specifically Muslim in the intensity of their manifestations.
Islam gives sanctuary to the restless youth, an identity and a salve that embraces terror, destruction, and craven acts of murder. It is inevitable, whatever the French government does, that the seeds of resentment and further radicalization will flourish. The French left and right will first tear each other to pieces.
Meanwhile, the US and French intelligence has set up a counter part to al Qaeda, called Alliance Base.
“…a top secret center in Paris, code-named Alliance Base, that was set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002, according to U.S. and European intelligence sources. Its existence has not been previously disclosed.”
…
“Such joint intelligence work has been responsible for identifying, tracking and capturing or killing the vast majority of committed jihadists who have been targeted outside Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to terrorism experts.”
…
“To play down the U.S. role, the center's working language is French, sources said. The base selects its cases carefully, chooses a lead country for each operation, and that country's service runs the operation.”
…
“In France, which has a Muslim population reaching 8 percent -- the largest in Europe -- U.S. and French terrorism experts are desperate to take terrorist-group recruiters and new recruits off the streets, and have been willing to put their own anti-terrorism laws into the service of allies to lure suspects such as Ganczarski from abroad.”
…
The French, being the sophisticated diplomats that they are, have also a willingness to work behind the scenes and to aggressively prosecute the perpetrators of violent religious fervor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2005/07/02
/AR2005070201361_pf.html
I'll tell you one thing that *would* happen in America if Muslims tried rioting like this in the streets is heaps of perforated Muslim bodies.
If our police didn't put a stop to it, our armed American citizenry would.
As usual, the comments here are as provocative and stimulatin' as wretchard's original post.
From a "cosmic" perspective, the underlying conflict can fairly be characterized as a test of ethnic or philosophical "dynamism" — i.e., which of these groups is most willing to assert itself robustly and with confidence.
We Americans suffer from a profound distortion of perception caused by our long insulation from the turmoils of the world outside, the incredible abundance of this continent, and the iconoclastic creativity of a population of people willing to decamp from the societies that were stifling them. This is obviously not any new insight. The continuing tragedy is that so many Americans fail to keep this in mind, and continue to evaluate the world without considering how profoundly alien our experiences are from theirs.
For instance, in the Great Patriotic War Russians lost some twenty MILLIONS of their citizens from fighting, disease, starvation, massacres, etc. American military personnel killed totalled only about half a million, only ONE FORTIETH of Soviet deaths. Wait! Stalin executed and starved more than six times that many Soviet civilians in the twenties and thirties just imposing agricultural collectivization on the Ukraine! Long before the prolonged nuclear face-off of the “Cold War” Soviet leaders had seen that a few million deaths could be readily absorbed by a totalitarian regime, without derailing national goals or will. To Americans, figures like that convey a sense of the end of the world.
How many of us spend our evenings sitting in air-conditioned comfort, munching on micro-waved treats as we watch mindless sit-coms? (Hey! I’m one!) When Gramma’s cancer becomes unbearably painful, we typically remove Gramma to die in hospital, so as not to upset the children. Ditto for the family pets. As more we persist in such antiseptic attitudes, so more estranged we become from the experiences of people in Third-World countries, where Gramma suffers, cries out and is cared for or ignored right in the midst of the one-room hovel shared by the extended family and the pigs, goats, dogs, and chickens.
Kids raised in households that over-use antibiotics and antiseptic cleansers show lowered resistance to childhood diseases. When some new pathogen comes along, bred in the septic conditions which third-world citizens endure daily, we are poorly-prepared to resist. When Islamic zealots come forth equally disposed to saw the necks of Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore and Charlton Heston, Jerry Fallwell and Hugh Hefner, we are paralyzed by our preoccupation with perfect procedure. While we’re arguing over which law to quote in the indictment, which court should have jurisdiction, and which researchers should be awarded grants to describe how Corporate Greed and Conservative bigotry are actually at fault, the victims' heads have already been removed, and their spilt lifeblood feeds the flies.
We’re too busy magnifying our differences to notice that a Demon has entered the room who doesn’t give a **** about whether you embrace diversity or oppose gay marriage.
The Demon wants to kill everybody it can’t enslave.
Two Junes ago I heard in a lecture by noted Christian Apologist ravi zacharias that:
"Many people listen with their eyes and think with their emotions."
I thought of Zararias comment when I ran across Keat's Ode to a grecian urn. consider.
John Keats. 1795–1821
625. Ode on a Grecian Urn
THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore, 35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Marxist group theory is a top down, deterministic, simplified version of what in fact motivates mass movements.
Just to be clear, that is not what I am arguing is the cause of the Paris riots. The cause is one of identification, an affliction of the self and an inability on the part of Muslims to comprehend themselves as an individuals. The group think is their reaction to a global consciousness. Anxiety and defiance flow from the individual's perception of the group's current and historical status, and that status is then transmuted to the individual. An insult to one Muslim becomes an insult to all Muslims becomes an insult to me. It's a mind trick, but on a massive, collective scale.
The interesting thing about this dynamic is that the underlying observation--that the group's status is due to the perfidy of other groups--doesn't have to be true for the mind trick to work.
The flip side to my point: if the Muslims dominated the world, or if the Muslims were comfortable with their status in the world, or if the Muslims were staunch individualists, there would be no Muslim suicide bombers.
Option one is out of the question, option three seems unlikely in the near future, so we are going with option two. Hence, OIF.
Wretchard: “Young people are looking for something to live for, something worthy of their dreams. Islam may not provide any billiard tables, but they hand out heady visions by the bushel.”
Dalrymple’s first-hand experience leads him away from this sort of interpretation in urban Europe; he has noted elsewhere that the (convenient) subjugation of women is just about the only tenet of Islam urban Muslim thugs typically seek to retain or enforce. The rioters in Paris typically don’t buy into the suicide bombers’ self-sacrificial ideology at all. The incident I read about yesterday in which some of them threw rocks at their own imams dramatically underlines this fact.
Even the stated goals are clearly different. The suicide bombers want a global Islamic regime, whereas what the rioters in both Paris and Aarhus want is local ‘no-go areas’ for the police, i.e. defined tribal areas they can rule and commit crimes in themselves, undisturbed by either the French police or any form of Islamic authority.
There are 1,000 non-devout young Muslims with a propensity to riot along these lines in France for every 1 devout potential suicide bomber. Naturally enough given our experience in the US on 9/11, we worry about the 1. Equally naturally the French worry a lot more more about the thousands in their suburbs.
The ruling French elite may be devious (they are), but they are not stupid. They could see as well as Dalrymple did that they were sitting on top of this social powder keg of their own making, and they knew that war in Iraq could set it off, which has a lot to do with their frantic efforts to oppose it.
Ironically, if any aspect of foreign affairs has encouraged the riots in Paris I think it is most likely to be the EU’s more recent Iran debacle over nuclear weapons development; a demonstration in terms that even ill-educated Muslim youths can understand that defying EU governments gets you immediate abject acquiesence and bigger subsidy offers.
Speaking of Iran, there is a piece in the NYTimes, just today.
The best lines in a plea to open more economic ties with nonGovernment entities.
"... The historic roots of reform run deep in Iran, and support for democratic change remains widespread.
Iran's modern middle class, which is increasingly urbanized, wired and globally connected, provides particularly fertile soil for these aspirations. The Stanford University scholar Abbas Milani has described Iran's middle class as a "Trojan horse within the Islamic republic, supporting liberal values, democratic tolerance and civic responsibility." And so long as that class grows, so too will the pressure for democratic change. ..."
He goes on to say that
" ... Now more than ever, middle-class and other democracy-minded Iranians need to preserve and expand their network of institutions independent from the government - institutions in which they can take refuge from the rapacious hardliners who seek to control all aspects of Iranian life. That network should include a strong private sector; a rich array of nongovernmental organizations dealing with issues like poverty, women's rights and youth unemployment; and social, intellectual and cultural associations that communicate with counterparts abroad.
Unfortunately, United States sanctions now prevent any American person or group from financially supporting, say, a microfinance bank, a program to train future political leaders or even an education initiative for rural women in Iran. That is a mis- take. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the United States has programs that provide exactly these kinds of grants, in the name of democratization.
The United States should ease such sanctions in order to match its rhetorical commitment to Iranian democracy with meaningful action. The European Union should also step up its support for democratic activists and its commitment to the protection of human rights in Iran. Meanwhile, development institutions like the World Bank should invest in Iran's emerging private sector, which is not affiliated with the country's business mafias or the government-linked foundations that control about a quarter of the country's wealth. ..."
Allies in Iran?
A nonmilitary option on the table for dealing with Iran, perhaps not perfect, but it holds out hope for an outcome less than War.
Lawyers, Guns & Money, they'll get US out of this.
Remember too (while we are deciding the fate of Islam and the West) that on a pure 14 year old animal level a lot of the rioter kids are having the time of their lives. They're out past bedtime, they're making the cops mad, they are mussing up Villepin's hairdo, hell, they're having a blast. Liberal democracies allow for a certain amount of adolescent frenzy; civilization is boring after all.
What is utterly fascinating is the non-coverage by the mainstream press. The depth of its investment in multicultural fantasy is astounding.
Paris-Area Riots Spread to 20 Towns:
Residents and opposition politicians have accused Sarkozy of fanning tensions with his tough police tactics and talk -- including calling troublemakers "scum."
"Sarkozy's language has added oil to the fire. He should really weigh his words," said Kaci, whose daughter lost her gym. "I'm proud to live in France, but this France disappoints me."
Paris Riots
There is also a tendency among the French to romanticize violent popular outbursts (the Bastille, '48, the Commune, the Dreyfus riots, '68 ...). This tradition is likely to make it difficult for the government act vigorously against the rioters, who will quickly notice and take advantage of this weakness.
France's best hope is that the Beurs will either get bored or run out of things to burn.
Wretchard states:
Because they're willing to fight for their existence and nine times out of ten, that beats the side that is unwilling to fight for its existence. Should Europe decide their way of life is worth preserving then other factors, such as worth may come into play.
I recall hearing about a similar but smaller riot some months ago, in Either The Netherlands or in France. I recall reading how some poor Euro was getting beat by the mob and how some of the mob stated they enjoyed kicking on them because they never fight back.
Also that old saying about idle hands being the devils workshop comes into play.
tcobb,
Can you imagine that in Manhattan? Can you say "Kitty Genovese"?
ghoullio,
There's commentary at this BBC Have Your Say site from a number of American Muslims of African origin who've been to France saying that racism and discrimination is much worse in France than in America; incomparably worse. Kinda makes your eyes pop and suggests that behind the politically correct rhetoric lurked the poisonous old tribal insularity of years past. I suppose if the French could look down on Americans they'd have no trouble looking down on Arab Muslims.
If this were the social reality, then the European multi-culti act makes even less sense, because they were raising expectations they weren't prepared to meet.
Thinking back on the push for Kyoto and the budget caps, which it turned out, no European government was actually going to comply with, it occurs to me that what European politicians say isn't the same as what they are really saying. I'm learning.
French racism and multiculturalism exaggerate the tensions by stressing the "us" vs "them" social makeup. However, economically, the immigrants have a good set up, higher wages and much more welfare programs than back home. Social problems are as much their fault as the French, and generally, if they don't like it they are free to leave, as opposed to burning the place down and threatening at the point of a gun. But whenever deportations are attempted, they kick and scream to avoid it, even the firebrand preachers.
Ghoullio,
To link:
HTML Codes
You want the 'anchor' type.
Cedarford status thusly:
disagree about the imperative to bring Muslims in. Europe first has the options of increasing caucasian birthrates or going with more robotics, as the Japanese are doing. If in the end they HAVE to have immigration, maybe now is that great inflection point where Europe determines that Muslims are incompatable with Western Civilization - but 2 billion immigrant candidates in other nations have shown they are quite compatible.
C4, interesting points. However, it seems to me European manufacturing is already heavily automated. I was listening to some guys talking shop (IIRC it was residential window shop talk) and one person to the surprise of the other noted the labor costs per output in Europe is lower than it is here, because labor is so pricey they are much quicker to adopt automation than we are.
Increasing caucasian birth rates? Good luck one thing I hear more and more over here (and they are further along those lines in Europe) is how young women and men do not have the time or money for children. Plus, a friend of mine in the UAE (a chemistry researcher from India) was talking about research that indicated declining birth rates in the West wasn't due entirely to wealth, extended lives etc but that some of the chemicals we are all exposed to on a regular basis have fertility reducing properties. I don't know about that last one, but the attitude point I am certain about.
You are right, Europe is not restricted to labor from Islamic lands.
Europe may not have their gravey trains social... I would call it safety net but it kicks in way way before anyone would need a net.
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