BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots

Subject: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:57 AM

Are these immigrant riots? If so what has caused them? is this another nail in coffin of diverse societies?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: mandotim
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 11:37 AM

Right wing troll alert; do not feed!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 11:57 AM

I hardly think asking awkward questions are 'troll'. You either agree or disagree? if you think the media is being too quick to call them 'immigrant riots' then that is all i asked.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 12:58 PM

They seem to be riots in a number of poor communities, who are poorly intergrated with the rest of society.

The fact these communities are composed mainly of immigrants and their descendents is not the primary cause of these riots.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: mandotim
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 01:59 PM

Sorry if I misinterpreted your motives zelger; I suppose I was misled by the fact that almost all your posts are about subjects close to the heart of the far right, and seem to keep threads going long after their natural usefulness. Posted comments like 'fuck liberalism' are also open to misinterpretation I guess.

I was also confused by the fact that all the media reports I've seen didn't use the term 'immigrant riots'. The first time I saw this was when you kindly pointed it out to us. I assume we must read/watch different media sources.

Once again, my most profound apologies, and thank you for the short personal message you took the trouble to send.

Tim

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 02:21 PM

According to last night's news, there is 30% unemployment in their district- with no prospect of relief. (no pun intended) In the USA conditions like that have frequently brought on riots.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 12:40 AM

Exactly, Ebbie, put enough unemployed people in a ghetto and then 'accidently' kill a couple of their youngsters and you're sure to get some kind of reaction.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: JennyO
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 10:13 AM

A couple of days ago, my son sent me a link to several stories on this, here - Fresh violence hits Paris suburbs .

It is of particular interest to us because my brother happens to live in one of the affected suburbs - Aulnay Sous Bois. I immediately rang him to make sure he and his family were all right, and they are. He said it's a long suburb from end to end, and they live at the 'good end' fortunately for them. The other end is basically a slum area.

Reading the articles, it appears this is something which has been brewing for some time because of poverty and discrimination, and the incident where the youths were killed was the catalyst which set off the riots.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Kaleea
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 03:37 PM

JennyO-Thanks for the article. I've seen a couple of incomplete news reports the riots broke out, rioting continues with no explanation of why the riots started. I do not opine pro or con as to "sides" of the issue as I do not live there & do not know the situation well enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:57 PM

"put enough unemployed people in a ghetto"

That's the problem. They are not put in a ghetto, they choose to create one. It happened in my city as house upon house was bought by immigrant families of the same faith and culture for their offspring or relatives until the indigenous population totally disappeared. The English have done it to other countries as it has been done to them. It seems that's how people prefer to live rather than to be scattered and assimilated. Then the young grow up and claim their area is a no go area for the young of other immigrant or indigenous cultures and you end up with the mess we have in Europe that will surely get worse.
How you stop this polarisation I can't think. Many of my family emigrated many years ago to New Zealand and were told where they had to live for the first few years, and in this way the immigrant population was stopped from forming ghettos.
What the answer is today I don't know, but we have to face the fact that we have a problem that the old ideologies can't address.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 11:07 PM

"put enough unemployed people in a ghetto" is not quite the right expression, I agree. Maybe its because the only places that immigrant people can afford to live, are the poorest parts of town. I think people who have similar backgrounds do find security with others who share a common language, customs and beliefs and therefore like to live within reach. I have also noticed that once they become established and gain affluence, they move out of their old neighborhoods as fast as possible.

Lets not forget, France made a law forbidding school girls from covering their heads, according to their religion. That in itself, could be seen as oppressive. I'm sure if France would go so far as to forbid scarves, the society is capable of all kinds of discrimination. Isn't this recent riot really about discrimination?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 07:41 AM

I totally support the french in their attempt to keep religion out of public life. it is the cause of all our woes and wars, and I'm afraid Blair's attempts to allow schools to be run on religious lines will only bring us more woes in the future. If only we could keep our religious beliefs in our churches and our homes, or better still, just in our hearts.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 11:53 AM

Dianavan: I know it seems superficially an example of wicked discrimination to forbid people to wear scarves ober their head at school if they wish to, and that is indeed what they do in France,. But I think you would do well to consider the background to this kind of decision, and look at the miseries unleashed in France in the past caused by religiois and political differneces. If you look at this, I think you would begin to see there might be some reason for banning religious and political unifiorms in schools.
    Just the same thing happened in England in the 30's, when the specific problems of the Mosley's fascists in ondon lead to the banning of political uniforms. And of course people said it was a wicked denial of human rights telling people they couldn't wear black shirts. Well, yes it is, and no it isn't. There is a context to these things, isnt there? Obe person walking into a shop who happens to wear a black shirt. Not a problem. Hundreds of people marching through the East End of London in black shirts chanting "We've got to get rid of the Yids": big problem.
    The French went for a fairly draconic "no religious uniforms in schools" policy, as the British went for a "no political uniform" policy. I think you are being simplistic just to dismiss these actions as unfair discrimination. I think you can see where the authorities were coming from, if you think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 01:05 PM

greg - There is a great deal of difference between political uniforms and religious dress.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 01:48 PM

Not a great deal of difference really. Both are visual methods of making a point, of saying "I belong, you do not", and that is divisive.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 01:57 PM

Not a great deal of difference that you can define in laws or morality. A group of people wearing an identifying uniform can be intimidating, or they can be just picturesque(ehtnic dancers, Boy Scouts). The context is the problem. Crusaders with crosses on were wearing religious uniforms, weren't they?. You'd still be well advised to hide in the hills if you saw them coming.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 02:44 PM

Yes, greg, I would have hid from the Crusaders but I still don't think that is the same as school girls wearing scarves. You are absolutely right when you say that it depends on the context. Why would anyone be intimidated by girls wearing scarves?

In Canada, even our R.C.M.P. are allowed to wear their Sikh headresses. In school, the boys also keep their hair covered. Yes, it identifies them as part of a religious group. So what? Christians wear crosses, too. Our Muslim girls also wear scarves. I don't see it as a problem.

The problem is discrimination against a religous minority.

Therefore, the riots.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 06:50 PM

We have racial problems in a local school here. No, the white boys are not going to be allowed to come into school with St George's Crosses painted on their faces. Yes, this is discriminatory. Yes, it does infringe on their religious rights. But they are still not going to be allowed to. And a good thing too. there is no absolute right to wear religious uniforms in a tense situation. It may be fine where you are, it doesnt make it fine everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 07:06 PM

Lets not forget, France made a law forbidding school girls from covering their heads, according to their religion.

And let us not forget that certain middle-eastern countries banned the drinking of alcohol, according to their religion. The biggest difference between them and the French is that the French do not stone, flog or maim the people who do not comply to their laws.

And before you say that the drinking of alcohol is not a religious practice remember that the drinking of wine is a central part of any Christian communion service.

Ask the mad Mullahs if they would grant any dispensation for that before you brand the French discriminatory.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 07:53 PM

I heard an article on NPR this evening that said that one of the problems was that France has a strict law against keeping any statistics on the basis of race or ethnicity. This apparently prevents them from tracking unemployment in specific groups and identifying/targeting other problems that mey be unique to them.   Go here and click on "listen."

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 09:33 PM

Dave - The last I checked, the drinking of alcohol was forbidden in most schools, regardless of religion. Hardly a comparison to banning head scarves. Same goes for painting St. George's cross on your face, Greg. Since when was this a religious custom? Neither of these examples can be compared to banning little girls from wearing scarves to school.

Lets face it, thats an abuse of power and only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other forms of discrimination. I used it as an example to show that if the 'authorities' can get away imposing those kind of petty rules, imagine what other discrimination religious minorities must be facing.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 04:02 AM

So, are the rioters right to riot then?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 04:26 AM

No.Shoot the buggers!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 04:58 AM

Until some accurate information is received from someone who lives there, this is what was reported in the NZ press, from memory.
The French authorities have banned obvious religious symbols in schools, including covered faces, headscarves, and large crucifixes. If crucifixes are also banned, then how is discriminatory?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,uptout
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 06:42 AM

Crucifixes are indeed also banned. It is a religious custom to wear a crucifix just as it is to wear a headscarf. This was not a discriminatory measure; quite the opposite. The theory is that the younger and more noticably societies distinguish themselves along religious lines (and lets be honest, it is likely to be parents rather than the schoolchildren themselves who are militant about the right to wear headscarves in schools) the more impossible it makes it that societies will properly manage to integrate. There is not, and never could be, an absolute right for everybody to wear what they want in a place like a school.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:00 AM

Religion or ethnicity is not the main issue, it is poverty. The centralised political structure and localised extremes of poverty in the 'projects' means that political alleviation of their condition is impossible. Unemployment and minimal wage unskilled employment means that alleviating their condition through collective action in the workplace is difficult. So it should not be a surprise that they resort to rioting. I think it will either blow over or be crushed by the police or military, then the government will congratulate themselves on restoring 'order' whilst diverting funds to the affected areas to appease them and quell any further disturbances.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:16 AM

Yes Piers, but are they right to riot?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:38 AM

I'm not sure a questions about right and wrong are particularly useful. I would like to think that in the same situation I would still advocate peaceful political means to achieve democratically agreed aims, but then I haven't led quite a such a brutal life and had more opportunity to read and stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:58 AM

Hijab is the Arabic term used to describe the attire worn by Muslim women.    The literal meaning of Hijab is 'covering', but this term also carries a more general connotation of 'modesty'. Hijab as a social practise thus embraces not only clothing but also values and behaviour.

The word Hijab is often mistranslated as the 'veil', which implies covering of the face and this is misleading. Although Hijab can involve the covering of a woman's face, most Muslims do not regard this to be essential.

Full thing at Source: Muslim Concil of Great Britian

So, this ban on the wearing of the head

The French law, which bans large crosses, Jewish skull caps, Sikh turbans, as well as Muslim headscarves, will go into effect in September. The President of France has indicated that he would like to see a similar ban for employees in public hospitals and government positions.

Source- International coalition for religious freedom


So, a girl affected by this ban may feel that it leaves her under-dressed, but only by the very strictist possible interpretaition of the rules. It can only be a sign of a group of people failing to intergrate into the larger society that this is such an issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 09:10 AM

Religion/ethnicity is not the main issue, it is poverty. ???
...................

It is both.

The Mulsims want a seperate community with their own laws, but they also want all the benefits of citizens who obey the state laws.
This is also true in the Netherlands, Germany ...
Assimilation is anathma to Islamic law.

This conflict is of course compounded by poverty and teenage energy and hormones.

Until there is a freedom from religion, these conflicts will be part of the landscape.

ergo it is forever.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Essex Girl
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 09:12 AM

We have had problems in English schools over the "rights" to wear religious clothing, but when your children attend secondary schools, in most cases there is a uniform code, and you agree to abide by that code. If you wish to wear alternative clothing then find a school that will allow it, after all school uniform was introduced to equalise students from all backgrounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 09:55 AM

As to the first question whether these are immigrant riots, it is worse than that: these are offspring (often second generation) of immigrant riots. That shows that the problem has been ignored for a very long time. What Artbrooks has mentioned about the statistics has helped the government (but not only them) to remain blind for too long.

Of course, it is about economic disadvantage and hopelessness as the main factors. Joblessness can be said sarcastically to be a 'hereditary disease' in these ghettos. But if the dividing line is not only defined by economics but also by origin, culture, religion and ethnic background then the riots usually becomes more violent. That economical disadvantage is not the only motivation of the rioters was shown clearly by the words of one of the youths being interviewed: Baghdad lies in Paris tonight.

Regarding the creation of ghettos: I don't know how it happens in France but I know how it happens in Germany. They are put there and they create it. In an already poor neighbourhood the rents are not very high and the houses are bad. You can get twice (or even more) as much rent as a house owner if you put 9 male Turkish workers into a three-room flat instead of a German family of 2+2. The other house owners see this with envy and greed and each time a German family leaves for whatever reason they increase the rent that much that only a large number of foreign workers together can pay.

With 9 young males in a three-room flat and a house owner with an eye to short-term profit and not to maintenance the houses and the neighbourhood get worse and worse. When the houses are really bad they are sold. The, say, Turkish workers by now have saved some money and some can afford to buy the houses. At this point, the neighbourhood actually improves. New shops and pubs run by Turkish people are created. The neighbourhood gets attractive for newly arrived Turkish people and some Germans (academics with no kids) who like that atmosphere.

People from such neighbourhoods rarely get jobs (like, in a completely different context, in Belfast, the employers don't have to ask for your background, they just know it when you tell them your address) for a variety of reasons. In Germany, the main reason is lack of knowledge of the language. Many of the youths from the ghettos have a worse education than youths from other parts of the town and have no future on the job market. They are disillusioned and have nothing to lose. That's a situation in which just any incident (or rumour) may start a riot.

What they have in France now could happen in other parts of Europe as well. It is the product of a failed policy of integration. Self-chosen segregation and rejection by the majority culture are the ingredients to which government inactivity is added.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Laurent
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:13 AM

Try this article here .

It's really difficult for us, French, to know what is actually going on, because TVnews are looking like propaganda and .
There is no African rebellion nor open ethnic war. Riots are very localized. Yerterday Clichy mayor told that the riots took place on onre or two plots (100 meters around one or two cross-roads)and the rest of the town was calm. Most of the resident heard about the troubles on radio. Some say that policemen keeped up the troubles by telling racial insults, firing a tear gas grenade as muslims were praying and calling whores the women rushing out. It's quite impossible to verify. Burning cars has become a favourite game in some city suburbs. Especially on December 31th in Strasbourg and my hometown Le Havre.

Troubles are caused mainly by underage people at loose end, hanging around until 2 or 3AM. Some are drug dealers who consider police as just another gang.

The excuses were the two guys'death in Clichy and French "ministre de l'Intérieur" (I can't remember the term in English or American for the secretary in charge of police) naming them 'racaille' which both means thug and rabble. It has nothing to do with religion (some of the thugs are white christian youngsters)

Of course, finding a job when you leave in these suburbs is difficult, all the more so that you leave in those suburbs. Its'far worse if your name sounds Arabic or your skin is black. Such riots won't make things better.

I can hardly believe there's more violence in France than other European countries or the USA. No more, no less..

France is not Tchetchenia nor Iraq. Keep your mind at rest, you can still come and visit us. Despite you'll find no tanks in our towns or cities, they are reasonably safe.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:44 AM

What's wrong with Europe? (from DER SPIEGEL)

Social divisions in today's French society run along ethnic and religious lines, and they also signify deep cultural rifts....
The strict separation of church and state, a sacrosanct pillar of French government, has become an illusion. Jihad may not be what's inspiring the rioters, but Islam is undeniably an inseparable component of their self-identity. Islam strengthens their sense of solidarity, gives them the appearance of legitimacy and draws an unmistakable line between them and the others, the "French."

The more peaceful cousin:

Cyber rioting in France (from DER SPIEGEL)

"You don't really think that we're going to stop now? Are you stupid? It will continue, non-stop. We aren't going to let up. The French won't do anything and soon, we will be in the majority here."

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:02 PM

This here piece has some good background on the riots.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: NH Dave
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 06:15 PM

It seemes to me that the comment from one or two youth of the rioting district, "It's fun to burn cars . . . " gets to the point of the rioting from the minority's viewpoint. I see the whole thing as a dumb reaction to something the two boys brought on themselves, especially as they were trespassing on/in the electrical power control box, when they managed to electrocute themselves.

There are reasons for the large danger signs, the fences, and the locked gates. These places are dangerous for the uninitiated, and the authorities do what they can to keep others out of these places.

The other thing I don't understand is why they are rioting in their own neighborhoods, burning their flats and automobiles. If they want to bring attention to their plight, which seemes to me to be be self induced, then they should be burning other people's homes and cars.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:56 AM

Good report at wikipedia.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: DavidHannam
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 05:02 AM

I am inclined to think that the police were certainly, but recent recounts at least, not to blame. Identity check is a very normal happening, and in fact happened to me when in France recently.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 06:51 AM

You should have stayed there. You and Clichy-sous-bois cops would get on like a car on fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 07:53 AM

haha. no i couldn't stomach the toll motorway fees. incredible. i'd riot just for those alone :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 02:42 PM

Removal of ethinic neigborhoods/ghettos in NYC was carried out by Robert Moses putting major transportation progects through them.
Also those properties are cheap to seize by emminent domain.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Jimmy C
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:50 PM

Essex Girl is quite right. The idea of school uniforms originated to identify the school, so as the school could be contacted if any student misbehaved or even did a good deed. It was also a symbol of pride in one's school, especially if the school had a historic, or good reputation to uphold.
In later years it prevented some students from attending class in the latest trendiest expensive designer clothing, whereas students from families that could not afford the latest styles would not feel embarassed. The uniforms are an identity/equalization instrument. I am sure this was explained to the emigrant students and if they do not want to abide by the rules of the school, then go to another school. Period.
I guarantee that any french student attending school in a mid-east/ african country would have to abide by the standards set by the school or else they would face some kind of disciplinary action.
I also do not go for the poverty angle either, in almost all cases, any family that is able to leave a third world for whatever reason, are normally quite well off, otherwise they could not afford to leave in the first place. Many of these immigrant families I am sure had servants etc in the respected homelands. When they get to a new land and find they are all on a level playing field, their lives are changed and some cannot accept that. They feel the new land owes them something , they feel like they should be able to live like they did in the old country, well, sorry NO. Get out an work like everyone else, there are no free rides anywhere anymore.
Of course rioting etc takes the focus away from the real problem, they just don't want to assimilate, they just don't want to have to start over, they just don't want to do what emigrants have been doing for hundreds of years, that is get started somewhere and work your way up without relying on the state for hand outs.

We have a similar situation here in Canada, almost daily the shootings in Toronto are blamed on poverty and disheartened youths who have no money and nothing to do. And yet on a daily basis I pass store after store with advertisements in the window looking for staff. These people only make up a small percentage of their own society and race, Many other youths from similar backgrounds and just as poor but do not go around rioting and shooting, instead they get part-time jobs, they attend school and one day they will reap the benefits while the others will still be complaining about this, that and the other.
If I was the president of France I would go on T.V. and give the message loud and clear. rioters will be hosed with water cannon, will be sprayed with tear gas, will be charged and sentenced and NOT BE treated with rubbber gloves, and at the very next opportunity make good on the warnings,
Can you just imagine what would happen to a bunch of french citizens, living in Somalia or some other similar place if they took to the streets burning and rioting, They would be locked up and the key thrown away.
I am an immigrant myself and I know first hand what it is like to go to another country,, with no job, no friends and almost no money so I am not altogether unsympathetic to their plight, but they don't have the right to burn, riot and cause the damsge that is a nightly thing now in France. The fact that it has spread from town to town, appears very much like the rioting etc is in fact deliberate, planned , and ordered from one source.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:17 PM

Jimmy C, nice post - empathetic without moralising, sympathetic yet remaining objective, and based on firm-evidence too.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 05:14 AM

Sorry to paste this in, but I can not find the source.
It is from an Australian publication, and has some relevance.


"IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT

"I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.

"Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

"However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the politically correct crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia.
However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.

This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity.

"As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the Language!

"In God We Trust" is our National Motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented.

(note this does not exclude Jews, Muslims or any other theist religion anyway)

"It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.

If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture. If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like 'A Fair Go, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from.

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our National Motto, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'".

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 06:12 AM

The 'freepers' and American righwing organisation has for several years been complianing about the EU, about Europe, about France and about liberalism in the world.

Not only have they pushed the USA into sending CIA and other operatives into Europe to topple the EU, which it appears they have almost succeeded in, now using American Mooooslem yeaboys they are working on creating a civil war in France.

I wonder if it ever occured to their atrophied brains that this violence may end up here in the USA?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:18 AM

sorefingers, have you noticed people are blinking alot more?

Yes, the USA sent a huge number of agents of all kinds to Europe. There's the NSA at Menworth hill, the Air force everywhere, the Army in Germany, and rather alot in graves everywhere between here and Berlin.

Why assume that the US intelligence agencies are resonsible for all that's wrong with Europe? I've not even heard that from the most rabidly anti-american wing of the Liberal Democrats. The French are more than capable of getting themselves into a state like this without any outside help. Cock-up is always a simpler explanation than conspiricy.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:30 AM

Earlier this year Amnesty International compiled a report entitled, FRANCE, THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE, The effective impunity of law enforcement officers in cases of shootings, deaths in custody or torture and ill-treatment.

It is available on their website, with a press release and case studies.

Amnesty's yearly report on France is also available, as well as case   studies from 2003. Further resources are available in their online library.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:36 PM

Keith -

Just how long would you give an immigrant to learn how to speak English?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 02:34 AM

G'day Keith A of Hertford,

That drivel you regugitated has been running round the Australian e-mail circuit for a few months now ... but is - quite obviously - from the language and the unnoticing American assumptions - a 'retreaded' American piece.

It has never been sourced to any "Australian publication" (even though we do have far too many wannabe KKK types ... in the media, the law and Government).

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 03:53 AM

The BBC reported last night that The French are to deport 120 of the rioters that they currently have in custody. This 120 is comprised of illegal immigrants and people with some some of residency permit.
What would you all do then? Pat the poor dears on the head and hand out more benefits?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: DavidHannam
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 03:55 AM

Interesting interview whether or not you disagree with him or not. I suppose for those who support him, an insight into common-sense, and those who do not, an insight into racism i imagine. fantastic interview.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4420000/newsid_4420600/nb_rm_4420612.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 04:40 AM

I am a teacher Dianavan.
I know everyone learns differently.
I think that an immigrant improves his prospects by learning host language.
I would expect them to show willing. That is all.
K.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 04:52 AM

G'day Bob,
That would be why I could not find it then.
You say it is all drivel.
Could you be more specific in your critique?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 04:58 AM

"Australian's" railing against "immigrants" - a somewhat tenuous position?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 11:11 AM

BTW, the European Court of Human Rights has published a final decision today which is relevant for a part of the discussion here:

The Turkish law that does not allow female students to wear a head scarf is no violation of human rights. In its decision the court has argued that the scarf in the last years has become more a political than a religious symbol and that therefore Turkey may legislate against the wearing of that symbol in a public institution.

That argumentation that human rights are violated by being not allowed to wear a religious symbol only has come up in recent years with the increase of fundamentalist islamism. In my eyes, it is similar to attempts of fundamentalist Christians in the USA to get religious teachings into biology classes.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 11:59 AM

What could be more French than rioting and doing violence to the establishment? :) Who knows, in the tradition of french malcotents (read revolutionaries and protesters), from the ashes may rise a modern day robespierre to whip up the masses into a frenzy of oppression. liberte egalite fraternite!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 12:14 PM

Rubbish, nonsense, hogwash
DER SPIEGEL interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Green MEP)

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 12:20 PM

On a point of order, France banned the wearing of all religious symbols including Christian ones, not just head coverings, in schools.
The PC brigade in the UK are now insisting that Christian symbols are removed from hospital chapels for fear they will offend non-Christians. Insanity! Leaders of non-Christian groups (including Islamic communities) have rejected this lunacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 03:32 PM

Excellent link, Wolfgang ;

"The schools in these neighborhoods are completely overburdened. The teachers are fleeing in droves, and the overall educational strategy in these troubled neighborhoods has failed. These schools were never truly able to address the crisis of immigration, because they operated on the principle that all the immigrants needed was better education in the traditional sense. What they should develop is a system that provides schools with greater autonomy, including the authority to use reform-minded educators. That, of course, requires substantial investments, both educationally and financially."

Its what teachers everywhere are saying. In Vancouver, our classes have a very high percentage of ESL students but when trying to meet the needs of mentally and physically challenged students as well, there just isn't enough time and energy. Teachers are expected to meet the needs of all students but instead of more specialized teachers, class sizes continue to increase. We have endured 10 years of budget cuts. Those cuts mean fewer counsellors, fewer ESL and Special ed. teachers and fewer resources.

Its a recipe for disastor.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 03:48 PM

Half way to agreeing with ted. If someone legally in the country acts in a criminal manner they should be treated as any other legal resident would be. If on the other hand someone in the country illegally, then acts in a criminal way, they forfeit their rights to 'sanctuary.'

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 05:22 PM

"If someone legally in the country acts in a criminal manner they should be treated as any other legal resident would be. If on the other hand someone in the country illegally, then acts in a criminal way, they forfeit their rights to 'sanctuary."

I have absolutely no argument with that. Who would?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 05:44 PM

So if an illegal immigrant parks their car illegally, for instance, they should be sent back to some country where they might be tortured or worse. I would have an argument with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 05:53 PM

The world is a very big place, lets not go to far on that one except to say vast areas of centrak Eurasia is now being depopulated through neglect and enviromental abuse so let them ( all of them ) adapt or p1ss off back there say I!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:16 PM

Someone from a country where 'they might be tortured' would claim asylum. They aren't the ones entering illegally.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:30 PM

What if the parking violation, for instance, was committed before political asylum was granted, or even applied for? I believe, most of those granted political asylum enter the UK illegally.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 07:13 PM

You're right, Piers.

"If someone legally in the country acts in a criminal manner they should be treated as any other legal resident would be. If on the other hand someone in the country illegally, then acts in a criminal way, they forfeit their rights to 'sanctuary."

Its a pretty broad statement.

Generally speaking, however, I don't think this should apply to misdemeanors.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 03:51 AM

Piers,
      Your argument about parking violation sounds like the typical wooly, ultra left wing debate I am used to on mudcat. There is one hell of a difference between rioting in a country that you have no right to be in, and parking badly, and you know it!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 04:18 AM

That is what the guest's post said, no caveats.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 05:41 AM

Poverty does not explain riots and brutality on the scale we are seeing.

France, and Britain in the 1930's went through serious depressions. Did our peoples petrol bomb police, shoot police, pillage, fire-bomb other peoples property? Of course not.

Nationality encompasses more than race, faith and a passport saying you are french/british, it is the way you behave. Equally it could be said to be British you must act like British people, i.e the yob who smashes his neighbours fence down? But of course, nationality is the ideal of your nation to how human decency is, and what human decency says you can or can't do.

Is it immigrants who are rioting! Is it immigrants who are petrol-bombing cars? It is immigrant/s who are shooting at police? If so, then it is an immigrant problem, and to blame it on poverty is an insult as much to the rioters perhaps, as to many folk who have suffered hardship and depressions.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: DavidHannam
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 05:46 AM

Better post in my account name actually. Someone was posting in my name recently. I learnt my lesson about laziness and not logging in. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 06:35 AM

Nationality and race is nothing but bourgeois metaphysics. The claim that someone will behave in a certain way just because they were born under a certain political jurisdiction or their skin is a certain colour is total guff.   

There are numerous examples of the 'indigenous' rioting in the UK, e.g. Peace Day 1919, Gordon Riots, Bloody Friday (George Square, Glasgow), Cable Street, anywhere that the BNP congregate. Those of us actually reading the news will see it is not just 'immigrants' rioting, but your homegrown frenchmen too.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 06:46 AM

Nationality and race is nothing but bourgeois metaphysics. The claim that someone will behave in a certain way just because they were born under a certain political jurisdiction or their skin is a certain colour is total guff.   

i'd agree with that. Skin colour does NOT affect how one behaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 09:16 AM

I will bet anyone $100,000 that in the next presidential election, the democratic candidate will receive over 75% of the black vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 10:28 AM

Underneath all that new-BNP facade lies the same old fascists, eh? You must act like British people, its human decency, indeed! Last I heard human decency had no respect for political boundaries. Immigrants, legal or illegal, regardless of religion, skin colour, ethnicity are cut from the same cloth as you and I they are first and formost working people. Yet, the capitalist ideology of 'national identity' takes over from the material reality of living, working and playing side-by-side with other human beings. Migration of people around the world is a good thing. What keeps the poor poor, what deems people from other places enemies, forces people to move around the world, what makes people fear for jobs and benefits, what erodes cultures is the social relations of capitalism: labour and capital, workers and bosses, non-owners and owners of the means of living. Fight capitalism not each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 10:45 AM

"When in Rome, do as The Romans do" particularly if you have no right to be living there in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 11:12 AM

"Underneath all that new-BNP facade lies the same old fascists, eh? You must act like British people, its human decency, indeed! Last I heard human decency had no respect for political boundaries. Immigrants, legal or illegal, regardless of religion, skin colour, ethnicity are cut from the same cloth as you and I they are first and formost working people. Yet, the capitalist ideology of 'national identity' takes over from the material reality of living, working and playing side-by-side with other human beings. Migration of people around the world is a good thing. What keeps the poor poor, what deems people from other places enemies, forces people to move around the world, what makes people fear for jobs and benefits, what erodes cultures is the social relations of capitalism: labour and capital, workers and bosses, non-owners and owners of the means of living. Fight capitalism not each other."



Hooya!!! An unapologetic Socialist!!! Pray tell, how do you come up with "the capitalist ideology of 'national identity'"?

The free movement of factors of production increase productive potential. How have you determined that capitalism is contrary to this concept?

I would also be interested in an elaboration of your false dichotemies. I, like many others am a laborer and a capitalist. I am a non-owner and a owner of the means of living.

Fight FOR capitalism, not each other :)

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 11:36 AM

Yeah whatever, Rarelamb, get back to the pasture and wait on the farm truck bound for the abbatoir. If you are a labourer and a capitalist, then I own a capital and I don't, most of my income comes from selling my labour and most of it comes from profits.

Maybe you like being a factor of production, being forced to labour on threat of poverty, not possessing the things you produce, having to support a parasitical class of those who own and control the means of living. I would rather be involved in the democratic decision making process that drives production to meet self-defined human needs.

Nations are aprt and parcel of capitalism, they are states which the capitalists pay to act as guardians of their lolly.

The free movement of factors of production increasing profitability is neo-classical economics textbook propaganda. Capitalism rewards capital, hence the USA's much advertised 'free market' utilises protectionist policies.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 12:08 PM

"
Yeah whatever, Rarelamb, get back to the pasture and wait on the farm truck bound for the abbatoir. If you are a labourer and a capitalist, then I own a capital and I don't, most of my income comes from selling my labour and most of it comes from profits."

When you talk about capital, you are talking about the financial and physical means of production. Within the financial, you can capitalize a firm with either equity or debt. Anyone with a pension plan or with financial assets, is a capitalist. I own equity shares of a number of corporations. I am the 'owner' of these companies. I am a capitalist. I also labor every day to generate an income. I am a laborer. I expound on this because it is apparent that you lack some fundamental understandings necessary for us to have an intelligent and informed discussion.

"Maybe you like being a factor of production, being forced to labour on threat of poverty, not possessing the things you produce, having to support a parasitical class of those who own and control the means of living. I would rather be involved in the democratic decision making process that drives production to meet self-defined human needs."

I would prefer to be retired if that is your meaning. Who wouldn't? Even if it meant that you enjoy working so much that even with financial independence you would continue to work.

I am confused with "democratic decision making". Democratic is usually referred to when discussing a form of government. But you have made it plain taht you are hostile to governments, and in particular governmetns of nations who are the tools of capitalists. Considering that democratic governments tend to be capitalistic, this usage of democratic seems contradictory. Furthermore, how does democratic and self defined exist? If you mean that a democratic society would provide for greater self interest then I agree with you. This self interest, or as Adam Smith is known to refer to as self love is a fundamental premise behind economics. If you mean something else then please elaborate.

"Capitalism rewards capital" True! But it takes risk and effort. Capitalism also rewards labor. Their is a substantial return on an investment in a college education. And not all degrees by either institution or subject is rewarded the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 01:27 PM

Friend, It is you that should apologise for me supporting the murderous, theiving economic system that ravages and pillages the planet and most of its people.

I'm not the kind of socialist who wants to shoot capitalists. So who is of the capitalist class and who is of the working class makes no difference to me. It is the system of economic organisation that we intend to transform into one that benefits all of humanity, the capitalist class which you flatter yourself with belonging to because you own a few shares is an irrelevance. Where do pensions come from? Where does the money that some workers use to buy shares come from? It is from wage labour. Pensions are deferred wages, that they are used in the finance market is irrelevant, though not when someone gambles it away. Capital, liquid or solid, is wealth used to produce more wealth. Most of the capital is owned by a least people, whilst most of the labour is done by most of the people.

It is so typical that some think democracy can only apply to the state, the system by which we are governed and not governing ourselves. The idea that people can sit down discuss and debate how to produce and distribute goods and services is an anathema to capitalism: minority control of the means of production requires a minority making decisions. In capitalism the 'invisible hand of the market' sorts it out, who needs conscious planning? We have the potential feed, clothe, house and entertain the entire human population several times over yet millions are malnourished, poorly housed and miserable. This is what system of 'no profit, no production' and 'can't pay, can't have' means.

As for self-love, I believe I will be best off by co-operating with fellow humans to build a society where the whole point of work is to satisfy human needs rather than making a profit for the capital owners, and work is a pleasure not a struggle.

Have a splendid weekend

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 02:01 PM

Piers no caveats because I didn't think anyone would be as dumb as to say what you did. Apologies I was wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 02:01 PM

"I'm not the kind of socialist who wants to shoot capitalists. So who is of the capitalist class and who is of the working class makes no difference to me. It is the system of economic organisation that we intend to transform into one that benefits all of humanity, the capitalist class which you flatter yourself with belonging to because you own a few shares is an irrelevance. Where do pensions come from? Where does the money that some workers use to buy shares come from? It is from wage labour. Pensions are deferred wages, that they are used in the finance market is irrelevant, though not when someone gambles it away. Capital, liquid or solid, is wealth used to produce more wealth. Most of the capital is owned by a least people, whilst most of the labour is done by most of the people."

You are correct that the majority of funds for 'markets' directly come from labor. I would point out that all investment/savings ultimately benefit people (and I use labor in the sense of anyone who works for money, though I suspect you exclude people in management). Your savings provide the funds for capitalizing companies. When you put money in corporate debt (whether on the open market or through financial intermediaries like banks) or equity, you are a capitalist. Savings must equal investment. I do not think this is 'irrelevant'.

"It is so typical that some think democracy can only apply to the state, the system by which we are governed and not governing ourselves. The idea that people can sit down discuss and debate how to produce and distribute goods and services is an anathema to capitalism: minority control of the means of production requires a minority making decisions. In capitalism the 'invisible hand of the market' sorts it out, who needs conscious planning? We have the potential feed, clothe, house and entertain the entire human population several times over yet millions are malnourished, poorly housed and miserable. This is what system of 'no profit, no production' and 'can't pay, can't have' means."

The problem with conscious planning is that the planners do not 'know what the market wants'. This pricing function is best left to the participants in that market lest you run into production and pricing problems the soviet union had when they used sears catalogues to set prices.

It is curius that you mention the 'invisible hand'. The actual quote is "every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest nor knows how he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain. He is in this as in many other cases led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention." Or something like that. What is important is that self interested individuals looking to make money by investing in business do in fact promote profit maximization in that firm. If I save money, invest in a company for the purpose to make money (so that I may retire), then I have a vested interest in making sure that firm makes as much money as possible.

The insurance company that depends on their investments to pay out life insurance, disability benefits etc. likewise depend on their investment in firms to be profit maximizers. The end result of all this profit maximizing is greater wealth for which people like me can retire.

And of course all of this capital creation has the benefit of enriching the society for which the 'individual' belongs. The rising tide so to speak.


"As for self-love, I believe I will be best off by co-operating with fellow humans to build a society where the whole point of work is to satisfy human needs rather than making a profit for the capital owners, and work is a pleasure not a struggle."

Who decides in this world of yours who produces what, in what quantity and at what price? Who is to benefit from these labors? Who is to labor and for how long? This line of thought leads inevitably to tyranny.

What is considered 'pleasure' and who is to determine it? What is a human need and who is to determine it? ........tyranny.

Capitalism is the triumph of the individual and the abhorance of tyranny.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 02:19 PM

"Underneath all that new-BNP facade lies the same old fascists, eh? You must act like British people, its human decency, indeed! Last I heard human decency had no respect for political boundaries. Immigrants, legal or illegal, regardless of religion, skin colour, ethnicity are cut from the same cloth as you and I they are first and formost working people.

Firstly, well edited.

What i in fact said was,

Nationality encompasses more than race, faith and a passport saying you are french/british, it is the way you behave. Equally it could be said to be British you must act like British people, i.e the yob who smashes his neighbours fence down? But of course, nationality is the ideal of your nation to how human decency is, and what human decency says you can or can't do.

In fact most first generation immigrants were very law-abiding, probably more so than indigenous folk, but as generations have passed, huge festered anger has grown against the host people/nation.

I merely illustrated that Nationality is MORE THAN RACE, faith, or a passport. To be regarded as a good frenchman, or in fact a good Briton, i consider the qualities of human decency, law-abiding, respect for the native peoples and culture.

Looting, fire-bombing peoples belongings, shooting police, is not worthy of nationhood. Basically, if a native Briton fire-bombed police, i would equally say he is unworthy of being a Briton, and i am sure that if a french immigrant wants to shoot at police, then he has completely acted without dignity as a frenchman.

I suppose nationality could be argued something earned rather than inherited.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 04:03 AM

I agree that nationality is more than race. i dont subscribe to thinking that our genes affect how we behave.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 03:18 PM

David says, "Is it immigrants who are rioting! Is it immigrants who are petrol-bombing cars? It is immigrant/s who are shooting at police? If so, then it is an immigrant problem, and to blame it on poverty is an insult as much to the rioters perhaps, as to many folk who have suffered hardship and depressions."

Grab a brain.

It is poor immigrants who are rioting. They have no other voice. Wealthy immigrants don't need to riot.

The problem is poverty caused by discrimination.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 04:17 PM

Do poor 'native' frenchmen riot dianavan?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 04:30 PM

And i don't dispute many of them are poor. indeed they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: bobad
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 05:50 PM

"Most of the rioters are the French-born children of immigrants from Arab and African countries."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700295.html

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:54 AM

David asks, "Do poor 'native' frenchmen riot dianavan?" Yes, actually, they have been known to riot and rebel.

The point is, David, rarely do you see the rich, riot. In fact I can't think of any occasion that they ever had to resort to rioting. Rioting, David, is the voice of the poor, whether they are immigrants or not. This time, it is poor immigrants, rioting. The cause is discrimination which native Frenchman do not face.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:09 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Jackie Mason
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:16 AM

The only war the French ever won was the revolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:15 AM

David asks, "Do poor 'native' frenchmen riot dianavan?" Yes, actually, they have been known to riot and rebel.

When? Where?

The point is, David, rarely do you see the rich, riot. In fact I can't think of any occasion that they ever had to resort to rioting. Rioting, David, is the voice of the poor, whether they are immigrants or not. This time, it is poor immigrants, rioting. The cause is discrimination which native Frenchman do not face.

Indeed the rich do not riot. There is no doubting that outcry over poor living standards is a really good and essential thing.

But there are poor french 'native' communities, and to think that native french-people do not suffer from discrimination is too simplistic. Discrimination goes both ways. As in this country, UK, positive discrimination has been a blight on the system of fairness and equality, i.e best man for the job, regardless of colour? In truth, no doubting, that people from ethnic backgrounds have suffered from discrimination in the workforce, but so have native peoples too.

There exists french communities, that are very very poor, but at the end of the day, they do not riot, shoot, commit arson and ruin peoples lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: stevenrailing
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 07:55 AM

dianavan thats bollocks. when do white frenchmen riot like the immigrants are doing now?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 08:15 AM

In 1968 I took a school trip to Switzerland. The train journey was 12 hours longer than it should have been because we had to re-route due to the student riots in Paris.

More recently the French lorry drivers took to burning British lorries and illegaly blockading ports.

As a nation it has been long known that the French are indeed revolting...

Seriously though, the riot and civil disobediance route has long been the way with the Frenchman who disagrees with what the government (or monarchy!) is doing. It does not surprise me in the slightest that the recent rioters are not first generation immigtants. The fact that they are rioting shows that they have embraced the French way of life fully!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 08:41 AM

1968 riots were not thoughtless acts of violence. They were a 'student' revolt, backed by commonist agitators.

And..haulage protests is not akin or in anyway similar to shooting at police, arson, violence, fire-bombing police peoples property.

Cheers

David

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 02:07 PM

Wasn't the storming of the Bastille an act committed by native Frenchmen?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:19 PM

1789? Haha, yes, the french did revolt.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 04:28 AM

France's integration problems are of their own making. France is not the only european country with high unemployment. It is hugely industrially and agriculturally subsidized. They have been happily employing people with no regard to discriminatory laws. Their equivalent of parliament has the lowest number of female representatives in europe ( I think.)

So what do we do with a country that rides rough shod over minority groups as a matter of course? We give them 50 million euros and a pat on the back. Nice!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Laurent
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 02:46 PM

As I told once before, even if about 8700 cars were burned in the past few days, France excepting some plots in suburbs, France is quiet.

Dear guest, money we receive from Europe is pointless. I only fear that, with our unemployment level (about 10% of unemployment but 36% in 'burning' suburbs) French way of integration is just a lost dream now.
I saw Bill o'Reilly on Fox news last sunday. His comments was as accurate as Pravda ones : just propaganda bullshits.

BTW, terrorist attacks in July won't keep me from visiting London again as soon as I can, even if we're both English or French told that we are natural enemies. It's time to banish prejudices.

The only positive thing in foreign news for me nowdays is that I can now question the way news are distilled in France : Can I visit the USA because you American hate French? Can I visit New York or L.A. without being shot as white and French, being arrested because France is supposed to support muslim terrorism ? Can I believe it's fine in some southern states - Louisiana for instance - to kill or beat black and blew a guy just because he's black and poor and KKK still rules the southern states ? I just can't or want believe it.

As a true born white Frenchman, a 'gaulois' as youngsters call us in Paris suburbs, jobs or others discriminations against women, muslim, jews oue any other religion but sects really make me sick. My mother is leaving less than one kilometer from a hot suburb, nothing happened to her.

Of course, you have the right to dislike or hate us - we often are sufficient, curmudgeon, arrogant, and God knows we are - but, please, use your brain and don't believe what you're told.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:10 AM

How come when we see riots, almost anywhere, it is almost always young men. Are there no poor or disadvantaged young women ? Saw an interview with some young french immigrant women who were disgusted by these lawless acts. Why is it only young men ? I am just curious.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:12 AM

Women ARE smarter than men....

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 04:28 AM

cos men feel the need to physical violence action and women are neurotic hormonal loons

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 06:49 AM

I see that France is requesting EU money to pay for riot damage.

We got none for 7/7 of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,A
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 07:15 AM

Laurent, as a true born white American, allow me to inform you that all I really know about France the past weeks is that there were disgruntled people burning vehicles. I was not there, spending coffee time in a bistro to find out exactly what is going on and the causes.
The media, print and TV, must sell them selves to stay alive and thusly we get the "if it bleeds, it leads" approach.

I am not a skeptic nor a cynic but I wait for facts to surface. So, not all of us Yanks quickly find fault. Your governments' approach to halting the riots seemed somewhat reserved.
If you have a moment, your short but concise insight as to the cause would be appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 11:34 AM

If someone legally in the country acts in a criminal manner they should be treated as any other legal resident would be. If on the other hand someone in the country illegally, then acts in a criminal way, they forfeit their rights to 'sanctuary.' (a GUEST)

So if an illegal immigrant parks their car illegally, for instance, they should be sent back to some country where they might be tortured or worse. (Piers responding)

Me adding the boldface.

I never had the feeling that I was a criminal for wrong parking but I knew it was illegal.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:26 PM

lolololol

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:50 AM

Migrant polygamy 'helped cause riots'
By Colin Randall in Paris
(Filed: 17/11/2005)

Senior French politicians provoked an angry reaction in their country's riot-hit suburbs yesterday after claiming that polygamy among African immigrants had contributed to the outbreak of violence.
        
Protesters in France
Citizens of France protest after a weekend of violence

Gérard Larcher, the employment minister, said it was inevitable that the children of large, polygamous families had trouble finding work. He added: "Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulty finding work."

Mr Larcher is to play an important role in President Jacques Chirac's promised offensive on unemployment and discrimination suffered on the poor estates.

Rachid Nekkaz, of the Respect for the Suburbs Collective, condemned the comments: "The primary cause of the problems, including the lack of parental control, is unemployment. Everything else is political distraction."

Mr Larcher was supported by Bernard Accoyer, the parliamentary leader of the ruling, centre-Right UMP party, who said some young people behaved badly because of the absence of a father figure.

Mr Accoyer said the authorities were "strangely lax" in their approach to the estimated total of 30,000 families, mainly from West Africa, in which the husband had more than one wife.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 01:52 PM

So is it not illegal to do a 360deg handbrake turn into a legal parking space.

Hey Hangman! How is the secretary and treasurer of the Yorkshire and Humber branch getting on?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:42 AM

my wife recently borrowed my car and she bumped TWO cars whilst parking at tescos. now thats criminal!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: stevenrailing
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 04:45 AM

you got off easy guest. my g/f completely wrote off my car after passing her test just the week b4

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: zelger
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:00 AM

good one piers. but look at these below. makes the bnp look holy

.......................................................................
Conservative Party Criminals

SEX

. Tory Party General election candidate, Michael Powell - Convicted and jailed for 3 years for downloading hardcore child porn.

. Tory Party Councillor (Wickbar/Bristol) Roger Talboys - Convicted and jailed for 6 years for multiple sex attacks on children.

. Tory Party Vice-Chairman of Welsh Conservatives, Andrew Baker - Received a banning order for stalking women.

. Tory Party MP (Billericay) Harvey Proctor - Stood trial for sex offences of a sado-masochistic nature against teenage boys, and was forced to resign.

. Tory Party Councillor ( Stratford-upon-Avon ) Christopher Pilkington - Convicted of downloading hardcore child porn on his PC. Placed on sex offenders register and forced to resign.

. Tory Party councillor ( Coventry ), Peter Stidworthy - Charged with indecent assault of a 15-year old boy.

. Tory Party Mayor ( North Tyneside ), Chris Morgan - Forced to resign after being arrested twice in 2 weeks, for indecent assault on a 15-year old girl, and for suspicion of downloading child porn.

. Tory Party MEP, Tom Spencer - Caught smuggling drugs and porn through customs.

. Tory Party councillor and former Mayor (Wrexham), Michael Morris - Convicted and put on probation for 2 years, for the indecent assault of another man, which was captured on CCTV.

. Tory Party Liaison Manager on the London Assembly, Douglas Campbell, who's job includes running the Tory GLA website - Arrested for allegedly downloading child porn. He is currently suspended while the Police investigation continues.

VIOLENCE

. Tory Party MP (Henley), Boris Johnson - Caught on tape plotting to have a man beaten up by a hired thug. The man was a journalist who had written an unsympathetic piece about Johnson's close friend - Convicted fraudster, Darius Guppy.

. Tory Party Councillor (Folkestone - in Leader, Michael Howard's constituency), Robert Richdale - 41 year history of crime, involving 30 convictions and 5 prison sentences. Richdales enormous criminal record, which covers 10 pages of A4 paper, includes convictions for assault, theft, causing death by dangerous driving, forgery, drugs offences, possession of an offensive weapon, and sex attacks against underage schoolgirls. The Tory Party election campaign literature described Richdale as "a family man" who had a "compassionate personality"

CORRUPTION

. Tory Party councillor (Dudley), Abdul Quadus, who was also chairman of the Dudley Police Committee and a Tory Party spokesman on crime - Convicted and jailed for 6 months for passport fraud and assisting illegal immigration from his native country - Pakistan.

. Former Tory Party Cabinet Minister, Jonathan Aitkin - Convicted and jailed for Perjury and Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice.

. Former Tory Leader of Westminster Council, Dame Shirley Porter - Fled to Israel to evade justice after indulging in fraud, corruption and gerrymandering on a massive scale, and stealing millions of pounds from local taxpayers.

. Tory Party Councillor ( Margate ), Colin Kiddel - Forced to resign after Police investigation into his alleged theft and embezzlement of funds from the local `Dreamland` Amusement Park.

. Former Tory Party Chairman and London Mayoral Candidate, Jeffrey Archer - Convicted and jailed for Perjury and Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice.

Labour Party Criminals

SEX:

. Labour Councillor (Newton Aycliffe) Martin Locklyn - Convicted and jailed for 15 years for sexually abusing 3 14-year-old boys.

. Labour Councillor (North Lincolnshire) David Spooner - Convicted and jailed for 1 year for masturbating in front of 2 young boys.

. Labour Mayor (Westhoughton/Lancashire) Nicholas Green - Convicted and jailed for 10 years for 3 rapes and 13 counts of indecent assault against little girls between the age of 6 and 10. He raped one woman on her wedding day.

. Labour Mayor (Todmordon) John Winstanley - Convicted and jailed for rape and threats to kill. After raping and threatening to kill his terrified victim, Winstanley then ordered the woman to go on all fours before urinating on her.

. Prominent Labour Party activist Mark Tann (who has met Tony & Cherie at Party functions) recently got a 15-year sentence for raping a 4-year old girl on 2 separate occasions.

. Labour's current Parliamentary Candidate (Reading East) Tony Page - Has 2 Convictions for Acts of Gross Indecency` in public toilets.

. Labour Mayor (Burnley) Mark Swainston - Convicted of sex offences in public toilet.

. Entire Labour Party conspired to conceal the activities of Labour Party activist and serial child-molester Mark Trotter, who died from AIDS before he could be convicted.

. Labour Councillor (North Yorkshire) Raymond Coats - Court appearance for indecently assaulting a woman.

. Labour MP (Rhonda Valley) Chris Bryant poses in his pants on the Internet to advertise himself for casual gay sex encounters. Describes himself as "Horny as buggery" and says, "I'd love a good long fuck".

. Labour Councillor (Manchester), George Harding - Charged with indecent assault on a girl of 12.

. Labour MP Ron Davies was mugged by a Rasta on Clapham Common while cruising for gay sex. He was photographed again by the media recently, engaged in some `man-on-man` action in a field off a motorway. "I was only looking for badgers" he said.

. Labour Councillor (Durham), Derrick Payne - Arrested by Police following a sex attack.

. Labour MP, Joe Ashton - Caught up in a Police raid while frequenting a brothel. Tried to lie his way out of the scandal.

. Labour Councillor (Shropshire), Derek Woodvine - Arrested by Police in anti-porn operation.

. Labour Councillor (Basildon), Tony Wright - Forced to resign after being caught using his council computer to download porn.

. Labour MP (Sheffield), Clive Betts - Suspended from Parliament for 7 days after being caught forging immigration papers to extend the stay of his Brazilian rent-boy gay lover.

. According to media reports, the names of 2 former Labour Cabinet Ministers said to be `Household names` appear on the `Operation Ore ` list of subscribers to hard-core child pornography. The same FBI investigation, which led to the arrest of rock star Pete Townshend. So who are they Mr Blair?

VIOLENCE

. Labour Councillor (Kirkby, Merseyside) Charlie Preston - Convicted and jailed for 5 years in 1982 for assault and burglary. Preston broke into the home of a 64 year old man, and beat him up in his bed as he slept before robbing the house. The judge described the case as "As bad a matter of burglary as I can remember" Preston also holds the position on the Council of... `Deputy Cabinet Member for Youth, Citizenship, and Community Safety`.

. Labour Councillor ( Wales ) Denis Jones - Convicted and jailed for unlawful wounding after attacking a neighbour with a sledgehammer.

. Labour Councillor ( Wales ) Ken Brookman - Bit off a mans ear in a dispute over a seat on a train!

. Labour Councillor and former Mayor (Stockton), Keith Dobinson - Investigated by Police for alleged assault on an OAP, which left the old man of 79, hospitalised.

. Labour MP, Tommy Graham - Expelled from Party for his part in driving a person to suicide.

. Labour Councillors (Ilfracombe), Brian Cotton and Tony Cooper - Investigated by Police following serious allegations of Harassment.

CORRUPTION

. Labour Councillor (Sandwell) Mohamed Niwaz convicted of illegally obtaining £20,000 in Housing Grants.

. Labour Councillors in Doncaster - 23 Convicted and 2 jailed for massive fraud, corruption and theft of public funds. Investigation also uncovered massive Labour Party corruption in neighbouring Rotherham .

. Labour Party Councillor ( Blackburn ), Mohammed Hussein - arrested together with 6 Labour activists on suspicion of Election rigging.

. Labour MP Mohammed Sawar ( Britain 's first Asian MP - Glasgow) was the subject of a major News of the World investigation a few years ago into bribery and corruption. Despite this, the massive Asian population in his constituency keeps him safely in his seat.

. Labour MP (Leicester) and former Cabinet Minister, Keith Vaz - Investigated for fraud and corruption before quietly leaving his Europe Minister post with `health problems`. According to his former Secretary, Vaz does absolutely nothing in his constituency other than help local Pakistanis with their Immigration cases (which also helps to explain the `whites a minority` status of Leicester and the safe Labour seat of Mr Vaz)

. Labour Party Euro MP, David Martin is currently being investigated for an alleged expenses fraud involving `hundreds of thousands of pounds`.

. Labour Councillor (Glamorgan), Shawn Stringer - Forced to resign following Police investigation into financial corruption.

OTHER

. Tony Blair recently appointed his close friend/crony and colleague of his wife - Ken Macdonald as the new Director of Public Prosecutions, despite the fact he has a drugs conviction.

. William Straw - Son of Labour Foreign Secretary, and former Home Secretary - Jack Straw, was cautioned by Police for drug dealing, amid a frantic Government attempt to cover up the matter and gag the media as to his identity. Jack Straw also has a brother who was convicted of a sex attack on a schoolgirl. Lovely family!

. Homosexual mass murderer; Dennis Nielsen, who strangled and dismembered 16 young men in the 1980`s, was also a highly active member of Labour fringe groups such as the Anti-Nazi League, and the SWP. That's when he wasn't busy boiling peoples heads in a pot, or masturbating over the corpses of his victims.
Liberal Democrat Criminals

SEX

. Lib-Dem Council candidate (Tower Hamlets), Justin Sillman - Convicted and jailed for 2 years for sexual abuse of young boys.

. Lib-Dem Councillor and Mayoral Candidate ( Sheffield ), Francis Butler- Prosecuted for indecent assault of a young boy.

. Lib-Dem Councillor ( Stockport ) Neil Derbyshire - Sexually assaulted a 16-year old boy in a public toilet. He was caught with a plastic bag containing lubricant, plastic surgical gloves, a condom, and underpants.

. Lib-Dem Councillor ( Preston ), Bill Chadwick - Charged with: Making an indecent photograph of a child, Incitement to rape, Incitement to murder, Incitement to kidnap, and Incitement to torture. Chadwick's gay lover - Alan Valentine, is also a Lib-Dem councillor.


VIOLENCE

. Lib-Dem councillor (North Norfolk), Catherine Wilkins - Also a nurse until she was struck off the nursing register after being found guilty of mistreating patients and abusive behaviour.

. Lib-Dem Parliamentary candidate ( Burnley ), Paul Wright - Charged with drunken assault on his `lodger`. Wright sobbed like a baby during the court case, and the case is to be re-listed and heard again after the jury failed to reach a verdict.

. Lib-Dem Councillor ( Sheffield ) Trevor Morgan - Convicted and jailed for 9 months for unlawful wounding/dangerous driving. After attacking an elderly woman's Golden retriever dog by throwing pepper in its face, he then seriously injured the dog's owner - 57-year old Barbara Johnson, with his car as she tried to stop him escaping.

CORRUPTION

. Lib-Dem Councillor (Peterborough), Michael Jackson - Prosecuted for 21 counts of Theft and False Accounting.

. 3 Lib-Dem Councillors convicted and jailed for Election Fraud in Hackney in 2001

. 12 Lib-Dem officials convicted of Election Fraud in Oldham in 2001.

. Julie Roberts - Convicted of 9 counts of benefit fraud in 2003. 2 weeks after the court case, she was elected as a Lib-Dem councillor in Leicester !

. Lib-Dem councillor (Portsmouth), Ray Race - Convicted and jailed for 4 months for election rigging, along with Lib-Dem colleague Michael Hayward. Race was arrested again in July 2003 for threatening a witness who helped to convict him.

. Lib-Dem councillor (Lambeth), Gabriel Fernandez - Forced to resign after being investigated for benefit fraud.

OTHER

.   Former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe - Stood trail for conspiring to have his blackmailing gay lover murdered.


.......................................................................
A DISGRACED councillor who sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy has quit.

Neil Derbyshire had refused to give up his Stockport council seat despite being ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register after he admitted indecent assault and attempting to procure an act of gross indecency.

Married Derbyshire, 50, of Manor Road, Marple, had previously resigned from the Stockport council executive and was suspended from the Liberal Democrat group, but said he intended to serve as an independent until the elections in May 2004.

Had he been jailed for at least three months he would have been barred automatically. Derbyshire was facing a probe by the Standards Board for England which has power to disqualify him from serving as a councillor. Derbyshire, whose wife Susan is also a Stockport councillor, declined to comment on his resignation.

Stockport council leader Mark Hunter welcomed Derbyshire's decision to quit. He said: "Under electoral law the council could do nothing to force him out of office, except refer the matter to the Standards Board for England."

There is now likely to be a by-election in Derbyshire's Manor ward.
......................................................................

Former councillor jailed for sex abuse

Sarah Hall
Tuesday October 9, 2001
The Guardian

A former assistant director of social services, magistrate and Labour councillor has been jailed for abusing boys in a children's home scandal which may have had as many as 70 victims over 30 years, it emerged yesterday.

Alan Prescott, 62, who was described at the Old Bailey as a "pillar of his local community", was sentenced to two years in prison after admitting indecently assaulting four boys in his care between 1970 and 1980 while he was superintendent of a Tower Hamlets children's home.
......................................................................

News
18 November 2005
email to a friend
Published: 16th August 2002
Crude sex act councillor escapes jail


A COUNCILLOR who admitted performing a crude sex act in front of a teenage boy has escaped jail.

Cllr Neil Derbyshire, of Manor Road, Marple, appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester for sentencing after pleading guilty to indecent assault on a 16-year-old boy and attempting to procure an act of gross indecency in a public place.

The court heard the 50-year-old, who will be put on the sex offenders' register for five years, had performed a sex act in front of the boy in Offerton woodland on March 14.

Derbyshire then offered the boy £30 to meet him the next day and he agreed.

But the teenager told his mum, who contacted police, and they were waiting for him at the meeting point.

The father-of-two was arrested and officers found he was carrying a plastic bag containing gloves, a condom and a pair of men's pants.

Wife Sue Derbyshire, also a councillor, has stood by her husband of 22-years since his arrest and was at the court to hear the sentence.

Ian McIvor, defending, said: "It is very unlikely that he will ever achieve in local politics, his future in politics is finished. He has brought shame on his family.

"He does regret what he has done and does recognise that people will suffer as a result of his actions."

He was given a three-year community rehabilitation order.

Summing-up Judge Stuart Fish said: "The offences that you have committed are always regarded as being serious.

"Young people have a right to expect that they will be looked after and they can trust adults."
......................................................................

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:07 AM

Yes, i know which party i'd rather belong to. lololol

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:22 AM

French riots just a start

The French authorities have announced that the recent spasm of rioting by North African youths is over and done with - a bit of political face-saving that amounts to wishful thinking.

France and most other European nations will likely see similar ethnic tension and outbreaks of violence in the coming months and years because of a collision between the the continent's desperate need to attract immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Mideast, and the cultural pride of European nations that assumes those immigrants can only be assimilated if they drop their cultural identities and become European.

France's ghettos filled with angry, disaffected North African youth show what can happen when assimilation fails. But immigration remains critically important all across the continent because of what statisticians call Europe's "demographic collapse."

Any population begins shrinking when women of child-bearing age have, on average, fewer than two kids apiece. With the sole exception of mostly Muslim Albania, every nation in the European Union has birthrates that fell below the population-replacement level years ago, triggering a shrinking of the population in European nations that grows more pronounced with every generation.

"What is happening now has simply never happened before in the history of the world," is how Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, described the situation to the New York Times in 1998. "In a generation or two there may be countries where most people's only blood relatives will be their parents."

Think about it. If everyone in a family has one child and that continues generation after generation, eventually the extended clans of uncles, aunts, and cousins disappear.

Italy's birthrate is so low that the country is expected to shrink from 57 million in 2000 to 41 million by 2050, a plunge of 28%. Germany's population is expected to drop by 27% in the same period, and Latvia is expected to lose 44% of its population, in what the London Telegraph calls "the most sudden demographic collapse seen in peacetime since the Black Death of the 14th century."

The causes of Europe's shrinkage include factors most people consider positive, such as the availability of birth control and the rising status of women that allows them to pursue professional careers rather than raise lots of kids.

But the empty and half-populated towns that increasingly dot the European countryside are warnings of a grim day of reckoning that is fast approaching. Soon, there won't be enough workers in Europe to staff the factories, man the armies, sweep the streets - or pay taxes to support the vast numbers of aging retirees.

Enter the immigrants.

Europe needs waves of newcomers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to survive. But European nations, particularly France, remain bastions of cultural chauvinism and often refuse to lay out the welcome mat for people arriving with their own customs, history, languages, religions and cuisines.

The irony is that North African immigrants and their children, whom the French have funneled into bleak urban hellholes, are literally the continent's salvation. If Europe can't face up to that fact, expect to see more riots in the future, from Amsterdam to Austria.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Terry K
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:59 AM

Without wishing to be seen as partisan in any way, it does rather seem that rioting and certain other unfortunate social traits tend so often to be an immigrant issue. Apologists claim it is born out of poverty, discrimination, poor housing, unemployment etc etc.

Surely something is blindingly obvious here. If immigration is giving rise to poverty, discrimination, poor housing and unemployment, should we not stop doing it like we're doing it at present?

Should we not make sure that anyone coming in to the (whichever) country is able to support themselves? Surely if they come here poor, they will rather tend to live in poverty. And poor housing. If they are in occupations where there are no jobs, surely they will be likely to be unemployed? If they are not basically cabale of integrating, say by knowing some of the language, would it not be likely that they would be discriminated against - particularly by those who percieve them as competition for the few jobs available, or by those whose lifelong neighbourhoods have been "taken over" by immigrants?

Are these not simply statements of the bleeding obvious?

I'm all for offering opportunity but there are lots of people coming into various countries who have no hope of grasping those opportunities - the result? see above.

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:03 AM

One of the most sensible posts i have ever read on mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:24 PM

If immigration is giving rise to poverty, discrimination, poor housing and unemployment, should we not stop doing it like we're doing it at present?

Methinks you have it upside down. Immigrants are coming to Europe largely to get out of dire poverty, warzones and insecure environments (which to be fair is are often the result of the actions of European states and/or companies). Of course they come here poor (by European standards).

The thing that gives rise to poverty, discrimination, poor housing and unemployment is capitalism: if there is no market for providing people with decent food, clothing, education, housing and entertainment then it doesn't happen, and it doesn't. However, we have the physical means of feeding, clothing, housing, educating and entertaining everybody on the planet. To use the means of production and distribution for the purpose of meeting the needs of everybody, then everybody has to have a say in production. Democratise the economy, abolish classes, abolish money, every pub a parliament, the world for the workers.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Terry K
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 04:45 AM

Piers, with all due respect, I grew out of views like yours when I left my teens and started to find out how the world really works.

I think the key is that you say ".....for providing people with decent food, clothing, housing, education and entertainment....then it doesn't happen"

in other words, you already suppose that people will be entering a country with the expectation of being provided for. We already know that's WHY they come, what we are discussing is the results of their failure to "be provided for" and their failure to "provide for themselves".

If the result of those two failures is poverty, unemployment and discrimination leading to social disorder which is of no good to anyone, not the immigrants and certainly not the indigents, then we need to do something different from what we are doing now, on the grounds that

"The height of stupidity is to continue to do what you've always done and to expect a different result".

My feeling is that it's nobody's job except mine to provide these things for me and my family.

So we first need to establish

1. Do the immigrants expect to be provided for?

2. Do the immigrants expect to be able to provide for themselves?

Then we need to establish how everybody feels about whatever the answers to those questions are. And if we can't then make sensible decisions about a realistic immigration policy without launching off into left-wing or right-wing rehetoric, then things will stay as they are and we must expect the same, unacceptable to all, results that we are getting right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 06:46 PM

Terry, quite how you can deduce from the fact that fellow human beings are living in poor housing with poor amenities and being intimidated daily by the police, in the most 'civilised' and highly developed part of the world, is an immigration problem, I am unclear. This is of the same school as ridiculous idea that 'poverty is a problem of over-population'. It is sad that you assume workers who were born without their immediate political boundaries don't want to work - and it is certainly not true. A government report a couple of years ago stated that migration has boosted the capitalist economy.

From someone who states he has found out how the world really works we hear the old fallacies of the capitalist media: the dole scrounging immigrants who come to this country to sit on their arses all day, the unquestionable truth that the more people on benefits the poorer that honest worker will be, the moral duty of a man to 'provide' for his family. These lies and that you fail to draw any parrallel between working people who were born within their immediate political boundaries and those that weren't suggest that your knowledge of how the world really works came from The Sun and The Daily Mail, rather than investigation, criticism, debate and analysis.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 10:01 AM

From a column in the Wall St Journal 19 November 2005:

"Immigration works only if immigrants come to feel like full participants in our society". The US now has birthright citizenship--"codified for all in the 14th Amendment"--"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States..."

"No European nation grants birthright citizenship to the offspring of its immigrants. And largely as a consequence, no European nation has succeeded in giving second-generation newcomers the sense that they truly belong, and are fully entitled participants in the economy, the body politic and mainstream society."

Is this a fair characterization?




Ironically enough, the reason for the column is that some House Republicans are considering a move that would revoke birthright citizenship.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Terry K
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 11:14 AM

The fallacy is the belief that immigrants come to a country with a desire to integrate and become nationals. In the main, they don't. They leave their own countries for a better life elsewhere because the country they are going to will afford them better conditions than they already have. Integration into the ways, language, manners, culture, cuisine, everything, of the host nation is not part of the main agenda. (Witness mass British, Greek and Italian immigration into Australia through the 1960's).

Unfortunately those in Government, usually seeing things through rose-tinted specs, do not foresee this, and usually don't have to live cheek by jowl with the consequences.

Though Piers is clearly bound up with his own rhetoric, interprets everything accordingly and misses most of the points people make, his comment about

"the fact that fellow human beings are living in poor housing with poor amenities and being intimidated daily by the police, in the most 'civilised' and highly developed part of the world......."

is correct. But what he fails to acknowledge is that this is the direct result of present policies. This is unavoidably true because this is actually what is happening - and has always happened. Until we change something, this will continue to happen. Everybody seems to agree that this is unacceptable, but nobody seems to accept that to stop it happening requires some kind of change. We absolutely must acknowledge that something has to change - simply spouting tired old rhetoric and badmouthing other people's point of view will NOT improve the situation, because that's been tried repeatedly over the last however many years and nothing has ever improved as a result of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 12:11 PM

We're talking, in discussing the French riots, primarily of second-generation (or after) immigrants. If they are not given birthright citizenship, their non-integration is a self-fulfilling prophecy--and virtually assured.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 06:30 PM

I agree with Ron Davies. If you do not have birthright citizenship, you are a second class citizen and you know it.

You are immediately setting up a very large underclass.

The underclass will always be hostile to the systemic discrimination present in a society with such blatant policies of non-inclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Terry K
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 03:25 AM

So if they had what you call "birthright citizenship" would they be more content with living with poverty, unemployment, bad housing and discrimination?

The problems are not caused by their status on paper, though it's probably very comfortable to assign blame to something as abstract as that. Just ask yourselves how changing the paperwork would create jobs for people who are imported with skillsets that ensure they will be unemployed because there are no jobs. And how such a change in the paperwork would prevent resentment when immigrants create ghettoes around the indigent peoples.

There have been some very succesful immigration programmes and certainly the UK, US and Autralia can obviously be seen to have benefitted widely. But that doesn't mean that a policy of indiscriminate immigration can be followed without some kind of reaction. And that reaction is there to be seen wherever that kind of non-policy is pursued.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 04:40 AM

Terry, you continue not being able to tell the essence of poverty from the colour of the skin of many of the people in the worst poverty. As you do not understand the problem, how can I take seriously your proposed strategy for combatting "the problem"?

Your strategy of stopping immigration, or discriminating against immigrants, is odious. I cannot imagine it coming from anywhere but the that you think people not of your country are inferior to yourself not worthy of living as you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Superguest
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 04:59 AM

Piers

Your views appear to spring from the wonderfully fluffy left-wing argument that "everybody has the right to be provided for". However, in the same way as every "freedom struggle" which has backfired at a later stage, the issue arises from the opinion of people demanding "rights" without realising there are certain "duties" and "responsibilities" which you also need to exercise.

If you are moving to a country on the basis of poverty or insecurity back home, surely you have to appreciate that you are going to have to go to lengths to integrate and respect the cultures and regulations of the country you are going to, before you will be provided for. If people do that, and actively seek work and work hard when they obtain work, then there is no argument that the country shouldn't support and stand by those people.

If a country's infrastructure and job market simply don't have the capacity to support an influx, then the country has the right, and in many senses the duty, to close up its borders to all but the most desperate of asylum seekers, since that country is not able to provide the shelter and support to those who are seeking it.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 09:00 AM

There is nothing fluffy about the idea that every mouth to feed is attached to a face, which is attached to a body containing a brain capable of thought and hands capable of work (and like most human beings willing to work). Physical capacity to support people is a non-problem (the capacity of a the capitalist system to provide is another matter), a vast portion of working people do work that in no way contributes to meeting the material needs of the population. Feeding, clothing and housing people is not a problem, that capitalism does not allow this is a problem.

This boils down to whether you align yourself with your fellow workers or with the bosses. The really fluffy ideas and specious arguments (e.g. all foreigners are lazy, the national (state) interest is your interest, it is your country (What bits are mine? Well let's not go into that)). These fluffy ideas are necessary to maintain the belief that despite that fact that the state treats you like scum if you are unemployed, disabled or a pensioner, sends you to war and restricts your civil rights, and the capitalists who live off your labour, who you are consistently at odds with for higher wages, better working conditions and cheaper things, you are better off with them than those who are in the same position as yourself in other territories. International combinationism, solidarity, collectivism and all that, is a danger to privileges of the capitalists that the state protects.

What is really a paradox is that people bang on that migrants should accept their new country's 'culture' (as if culture respects political boundaries). Yet folk cultures which is just about the only genuine bottom-up, historically rooted, culture going but the state and the music capitalism has been a bigger factor than any in destroying that culture.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Terry K
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 12:14 PM

"Your strategy of stopping immigration, or discriminating against immigrants"

er - excuse me, where did that come from except from your determination to construe the exact opposite of your teenage rantings to the points made by others?

I don't have a strategy of stopping immigration, nor of discriminating against immigrants. What I have is a realisation that what we are doing now is being clearly shown not to work, therefore if we are to expect a different result we need to do something differently from now.

Most immigrants intending to go to another country I am sure would hope that they would be able to get a job - the reality is not that, in more cases than is reasonable, evidenced by the facts of immigrant unemployment, as you yourself claimed.

Similarly, most immigrants would hope not to be discriminated against, nor suffer police harassment; the reality is not that, at the present time. I simply don't think it right for immigrants to be misled into a situation where the reality does not meet their reasonable expectancy, nor anyone to be subjected to the practical manifestations of that disillusionment - as currently in France.

There are serious problems, but it first has to be recognised that there are problems before anything can be done about them. Please don't suggest that the whole nature of a country, its culture, economy, social expectancy etc etc has to change to your Utopian model so as to support a clearly non-existant immigration policy (which it seems you are not prepared to even consider changing).

Then again, it's no good writing all this stuff if your mind is so closed that it cannot accept anything outwith your ingrained dogma, so that's all from me. Bye bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 08:27 PM

Terry K - I do not know what immigration policies France may or may not have. I do know that to participate fully in society, you must feel as if you have a voice and can make a difference. At least a citizen can vote for politicians who claim that poverty, unemployment, bad housing and discrimination are on their list of priorities. If you are not a citizen, what stake do you have in the country?

BTW - Most countries do have immigration policies. I know that Canada is looking for different skills at different times. A few years ago, if you were a businessman you could get in easily. Now that the trades are crying for labourers, I would imagine that is who will be accepted first.

You talk as if France has no immigration policy what-so-ever. If that is true, please state your references.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:09 PM

Terry--

I'm afraid your attitudes are rather simplistic. Nobody claims birthright citizenship is a magic wand. The root cause of the riots is obviously unemployment. But France's determined refusal both to offer birthright citizenship and to consider ethnicity and religion even in the census, much less programs geared to the largely Moslem underclass responsible for the riots, is a deadly combination.

As I said, in talking about the riots, we are not primarily talking about people who have been "imported with skillsets that ensure they will be unemployed". We are talking about people born in France--of mostly North African parentage. In order to get jobs, the opportunities for schooling must be there, as well as enough of an orderly and functioning environment for the kids to be able to live from day to day without drugs and violence. I've read that the police are afraid to venture in some of the cite's (need accent).
This probably will call for "affirmative action" programs to recruit police of North African descent.

France intentionally tried to attract North Africans and house them in huge apartment buildings on the outskirts of French cities--they did not want them in the fashionable areas or near tourist attractions. The buildings were actually state of the art at the time of construction, and a big step up for any former tenement-dwellers. But they have fallen into disrepair since--with lots of broken windows, elevators that don't work, etc. Kids can't be expected to fix the buildings--and nobody else is doing it. I've read ( in the Wall St. Journal) that some French authorities want to tear the cite's (accent) down--but most inhabitants just want improvements.

You have to convince people they are in fact full members of society. Birthright citizenship would be a big step toward that. If you don't do this, as well as address unemployment and the other problems, you are playing into the hands of radical Moslem clerics--who in fact can police their own areas, and possibly educate their people, but this will be at the cost of establishing a permanent--and possibly aggressive--alien culture within your own borders.

Is this what you want?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Gilles
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 03:28 PM

Après avoir lu si une bonne partie de vos vues ici, je vous sens le besoin anglais de prendre un regard plus près à à la maison quant à comment vous traitez ceux-là d'autres nations habite en votre propre pays avant que vous décidez d'abuser du français. Branchies

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 03:41 PM

I have to say that i'm totally conflicted on this subject. On the one hand Piers is attacking the French and on the other hand he is using delicious socialist dribble.

"This boils down to whether you align yourself with your fellow workers or with the bosses. The really fluffy ideas and specious arguments (e.g. all foreigners are lazy, the national (state) interest is your interest, it is your country (What bits are mine? Well let's not go into that)). These fluffy ideas are necessary to maintain the belief that despite that fact that the state treats you like scum if you are unemployed, disabled or a pensioner, sends you to war and restricts your civil rights, and the capitalists who live off your labour, who you are consistently at odds with for higher wages, better working conditions and cheaper things, you are better off with them than those who are in the same position as yourself in other territories. International combinationism, solidarity, collectivism and all that, is a danger to privileges of the capitalists that the state protects.

What is really a paradox is that people bang on that migrants should accept their new country's 'culture' (as if culture respects political boundaries). Yet folk cultures which is just about the only genuine bottom-up, historically rooted, culture going but the state and the music capitalism has been a bigger factor than any in destroying that culture."



I mean now really; you can't buy stuff this good!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 04:04 PM

The majority of the rioters are French citizens. Paper French they are sometimes called. The situation right now as I understand it is that offspring from foreigners living in France automatically get the French citizenship at 18 years of age.

When I read this thread I get angry at both the left and right quick off-the-hip responses to the problem. “They are immigrants” (which means: different from us who don’t burn cars, do we?) “they are poor” (which means: everything else can be disregarded for we already have the response) are both subrational responses. They are not equal, for my gut reaction is to prefer the left response by far to the repulsive right reaction, but on an intellectual level they are comparably stupid.

If we look at the average characteristics of the rioters which differ from the whole population averages we see:
They are (with exceptions of course) male, young, poor, jobless, Muslims, offspring from North African immigrants

To declare one of these characteristics as the causative agent for the riots overlooks facts like for instance the one that other poor people do not riot at this moment. I’ll discuss now all six variables in turn.

(1) Male and young. I know that nearly all people of my generation have been taught to look at environmental variables and to disregard biological variables. They continue to do so even if the biological variables are blatantly obvious. By far the best predictor for criminal behaviour (much better than e.g. poverty) is maleness and age. Males at the age of acute testosterone poisoning are overrepresented in all statistics of criminal behaviour.

What does that have to do with these ‘immigrant riots’? In usual quarters the percentage of males with an overdose of testosterone is low. In the riot quarters it is exceptionally high for two reasons. The first reason is the higher birth rate among those immigrants. That may or may not be related to their culture. The second reason is the unnatural age distribution in the riot quarters. That comes from those banlieu (suburbs) quarters having been built within a very short time and populated (with immigrants because they were lacking housing more than the other French people) at nearly the same time. This causes an artificial age distribution for those moving to these suburbs are young couples and young families. Fifteen years later, these neighbourhoods have a much higher percentage of young males than other neighbourhoods.

It has happened in Germany as well. Part of my youth I was growing up in a newly built suburb of Frankfurt. It was nice, all those kids in the other houses, more kids than I had seen at the town we were in before. Some years after I left the criminality in this part of the town took an exponential increase. Gangs were terrorising the neighbourhood. Yes, and most of them were non-immigrant Germans and none of them particularly poor. Those people with the “environmental” approach to the problem spoke about the ‘inhospitableness’ of the modern town, of the lack of social support, of the lack of youth centers. They were blind to the number 1 cause: Too many male youths for a normal population. A decade later, with less social workers and less support, the problem has vanished.

The moral is: if you put too many people of the same age (“ready to breed”) into one neighbourhood, you’ll pay the price 15 to 20 years later, independent of poverty or religion or status. Any quarter with a high percentage of male youths will have more criminality and be more ready to riot for minor causes.

(2) Poor and jobless. The right question to ask here is why only a small percentage of those being poor in France did riot. It seems that poverty is neither a sufficient nor a necessary reason for rioting. In interviews with rioters complaining about their treatment by the French poverty played only a minor role. None of them is poor in the normal sense of the word like it can be said about their home countries or about the Europe of the late 19th century. They complain about having no chances to find a job. They are not just jobless like a ‘normal’ French may be, they do not expect that situation to change by anything they can do themselves. They have been turned down at many job applications. In France, all are French, even the second generation immigrants, how is then the discrimination done. Easily. Like in Northern Ireland, the name, Marcel or Mustafa, is a sure indicator of silent, not open discrimination. You are just not invited for an interview if you are called Mustafa. And if the name doesn’t suffice, the address is often enough indication not even to open the envelope with the application. Ramallah-sur-Seine?, well, just another case for the waste basket.

‘Poverty’ is the most frequent wrong call in this thread. Others who are similarly poor did not riot. Not even ‘joblessness’ is the right description. Permanent joblessness with no change in view induces a state of hopelessness and not belonging to the French society. And if you do not feel being a part of a community and see nothing that could change that situation you have no good reason to treat property with respect.

What could change that situation are measures along the lines of positive discrimination (I recall Ron Davies posting something along these lines but I won’t check while I’m writing offline), incentives for hiring people from a North African background.

(3) Muslims and offspring from North African immigrants. Why did the riots spread so quickly across different towns and parts of Paris? Why did they spread nearly exclusively to predominantly Muslim (North African immigrant) neighbourhoods? Well, if two youths are killed while hiding from the police, I can understand getting mad at the police for those who knew them or for those who feel close to them. The common bond in the rioting quarters is the faith and the cultural background. When in Northern Ireland someone is killed during a police action, the reaction will be quite different depending upon whether his name is Andrew Carson or Kieran Murphy. Different parts of the population will be mad at the police or shrug the shoulders.

Whenever social differences and differences in treatment by the society or differences in chances in life coincide with different religions, religion serves as an amplifier of local cultural differences. That goes on both sides. For the one side, that gives a superficial reason for their “they are different” thinking. The religion makes them perceive any differences larger than they are. For the other side, their common religion is a solace and a common bond in a society they perceive as hostile. They will turn to religion more than they might do under other circumstances.

One can see this effect in Germany. Our Muslim immigrants come mostly from Turkey, but their situation is similar to the situation in France. As a reaction, they are often more religious than their parents were. They follow the religious prescriptions more closely and their religion gives them a feeling of superiority which they usually lack in common life. They keep apart, speak their own language and try not to mix with the ‘natives’. If you have two pubs in a German village, one German and one Turkish, you’ll find Germans and Turks in the Turkish pub, but no Turk in the German pub.

Other immigrants with the same religion as the two big religions in Germany have integrated very quickly. As an example I take one of the few crimes that the Nazis have not committed. There was a large immigration to Germany from what is now Poland in the 19th century. When Nazi Germany went to war with Poland they could have put the Germans of Polish origin in concentration camps (hadn’t they the ideology that the Slavs were subhumans?). They didn’t. They trusted that all the Szymaniak, Juskowiak, Czieslarczyk, Abramczyk (all names here are of German footballers playing in the national team) would feel as Germans and not as second or third generation Poles living in Germany. They were right here. Within one generation, the Polish immigrants were completely integrated. Since I don’t know enough for the last part of my argument about France, I’ll stick to the German situation for the rest of my post

What makes the integration of Muslim Turks in Germany so much more difficult than the former integration of the Polish Catholics was? One reason I have already mentioned is the difference of religions. Not in the sense that one religion is better or worse, but with a different religion one possibility of social contact and mixing is missing. So far, I have not used the Muslim religion as an argument, only the difference of religions.

For the last part, I shall use one particular feature of the Muslim religion as one of two arguments for the particular lack of integration of Turkish Muslims in Germany. The other obvious but easily to overlook reason is the dish, the satellite dish. Whereas the Poles of the 19th century could not easily keep contact with their home culture and language, today’s Turks can. To feel as a part of a Muslim community more than as a part of the German community (even when they have a German passport) is made easy by the availability of the home culture in the living room. Like I can now feel as a part of a folk loving community much more easily on a daily basis and feel close to people I have never met they feel in close contact with a supernational Muslim community (that could be the future of the world BTW that with the internet and the dish national communities play a much smaller role than communities defined by other common properties, religion just being one of them).

The kids of Muslim immigrant background actually speak less German now than they did twenty years ago. I partly blame the dish for that. And I blame one particular trait of that Muslim culture, namely their treatment of women. Women of Muslim faith stay more at home and have close to no contact with other people, in particular other men. When the first Turkish workers came they were nearly exclusively men and mixed quickly with Germans and learned quickly at least some German. When their stay seemed to become permanent, they wanted to have a family and married women from back home. The pressure for people with Muslim faith not to marry a person with another religion is somewhat stronger than in other faiths. These women now came directly from Turkey and spoke no German at all. Their lack of contact with the outside world prevented any change of that situation. Women are in those families the closest contact for the kids and so the kids did not learn to speak German. Any contact with the outside world was little and if possible only in the Turkish speaking subculture.

I know the usual arguments in such discussions that the Muslim religion does not prescribe this behaviour for there are other, more liberal interpretations. I regard this argument as unconvincing. If a Christian subculture (worldwide I mean) uses their understanding of Christians teachings as a good reason to fight against the teaching of evolution as a fact, then no hint to more liberal understandings of this faith does convince me that for this particular group (their understanding of) religion plays no role. Similarly, one understanding of the Muslim faith leads in this subculture to a role of women that makes integration more difficult than it would be for others. In this sense, their faith plays a role in feeling as separate from the mainstream society.

My hope for this to change lies in a slow revolt of Muslim women in the West against this understanding of their roles. Muslim men of course are quite comfortable with the role of Muslim women in their culture and like to hear arguments from faith for that situation. That’s why Muslim women denouncing that role are in danger of being killed by male family members. Honour killings of women in Europe, is predominantly Muslim crime and in some cases the killing is justified by religious teachings (even if misunderstood). To help Muslim women in Europe against this crime, may do more for the integration of all Muslims than many other quickly thought out programmes, with the exception of positive discrimination.

Burning cars or rioting, however, are in no way particular Muslim crimes though I have argued in which way the common faith of the rioters has led to a quicker spreading of the riots to a subset of the French communities.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Piers
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 06:50 PM

Wolfgang, I think you could well be correct about the 'common faith' being important in the rapid and wide spread of the riot, along with modern media and affordable communications. Though I do not see poverty, biological and cultural factors as not independent, these factors are interdependent - the wealth situation effects the biological and the biological effects the environmental. Religions, culture and reproductive behaviour have evolved along with evolving social relations and technology. Teasing these factors apart is essential for analysis but these factors come together to form a whole in the real world. The Paris riots are only a particular form of the reaction to oppression at specific situation. When the kids are back inside watching TV or whatever, the poverty (I mean this in a relative qualiative and quantitative senses), the antagonism of poor and rich - workers and owners - is still there, unresolved.

The point is to change the world not merely interpret it. I don't believe in trying to modify people's behaviour, applying quick fixes - like positive discrimination which inevitably leads to a backlash and grist to the far-right mill and legislating certain cultural practices which similarly is seen as oppressive even by those you might be trying to help - as they can be undone and only prolong the situation. I believe in persuading people to modify their situation, abolish capitalism to take the power now vested in companies, corporations, states and our own hands, to build a humanised society of common ownership, free access to goods and services and direct democratic control of production. Perhaps in a society like that you might feel oppressed when your you are outvoted on something, but I do not see how you could feel powerless or alienated, or be have to live in squalor.   

Rarelamb, On the one hand Piers is attacking the French, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 11:11 AM

Gilles-

So you think those who live in glass houses...?

Fine, but what, if anything, do you think France should do about the problem. You can tell us in French or English--I bet we'd all be curious to hear.


Wolfgang--

What's your source that "offspring from (sic) foreigners living in France automatically get the (sic) French citizenship at 18 years of age"?

Are they automatically French citizens at 18 or not?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 11:18 AM

Question mark missing. Amazing how easy it is to find mistakes AFTER you post.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: goodbar
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 02:19 PM

i wanna be in a riot before i die.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST,Gilles
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 05:22 PM

Ron Votre rapport dans Irlande Du Nord pour la brutalité est su le monde large. La façon vous avez contrôlé Brixton était terrible. La manière vous avez traité Toxdeth était la folie. A besoin de je vais sur ?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: pdq
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 06:07 PM

...the following are machine-generated translations of GUEST,Gilles two posts...

______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Après avoir lu si une bonne partie de vos vues ici, je vous sens le besoin anglais de prendre un regard plus près à à la maison quant à comment vous traitez ceux-là d'autres nations habite en votre propre pays avant que vous décidez d'abuser du français. Branchies"

After having read if a good part of your sights here, I feel you the English need to take a glance more close with at the house as for how you treat these of other nations lives in your own country before you decide to misuse French. Gills
______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Ron Votre rapport dans Irlande Du Nord pour la brutalité est su le monde large. La façon vous avez contrôlé Brixton était terrible. La manière vous avez traité Toxdeth était la folie. A besoin de je vais sur ? "

Ron Your report/ratio in Northern Ireland for brutality is known the broad world. The way you controlled Brixton was terrible. The manner you treated Toxdeth was the madness. To do need for I go on?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 10:25 PM

PDQ--we don't need those "translations--we can do it ourselves.



For Gilles--

Je suis Americain, et je crois que George W Bush, c'est un disastre mondial.

Now, how about some proposed solutions for the French riots?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Nov 05 - 09:32 PM

Et puis, Gilles?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 09:33 AM

Ron,

my source was in German (here

This site in Englsih seems to say more or less the same.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 12:25 AM

Danke sehr, Wolfgang. Schade dass Gilles keine Vorchlaege hat, bzw. will nichts sagen, was die Unruhen betrifft.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 04:24 AM

Need to start brushing up on that German grammar, Ron - not just question marks missing this time...

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 11:51 AM

GUEST--

Va t'en. Besser?

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 11:57 AM

Frightfully sorry.   Far be from me to criticize a courageous anonymous Ghost. If you can come up with a handle, we can continue.

I suspect Wolfgang knew what I was saying--and I still believe it.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 12:10 PM

Deutsche essen lose wurste und tragen dumme lederne kurzsclusse

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 12:57 PM

The war's over, Ted.

This threatens to be thread creep, I'd say.

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 04:48 PM

I have no problems with your German, Ron, but Ted's 'kurzsclusse' was a tough task to find out until I got the idea that the automatic translation program has translated 'shorts' with the German word for 'short circuits'. I'm still not sure about 'lose' though but my best guess is that once more the programme is at fault and has tranlated 'lots' (in the sense of 'many') as if if the context would be a lottery. 'Das Los' in the plural is 'Lose' and if it is spelled 'lose' it means 'loose'.

So what's actually there reads (retranlated):

Germans eat loose sausages and wear stupid leathern short-circuits.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: JennyO
Date: 01 Dec 05 - 09:50 AM

Wolfgang - LOLOLOL - just as well I'm getting a new keyboard for Christmas!

Jenny (wiping off the spilt tea)

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Dec 05 - 10:50 PM

All hail Babelfish!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 07:10 AM

Once fairly left French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut (born in 1949) himself is the son of immigrants (from Poland). For his recent reaction to the riots (interview with Haaretz) he became a focus of critique ('new neo-reactionary' Nouvel Ovservateur) for saying sentences like When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism.. He has apologized in Le Monde for parts of that interview. Here now is an earlier interview with him with more carefully chosen words.

Interview with Alain Finkielkraut: “The illegitimacy of hatred”


Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 07:17 AM

Wolfgang,
         Call yourself a proper German????!!!! I thought I had made a perfect post in German! It said " Germans eat lots of sausages and wear silly leather shorts"
                           Cabeza del pene!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 10:36 PM

NEVER - more welcomed attack upon the the little frogs.

May the "Winter of their Discontent" stirr a feveror of phyilsogphical questions.

I favor a feveor that was never fulfilled in the dreams of LaFayete - may the torch burn bright!

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 04:43 AM

why is everyone speaking in german

Subject: RE: BS: Paris Immigrant?Riots
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 05:16 AM

warum nicht?