French Auto-Destruct.

Oh, the car-manity! Like all the rest of the (what is it now? 3 trillion?) bloggers I have been following the scene in France, but have more-or-less held my tongue because I was fairly convinced that no matter what I wrote, I would end up being wrong. The smart thing, I tell my self, is to rely on those who are, as they say, "on the ground."

But I can't help but throw in a cent or two. A few days ago, Jack at Random Fate argued, using the fallacy of post hoc (a favorite on this blog) that the feature of Islam in the riots does not prove that Islam itself is the cause. While that is true, and while there are those who will seize the opportunity to make the case that it's all about Islam, there looks to be more complexity at work. These "youths" rioting are overwhelmingly Muslim, yes. They may be rioting for every reason other than radical Islam. But that doesn't mean that Islam is absent, or that demagogues are not looking to take advantage of the situation, even if they did not think of it first.

Jack takes some heat for his opinion, which kind of reinforces his argument. I honestly think that Jack is right to a certain extent, my reservations coming from the presence of the aforementioned demagogues. I plainly hope that Jack is right about this. He does point out something that is deceptively insightful:

We should never forget that the culture of the US has benefited in ways not yet recognized from immigrants, even those from Mexico that are continually decried by many.

We integrate them without a government mandate.

Europe does not integrate them despite government mandates.

Those three sentences demonstrate a better understanding of the situation than I have found in most other blogs and news articles. Scroll around for some continued posts on the subject.

On the other hand, Melanie Phillips argues that the isolation of the Muslim communities are in many ways self-imposed and a result of bad policy on the part of the French government and a desire on the part of Muslims to establish an Islamic foot hold in France.

Blaming an official policy of segregation is wide of the mark. The fact is that French Muslims want to be segregated. The ghettoes are a way of ensuring a separate Islamic existence without having to assimilate into French society.

But Melanie also echoes Jack's comments:

The fact is that whatever policies different European countries have pursued to deal with minorities, they have not cracked this problem. France has enforced a rigid policy of state secularism and assumed that all minorities would adopt French values simply by being French.

By contrast, the British and other Europeans have adopted multiculturalism, which means giving minorities equal status to the majority, and have bent over backwards to be accommodating to them and not give offence.

Yesterday I received an email from Richard Chesnoff, who has been living in France for decades and visiting the country for 50 years. His analysis of the problem hits me as being just about right:

Fact is, this mini-civil war is a long-festering sore that's finally turning gangrenous: the anger of France's increasingly large minority of Muslim immigrants and their children, inflamed and frustrated by what they see as exclusion from the mainstream.

The problem originated in the 1950s and 1960s, when France began importing cheap labor from its former colonies in North Africa. Les Arabes were to do the dirty work and eventually go home. Few did, and today North African immigrants and their families number almost 6 million, more than 10% of the French population.

In a nation that insists immigrants accept the monolithic secular French culture, a great divide has grown. Part of it is the insular nature of Islamic North African culture. But much of it is that "French" France still rejects its North African countrymen.

They don't get good jobs or decent financial opportunities. Their unemployment rate is often as high as 50%. There isn't a single Frenchman or Frenchwoman of North African origin (or black, for that matter) in the cabinet, and only a handful hold any position of rank in the civil and commercial bureaucracy. There are virtually no black or Arab anchors on French TV, or North African cultural presence in the theater or cinema.

This has further angered the Muslim population, driving it deeper into its own ghetto mentality and to communal violence. When I first came to France 50 years ago, North African immigrants spoke Maghreb Arabic, but their French-born children proudly spoke French. Today, the beurs, the young French-born generation of North Africans, talk to each other in Arabic.

The riots aren't helping to reverse the separation. They also, predictably, are frightening and angering large portions of the traditionally xenophobic French mainstream. "I'm no racist," says my neighbor, "but unless we send them back where they came from, we'll have an Arab majority in 30 years."

Needless to say, the venomous corps of Muslim extremists that has infiltrated France's mosques over the years is working the nightmare for all it's worth, egging the young on to jihad - holy war. French security forces are working around the clock to round up potential Islamic terrorist gangs intent on carrying out attacks on French soil. And French and American security services recently traced a network of French-born youths volunteering to join Al Qaeda and battle U.S. troops in Iraq.

There's no rapid solution. But the government must act quickly to improve conditions and attitudes on both sides, to make it clear to the Muslims that violence is no recourse, that France is indeed the land of liberty, equality, fraternity - and opportunity. If it doesn't, France's national nightmare will grow worse, and deadlier.

To me, what Richard is saying is that this is a situation long in the making that has its roots stuck deep, but that now is in danger of being exploited by a force with a much more malignant agenda.

Unfortunately, so far the response from the government has been haphazard and filled with political gamesmanship (kind of like what's going on, oh maybe a little closer to home). Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised a crackdown along with "scholarships" and "programs," which, it would seem might just reinforce the behavior we are witnessing now, if only because it seems so feckless and reactionary. M. de Villepin might want to address his country's economy before promising jobs that he can't deliver. It also might be a good idea not to refer to the riots as "a warning" and "an appeal."

From my un-expert viewpoint, this isn't a salvo by global jihadists, rather looking more like a chance for disaffected hooligans to do a little burnin', but could very well turn into a kind of civil war, not immediately, but sooner than we want to admit. Right now, most of what we get to see is the nightly blazing Citroën, even though now we have our first death and the rioters are also burning schools and churches and in some reports firing on police. If opportunists are allowed to parlay this, there will be trouble.

Curfews will be in effect tonight at midnight local time. We will see soon enough which side will come out ahead.

Comments

[Jack]

I'm sure you will see it eventually, but you might want to read my (very long) post at The Moderate Voice that attempts to bring the different aspects of the issue together.

[Older Bro]

And for a different take what is happening in France
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
and click on the Burn Bébé Burn link.

[Dave Schuler]

I think that you, Jack, and I are largely on the same page.

These "youths" rioting are overwhelmingly Muslim, yes.

I'm not sure it's that clear-cut. Most of these kids aren't themselves immigrants (as we use the term) but the children or even the grandchildren of immigrants. I wouldn't be surprised if they're as Muslim as their français de souche counterparts are Catholic. Judging by the pictures I'm seeing many of those in the riots are descendants of sub-Saharan immigrants. Many of these immigrants were Christians or animists. You can't tell what their religion is/was by looking at them.

[Daniel]

Well, Dave, I'm admittedly going on reports from people I know in France (Jack included, of course) and the overwhelming concensus is that the rioters are of Algerian background and Muslim. However, I accept Jack's formulation that the fact that they are Muslim doesn't mean that Islam is at "fault."

The other thing that I have heard &mdash and read &mdash is that there is a growing presence of imams in the street, some who are trying to help the authorities quell the violence and some who are jockeying for position. That indicates to me a substantial Muslim presence. Again, I'm merely reporting what I have heard, not making a knee-jerk judgement based on the reports.