Apparently Muslim immigrants are flipping out all over Paris, and have been for the last week. I just learned this because Wikipedia’s main page news is one my main sources of news. But anyway, this is some gay shit.
WTF? Europeans really need to step up to the plate and buckle down on militant islamism at home. Maybe it’s just me, since I care about the French more than America, but this pisses me off as much as Sept. 11, 2001 about muslims. I’m very afraid of France and the rest of Europe being taken over by those with a completely different culture. It may sound racist or whatever, but I believe the european culture of the last thousands of years is a lot more valuable than the militant islamic culture of the last 50. Maybe if they went back to the poetry and art and harems and all, but right now it’s just miserable and getting worse. I know there are a bunch of Europeans here, how do you even feel about this kind of thing, Paris riots and Dutch filmmakers-getting-killed sorta baloney?
What kind of idiots are these people, destroying their own neighborhoods because some idiots got themselves electrocuted by climbing into an electrical transformer station while trying to escape from the police?
From what I can understand, while trying to escape from a police chase that didn’t exist. I had the same reaction as Vorpy. I think this really brings forward the issues which Europe has kept hidden away. I think all the animosity, lack of integration and control and the blight that has built up is now becoming aparent and people are starting to realize that they have to do something about it.
It isn’t they (Oh, the irony.) that are the problem, they aren’t even the source – nor is it us. It’s what we call culture clash, segregation, racism, intolerance, stupidity and lousy integration, and it gives Europe a terrible, horrible headache.
Agree.
This is kind of shocking, disapointing. I always admired France for being a multiethnic, open and more egalitarian state than most other countries. Just look at their soccer team
Well, it looks la belle France has trouble integrating the recent arrivals from Maghreb. Is this what you call a culture shock?
after witnessing firsthand the areas and living conditions most muslims live in in Paris, i can attest to the fact that there isn’t much there to destroy in the firstplace. the issue really isn’t so much that france is allowing Muslims too much control over the culture, the issue is that most muslims in Paris live in these banlieu slums that are so marginalized from the rest of the society that most Parisians could give two shits whether or not the people living there are rioting. it’s similar to Chicago in many ways, and the conditions of poor african americans living on the south side. most chicagoans, even wealthy and middle class african americans, have never even been to the south side, except to maybe go sneak a peek at the university of chicago and the museum of science and industry (in a primarily white neighborhood), or to go to a sox game (once again, in a relatively white neighborhood). if Blacks were to start rioting down on 79th Street, I’m sure the same general apathetic response would ensue.
Nulani is right in that there are a lot of issues of culture shock, but the question for Europeans is not how to reduce the islamic threat by marginalizing the culture even more, but rather how to allow the culture to integrate a little bit more and participate in society. Despite America’s war on terror and anti-islamic sentiment (At least within certain factions), people who identify as muslims in America are in general far more economically successful than muslims in Europe, and there is generally more willingness among american muslims to refer to themselves as “Americans” than for European muslims to identify themselves as “French” or “German” or whatnot. Not saying Europe should just become like America…but I think Europe has some racial and cultural purity issues they need to get over in the 21st century.
Marginalized groups often destroy their own neighborhoods because the residents do not actually think of said neighborhoods as their home. Sure, it’s where they might live, but at the same time, the residents might view these suburban slums as nothing but jails that the French people put them in to keep them out of sight and out of mind. There are very few housing options for poor Muslim immigrants to move into in Paris, and outside of the 20th arrondisement which is already way too overcrowded, they are forced to move into these poorly taken care of 60s high rise projects in the suburbs where there are no jobs, poor schools, and where most Parisians have never even gone. My French teacher in Paris told me he hadn’t been to the banlieu in 5 years except to drive through it. These neighborhoods are hardly a point of pride for the residents.
People asked the same questions of the Black riots in the 60s. Why did they destroy their own neighborhoods? For much the same reason. They were overcrowded slums that the government and redlining real estate companies forced the people to live in. Most of the buildings were owned by White companies or were public housing, and there was very little property ownership because banks refused to give Blacks mortgages. Most businesses in these communities were owned by Whites and Jews, because they could sell cheaper than Blacks who tried to operate businesses. So yes, the Blacks lived there, but it was hardly “their” neighborhood. They barely owned any of the land, the businesses, the schools were so much worse than White schools…you can’t expect people to feel some sort of pride in such a neighborhood. I’m sure if you look at the situation in the PAris banlieu, you’ll find most of the same forces at work.
Here’s my problem with this: no one made the muslims come to France. Even counting the results of colonialism in Africa and the middle east, there’s nothing like the black slave trade between Africa and the new world that forcibly brought muslims to France and the rest of Europe on such a scale. It seems to me that the muslim immigrants are coming to Europe for the economic benefits but don’t want to integrate with mainstream European culture. I think the burden of integration is on their hands and they maybe aren’t trying hard enough. This is a big can of worms, but look at east asian immigration to America and the current perception of asians in America. The asians generally seem to do their fucking damnedest and today they’re basically becoming a new sort of jew, that is, minority group perceived as and to a large degree that is more successful socially and economically. Of course, it can be considered that the asians didn’t have the long history of animosity that whites and blacks have had, but certainly they experienced their fair share of prejudice.
Of course, all I know about this is what I read and learn from things like Thomas Friedman’s Discovery Times channel documentaries, which are outstanding, by the way. I’m trying to better understand this entire thing, although I’m sure some people will think I’m a neo-nazi neoconservative fascist etc. after this thread.
It’s true that there are marginalizations, but the problems go both ways. There’s racism and intolerance from both sides, with many people in both camps unwilling to reach out and understand each other due to deeply rooted mistrust.
There are also disgusting cases where muslim parents have forbidden or even killed their children for falling in love with people of different religion. On our side, we have the skinheads.
There are a lot of problems, true - but I want to believe that things are going forwards. At least here, we have muslims and other people of different lineage than the larger part of the population becoming politicians and gaining employment. Europe will and is constantly mixing. Things like these riots could just as well happen with poor whites as anything else. Heck, when there was a EU meeting in Guthenburg a few years back, the whole town turned into chaos - and those were mainly white people rioting.
Due to my mom’s work, and the rare social contacts of my own, I come into contact with a ton of immigrants from the muslim nations. The VAST MAJORITY of them make no effort besides what they’re required by law (and not even that at times) to integrate–not learning to speak a common language, etc. That combined with some other things of their culture (women dressed completely in black on a hot summer day, etc) leads many Dutch people to feel like we’re being invaded of sorts. As in, they come here because we’re a welfare state, then refuse to adopt to the state to function as a citizen.
Regardless of wether it’s true or not, this is a view that MANY Dutch people posses, and honestly, the many immigrants I meet do nothing to discourage that image.
It is true that no one made them come to France, but something made them go there. That something is exactly the same that drove immigrants from Europe to America in the 19th and early 20th Century. It is the exact same story repeated. Why didn’t you have riots? Why aren’t you blaming the the Italians, the Norwegians, the Irish, the Russians, the Germans, the British? Because America, then, managed to do that Europe hasn’t: Integrate. These people don’t migrate to Europe to cause harm and to destroy Europe and the European culture. They migrate to Europe with the exact same dreams and hopes as the Europeans who migrated to America. And when those dreams and hopes aren’t fulfilled, they become dissapointed and frustrated. As would you have. Many immigrants to America did.
I’m sure some people will think I’m a neo-nazi neoconservative fascist etc. after this thread.
No, but you do have quite a few racist tendencies.
As Nulani said you’re making some racist generalizations. Furthermore, a lot of people from northern Africa and Tunisia and places like those were brought to Europe to rebuild the continent after WWII. So it is inaccurate to say nothing brought them over. There was an active effort to bring in cheap labor.
Furthermore, asian people have experienced and do experience racism. I learned a lot about asian racism, the yellow peril and all sorts of shit that continued in the US until AFTER the 60s when black people gained a lot of freedom themselves.
It is also important to note that when people came to America at the beginning of the 20th century, there was racism, discrimination and a lot of what is going on in Europe with the formation of origin/culture-centric ghettos.
The muslims may come to europe for the same reason-- opportunity, generally speaking, but I don’t think they come with the same willingness to integrate, somethign which is magnified by their totally different culture. When the Europeans started coming to America in the 19th century (after, of course the original conquest of the continent) it was largely the same general culture, European Christianity meeting (British) European Christianity. And there was failure to integrate for a long time even between them. Even in the 1960s our country could barely elect am Irish Catholic president, who to date has been our only one of either persuation. In fact, almost every single US President has been of British ancestry. Our national legislature just last year gained its first hispanic senator. I’m sure many blacks here would scoff at your notion that America has integrated them successfully. As for your contention of my racist tendencies, I dispute that and would like if you could explain what gives you that impression.
A discerning culturist, perhaps, but I would openly welcome such an epithet.
I’m pretty sure they do. It takes time and even generations before there’s even a chance that immigrants will integrate. It did take time before the non-English/British immigrants from Europe integrated into British America. They’d still read and speak, say, Norwegian. They would in ghettos. What is different between America, then, and Europe is that British-America would eventually accept and absorb them, not lock them out like we generally do here in Europe.
Russians, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Poles hardly had the same culture as the British. They worshipped deviants of the same religion maybe, but it can hardly be said that they had the same culture.
I did say America, then, not America 1960-2005. Then means up to 1930.
You generalise and you do it based on ethnisity and religion. That’s racism, or at the very least xenophobia.
