Paris Is Burning

[trolls' bane]

I said it before, and I'll say it again. This planet is falling apart. Seriously, I don't want to be here when it erupts, but it looks very soon.

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

(It should also be said that there is a heavy dose of criminality involved too.)

Unfortunately, it could be that riots ARE the answer. As in, the only way to get mainstream society to take these problems seriously is to torch the place.

How seriously do we think they would be taken if they'd had a march through Paris instead?

On the one hand, when you say "it could be that riots ARE the answer," the Black Panther-esque side of me goes "yeah, that really DOES ring true and seem right on," but THEN, the Martin Luther King Jr. side of me pipes up when you say "how seriously do we think they would be taken if they'd had a march through Paris instead?" M.L. King Jr. was taken seriously, and his marches for the American Civil Rights movement were far more powerful and revolutionary than, say, the riots of April 26 1992 in L.A., post Rodney King verdict. Don't you think?

Riots just make a mess. It takes brains and TRUE courage, and patience, and fearless drive and chutzpah to really create lasting positive social change. Not just thuggin' around tossing molotov cocktails into random cars.

[Melfena]

This may be slightly off topic, and i'm sorry if it is.
We have a french forgien extange student at out school this year, and reading this thread reminded me of a conversation i had with her. I was telling her about how nice the people were when i was in Australia, and she responded with "If the people in the band thought they were nice, they must have been incredibly nice, because i thought that americans were nice compared to the french."

[inked]

Has the French Government surrendered yet to the rioters? What's taking them so long?

> >France has neither winter nor summer nor morals.
> >Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
> >France has usually been governed by prostitutes."
> >Mark Twain.
> >
> >
> >"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one
> >behind me."
> >General George S. Patton.
> >
> >
> >"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your
> >accordion."
> >Norman Schwartzkopf.
> >
> >"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it."
> >Marge Simpson
> >
> >
> >"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure"
> >Jacques Chirac, President of France
> >
> >
> >"As far as France is concerned, you're right."
> >Rush Limbaugh,
> >
> >"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is
> >sitting in Paris sipping coffee."
> >Regis Philbin.
> >
> >"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any
> >better,
> >on average, than the citizens of Baltimore.
> >
> >True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but
why
> >this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses
> >of whisky I don't know."
> >P.J O'Rourke (1989).
> >
> >"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the
> >1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the
> >face for it."
> >John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona.
> >
> >
> >
> >"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein?
> >Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is
> >French, people!"
> >Conan O'Brien
> >
> >
> >"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get
Saddam
> >out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get Hitler out of France
> >either"
> >Jay Leno.
> >
> >"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into
> >Paris
> >under a German flag."
> >David Letterman
> >
> >Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada.
> >Ted Nugent.
> >
> >
> >War without France would be like ... uh ... World War II.
> >The favorite bumper sticker in Washington now is one that says 'First
Iraq,
> >then France.'"
> >Tom Brokaw.
> >
> >
> >"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its
> >national will fighting against DisneyWorld and Big Macs than the Nazis?"
> >Dennis Miller.
> >
> >
> >"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when
> >they needed us."
> >Alan Kent
> >
> >"They've taken their own precautions against al-Qa'ida. To prepare for an
> >attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a
> >three-day supply of mistresses in the house."
> >Argus Hamilton
> >
> >"Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being
> >advertised on eBay the other day -- the description was, 'Never shot.
> >Dropped once.'"
> >
> >Rep. Roy Blunt (MO)
> >
> >
> >"The French will only agree to go to war when we've proven we've found
> >truffles in Iraq."
> >
> >Dennis Miller
> >
> >Raise your right hand if you like the French ... raise both hands if you
> >are French.
> >
> >Q. What did the mayor of Paris say to the German Army as they entered the
> >city in WWII?
> >A. Table for 100,000 m'sieur?
> >
> >"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It's not known,
> >it's never been tried."
> >
> >Rep. R. Blount (MO)
> >
> >"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII?
And
> >that's because it was raining."
> >
> >John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv.
> >
> >The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the
> >London bombings that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to
Hide.
> >The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The
> >rise
> >in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed
> >France's white flag factory, effectively disabling
> >their military.
> >
> >
> >French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney
> >(AP), Paris, March 5, 2003
> >The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the
use
> >of fireworks at Euro Disney.
> >
> >The decision comes the day after a nightly fireworks display at the park,
> >located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby
> >French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists.

[Butterbeer]

classic

boy that made me laugh!

... mind you we had a '100 years war' with 'em ... still it just wouldn't be cricket to start without them ....

[Lotesse]

Yes, those were quite amusing quips; however, this is not a "dog France creatively" thread. I made this thread to discuss what is going on with the young minority street revolution that's still going on all over France, not to discuss funny things about France.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Why is Paris burning? Why are the muslim kids burning everything, from Paris and Toulouse now on into Germany and Belgium, and it isn't slowing down? This is a heavy topic, rife with possibility for intense debate. How did it come to this, this surreal revolution/riot of the young minority underclass of France? What really has caused it, and how should (or can) it be amended? How can this sort of thing be prevented - better immigration control?

I'm open to answers and ideas from interested and informed mooters who are up on this craziness developing lately in France.

I talked with the teacher of my French Language class about this. She loves Paris, and expressed her views to me. She says that it goes back far into the history of the country. Europe has experienced many wars, and this, in addition to the class structure of society, tends to unify the people of specific European nations. Immigrants from Africa and the Middle East have come in in droves, however, and they bring their own culture with them. This causes a great deal of difficulty, because, according to my French teacher, no effort is made to mingle the two cultures.

Furthermore, France has been an extremely secular state for many years. This clashes with the views of the many Muslim immigrants, who are used to Shariah law. To many French, religion is all right so long as it is in your own home, behind closed doors. For the Muslims, religion has always been part of state and society. Coming into an extremely secular environment is a very difficult switch, and when little effort to adjust to customary French ways is made, the religious barrier becomes even sharper.

Another issue is, of course, poverty. Many of the immigrants came to France, hoping for a better future. They have been sadly disappointed. Few jobs are available to them, little future awaits them, and society shuts their way of thinking out. My French teacher claims that unemployment was a big problem in France before the immigrants began to pour in. Thus, my teacher claims that the French have not been treating the Africans and Middle Eastern folk in a racist or intolerant way, but a problem that already existed in France is massively expanded. Within . . . I believe the last twenty years, 8 million or so immigrants moved to France. That's 8 million out of the total population of France, which is 60 million. Needless to say, the population shift is enormous.

France also is a very cramped country. It has limiting, close boundaries, trapping and confining the expanding population. It has none of the history of acceptance of diversity, and none of the culture blending that America has always experienced.

I think that these explanations my teacher made about the history of the difficulties make a lot of sense. As regards the racism argument, I really couldn't comment. I know there is an opposing side to the story as well; there always is. Anyway . . . just thought I'd post some of the dimensions to the conflict that I've heard from a native Parisian.

[Jonathan]

Good post Lief. Intergration is a big problem in France. Not only are there many immigrants from former French colonies who haven't really blended with the French community, but their kids and grandkids have troubles blending in as well. When a country have 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants who haven't become integrated, the country is bound to see problems arise.

[trolls' bane]

Gosh. I wish I had time to read that. Saving to Word...

[Nurvingiel]

Very thoughtful post Lief. I'm glad to see you around. I don't think your Parisian friend's insight rules out racism and other problems from the "other side of the coin", but they definitely add another layer. There aren't bad guys and good guys in this situation (as your post served to outline).

From the Globe and Mail, Saturday, November 12:

For Canadians smug in their mythology of inhabiting the planet's most successful multicultural society, the riots of France have been cause for national tsk-tsking and self-satisfaction. At least, goes the script, we've got social inclusiveness right.

At least — maybe more by luck than by design — we've avoided the creation of racial underclasses: no endless ugly suburbs of brown and black people imprisoned in poverty from which scant hope of escape exists.

At least we've embraced into our national culture the notion of postethnic identity, woven the values of anti-discrimination and equality into not only our laws but into our hearts and national idiom.

Well, hold the complacency, eh?

To be sure, a Canadian mirror held up to the car-BQs of France shows no violent mass unrest brewing in, say, Toronto's Jane-Finch or Jamestown neighbourhoods, Montreal's quartier St-Michel or patches of Greater Vancouver's Surrey and the Downtown Eastside.

But what recent research reveals is an alarming and disquieting analogue to the demographic portrait of the French suburban cités.

It shows an emerging population of Canadian-raised daughters and sons of visible-minority immigrants Ã* la France whose accents and cultural reference points are as Canadian as maple syrup, but who in many respects feel less welcome in the country than their parents.

"Their parents came to improve their lives," says University of Toronto sociologist Jeffrey Reitz, one of Canada's foremost academic experts on immigration and multiculturalism.

"They can make comparisons to where they were. They can [move] on. But for their children born in Canada, they don't have the option of going anywhere else. And they expect equality. Therefore their expectations are much higher."

The data show, in fact, a generation raised in the milieu of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and multiculturalism's rhetoric, who expect to be treated as equals in Canadian society and who angrily are discovering that they are not.

Their disaffection has gone largely unnoticed until now in polls and academic research because, unlike in France, the numbers of the visible-minority second generation are statistically small — less than a million.

France's wave of visible-minority immigration occurred in the fifties and sixties; Canada's began only in the seventies. Two-thirds of the Canadian visible-minority second generation are still under 16.

As Prof. Reitz observes, "It is striking that indications of lack of integration into Canadian society are so significant for the Canadian second-born generation, since it is this group which is regarded as the harbinger of the future ....."

Data collected by Statistics Canada for its 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey and other studies and then analyzed by scholars such as Prof. Reitz and the Institute for Research on Public Policy show that, for the immigrant second generation in multicultural Canada, all visible minorities have less of a sense of belonging to the country than do whites.

The data show that on virtually all indicators used by sociologists and governments to measure integration into Canadian life, visible minorities rate themselves as less integrated than whites.

Add their perceptions of non-belonging to their socioeconomic rankings — among all ethnocultural groups in Canada, racial minorities clearly have the lowest relative household income and the highest poverty rates — and the outlines of underclass loom menacingly from the mist.

Indeed, Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey, considered the leading scholar on race and economic underclass in the United States, recently told a University of Toronto audience that some of the indicators of racial underclass are appearing in Canadian cities.

It is not, however, just a matter of economics.

As Prof. Reitz points out, "Although visible-minority immigrants have lower earnings than whites, at an individual level, low earnings contribute little to trends in social integration.

"Rather, the negative trends in integration reflect their more pronounced experiences of [broad] discrimination and vulnerability, which become or remain pronounced for the second generation" — experiences felt with more acuity and resulting anger by the second generation.

Listen to the voice of 22-year-old Rahel Appiagyei, a third-year student in international relations attending Toronto's elite bilingual Glendon College at York University.

"No, I don't feel accepted," she says. "The one thing I don't understand — me, personally, and for blacks in general — is why we're still seen as immigrants."

In the Canada of her experience, she says, "the word 'immigrant' is used to mean coloured and the word 'Canadian' is a code word for Caucasian." Her parents emigrated from Ghana in 1988, when she was 5. Immigrants from Ghana — along with those from Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan — have the highest rates of poverty in Canada, between 50 and 80 per cent. She, her parents and five siblings live crowded into a three-bedroom apartment.

Ms. Appiagyei, whose idiom and accent with trademark raised ou diphthong are flawlessly Canadian, says with pride that her family has never needed a penny of welfare, that her father has steadily worked since he arrived, and that she is the first in the family to be accomplishing what her mother and father brought their children to Canada to do.

She cites the Toronto school board's policy of zero tolerance for violence and points out its targets are overwhelmingly black students. Something can't be right with a policy that winds up being aimed at a single racial group, she says. "It gives me a lot of messages."

Ms. Appiagyei tells the story of living one summer in Quebec with a family to learn French. The father made clear that he associated blacks with poverty and one day commented that he had never thought blacks attractive until he met her. "It was a compliment and insult at the same time."

The Ethnic Diversity Study found 37 per cent of Canada's visible minorities report discrimination, and for blacks alone the figure is 50 per cent.

Ms. Appiagyei says the more engaged and involved in Canadian life she becomes, the more she encounters gaps between her expectations of what Canadian society should be and the reality she encounters.

She tells of being often asked: ".'You're from Africa, how come you know English so well?' I feel I'm always being assessed with lions and tigers, with remoteness. Why is it we're not allowed to feel we belong here?"

On her sense of remoteness, one of Prof. Reitz's findings from the data carries special weight: "Although most Canadians deny harbouring racist views," he says, "they express 'social distance' from minorities — that is, preferences not to act with members of other racial groups."

And so, Prof. Reitz says, the alienation of today's visible-minority second generation is a harbinger of the future.

"Perspectives on racial discrimination divide racial groups, and such racial divisions do matter for the broader cohesion of Canadian society."

Canada's visible-minority population is rapidly growing and, by 2017, will be 20 per cent of the population, with the percentages significantly higher in Canada's largest cities.

The research data show that about 30 per cent fewer visible minorities than whites have voted in federal elections (although only 20 per cent fewer visible minorities than whites are citizens). The same 30-per-cent gap exists between visible minorities and whites in identifying as Canadian. A smaller percentage of visible minorities than whites report satisfaction with life and trust in others; a smaller percentage engage in volunteer work in their communities.

And, of course, the data show clearly that as second-generation white immigrants nestle comfortably into Canadian life, their visible-minority counterparts lag behind.

What the data also show is that white Canadians tend to discount the claims of discrimination reported by their non-white fellow countrymen and countrywomen. It's not the mythology of multicultural inclusiveness. And yet discounting those claims, Prof. Reitz warns, may make matters worse.

"Lack of [racial] conflict in the present may not be a good predictor of the future."

Maybe now is a good time to ask if conditions for a similar situation to France's exist in our own countries, and if they do, what can we do about them?

[Nurvingiel]

(Post to update thread. Ignore)

[Lotesse]

That WAS a good post, Lief! Nice 2 see you around; haven't seen you online as much lately. And thanx 4 the article, Nurvy! Haven't read it all yet, though...

[rohirrim TR]

Originally Posted by trolls' bane

I said it before, and I'll say it again. This planet is falling apart. Seriously, I don't want to be here when it erupts, but it looks very soon.

the chaos will only aid our take over when the EMP-mmmm*lotesse stuffs pillow in mouth* ptooey never mind i agree the whole universe suffers from entropy.

[trolls' bane]

Ugh! Who would want to take over Earth! Those Terrans complain too much, kill each other. Dang, forget that.
Yep, the rioting continues, I beleive. What is it, day 20?

[Lotesse]

rohirrim tr, what you need is a damn good spanking from your mommy, and an hour in the time-out room. Go back to your star wars threads for that stuff, s'il vous plait.

[rohirrim TR]

yeah, its pretty crazy, like the french revolution except for the whole head cutting off thing that hasn't happened there yet.... i've got an idea for a t-shirt burning cars never solved anything, and have a pic of a fire extinguisher.

[Lotesse]

It is nothing like the French revolution. Have you read this thread through, or watche4d or read any of the actual news reports, rohirrim TR? Please quit trying to kill all the threads with nonsense, please.

[rohirrim TR]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

rohirrim tr, what you need is a damn good spanking from your mommy, and an hour in the time-out room. Go back to your star wars threads for that stuff, s'il vous plait.

burning cars never solved anything, neither did timout.

[rohirrim TR]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

It is nothing like the French revolution. Have you read this thread through, or watche4d or read any of the actual news reports, rohirrim TR? Please quit trying to kill all the threads with nonsense, please.

well i haven't read in depth, but, the total anarchy is somewhat similar to the precursor except these weirdo's don't have much of a purpose or goal or anything. i'm not killing threads i've been 95% on topic baby. but i won't post here if it helps any.

[Lotesse]

*sighs in exasperation* Just please try and stay on topic,and try & check the silliness, rohirrim tr; as long as it's on topic & relevant, then by all means, post here.