Monday, November 07, 2005

As predicted it got Le Fuglier in France...



The other day when posting about the on going riots in France. I mentioned that I thought it was going to get fuglier (fucking uglier for those new to Mia language) and it has. A 61 yr old man has died of injuries sustained southern city of Toulouse. Reports indicate that he was beaten. The government has now deployed 9,500 police officers in an attempt to quell the rioting which has now spread to 300 towns. They are also imposing curfews wherever deemed necessary. Privately President Jacques Chirac has that France has failed to integrate the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants in poor suburbs who have been participating in the violence, according to Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who met with the French leader on Monday. She said Chirac “deplored the fact that in these neighborhoods there is a ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin” and recognized “the incapacity of French society to fully accept them.”

The rest of Europe is now scared shitless that the rioting will spread. Cars were set ablaze outside Brussels' main train station and in a working class district of Berlin, although officials in Belgium and Germany on Monday sought to play down the risk of the kind of violence that France has experienced since Oct. 27th.
Abdelkarim Carrasco, a leader of Spain's estimated 1 million-member Muslim community, said the French experience poses a key test for Europe.
"Either Europe develops and supports the idea of a mixed culture, or Europe has no future," he said. "Europe has to learn from what the United States has done. It is a country that has taken in people from all over the world."

German conservative told a reporter that what was going on in France would never happen in Germany because, “We don't have these gigantic high-rise projects that they have on the edges of French cities," he said. Schaeuble cautioned, however, that "we have to improve integration, particularly of young people. That means above all that they must master the German language." Yeah that's true that way they can say DISCRIMINATION in 2 languages. This past January Germany passed an immigration law making it mandatory for immigrant to take German Language courses as well as civics classes. The idea behind this is to make integrating into German society easier for all. Others are saying that the rioting in low-income Paris suburbs is proof that European immigration policies don't work. Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria's rightist, xenophobic Freedom Party, called on Austrian leaders to stop immigration and implement integration measures that would prevent "French conditions" from emerging in his country. WTF?!

Russian Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov said Russia could see similar rioting, "but on an even greater scale and with even more dramatic consequences."
There's something to look forward to but at least this Zuganov is acknowledging that they have a problem unlike France who has sat around with it's fingers in brie for the past 40 yrs as the seeds of these riots were being planted. "When the makeup of the population changes so fundamentally during a short period of time, its new members cannot adapt overnight.” Excuse me 40 yrs is not over night. Then he continued to talk and just made me want to slap him silly for being such an idiot when he said, “ Many of those who became French citizens or who recently sought asylum envy the native population and want to solve everything quickly by resorting to violence." I don’t think it’s so much envy as it is the human condition that demands respect and equal treatment as evidenced by the civil rights movement in this country and the Watts riots. People get fed up and not everyone believes in the power of passive protest.

The Swedish tabloid Expressen said in an editorial that the trouble in Paris is of an ”all-European relevance. We have difficulties accepting that people come to us from far away," the tabloid said. "It is like the humble staff at a luxury hotel would suddenly take up quarters with their richest habitues. They should know their places, a dark undercurrent in the collective European consciousness says."
Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said France had ignored his calls for more tolerance, arguing that France's ban on head scarves in public schools triggered the riots. We've always told our friends in Europe that they should not lead to a clash of civilizations in order to prevent such incidents."

"We should work for an alliance between civilizations. There is a great duty which falls on the Christian and Muslim world. Europe should have evaluated this," Erdogan said. "We said it. But France did not take it into account. It did not listen to us."

Labels: politics

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