Warzone in France

[Jacob Orlove]

Enough. I'm leaving this open for now so people can keep talking about the situation in France, but if I see any more partisan sniping, I will close this thread and start issuing warnings.

[nataz]

awww,

I at least was just kidding. Anyways is anyone surprised this is actually happening?

For me, this underscores the danger in stratifying society into insular, isolated groups.  This isn't to blame the French or say that their social model is bad...every country does it, to some degree.  It's just something everyone should work to minimize to prevent the "us versus them" mentality from exploding into episodes like this. 

ding ding ding ding.

Take a look at GB when the copy-cat subway bombers were being picked up by the police. Every news media outlet was scrambling to get the veiviewpoints the muslim community, and when it started to come out there was more sympathy for the bombers then certainly I expected. Between the Iraq war, Palestinehe current percived jihad, Turkey and the EU, high unemployment thoughout Europe, and Brownie's comments above, France (and possibly Germany) are powder kegs waiting to A-splode.   

[jpmeyer]

Oh man, "the welfare queen".  That was hillarious.

When you see them every week at work, you tend to believe they exist.

Oh, not just any welfare queen, THE welfare queen.  Back in the 80's Reagan used this example, who may or may not have actually existed, of this woman who somehow was collecting $144,000 a year in welfare checks, to explain why upstanding, hardworking citizens should not have to support the underclass.

[Britanny]

We're not here to talk about politics... But to talk about the events in France and try to understand them... We don't care about you're political side, please be objective..

[jpmeyer]

There's politics and then there's "politics".  "Politics" in quotes are bad, since that's just people flaming other people over issues that neither of them really understand fully.  But politics without the quotes are really important here.  I personally think that in this sort of instance, being objective is a bad thing, since we're dealing with a group of totally marginalized people.  Being objective seems like it's a good thing, but since we're not telling either side, it by definition continues to render the marginalized group's experiences invisible.  In this case, it's much better to just tell both sides and then work off that.

Whlie the underlying causes haven't really been a topic of discussion in this thread yet, I just wanted to make that clear in advance.

/assists a post-colonalism/multiculturalism prof, so I get a lot of exposure to this sort of thing.

[MrZuccinniHead]

I don't think you can compare your ghettos and our suburbs we don't have no fights between gangs or some stuffs like, people are sometimes quite rich because of our social system (a lot of children=a lot of allowances). We just have some stupids guys who are smoking cannabis and hanging around all day and sometimes beatting people..


Note ; just want to say that 6 months ago I was a full user , 5 days ago I was a community member and now I'm a basic user ... Somebody can explain that ? ...

There's not much gang activity anymore that was the "cool" thing of the 90s.  It's very limited now thanks to gentrification.

We're not here to talk about politics... But to talk about the events in France and try to understand them... We don't care about you're political side, please be objective..

I think that the events in france have everything to do with politics.

liberal pansy!
If it was up to you, we'd be letting homeless people into college. AND paying their tuition, while giving minorities, and other lazy people, free trips to Europe, all on the honest tax-payers dime!

lol now you're just being ridiculous.  He was merely stating what she said was a little extreme and ironic given the current situation.

[Limbo]

Ok, the warzone has reached the Netherlands as well. And by warzone I mean people burning lots of cars. And by people I mean some vandals just abusing the riots in France to have some "fun". And by lots of cars I mean a grand total of four cars.

Two of three newspapers I read call it by name : just some vandals being stupid. A third one actually related it to the stuff going on in France. They quoted a civilian that was affected by the riots : "Now I know what was going on in Paris. I don't feel safe anymore...". For those who don't get it yet, literally gazillions of youths were massing in the streets. And by gazillions I mean 5-10...

[Bram]

Ok, the warzone has reached the Netherlands as well. And by warzone I mean people burning lots of cars. And by people I mean some vandals just abusing the riots in France to have some "fun". And by lots of cars I mean a grand total of four cars.

...and by cars you mean the poor excuse for automobiles Europeans tend to favor as their mode of transportation.

[Limbo]

Ok, the warzone has reached the Netherlands as well. And by warzone I mean people burning lots of cars. And by people I mean some vandals just abusing the riots in France to have some "fun". And by lots of cars I mean a grand total of four cars.

...and by cars you mean the poor excuse for automobiles Europeans tend to favor as their mode of transportation.

You are right. I don't suppose any "PC Hoofd Tractors" were burned over night.

[knickers]

It's easy for some of us to critize ...

Let France work out its own issues ...
Even though there could be a lot to learn from watching it all unravel. Especially in our own society.
A life lesson!

[Smmenen]

Jacob, it was pretty clear that Nataz original post was being sarcastic.  I don't think Dante or you understand that.

[Jacob Orlove]

Actually, I did understand that. My comment was actually originally directed at a couple of posts that were removed from the thread, but I left it because I didn't want people to go off-topic again.

[nataz]

It's easy for some of us to critize ...

You're right, it is easy,

Along those same lines of thought, there are more then a few political figures who are secretly reviling in the current French policy disaster. For them, It's nice to know that when push comes to shove, the United States isn't the only one that can't realistically deal with the clash of cultures. Misery doth love company.

The one positive thing about this is that it really is highlighting some of the problems in western culture. I still feel that cultural relativism does exist, and that many problems, both internally (i.e., France), and externally (i.e., US in Iraq) stem from this lack of consideration. The violence in GB this summer, and now in France has roots much deeper then just an angry/disenfranchised isolated community in Europe; instead I think the divide lies hard on the west v. east divide. This dosn't necessarily mean I agree with people like huntington (in fact, I think he's only a heartbeat away from kipling), but the clash of culture idea isn't totally without its merits (especially in the light of someone like Hobbes or even Clausewitz)

This belief in cultural relativism is one of the things that separates me from people like Steve (who I believe is much more of an "internationalist"). I am not thoughroughly convinced that there needs to be a fully globalized world. Heavily intergrated yes, but true globalization, death of the nation-state, and far reaching boiler-plate international law, is not my cup of tea.

I should note that this idea holds much more sway with my friends in Jordan and Japan, then in my classroom at UMaine, and honestly doubt it will find much support here.

[Dozer]

This belief in cultural relativism is one of the things that separates me from people like Steve (who I believe is much more of an "internationalist"). I am not thoughroughly convinced that there needs to be a fully globalized world. Heavily intergrated yes, but true globalization, death of the nation-state, and far reaching boiler-plate international law, is not my cup of tea.

I should note that this idea holds much more sway with my friends in Jordan and Japan, then in my classroom at UMaine, and honestly doubt it will find much support here.

I don't want to bite on the "death of the nation-state", because that's an entirely different topic. I don't know the theory behind "cultural realism", either.

But I agree that a clash of cultures does in fact exist. Only the events in France are not an expression of that clash. What happens there is different: Young people who have grown up in French suburbs, speak French, think French and eat French are the perpetuators of this violence. Even if some or many of them have a migratory background (immigrant parents/ grandparents), they feel French. They have grown up with the idea of "liberté, egalité, fraternité", were raised in the country that stylizes herself as the cradle of democracy and expect to be treated just like anybody else. It's not a problem of clash of cultures, but the problem that the French government neglects the majority of the youths in the country. At least that's how the situation is and always has been portrayed in Germany.

The reasons for that maybe manyfold, but I think that the North-African background of many of the rioters and the riots themselves are connected through a very different, complex series of linkages. The situation is much more French youths rebelling against their government than Muslims fighting against the foreign culture they chose to live in. These guys and girls want to live in France, and in the French culture; they just want equal chances and the respect that every French citizen is entitled to.

I say it again: This is not a clash of cultures, but, if anything, a clash of generations.

Dozer

[dandan]

The problem in France is that protectionalism has given them mega-high taxes and inefficient state and pseudo-state run companies and consequently high unemployment. Racism is fairly open with characters like Le Pen running around.

High unemployment plus racism means immigrants have a hard time.

Another side-effect of this soft of social model is that nobody but the state is responsible for anything. Not got a job? It's the state's fault. Clearly torching a few cars is a better solution than education or vocational training (actually the EU is likely to pump large amounts of tax payers' money into France so they have been proved to be correct).

Lots of Frenchies give France a bad name.

[Demonic Attorney]

The one positive thing about this is that it really is highlighting some of the problems in western culture. I still feel that cultural relativism does exist, and that many problems, both internally (i.e., France), and externally (i.e., US in Iraq) stem from this lack of consideration.

This will be a bit of a tangent, and the powers that be should feel free to delete this if it ends up leading the discussion too far afield.  Or split it off into its own thread and move it from here to the storage forum to the basic user forum as "Warzone Thread Random Off-Topicness", whatever seems best. 

I'd respectfully disagree with the idea that cultural relativism underlies the international hostility between the Middle Eastern nations and the Western world.  In my opinion, this has more to do with the fact that during the Cold war, countries in the Middle East were used as a proxy battlefield between communist and Western nations to avoid direct warfare and the potential for Mutually Assured Destruction.  Sure, the West has been skirmishing with the Middle East since the Crusades, but I don't think anything bred the deeply-ingrained hatred of the Western world like having booby-trapped care packages blow up and kill children, or religious sects being armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry and turned against other citizens of their country as puppets of the West. 

In the end, I think the people of these countries responded the same way any other nation would to being manipulated and exploited as a proxy in a war that it had, and wanted, no part in.  They grew to resent the countries that brought their war to the Middle East and inflicted the price on the indigenous people.  Seen in that light I guess one could say that, cultural relativism notwithstanding, there's a bit of common ground between all nations and peoples after all.

On a bit more relevant note, I recently read that the state of emergency has been extended into the immediate future; do any of the French citizens see this as indicative of a change in French policy towards national security, or how this sort of civil unrest should be dealt with?