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Do not Put Islamic Spin on French Riots
As French riots continued unabated for the12 th night running, seeing more cars torched and French authorities threatening curfews, a well-known Muslim thinker warned against bringing religion into a situation that has nothing to do with faith and a poll showed two thirds of French people dissatisfied with their government's policies on marginalized suburbs.
"Above all, one must not Islamisize the question of the suburbs. The question that France must answer is absolutely not a question of religion," Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Tuesday, November8 .
Asked by AFP where the roots of the malaise lie, Ramadan said the entire political class in France has been "blind" to what has been happening in the suburbs, with their unemployed youth of Arab and African origin and bleak high-rises.
"There's an obsession about a religious divide, but no one sees the socio-economic divide in France, with places in the process of becoming ghettos with the suburbs on one side, the better-off areas on the other."
"There must be a struggle against this institutionalized racism. There are second-class citizens in France. That is the reality."
"People (in the suburbs) have the impression that they count for nothing, that they can be looked down upon and insulted in any way," Ramadan added to AFP, from his current vantage point at Oxford University.
"We're in the process of losing a footing in the suburbs. Even so-called Muslim associations are more and more disconnected. The fracture is profound... We are seeing an Americanization in terms of violence."
The Swiss thinker – of Egyptian origins -- grandson of the founder of the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement in the1920 s, added there needs to be a return to order: "Violence is not a solution and sanctions must be taken against gangs."
But he said that security measures can only be part of a broader policy, one that addresses the core of social problems.
"We need a modern-day Jaures," he said, referring to Jean Jaures, the pioneering French socialist politician at the turn of the20 th century.
"It was Jaures who said that the religious question must be filed away so that one can focus on the social question. The unity of France is a myth in socio-economic terms, and the question of faith is not the problem."
It would also help to keep a lid on "counterproductive" speech, said Ramadan, who recalled Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's description of the rioters as "scum".
"It's not by insulting one part of France that you can protect the other."
Unemployment
Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of French people feel that the government's policies towards the poor city suburbs where rioting has spread for the past 12 days are misguided, according to a poll.
Asked about the government's approach to the general "situation in the suburbs" -- without specific reference to the recent unrest --71 percent felt it was "going in the wrong direction".
Only 20 percent of respondents approved of the government's policies, according to the monthly survey conducted jointly for Yahoo, the Liberation newspaper and iTele news channel.
Concerning unemployment -- seen as a key factor behind the riots -- the survey revealed that 58 percent of people were unhappy with current policies, while 33 approved, according to AFP.
On the fight against crime and insecurity, 59 percent of those who replied said they were unhappy with the current government policy, against 34 percent who supported it.
The poll of1 , 007people was conducted on November4 - 5as the violence that erupted northeast of Paris on October 27 started to spread beyond the capital.
Curfews Threatened
On the ground, more cars were torched overnight into Tuesday but the situation looked calmer after Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced that regions are to be given powers to impose curfews to curb riots that have gripped hundreds of towns across France.
Police said Tuesday that1 , 173vehicles were burnt and 330 people arrested overnight as France experienced its12 th straight night of urban violence.
Twelve police officers were lightly hurt, mainly by thrown projectiles. Some officers were the target for people firing buckshot, though none was hit. A dozen buildings were hit by arsonists.
The number of vehicles torched and arrests made were slightly lower than for the previous night, possibly signaling a tapering off of the unrest that has raged since October27 .
Overnight Sunday, more than1 , 400automobiles were gutted by flames and395 people were detained.
The escalating violence claimed its first life on Monday as a61 -year-old man, who was beaten into a coma last week, died in hospital.
Under pressure to act as the arson and street violence headed into a12 th night, Villepin, speaking on national television, said regional authorities would be given the power to impose curfews "where necessary".
A decree was to be adopted at a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday and curfew measures would be applicable from Wednesday morning, Villepin said.
President Jacques Chirac was to hold a cabinet meeting Tuesday which was to give regional authorities the power to impose curfews if necessary to restore public order.
The prime minister ruled out an army intervention to stop the violence, which spread to some 300 towns over the weekend, but said that1 ,500 police reinforcements would be deployed to restore public order.
And some 200 people held a silent tribute to Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, who died in hospital after being assaulted Friday as he was discussing the riots with a neighbor in Stains, north of Paris.
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2005-11/08/article01.shtml
Asked by AFP where the roots of the malaise lie, Ramadan said the entire political class in France has been "blind" to what has been happening in the suburbs, with their unemployed youth of Arab and African origin and bleak high-rises.
"There's an obsession about a religious divide, but no one sees the socio-economic divide in France, with places in the process of becoming ghettos with the suburbs on one side, the better-off areas on the other."
"There must be a struggle against this institutionalized racism. There are second-class citizens in France. That is the reality."
"People (in the suburbs) have the impression that they count for nothing, that they can be looked down upon and insulted in any way," Ramadan added to AFP, from his current vantage point at Oxford University.
"We're in the process of losing a footing in the suburbs. Even so-called Muslim associations are more and more disconnected. The fracture is profound... We are seeing an Americanization in terms of violence."
The Swiss thinker – of Egyptian origins -- grandson of the founder of the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement in the1920 s, added there needs to be a return to order: "Violence is not a solution and sanctions must be taken against gangs."
But he said that security measures can only be part of a broader policy, one that addresses the core of social problems.
"We need a modern-day Jaures," he said, referring to Jean Jaures, the pioneering French socialist politician at the turn of the20 th century.
"It was Jaures who said that the religious question must be filed away so that one can focus on the social question. The unity of France is a myth in socio-economic terms, and the question of faith is not the problem."
It would also help to keep a lid on "counterproductive" speech, said Ramadan, who recalled Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's description of the rioters as "scum".
"It's not by insulting one part of France that you can protect the other."
Unemployment
Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of French people feel that the government's policies towards the poor city suburbs where rioting has spread for the past 12 days are misguided, according to a poll.
Asked about the government's approach to the general "situation in the suburbs" -- without specific reference to the recent unrest --71 percent felt it was "going in the wrong direction".
Only 20 percent of respondents approved of the government's policies, according to the monthly survey conducted jointly for Yahoo, the Liberation newspaper and iTele news channel.
Concerning unemployment -- seen as a key factor behind the riots -- the survey revealed that 58 percent of people were unhappy with current policies, while 33 approved, according to AFP.
On the fight against crime and insecurity, 59 percent of those who replied said they were unhappy with the current government policy, against 34 percent who supported it.
The poll of1 , 007people was conducted on November4 - 5as the violence that erupted northeast of Paris on October 27 started to spread beyond the capital.
Curfews Threatened
On the ground, more cars were torched overnight into Tuesday but the situation looked calmer after Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced that regions are to be given powers to impose curfews to curb riots that have gripped hundreds of towns across France.
Police said Tuesday that1 , 173vehicles were burnt and 330 people arrested overnight as France experienced its12 th straight night of urban violence.
Twelve police officers were lightly hurt, mainly by thrown projectiles. Some officers were the target for people firing buckshot, though none was hit. A dozen buildings were hit by arsonists.
The number of vehicles torched and arrests made were slightly lower than for the previous night, possibly signaling a tapering off of the unrest that has raged since October27 .
Overnight Sunday, more than1 , 400automobiles were gutted by flames and395 people were detained.
The escalating violence claimed its first life on Monday as a61 -year-old man, who was beaten into a coma last week, died in hospital.
Under pressure to act as the arson and street violence headed into a12 th night, Villepin, speaking on national television, said regional authorities would be given the power to impose curfews "where necessary".
A decree was to be adopted at a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday and curfew measures would be applicable from Wednesday morning, Villepin said.
President Jacques Chirac was to hold a cabinet meeting Tuesday which was to give regional authorities the power to impose curfews if necessary to restore public order.
The prime minister ruled out an army intervention to stop the violence, which spread to some 300 towns over the weekend, but said that1 ,500 police reinforcements would be deployed to restore public order.
And some 200 people held a silent tribute to Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, who died in hospital after being assaulted Friday as he was discussing the riots with a neighbor in Stains, north of Paris.
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2005-11/08/article01.shtml
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BECKY: Isn't France the country where Afro-Americans went to escape the racism in America that kept their music, art, or literature from being accepted?
Isn't France the country that has accepted into it's borders more Muslims than any other European country?
Isn't it stated French government policy to view all citizens as French, regardless of their ancestry, race, or religion?
And if Islamicism had nothing to do with causing the riots, then we can also conclude that Islamicism had NOTHING to do with teaching young Muslim men respect for one's host country, respect for reasonable laws against vandalism, arson, assault, and attempted murder, and respect for the average French citizen who is now afraid to go to the store to buy a loaf of bread.
He added that an attack on a synagogue in Pierrefitte outside Paris was simply part of general rioting.
"This isn't connected to anti-Semitism. No one has brought up the Jews as an issue, so for now, it's not an issue for Jews," said Azeroual, who arrived Sunday and witnessed the violence in the Paris suburbs.
While admitting that the French government had refused to admit anti-Semitic motivation behind attacks in 2000, "in the past two years, with the new government, the situation has improved. Now there is an agreement between the Interior Ministry and the Jewish community over the number and nature of the attacks, and that number has definitely gone down."
Azeroual, who was in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Clichy and other sites of recent rioting, said he wasn't surprised by the outbreak of violence, which he said had been brewing for years but was fomented by a rise in radical Islam in France.
"It's been going on for more than 20 years," he said. "There are the suburbs and the poverty, the difficulty Muslims are having with being absorbed into France... Now there's a rise in radical Islamist ideology in these areas. These kids have no place to go, no job, so they go to the mosque. There, the radical imams tell them that they have different values, that even after three generations they haven't managed to integrate into French society, and that they should also follow their Muslim values... Instead of telling these kids they're Frenchmen, they tell them they're Muslims."
"Unemployment has reached 30 to 40 percent in the suburbs," he explained. "There's no family structure. The older generation can't control the young anymore."
Azeroual said he witnessed the burning of cars of neighborhood residents by the rioters, who he claimed are spurred on by the underworld, mainly by drug dealers. "They want to turn these neighborhoods into places where the police are afraid to go, and they use the youth to distract the police, so that their activities can continue undisturbed," he said.
The drug dealers, or ka'ids, as they are known, also have a territorial demand and "want to create a space outside the Republic, and to institute their own law," he said.
Asked whether France fears terrorism will arise out of the rioting, Azeroual said: "It's true that there's radical Islam in France, and that they caught several members of al-Qaida who are Muslim Frenchmen, but unlike what went on in Britain and Spain [before the terror attacks in those countries], the secret services in France have penetrated these organizations."
He predicted Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy "will adopt a policy of cracking down and won't make excuses for them... The solution is to break up the ghetto and the black market, to build new buildings, to give these people jobs, to send companies into these neighborhoods."
Um, where have you been? In case you hadn't heard, there was a fatwa (a condemnation -- we're not talking Salman Rushdie territory here, as best I understand) issued against the rioters. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the fatwa, it was issued. Your inference is baseless -- if anything, the youths are ignoring what muslim clerics are telling them, not adhering to it.
I think what you're getting at here is highly suspect, quite frankly, It shows that you know next to nothing about most muslims, save for the scare tactics you're bombarded with on television.
Try though you might, it's not going to work.