Show Them Who Is the Boss in France | The Brussels Journal
It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The “youths†do not blame the French, they despise them.
….West Europeans cannot blame the Muslim “youths†for looking at the world the way they do. Europe willingly opened the door to the Muslims, not just by allowing large-scale immigration on an unprecedented level, but also by encouraging the newcomers to retain their culture.
….It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion.
~Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal
I came to this particular article by way of Gail, again. And again, I find the pundits views somewhat lacking except for this article. For two reasons: one, I believe religion matters much more than I think the secular West is willing to admit, and two, because I think it is important to look at the motivating emotions and why we in the West keep getting to answers wrong when it comes to Islam, and Muslim unrest ( or attack) in our nations.
The second observation is similar to revisiting reaction to the 911 tragedy. Anger at the West for not making a better effort at assimilating the Muslims, anger on issues, comparisons to other eruptions of violence… and the wonderment at the very idea that the West could be hated.
It is that last mindset that most interests me. Why the Western Democratic nations are so slow to understand why they are hated. The answer to the antipathy is within this quoted section, “It is possible to share the same culture with someone from a different race, but not with someone from a fundamentally different religion.”
You might retort that many different religions co-exist within the West. But do they in the context that sees rising numbers of Islamists walled off from the others, by choice? It is my opinion that we are seeing what I have held as an abstraction of theory: that the tolerance and civilization of democratic forms can only exist within a predominantly Christian nation. Why do I not include Judaism this time? Judaism is not strongly evangelistic in its present form… and that makes it a neutral in the struggle between those beliefs which give rise to the tolerance and freedoms of Democracy and those which do not. It is a bulwark within, but cannot create the necessary response to Islam. We owe a great debt to the Jews, in scriptures, and thought, but our present society and government arose from the influence of Christianity. And this is where the fulcrum of the balance is going to sway…. Christianity and Islam as opposing ideology outcomes from their “fundamentally different” religious foundations and doctrines within society.
The day has passed when we can promote that all the great religions have the same basic things to say. And it is the Muslims who have brought the curtain down on that idea. It is time for the rest to wake up to this truth.
The Western nations presume that their premises are the accepted ones of all the rest of mankind. That our ideals of freedom for diverse and equal religious paths, equality of the sexes, even our ideals of racial equality are something that everyone else holds esteemed. That we are basically a ‘good’ society and that all other peoples in their rationality will see this. And so we preach patience, and accomodation. They’ll come around, we think. And this is the ‘evolutionary’ pinnacle that we have evolved to… thinking that it is a physically embedded reality now.
Those things would work if, indeed all men held these same premises. But we were lulled by the ubiquity of Christianity in our midst. We thought its problems were all the problems and the worst that we would face…. and that we have grown in ‘goodness’ while outgrowing Christian ideas and mores.
In secular societies this works, as the only antithesis has been atheism which only lives so long as it responds negatively to a religion that tolerates it. Atheism is a choice within the Christian stream because freedom of choice is not only tolerated, but respected and desired.
Once a religion arises that demands devotion and submission in a temporal territory, the room for atheism is gone, the room for other avenues of seeking God or constructing society is gone. That is why within Islam there is such a struggle between those states given over to the outcomes of their chosen religion and those states with a form of the Western government that gives religion a certain distance. A distance of individual freedom of choice.
Without that distance the nature of humanity to enslave and enforce comes under the strongest of rationalizations: ones interpretation of God/god…that parades not as God Himself ( Who, if He were God could not abide the manipulations of selfish men), but as the Will of Man cloaked under god-words. This is an explanation of why Islam has its proponents of a modern, supposedly peaceful religion and a merciless and aggression-prone one.
As everyone contemplates the future of France I believe there is one under rated component. This is God. Who is in Heaven. I cannot tell you what God’s timetable is, but I can say that hope of free France is to be viewed as a mission field for Christians. I read the idea that Muslims were welcomed to modern France partially for the hope of bringing moral strength to the nations fabric. Why has Christianity proven so flabby in moral fiber? It is not the faultiness in the teachings… why have those who held them relinquished them so readily?
Is it the Christian way to set cities on fire? To trample the weak and needy? To demean and degrade? If not, then there has to be a viable demonstration of that in the culture. That is the fight that will win.
Otherwise the field is left to evil forces. Evil forces, I say. Because eventually physical destruction of the opposition is all that is left, and the West greatly loses its ground of good when it goes to war on the basis of religion. We can fight on moral ground, on defensive grounds, and maybe others, but we cannot fight a physical war purely on religious grounds without giving over to evil.
And, yes, that is a Christian belief. We have to offend many traditional rationalizations to maintain it, but there it is. Our warfare is not earthly and physical, our warfare is spiritual, and its weapons are those that -in every way- are contrary to the thinking of this world.
Are you ready to face the hatred? Are you ready to overcome it determinedly? Are you ready to awake now, or wait til the battle is at your door? Will you pay now… or increasingly dear, later? Do you laugh up your sleeve at France? Do you stand afar off aghast? Wasn’t it apparent that it could not be long before the tinder ignition of untended Islamic wildfires jumped the fence?
What is the lesson for me? That the War on Terror will not be enough. Even if wholeheartedly waged. That all the talk of “demographics” means only one thing… the spiritual war has escalated, and we wait idle in the trenches, toasting each other and turning up our radios, buying our gadgets and offering our souls to …. whom? To what?
Well…they say ” If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain….”
Or as Dylan put it, you gotta serve somebody. The devil or the Lord. There are Muslims who will refuse the evil and choose good. I am convinced of that…will we help them make that choice? Will we provide examples of good …or we will ourselves become corrupted in violence, bitter dispute, and oppressiveness?
Whom will you serve in this day? Do you know? Consider your answer today, while the flames of France illuminate the choices.
::update: I have been rethinking the balance that I see in play between the three main monotheistic religions. I also revised a few things here for clarity, particularly as separation of church and state is concerned ::
Hi again, Ilona 😉
I’m not avoiding you deliberately, BTW – I’ve had a lot on, including losing my job and some ongoing health stuff. As you should know, I’m not so easily offended as all that (how long did you know me elsewhere?)
Once more into the breach – well 😉
The article you quoted is *extremely* problematic re France. “Encouraging the newcomers to retain their culture” is far less of an issue there because France has deliberately followed a policy of assimilation rather than a UK style “multicultural” model. The tinderbox situation came about because of the poor treatment of the inhabitants of the banlieues – their parents encouraged over to do manual work in a time of higher employment, then their French children left to rot in poor conditions with little hope of decent employment. And getting called things like scum who should be cleansed off the streets, which doesn’t help.
(Did the original article mention what started the whole thing off, I wonder…)
The rioters aren’t motivated by religion – even the French police concede that – and if you can read French, check out Le Monde’s reporting on Clichy-sous-Bois where Muslim adults (the rioters being mostly young) have been trying to calm the situation and even offering themselves as human shields to protect police, telling them “Don’t shoot! We’ll take the stones for you.”
This isn’t a Muslim uprising or a jihad, though the potential remains for unsavoury elements to take advantage of the situation. It’s a response by the children of poor immigrants from a number of different regions and religions to what they see as being marginalised and treated with contempt. Also, I have noticed that teenage boys like to set fire to things and chuck stuff 😉 so there’s undoubtedly a fair bit of bandwagon-jumping going on.
I’ll readily agree with you on two things off the bat: what we see in France is not an example of jihad, and that the article was a bit problematical.
I am sure that some Muslims are distressed by the violence- I think this type of event is creating a true crisis within Islam, and will cause many to question their unthinking loyalty to this religion.
I don’t believe the article addressed the matter of being called “scum” by Sarkozy ( I believe it was)- which I think was right, simply on the basis of it being a temporary exhibition of prejudice and frustration. Politicians often call rioters names like “scum”…not a good thing, but it doesn’t enter the larger equation.
What I believe the article does point up, and well, is the guaranteed clash of the Islamic religion-based culture which has its raison d’etre within another nation of eventually displacing that culture and nation. This is the unavoidable truth with Islam. It must be faced.
Being of a soci*l*st bent you have bought into the sociological reasonings for the violence. You illustrate my contention that religion is discounted so heavily in a secular mindset that it is impossible to properly assess the actual dynamics. People of Islam are religiously motivated as a group. They exemplify matters that I, myself a religious person, have come to see as wisdom in not desiring to institute relgion of any sort as the official religion.
But every culture has to choose the prevailing set of mores. This is what is at the bottom line of the crisis in France.
Perhaps coming soon to a nation near you…..
===I can’t believe it- I got censored by my own comments who knew that soc***ism is a bad word;)
I’ve warned you before about the anti-left bent of your provider 😉
Actually, what started the rioting off was not Sarkozy’s comments, nasty as they were. (“Racaille” isn’t even as nice as scum, and “karchariser” which was what he threatened to do to the “racaille” – it’s actually a brand name of a kind of high-powered pressure hose used to blast dirt off, giving his comments an “ethnic cleansing” tone…)
It was the deaths of two boys of African origin who panicked during a random police ID check, the police not having a reputation for their extreme kindness to immigrants. They ran towards an electric generator, scaled a fence and were electrocuted – the rioters claim the police deliberately failed to warn them, stood back and watched them die. That, coupled with the comments, was what started the whole thing off. As can be seen from the incident, there’s a fundamental problem with the relationship between the inhabitants of the banlieues and the police.
I’m not getting where you view this as Islamic in tone, though. There is no religious motive behind the riot, Muslim leaders have been attempting to calm the spirits of youth rather than provoke further, a fatwa has been declared against the riot – and you feel this will lead them to “question Islam”, why?
To be honest, I feel you’re attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole here. I get accused on a regular basis of being a big commie (can I say that?) and therefore seeing things only from a class basis, but the origins of this riot in class/race based divides, high unemployment and poor living conditions, coupled with a feeling of not fitting into French society (and the fact that throwing stones and blowing things up can be fun ;)) seem so obvious that I don’t think I can look like an apologist for Islam this time…
(I’d also point out that France has racial tensions anyway due to the presence of Le Pen’s lot etc…and the rioters are by no means solely Muslim, but come from a variety of regions and races.)
If these kids had been living in middle-class Parisian homes, fully accepted into society, would “Islam” cause mass rioting naturally? I do not think that you would say that it would…we can certainly look at why these rioters don’t feel part of French society, and religion plays a part in that, but it’s not a motivating force in the present situation.
“It was the deaths of two boys of African origin ”
See, I view those as the trigger and not the cause. It was an accidental cause of death… brought on by the imagined fear that they were being pursued by police ( if the account is to be believed). That means a couple things. The ander was that the boys were running scared, but this being both subjective on the one hand and somewhat stupid ( in the way youth can be prone to) on the other doesn’t add up to just cause for the rioting. There is necessarily something beneath.
You say”If these kids had been living in middle-class Parisian homes, fully accepted into society, would “Islam” cause mass rioting naturally?” Excuse me for bringing it to your attention, but weren’t the terrorist bombers in England very much middle class and integrated into common activities and schools of England? In the Islamic model in the West the social welfare is mooted. It doesn’t matter how well they do economically or socially if they hold themselves in a posture of enmity against the culture on principle.
I keep on the view that this is “Islamic in tone” because this is the driving factor in the cultural clash: the religion and how it trumps all else. You have to see what the religion spawns in a people, then if they are religiously motivated whether that is something the religion self-modulates or not. IOW, what are the rationales for “war ” in Christianity, etc? What is allowed or not allowed and against whom? What are the caveats?
That tells whether one is dealing with something that works within the outer culture or not… where does it all lead to when one follows the religion?
You speak of “racial tensions “, but where do you not find these? When people have racial differences you simply have a sliding scale of “racial tensions ” that tend to arise. It is a matter of how the larger culture chooses to address these, and France historically has been more egalitarian than most. I say that to the credit of the French. Does the lack of assimilation within France say more of the Euro-French native or of the Islamic immigrant population?
I am not sweeping away your contention, but I do question its validity.
“There is necessarily something beneath.”
Indeed, and I refer you to this guy, a journalist in France who gives an excellent description of the many reasons behind the riot:
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/11/why_is_france_b.html
” Excuse me for bringing it to your attention, but weren’t the terrorist bombers in England very much middle class and integrated into common activities and schools of England?”
Yes, but that’s a completely different thing. Those were terrorist attacks with a religious motive. (Terrorists of all types are often middle-class and well educated.) These are riots with no religious motive.
So you seriously think that if all these rioters lived lives of prosperity and plenty, one day the Islam thing would kick in and they’d be out on the street burning cars?
“IOW, what are the rationales for “war ” in Christianity, etc? What is allowed or not allowed and against whom? What are the caveats?”
That would only be a useful question if a. the rioters were all Muslim (they are not) and b. if the rioters were claiming the riot was motivated by their understanding of their religion (they do not). I can’t believe that you would make the contention that Christians are not rioters because their religion prevents it, or cannot riot for religious motives – um, Northern Ireland?
(Though again in those clashes there was really far more than religion behind it. However, Christianity did not seem to prevent it any more than Islam has prevented it in France.)
“It is a matter of how the larger culture chooses to address these, and France historically has been more egalitarian than most. I say that to the credit of the French. Does the lack of assimilation within France say more of the Euro-French native or of the Islamic immigrant population?”
It’s to do with history and government policy – have a look at Ireland’s article and see what you think. He ties together a lot of these factors and he’s a better writer than me 😉
“Northern Ireland”. As this is a long-standing (over centuries) dispute, it can be recognized as a political dispute along religious demographic lines. The religion is basically the same, Christian, and the dispute is over civil loyalties more than anything else- I don’t think I’ve noticed any discussions on transubtantiation for a good long time.
Now. There is the question of whether the violence in Northern Ireland is supported by Christian teaching. Could you make a case from the scriptures that either side is right in fighting the other? Whereas, do Muslims find rationalization for fighting against non-Muslims? Where is the voice for that?
I contend that Christian religion does not support such, not that it has been able to prevent it. Further that the Christian religion does support those things that lead to tolerance when it is not used as a temporal power. A State always has those things which it considers for or agaisnt its interests. An Ego to invest in, if you will. Compare that with the profile of “The Kingdom of God” in the New Testament.
” a. the rioters were all Muslim (they are not) ” You accounted for this in your assertion that youthful rioters often like to trash and burn things. This says nothing about the root causes.
This,
” b. if the rioters were claiming the riot was motivated by their understanding of their religion (they do not)”
goes with this,
“Yes, but that’s a completely different thing. Those were terrorist attacks with a religious motive. (Terrorists of all types are often middle-class and well educated.) These are riots with no religious motive.”
This seems to make the contention that the Muslim culture is a separate issue at hand in this rioting. As if Islamic culture is just coincidence. Are you ready to promote the idea that this is economically caused and thus economically remedied? Just give better conditions and it will all resolve peacefully?
I doubt if you are ready to champion that idea, so if it is a cultural clash, where would you rate the influence of Islam? ( just a quick test to see how well you understand the reach of the religion)?
“one day the Islam thing would kick in and they’d be out on the street burning cars?”
No, I wouldn’t say that. If the “Islam thing kicked in” there would be hangings and stonings, imprisonments and torture and cutting off hands: it is called “Sharia”. And even in a country with great wealth, like Saudi Arabia, I question whether all would be prosperous on the larger scale. But that is a different issue.
===
I will read that article… back to ya’