Unrest spreads to 9 French towns.
Now, as an ugly American, I won't presume to know all there is to know about French ethnic and urban politics. I certainly wouldn't have wanted some ignorant Frog barging in after, say, Hurricane Katrina to tell me how I need to listen more to the grievances of looters.
Oops, too late.
Of course, the beauty of ethnic politics is that there's always someone eager to make excuses for criminal behavior:
The area, home mainly to families of immigrant origin, often from Muslim North Africa, is marked by soaring unemployment and delinquency. Anger and despair thrive in the tall cinder-block towers and long "bars" that typically make up housing projects in France.
Call me crazy, but burning out vehicles, homes and businesses rarely eliminate anger and despair, but generate it instead. "Cycle of violence," indeed.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy — blamed by many for fanning the violence with tough talk and harsh tactics — met Tuesday night in Paris with youths and officials from Clichy-sous-Bois in a bid to cap days of rioting. But the unrest spread even as they met. Sarkozy recently referred to the troublemakers as "scum" and "riffraff."
Yup-- blame the authorities. After all, I'm sure many of these rioters have legitimate grievances. You know, like getting spurned by girls and subsequently setting them on fire.
Man, I sure wish I could have done *that* in high school, I would have felt sooo much better about myself.
The "clash of civilizations" will not always manifest itself in open warfare, but simply appear in the minor frictions of everyday life. Muslims aren't going to go away, Islam is not going to disappear if we just simply ignore it and leave it to its own devices. France has spent decades trying to wall off its Muslim problems in some blind hope that if they condemned Muslims to impoverished ghettos instead of assimilating them, there would be no problems.
C'était un mauvais appel, Ripley. . . c'était un mauvais appel. . .
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