November 8, 2005
Riots in France
By Thomas
Sowell
Riots that began
on the outskirts of Paris have spread into the center of the French
capital and to other communities in other parts of the country.
Thousands of cars have been set on fire and the police and even
medical personnel have been shot at.
Like many other riots,
whether in France or elsewhere, this one started over an incident
that just happened and was then seized upon to rally resentments
and unleash violence. Two local boys in a predominantly Moslem
neighborhood tried to escape the police by hiding in a facility
that transmitted electricity -- and accidently electrocuted themselves.
This was the spark
that ignited volatile emotions. But those emotions were there,
ready to be ignited, for a long time.
A substantial Moslem
population lives in France but is not really of France. Much of
that population lives in social isolation in housing projects
away from the center of Paris, as unknown to many Parisians as
to tourists.
Like housing projects
in America, many of these are centers of social degeneration,
lawlessness and violence. Three years ago, profound British social
critic Theodore Dalrymple wrote of "burned-out and eviscerated
carcasses of cars everywhere" in these projects, among other
signs of social degeneration. This was in an essay titled "The
Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" that is reprinted in his
insightful book, "Our Culture, What's Left of it."
While Dr. Dalrymple
called this Moslem underclass "barbarians," a French
minister who called the rioters "scum" provoked instant
outrage against himself, including criticism from at least one
member of his own government. This squeamishness in word and deed,
and the accompanying refusal to face blatant realities is also
a major part of the background for the breakdown of law and order
and the social degeneration that follows.
None of this is peculiar
to France. It is a symptom of a common retreat from reality, and
from the hard decisions that reality requires, not only in Europe
but also in European offshoot societies like Canada, Australia,
New Zealand -- and the United States of America.
European countries
especially have thrown their doors open to a large influx of Moslem
immigrants who have no intention of becoming part of the cultures
of the countries to which they immigrate but to recreate their
own cultures in those countries.
In the name of tolerance,
these countries have imported intolerance, of which growing antisemitism
in Europe is just one example. In the name of respecting all cultures,
Western nations have welcomed people who respect neither the cultures
nor the rights of the population among whom they have settled.
During the last election,
some campus Republicans who were holding a rally for President
Bush at San Francisco State University were harassed by Middle
Eastern students, including a woman who walked up to one of these
Americans and slapped his face. They knew they could do this with
impunity.
In Michigan, a Moslem
community loudly sounds their calls to prayer several times a
day, without regard to whether that sound bothers the original
inhabitants of the community.
The Dutch were shocked
when one of their film-makers was assassinated by a Moslem extremist
for daring to have views at variance with what the extremists
would tolerate.
No one should have
been shocked. There are people who will not stop until they get
stopped -- and much of the media, the political classes, and the
cultural elites of the West cannot bring themselves to even criticize,
much less stop, the dangers or degeneracy among groups viewed
sympathetically as underdogs.
Not all Moslems,
nor necessarily a majority of Moslems, are either a cultural or
a physical danger. But even "moderate" Moslem organizations
in the West who deplore violence and try to discourage it nevertheless
encourage their followers to remain foreigners rather than become
part of the countries they live in.
So do our own intelligentsia
and political and cultural elites. Balkanization has been glorified
as "diversity" and diversity has become too sacred to
defile with anything so gross as hard facts. But reality is not
optional. Our survival may in the long run be as menaced by degeneration
within -- from many sources and in many ways -- as was that of
the Roman Empire.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
