Not dealing with it
Apparently there are no more police cars left in France to
smash. Or it might be that French gas stations are no longer selling
petrol by the bottle. The fires are gradually going out. This set of
riots can be Frances' Hurricane Katrina. By the time the ramifications
of all this have played out this will have cost France as much and
affected it as profoundly.
France, elite France regime France, did not handle this very well
Unrest brings French leaders under fire | csmonitor.com.
The sense of that will only grow sharper over time. As the headlines
from this indicate the story is one of racism and minority neglect. I
can remember dimmly from my childhood what it was like to have the
possibility of school desegration by forced busing raised before you.
In enlightened Massachussets not the 'deep south' and you discover just
how powerful un-confronted racism really is. American Racism has that
special quality that only its own particular and peculiar institutions
can give it, an almost defining uniqueness. But Frances has its pride.
It has its industrial suburbs, its cities of light.
Toynbee talks of most cultures having internal and external
proletariats. I admit Toynbee wrote 60 -70 years ago, but my
grandfather
had some of his books, I ended up with them and at some point I must
have read them).
Balancing, integrating, and controlling these populations was one of
the critical tasks of a society. I think Toynbee regarded them as the
problematic elements of a society, my own candidate would be the rich -
always the most unreconstructed and alien portion of any society.
Regardless; without these proletariats you cannot understand a society
or how it functions. When a society tries to enforce a solution for its
welfare and nationalism, draw the line between citizen, secondary
citizens, and non citizen and square this against a dogma of democracy
and fairness, justice. It will learn many things about itself
Why France Is Burning. There are no nations within the EU which are as advanced in this respect as they may think
A European melting pot? | csmonitor.com.
In the first days of these riots there were commentators like
Mark (el cid) Steyn who echoing and amplifying the rhetoric of Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy talked of a new era, a pogrom for modern
times. Islam didn't belong in the heart of europe it was time to drive
it out. Let the clash of civilizations get started. These foreigners
want only western paychecks not western principles or ideals, the cries went. What
principles were they shown in Aubervilliers or other banlieues this
last generation? What level of deprivation and deadened future must
exist before people will burn down their own streets
Behind French unrest, cries of racism, neglect - The Boston Globe.
Well, I keep in mind an old comment that the poor will riot when they
are starving, the bourgeoise when they run out of toothpaste. It takes
everyone less then they may think, whenever you recognize you are
angry, however justified or not , and take some action
France's Youth Battles Also Waged on the Web.
I've seen the United States struggle with this painfully all
my life. I have heard voices that say other nations do this better, or
they say that we in the U S choose to be a hetrogenus nation and so are
fated to exist on the cusp of chaos. There are no nations I know of
that are comprised of a single folk, there are fault lines and fragile
levees everywhere you look. You are only engaged with your real
struggle, after the storm.
2:43:43 AM  ;;
|
|
