Let me stipulate up front that by “previously unthinkable” I do not mean a “Final Solution”, or even an FDR-style use of internment camps. But I do wonder if it will require something like the proposed settlements in Israel/Palestine: giving French Muslims their own country, of proportional size (and resources) to their percentage of the population.
For years, I was always against this kind of thing, even in Israel (I thought they should just give all the residents of the occupied territories full citizenship). But this terroristic onslaught, paired with a lot of consideration of the philosophy of Sam Harris and other “New Atheists”, has led me to reconsider.
Maybe you’re foursquare against this, and would argue that actuarially, this is still pretty low on the list of causes of death. Harris argues that this is a canard in some ways, but let’s leave that aside and ask this: how high would the death toll have to be before a different policy would seem acceptable, if not mandatory? I want to go into thought experiment territory here.
Presumably, if every Muslim in France attacked non-Muslim innocents at some point (not all at once, but biding their time until they had a good opportunity), that’s a no-brainer. Right? Or do we stand firm on religious freedom and civil liberties (opposing “thought crime”) even then?
Assuming that would indeed be high enough for drastic measures to be taken, what if it’s “only” a third of Muslims? Let’s say the other two-thirds were absolutely horrified by what that one-third was doing–not only for moral reasons but because they would obviously feel that the minority was ruining the majority’s standing in the society. I would submit that this is still well above the threshold where it’s an untenable situation. In a country of 64 million, 10% of whom are Muslims, how can you live with two million people who are going to try to kill you, even if the other four million are totally good eggs?
So then what’s the threshold? Marie LePen will say they are beyond it already. I’m not sure if I agree. But I am not sure, when anyone can make a vehicle into an incredibly deadly weapon (even without the explosives), that we’re too far away from it.
Ehm… Francophone Muslims do not want “a new country of their own” (they already have several). Even if the terrorists were representative of Francophone Muslims, the notion of “a new country of their own” is all yours.
The common retort is that if we allow the terrorists to alter our behavior they’ve already won.
I don’t know about that, but I do know that the possibility of anybody in my family being the victim of a terrorist attack of any sort doesn’t keep me up at night. My nightmares from what I saw the last time we massively responded to a terrorist attack do, however. So take that for what it’s worth.
Seriously? If Muslims aren’t allowed in 90% of what currently constitutes France, it seems obvious to me they wouldn’t be able to carry out attacks like this in that territory. (They could decide for themselves if they want to allow non-Muslims to come into their new country.)
The only long term solution is for the norm within Islam to be peace and tolerance. And the best way to achieve this is to highlight the Muslims who already live peacefully and tolerantly (such as the vast majority of American Muslims, for example), and be open and tolerant of Muslims who are not violent in every Western country. Vigilance, but also tolerance and openness, is the best long term solution, IMO.
So, you are suggesting that they round up all the Muslims… Heard them onto, you thinking trains here or just a long march? And forcibly expatriate them to a land that is not their home. Sort of clean the Islam out of most of France?
You get how this sounds right? It’s not like this hasn’t been done before, but it’s pretty much always been remembered as an atrocity.
I think one way of trying to come to a number would be consider alternative situations. What if a group you identify with (whether it’s Christians, or Atheists, or Whites, or whatever) developed a radical strain that started killing people randomly. What percentage of your group would have to be a part of this radical segment before you would understand being forcibly removed from your home to prevent future attacks?
For me I think that percentage would have to be pretty damn high.
This wouldn’t even begin to work. Firstly, how do you decide who is Muslim? Do you just apply some sort of swarthiness test? Apply a rule that if your father was a Muslim, you are even if you say you’re an atheist?
End result is that there will be Muslims in France under your plan.
Plus now they are going to be rightfully pissed off at all being treated like terrorists. And they won’t be able to work. And so they will be poor. So they will be disaffected. Do you know what happens when you bundle disaffected people up into enclaves, and give them a diet of poverty and boredom?
The percentage of them that become terrorists goes up not down, and their determination to blow people up goes up not down, and their nihilism and lack of concern for their own life goes up not down.
And you simply cannot stop this sort of asymmetric attack. They are just too random.
You would condemn France to decades if not centuries of civil unrest.
Good to know that the OP is “not sure” if he agrees with France’s most notorious racist demagogue. You know, he still needs to think about it. Because of all of her really strong arguments in favor of randomly hating people because of their demographic.
I’m suggesting one contiguous territory, with roughly 10% of the land and 10% of France’s economic resources (I’m sure an enterprising geographer could find something that would fit the bill, maybe on the Mediterranean coast). Are you suggesting that French Muslims would not be able to be enterprising enough to make the economy work? That’s on you then–the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and all that.
Islamists don’t give a shit about France. They want to push the West into a ground war in Syria and a resulting caliphate when they (supposedly) defeat the western armies. The attacks in France are to spread fear and disruption and to provoke the government into committing to that war.
Dad was in the top ten of ETA’s list of targets for many years; he refused police escort and never told us kids about it. I found out from eavesdropping (FTR, the glass-on-wall thing works). And FTR, being called a murderer (from being Basque) or a traitor to my ancestors (for not being an independentist) got old before I was myself old enough to vote; note that it was never other Basque with the name-calling, it was always outsiders and generally those who wouldn’t be able to point to Euskal Herria from Aralar (hint: any direction but up).