Yes, and my point is that you’re wrong in assuming that the US did not make many similar accomodations for immigrants in earlier eras. Take the case of bilingual education in American public schools:
Or take the widespread “Bible Law”—the standard practice of daily readings from Protestant Bible versions in American public schools—which was discontinued in many cases due to protests from Catholic immigrants, and provoked tremendous amounts of controversy and even violence:
Hoooooo-EEE! How’s that for attempts at multicultural “accomodation”? Started the 1844 Bible Riots, that did.
No, dude, you’re kidding yourself if you imagine that the current controversies over “making accomodations” and “changing laws to accomodate other cultures” are somehow new or exclusive to non-US societies.
More strawmen and unsupported vague assertions. “So many of them”? How many? Where? Who?
And if you’re claiming that any liberal who praises Chavez’ share-the-wealth policies* is thereby supporting Iranian theocracy, you’re really pissing into the wind. By that logic, you have to conclude that Bush supporters are also aligning themselves with Islamic theocracy because the Administration regards “freaking theocratic” Saudi Arabia as a close ally.
Just more generalized zeitgeist-moaning that doesn’t provide any actual evidence that “liberalism” is really a significant contributing factor to problems with violent Islamic extremism. Okay as a rant, inadequate in a debate.
Like I said above, that line of reasoning is a two-edged sword; plenty of conservatives have also made common cause with groups that were involved in various ways with thuggery and despotism. How about the conservatives that supported Saddam against Iran, or the ones who supported the fundamentalist Afghan mujahideen that gave rise to the Taliban?
There’s enough tar on your broad brush for people of all ideological stripes.
*A category of liberals that would not include me, btw. I like antipoverty measures and economic democracy as much as the next lib, but I do not trust Chavez.
Although a country like France’s national identity isn’t tied up with immigration in the same way that the US’s is, I’m not sure I agree with this.
France has had a first generation immigrant population of 5 to 10% for more than a 100 years. The main recognized waves were Belgian (XIX century), Italians (early XX) followed by Portuguese, and most recently Algerian and Morrocan. As regards the difficulties, there have always been conflicts during large waves of immigration, but the early 1960s may have been the most violent period, France and Algeria at war, extensive rioting, terrorist bombings (by both sides, in both countries, FLN and OAS), assasinations etc.
I don’t know that the US has had more success integrating immigrant populations than other countries. I’ve found that ‘ghetto-ization’ is more extensive in the US than in western Europe. In fact France is probably more strict than the US about assimilation (remember the ban on headscarves in state schools). Currently the only truly non-assimilated immigrant group in France is the Chinese, who are the most recent arrivals. Until recently Switzerland was the country I would have cited for successfully absorbing massive immigration (on their own scale), but recent events seem to show that the Swiss would disagree.
Getting back to the ‘clash of civilizations’ - Although there’s clearly a cultural conflict between Islam and liberal western societies, I haven’t seen any strong proof that Islamist terrorism has established a serious foothold amongst European Muslims, and I have seen no indication that any of the Middle Eastern nations want to see large scale conflict with the US or Europe. Even in the worst-case scenario where the US extends the ground war to Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East, I see no reason to believe that Pakistan, Indonesia, or Europe’s Muslim populations would rise up and join in the fray.
Did you read where the editorial talked about imposing new modesty restrictions on women’s bathing suits, and setting up female-only bathing periods, during this summer’s Paris beach party? I tend to draw the line here, and truly believe that if you want to emigrate to another country, you should adapt yourself to the host country rather than having the host country change to suit you.
It seems to me it’s an act of appeasement, as was the Berlin opera cancellation.
Well, the Belgian immigrants were French, being mostly the population of Wallony that had been carved away from France and given to the Netherlands, (then breaking free to create the artifical nation of Belgium), following the unpleasantness with Napoleon. Then the Italians and Portuguese were very much part of the same basic culture–Catholic traditions, Romance languages, etc. And when we do find immigrants coming from North Africa, they initially came from areas in which France had a serious colonial presence (and many of the initial immigrants were originally “returning” French colonists’ grandchildren). It is only when the later immigration waves began to include more people who had much less cultural connection that serious problems began.
Now, it is also true that France has had a pretty long tradition of being nearly the most cosmopolitan of nations and that it did absorb more immigrants (generally from its colonies) than much of Europe, (although the Dutch and British can make good claims to those attitudes, as well). However, most French immigration appeaers to have been limited to Paris and a few coastal cities. I do not recall stories of xenophobic outbreaks in Aquitaine, Brittany, or the Loire (particularly prior to the early 1970s).
The trouble is that these are ‘isolated incidents’ not because only a few people have those opinions. It is because everyone else won’t take the risk. It is the chilling effect of the threat of Islamic fundie violence on free speech.
After Rushide and after Van Gogh it takes a brave artist to write a book or make a film that is anything other than craven towards Islam. As this story proves.
Responding to Tomndebb Obviously it’s a big part of the ongoing political debate over here - the extreme right tend to define past immigration out of existence by citing cultural similarities (such as the Italian immigrants shared religion, or the Wallon’s possibly shared language) in order to bolster their position that the current immigration wave is unprecedented and threatening.
Fact is that the previous waves also led to social upheaval and conflicts - the Wallon’s arrival in the mining areas was met with rioting and ghetto-ization, similarly with the Italian arrival in the industrial regions. The cultural similarities argument is something of an anachronism - in 1900, an Italian peasant probably had less in common with his new French neighbors than a present day Chinese immigrant to the US has to his new neighbors - distances and cultural differences were considerably more marked a hundred years ago.
I’m not sure what your point is regarding the geographical distribution of immigration, but it is fairly even, though primarily urban (as in the US) - I think you’re overlooking Lyon and Marseille (and historically the northern mining regions around Lille, and industrial centers like Clermont-Ferrandand St Etienne).
I think some of the confusion regarding Eoro-immigration vs US immigration is due to the role that immigration plays in the US ‘identity-myth’, and the huge absolute numbers of immigrants that the US welcomed around the turn of the last century (can we still use that expression ?). In terms of numbers, Germany, France and UK all have a larger percentage of foreign born in their populations than the US (Canada is probably at the front of the pack).
For over a hundred years (and probably back to pre-historic times…) there has always been a segment of the native population who fear immigrants, and believe that they are monolithic and are going to somehow swamp the culture - so far this hasn’t happened. While it’s true that the most recent wave of immigrants are overwhelmingly Muslim, this may be changing now, as immigration from China and from Eastern Europe (Poland in particular) is growing exponentially. Immigrants are not monolithic,and for the most part conflicts between immigrants and natives have nothing to do with religion.
While this may be true of the mainstream press (although I should point out that Figaro did publish this piece, even though they chickened afterwards) there are any number of smaller publications, artists etc who are prepared to stand up against the intimidation attempts. The French weekly Charlie Hebdo boosted their circulation from an average of ~100,000 to a record ~400,000 for the issue where they published the infamous ‘caricatures’. There’s an upcoming court battle about this early next year.
Thanks for the info. Kudos to them for their courage. Of course the act of publishing cartoons or creating works of art should not be one of courage in the first place.
Sorry for this late response. Yes, I read the article. The high school philosophy teacher got the reaction he wanted. He wasn’t just criticizing “Radical Islamics”–he’s totally against the religion. {“Islamics”?)
I hear that Michelle Malkin is also outraged.
Not that I agree with the reaction to his screed–but it’s short-sighted to claim that Islam & Christianity might have a confrontation. Read a history book. Or two.
So you think he wanted the death threats against himself, his wife and children and to be hounded from his job and home? And even, should we believe for a second that that is exactly what he wanted, why should we ever agree to oblige him? Even when someone is clearly taunting extremists for a response, we should never accept or make weak apologies for the extremists response.
Perhaps. And what of it? Is that bad or good and why should we even care. Nothing wrong with being against a religion or religion in general.
Don’t most of France’s Muslms have roots in Algeria or Morroco? France ruled Algeria once & had great “influence” over parts of Morocco. Imperialsim sucks–even for the descendants of the imperialists. It’s justn NOT FAIR!
Again–invasions have been going on a long time. In both directions, of course.
I agree with your basic point that we should defend this school teacher’s (and anybody else’s) right to his opinion, and freedom from death threats. The people making these threats are criminals, end of story.
However - how do you get to the French being “appeasers to extremists” ? You are aware that France backed the Algerian military against the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, and was subjected to a bombing campaign in the mid 1990s as a result - do you think the French government backed down ? Do you think the French government “appeased” the GIA terrorists ? You are aware that Algeria, in avoiding an Islamist takeover was plunged into a civil war which claimed over 100,000 lives ? It could be claimed that the Algerian government has gone over to the “appeasers” side now, as they have since adopted a policy of reconciliation, and have extended an amnesty for civil war killings. They may, of course have simply made the best choice for national unity and peace…
At the time I wasn’t sure I agreed with the initial choice of the French government to support the Algerian military dictatorship, as the FIS had won the popular election, but it’s safe to say that France has made a major contribution to stemming the rise of Islamist terrorism, at great cost to French citizens. Paris was eerily deserted for a short time in the mid 90s, you could go to a movie theater or a restaurant and be practically alone - I guess people got tired of looking under their seats for suspicious packages. Although we suddenly had soldiers with machine-guns patrolling the city (I found this more un-nerving than the bomb threat) and a ban on garbage cans, we got through the whole thing with no suspension of civil liberties. Although security was substantially increased, there was no change in legal procedures, and the handful of police officers who stepped out of bounds in interrogation techniques were prosecuted for it. The terrorists were pursued and prosecuted as criminals.
You might also want to take a look at the hi-jacking of Flight 8969 which GIA terrorists had planned to crash on Paris, but was ultimately taken back by the GIGN with minimum loss of life - all of the hi-jackers were killed, and no passengers or Gendarmes died in the assault, although the hi-jackers had previously killed some of the passengers in order to be cleared for take-off. (Oliver Stone should make a movie about this)
What France is trying to do, is negotiate the complicated terrain of cracking down hard on terrorists, while maintaining civil liberties and freedom of worship, and not falling into the trap of racism and right-wing extremism -
In many ways (though we don’t always admit it) I believe the rest of the ‘free-world’ counts on the US to be an anchor in keeping our values alive, and to see many of you behaving in such a fearful and ignorant manner is making a lot of people pretty nervous.
Well then, as an Oppressed American I am well within my right to throw bricks at passing Englishment, because more than 200 years ago, we were a colony of the British Empire.
And the British have a right to throw bricks at passing Swedes, because 1000+ years ago, the Vikings invaded England.
Well, maybe if they took up more of the burden of keeping our values alive,we wouldn’t be so stressed out. As for our “fearful and ignorant” manner, they should remember that many of us consider their manner cowardly and two-faced.
France was kicked out of Algeria in 1962–hardly ancient history. More recent than the events that inspired your “appeasement” canard. (You got that from Michelle Malkin, too, didn’t you?) I’m not saying anybody has a right to hold grudges–but they do. (Unless they’re Amish.)
I’m mostly appalled by this “oh, look, there’s Ay-rabs!” hysteria. The “confrontation” has been going on a long time.
But thanks for your admonition to “grow up.” Makes me feel young.
[ol]
[li]I am not familiar with Ms. Malkin.[/li][li]France was kicked out of Algerian before I was born.[/li][li]Your use of the term “ay-rab” seems to be implying something. Care to expand on that?[/li][li]If they, the “ay-rabs”, do not have the right to hold grudges–but they do, then their grudges are wrong. And if this is a culturally-encouraged response, rather than a few louts with grudges, then we can expect more violence on a regular basis. Hence the “confrontation” concept.[/li][li]The admonition “grow up” was indeed misplaced. Perhaps “get a clue” might be closer to the mark.[/li][/ol]
“Ay-rab” is the pronunciation often used by the more ignorant of my fellow Texans. Not that there aren’t ignorant folks all over.
The French high school teacher was a fool. Those who responded with threats are worse fools. Please expand on this story–although little hard news is available.
Perhaps you ought to read up on things that happened before you were born. We’ve been “confronting” Islam for a long time. This is not Late Breaking News.
Everyone back off. Neither the personal attacks (or innuendo) against other posters nor the stupid broad brush claims against peoples based on culture or nationality are carrying forward this discussion.
If you folks can’t bring this around to a debate instead of a volley of bumper sticker claims, I’m shutting it down.
The French are invading anything! They are merely appeasers to extremists, as usual.
oh and some Norwegians.