by Ramin Mazaheri
There wasn’t an official award handed out, but the Islamophobic statement of 2016 in France has to go to the politician who said that Muslim women who wear the hejab are like the “American niggers who were in favor of slavery”.
LOL, she did even not say “blacks”, she said “niggers” – “nègres”, in French. You simply cannot use that word in polite society. I know because I tried – simply to understand what the level of acceptable racial discourse here was in France – and was roundly admonished. Fortunately, I could honestly plead ignorance.
The person who said it was Laurence Rossignol, of the Socialist Party, so she’s also a candidate for “French fake leftist of the year”.
It gets worse: This was not some nobody Socialist politician, she said it while serving as a member of President Francois Hollande’s cabinet!
But wait, there’s more! She was the Minister for Women’s Rights, hahaha.
Yes, Muslims in France truly have nobody in power on their side, LOL – ya gotta laugh to keep from crying.
And yet…“Islamophobic acts in France were down in 2016”, is what tomorrow’s headlines will blare from the mainstream media.
Because, of course, the issue of Muslims being attacked should be treated exactly like how capitalists treat the economic growth rate: “But did we get more than last year?”
(Coincidentally, those numbers were out today as well: a paltry 1.1% economic growth rate in 2016 for France. Another year of failure, but you can send me all the mainstream media reports which do not put a positive spin on the numbers.)
Back to Islamophobia: the number of Islamophobic acts was indeed down 36% in 2016 when compared with 2015.
“Three cheers for France! Pass the halal croissants!”
For those of you new to this planet: In 2015 there were 2 huge terror attacks in France and an enormous outpouring of Islamophobic violence, both private and state-sanctioned. That was the year that Islamophobia “went mainstream”- it became ok to openly talk about every Muslim as if they lived in a cave, were stuck in the year 742 AD and had 4 wives.
So, had the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) – the nation’s watchdog on the subject – reported that the numbers had actually increased in 2016…ooh la, now that would have meant 2016 was a Muslim massacre.
I can feel…people clicking away from this article, because I’m sure people are so fed up that they will read the words “Collective Against Islamophobia in France” and move on – because aren’t we all tired of such subjects? I know I am sure as hell tired of reporting it!
So let me pass on the actual good news: On the personal level, Islamophobia truly is decreasing in France.
I covered the CCIF’s press conference for Press TV and they told me that their years of work are paying off: they see more and more solidarity and help for the victims of Islamophobia. Some government workers, teachers and cops have realized there is a problem, and they are actually putting their authority to good use (as opposed to throwing up obstacles, as many civil servants still do).
That’s what grassroots activism does – it thinks long-term, it’s committed for the long-term and it really wins…long-term.
Keep in mind that it was only in 2015 that France decided to finally join the 20th century and admit that “Islamophobia” actually existed so…baby steps. But if you’ve been sucker-punched and had your hejab pulled off, such baby steps are important – if only to get the bleeding stopped.
Politically, Islamophobia is worse than ever
Again, to the aliens among us, France has been a police state dictatorship (the correct term) since November 2015. It will be until May 2017, depending on who is elected president.
As regards the Muslim community, France’s state of emergency has been one big “we run this place” message.
Intimidation, arrests, house arrests, brutal tactics, smashed doors, smashed reputations, smashed lives, smashed innocence of children…but it’s been effective in the fight against terrorism, right?
Wrong – 4,000+ raids by the French state have produced just 6 investigations opened regarding terrorism. I haven’t been able to find any new data, but going back about 6 months there had been just 1 indictment from such raids. There had been 0 convictions.
I don’t want to waste much of our time on this because the state of emergency is so obviously wrong for all Frenchmen and racist towards Muslims, so I’ll just throw out some key phrases the CCIF used at the press conference – I think you are smart enough that I don’t have to clarify: “climate of general suspicion”, “winning electoral formula”, “Muslim frustration with Hollande”, “lack of a clear message of ‘zero-tolerance’”, “Islamophobic security state”, and here’s what it was really all about in 2016: “institutional validation of Islamophobia”.
Even if you think these shifty Muslims deserve it for being born Brown, isn’t your libertarian, anti-authority side upset? I hope so.
There are, as always, only 2 poles of thought on dealing with us lousy immigrants: “live and let live”, which is known as “multiculturalism”, or you have what France has pushed all their chips behind: “assimilation”.
The problem with assimilation is that it inherently implies that other cultures have nothing of value to add. Secondarily, it necessarily freezes the growth of French culture, which is implied to be “perfect”, and thus cannot progress. Doesn’t such cultural chauvinism sound so very French? It is.
But why keep abusing the already-abused?
But enough of this ethno-racial analysis – you can find identity politics and please for tolerance all over, but it’s rarely enough: keeping the boot on the Muslims’ neck has two class components which are vital to understand.
The point I need to make to those who don’t live in France is: Blacks & Muslims are the underclass here.
In France, the security guards in supermarkets are big and Black (the riot police are all big and White, of course). The cashiers are pretty Arab young ladies. The office cleaning ladies are middle-aged Black women. The bleary-eyed people you see unhappily taking the buses on your way home from a night of carousing are Black and Arab. The garbagemen are Black, Arab, Muslim or all three.
And it’s the wives and sisters of these garbagemen who suffer the most from Islamophobia: 75% of all such attacks are against women. Muslim women were the victims in physical Islamophobic attacks 100% of the time last year.
This is what Islamophobia in France basically boils down to: White guys scaring Muslim women, or pulling off their hejab or maybe beating the woman who is simply on her way to clean their office toilets.
This is cowardice, tragedy, deadly, misogynistic, anti-feminist, and reactionary, of course. But this Muslim underclass has nothing, is going to get nothing and poses no threat. So if France hates Muslims and tolerates violence against them, what are they for?
France – rich, rich France – needs Muslims two reasons: number one, to staff these low-level service jobs.
It’s the same reason why the only Palestinians allowed inside Israel’s football stadiums are to work as low-level service workers: “Get me my large Coke, boy, and mop it up when my kid kicks it over.”
Capitalism cannot replace these types of workers with robots. It’s the same with Mexican fruit-pickers – some jobs have to be done by human beings.
In France’s it’s the non-Whites who are fated to serve in this caste. Of course, they are not all Muslim simply because they are non-White, of course, but such collateral damage hardly keeps the Roman Catholic 1% up at night.
And we must remember that the 1% has no interest in letting Muslims improve their station, because then who would clean their toilets and check them out at the supermarket?
No class is more at the mercy of the 1% than the negative-99%, and that is Muslims are in France. What good is being in the 1% if you cannot abuse your butler, I guess is their thinking?
But Islamophobia is not just for kicks – attacking women are just one of the ways to keep all Muslims on edge, insecure, isolated and – above all – disunited. Class unity is any sort, of course – of course! – is what the 1% fear most.
To disempower an entire underclass and keep them your servants, it’s not enough just to not provide basic services like health and education or good jobs – you have to get them to short-circuit their own lives, and a simple way is via racial violence and the promotion of it; through constant media messages that your group is associated with terrorism, death and backwardness; through the constant message that your group has no values to share, and that you must “become French”, which is something French people have told me here over and over.
This is all simply colonization at home instead of abroad – i.e., capitalism!
These are all the same tactics reported by Franz Fanon in the French Caribbean or by Amilcar Cabral by the Portuguese in Angola.
To paraphrase Cabral, the French want to break the Muslims here down like any other “bush people” – they want to make Muslims “cling” to the French; to make them want to “pretend as hard as they can to be” French; they want Muslims to forget their origin because “That, unhappily, is what many people want.”
I told such French people that in a multicultural society such an order to “become French” is rightly considered to be fascistic and prejudiced. In inheritance there is richness, for all people.
Furthermore, even if France can get all the 3rd-generation Muslims here to 100% believe in their hypocritical assimilationist “everyone is French under the law” nationalist hypocrisy, they still cannot get people to give up their Allah in exchange for either the Roman Catholic God, or their French atheism.
But keeping the 99th percentile down is one thing, what about the 98% in between?
The Islamophobic safety valve for leftist indignation
The second class component is that Islamophobia is so heavily promoted by both the mainstream media and government police is because it is a flaming distraction from the real issues. We all know this.
Who does not know this are the idiot White French who go around attacking Muslims. They fail to realize they are the modern-day equivalent of the poor White sharecroppers in Jim Crow America – yeah, you have a bit more status than French Muslims, but not much, you dumb crackers.
Islamophobia is a tool not just against French Muslims, but against French non-Muslims who are not in the 1%.
These attackers are double-losers because they have also imbibed the false leftism of identity politics – they are told to worship their French nationality instead of the universal respect for hard work which unites everyone not in the 1%.
They are content with the privilege of wielding Islamophobia instead of being a real leftist like their great-grandfathers, who demanded real rights prior to World War One. My most tepid congratulations on not being in the lowest rung of society….
Why is racism and Islamophobia rising across the West?
There is no mass influx of Syrian immigrants here – France has only taken in about 12,000 Syrians while probably arming 2-3 times that number – and there won’t be. France already has their caste of non-White low-level service workers, and we understand their place in the French capitalist system. Hollande’s state of emergency has only pushed them down deeper in fear, cultural exclusion and institutionalized racism.
Germany, probably because of their incredibly racist legacy, did not have such a non-White underclass. They have a sizable Turkish minority, but France’s Muslim community is 3 times larger, proportionally.
Well, they just got theirs – 600,000 Syrians – and they have already re-closed the gates.
What happened to Merkel’s reportedly-big heart? Did you think Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was actually good person and not just a sharp capitalist businesswoman?
Germany needs a new underclass for these low-level service sector jobs nobody wants, and these jobs are even worse than in France because Germany permits part-time work – what they call “minijobs”.
Such underemployment is banned here, and that’s why France’s poverty rate is so much lower than in Germany, the US and the UK. But this is what the patsy Hollande was for – to ram through right-wing roll backs which permit part-time jobs for 45-year old men instead of 14-year old boys – and he did it.
German capitalists told Merkel that they already rolled back their wages and worker rights in the 2000s, and in order to keep an economic leg up on France they need a new pressure to keep workers from asking for better wages: and that’s why you have Syrians in Germany.
They’ll be, like all refugees, desperate for work and ready to work for subsistence wages. It’s a German capitalists dream! But if you think there is anti-refugee sentiment in Germany now, just wait – it will get far worse.
In America, Mexicans have long-provided the same function of depressing worker wages and security. But why do you think so many want a wall to keep out Latin Americans – free trade sends jobs to Mexico and desperate Latin American immigrants depress wages in America. Voila.
Is America racist? Yes, history proves that but, again, the proper analysis is not just “France, Germany and the US are a bunch of racists”. No, racism and Islamophobia is a diversionary tactic used by the 1% to keep the negative 99th% and the 98% down.
If one is content with railing against the racial angle, as falsely-superior fake leftists are, one cannot see that these racists are responding to capitalist manipulation, above all.
Charlie Hebdo – ‘fake leftism’ of Biblical proportions
It’s hard not to talk about Islamophobia without bringing up Charlie Hebdo, because that’s when it all went really bad. My God! That was the motherlode of French “fake leftism”! Ugh! What a terrible story that was to cover!
I interviewed the CCIF’s Marwan Muhammad for my report for Press TV, and he was eloquent as usual. I laughingly reminded Marwan of his debate with Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz on CNN in September 2012, just after Luz had penned some pictures of the prophet Muhammad.
Marwan wiped the floor with him.
I don’t know what made Luz arrogant enough to think his terrible English was good enough to outdo Marwan, who speaks like a native, on such a subject….
Luz barely managed 5 minutes of unintelligible and unsatisfying philosophic rationale – to a totally impatient Christiane Amanpour – for drawing pictures of the Muhammad bent over and spreading apart his buttocks, filming a porno movie, etc. Pure class, that Luz.
Charlie Hebdo will always be a sore subject in France because there is so much phony philosophical bull surrounding the violence, but it’s worth re-reading Marwan’s interpretation, because it helps explain my fundamental class-based premise of Islamophobia:
“I don’t think at all that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists are racists – I think they’re just stupid, and they don’t know what they are doing. This is a band of friends, and they are in their basements with their pencils and paper, and they don’t know the consequences of what they are doing. And that’s why you have just heard Luz saying that, ‘Well, we are just making cartoons; and we don’t expect anything bad to happen; and we are journalists; but at the same time we are not responsible at all.’ Well this doesn’t stand, because whenever you take responsibility for something you say, on national TV or on paper – you need to stand with the consequences of this. And what we see when we speak with perpetrators of hate crimes towards Muslims is that this type of cartoons, this type of ideology, is building their will to act. It legitimizes them when they to turn to actions, to stab a Muslim woman in a German court or to discriminate (against) a Muslims child in a school, so this is conducive to violence.’
I wonder if Luz thinks doing prophet Muhammad-based porn was worth it? Doesn’t every kid dream of being a man like that? In France, I guess. Luz threw in the towel at Charlie Hebdo about 3 months after the attacks – he reported that the workplace culture had changed. It did – Charlie Hebdo used to not pick on the weak and powerless, but their shift to pro-Zionism, pro-NATO & Islamophobia is another story.
As your intrepid reporter in France I could find out what Luz is doing now, but I won’t. I’ll assume he’s still in his basement drawing porn, probably like this one kid I knew in high school. That kid was a riot…when I was 14.
Not even the French left supports the Muslim underclass
One mainstream French reporter asked the CCIF about their close ties with Benoit Hamon, the surprise Socialist candidate. LOL, Marwan said that he had no relationship at all with Hamon, and I didn’t write it down so I can’t be sure, but he might have said they have never even met.
This is, of course, part of the right’s effort to scare voters that Hamon is too leftist, too close to Muslims, too willing to increase welfare to 750 euros per month, etc.
Hamon, to his credit, said he was proud of his new nickname of “Bilal Hamon”. Boring…that’s just their same old tactics: The far-righters would have come up with something similar for Manuel Valls if he had beaten Hamon, even though Valls visibly seethes on his favorite subject – holy French secularism.
Of course, good ole’ Bilal Hamon will surely be very well received in Syria, Mali and Libya, right? He supported all those foreign interventions, like all fake leftist Socialist Party members.
Anyway, Marwan did fairly criticize Hollande and his henchmen when I brought up the subject of Hollande’s Islamophobic legacy at the press conference. Remember back in 2012? Islamophobia was all Sarkozy’s fault, right? In 2017 that answer is a clear “no”.
Technocratism won’t work, even with Islamophobia
The CCIF refuses to give voters political advice, and I think that’s a mistake: the CCIF are the “technocrats” of Islamophobic facts, but what good are facts without ideology? If they are the experts and study these things, then they should take a stand and advise voters which parties are Islamophobic and which are not.
The idea that technocrats can stay above the fray is totally false. With another terrible economic year imposed by (pro-capitalist) economists in Brussels officially in the books, technocratism as a governing ideology needs to be demolished: what’s needed is activism of the side of right.
Because just giving data is not enough – and the clear proof will be in the headlines which say “Islamophobia down in France”! It’s not down, in any sort of a real sense. It’s far worse!
I understand the reticence of the CCIF to possibly tarnish their data –– but they need to get even more involved than they already are. Of course, everyone in France knows that the National Front, the conservative Les Republicains, the Socialist Party, and half of the culturally-chauvinistic far left are all Islamophobic. Still…take a public stand and get political, even if it just means telling the truth about these parties.
Predictions for French Islamophobia for 2017: Hopefully Marine Le Pen wins, and I say that seriously. I predict that a “Mexican Power” movement will rise up in the US against Trump to advance civil rights, and a “Muslim Power” movement would be the response here to Marine Le Pen. Both are what’s needed to lift the underclass out from hell…and this is the only proven route, failing a successful communist-inspired revolution like in the USSR, Cuba, China, Iran etc.
Just like Mexicans in the US, you can kick out the illegal Muslims in France, but then you are still left with 3 generations of legal French Muslims, and there’s no solution for them.
Ya gotta accept your phobias if you want to work past them…and truly live.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television
The answer is to just accept the situation for what it is, start loving the muslims and ignore the natural born pride you have in your country and in your race and accept the drastic facelift your home is getting?
Accepting reality…hmmm, sounds like what adults do.
The author is right – you have Muslims there for 60+ years. You can’t get put them and their great-grandchildren and a train to Dachau. ‘Start loving’ them is right.
“accepting reality” Sounds like what liberal p*ssies do; stand aside and watch the house burn. A strong country has one dominate race and religion, the rest are minorities. In Germany – Germans and Christianity, England – English and Christianity, in SA – Arabs and Islam. How many large established countries in existence can you name that are dominated by two or three completely different races and/or religions, they dont exist or at least anymore because one eventually dominates the other or it ceases to exist altogether. Of course there are nations that absorbed other nationalities but what the author is suggesting is changing Europe as a whole..
“The problem with assimilation is that it inherently implies that other cultures have nothing of value to add. ”
Europe’s greatest attraction is the number of drastically different faces, cultures and languages in a relatively small area separated by borders. Every corner on this earth has a unique identity which is appreciated and respected, but when it comes to white culture for some reason a lot of effort is put into eradicating it. Liberalism is striving to wipe it out and replace it with a single dark skinned brown eyed hijab wearing Hallal eating identity. Yes a one way flight is the only answer.
“Yes a one way flight is the only answer.”
Great! When are you leaving?
“I told such French people that in a multicultural society such an order to “become French” is rightly considered to be fascistic and prejudiced. In inheritance there is richness, for all people.”
Ramin, you have hit the nail on the head!
In the US, people ask you “Hey man, where are you from?” in a matter-of-fact manner. “Are you Italian? Are you Irish? Are you Puerto-Rican?” For them, I suppose, everyone is from somewhere else so the question of origins is not emotionally charged.
In France, you cannot imagine the roundabout ways they ask you that same question. My all-time favourite: “What is that beautiful language that you speak?”. Or the classic: “Quelles sont vos origines?”, i.e. “What are your origins?”.
For well-meaning, middle-class French people, it is subconsciously assumed that assigning to you any other nationality other that the French is an insult, precisely due to the reasons Ramin outlined: foreigners were mostly low-paid, uneducated, menial workers. So the question is taboo.
Well-meaning French people tell their foreign friends: “Maybe you origins are from ‘over-there’ but I accept you as a French like myself. You outgrew your origins”. It is meant to be a compliment, since in their subconscious that ‘over-there’ has a lesser cultural standing. “Congratulations! You have now achieved parity with us” is the implied corollary. They can’t see the condescension in this! As I said, they ARE well-meaning.
Language aside, what she said is absolutely true! Don’t you agree?
Well, actually I wouldn’t know.
I AM NOT a hijab-wearing muslim woman, and I will not speak on their behalf. If there is one in The Saker’s community maybe she may enlighten us, but till then let’s not patronize them, shall we?
Enough with the Messiah syndrome already!
We do not live in a multicultural society. We live in a democracy. And, in a democracy, if the people decide multiculturalism is a thing of the past, it is a thing of the past. It’s that simple.
Human rights is another example. Until November 25, 2015, human rights claims were valid in France. Since the state of emergency that is no longer the case.
@ Passerby
“We live in a democracy.”
Where is that democracy? I would like to know where to go and raise my family there; so any advice is most welcome.
Are the French ‘Islamophobes’ when are sickened by the slashing of the throat of a French Catholic priest, by ‘Allahu Akbar, you Christians kill us’ shouting French-born youth? Or when another ‘youth’ attacked people at the Louvre (shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’)? Or when are offended that Muslims refuse the time-honored sign of hospitality and friendship, sharing meals and wine with the hosts?
Of course they are offended…like you own morality. And the ‘time honored tradition’ is not one for them, get a life.
(useless curse removed) As a french I feel deeply insulted by this nonsense. Imagine that last year a muslim went into a crowd with a truck and killed 84 people in the name of its religion. What was the reaction? Appeal to unity. A priest was killed in its church by a muslim. Again there was no reaction. Had these events happened in a islamic country, what would have happened?
CCIF is just another name for the muslim brotherhood, their goal is to destroy french culture by using its laws against itself.
He is assuming that we need them to do jobs that we do not want to do. The immigration was imposed by the upper class against the will of the people. And the level of immigrants has long been somehow similar to the level of unemployment. They are used to lower the wages. We are not grateful for that, as he thinks we should be.
Although the author seems to come from Iran which has no colonial history with France, he seem to share some religious hatred towards us. He apparently thinks that his fellows are mistreated. As I said the reason they are here is to do these jobs that cannot be displaced to Asia. Their position in society depends also of the education they got. The other reason is that there is a very low desire in these communities to become part of our country. They don’t want to learn at school, and so now that they have become an important part of our population, we see the educational level drop drastically.
Lotta things you got wrong, Patrick:
– the attack in Nice was committed by a deranged psychopath with a long and shocking history of mental illness. But he was “a muslim” so he was treated as a terrorist even though he had no ties to any terror group whatsoever, and that was proven by the French authorities. But when it was a White German guy who did the same thing, but with a Germanwings plane, then it’s not terrorism but mental illness, eh?
– The CCIF are not the Muslim Brotherhood and you don’t seem to really know what either group truly does: they are an NGO which provides a hotline for Muslims victimized by racism, and they provide those victims with help. This is their goal, not the destruction of French culture (totally preposterous claim by you), and they are admirable. The state should be doing this job, but they are not.
– I have absolutely no religious hatred towards any group, and that’s a huge leap you made based only on factually-based, fair criticism of France. That, right there, should discredit your complaints with many people.
– The idea that Muslim parents in France don’t want their children to be educated, LOL…no parents want their kids to remain ignorant. I can tell you from years of reporting, however, that the deepest austerity cuts in education are first applied in immigrant-heavy areas of France. Coincidence? I think not.
I’m not going to answer every complaint about my column – it speaks for itself. Patrick I hope I clarified some things for you.
Re “The idea that Muslim parents in France don’t want their children to be educated, LOL…no parents want their kids to remain ignorant. ”
I do not know the situation in France and so would not comment in any general way on this column.
But I am not so sure the above statement is self-evident.
I am just reading a history of Jewish communities in Germany in the the late 17th — late 19th centuries (The Pity of It All). This religious minority wanted their children educated a very specific way, the Jewish way: in the Talmud, etc. They did not want their children to attend German schools, nor even learn the language. Yes, there was enormous resistance to the Jews in Germany (which before the Unification consisted of 36 mini absolute monarchies that varied enormously in their attitudes toward Jews, political dissent, etc.). But it was complemented by resistance on the part of Jewish communities to to intermixing and assimilating. Insisting on retaining various markers of difference (garb, dietary laws, not learning the German language, etc. etc.), quite simply, alienated the Germans and reinforced the latter’s own worst tendencies.
I am *not* suggesting that the various immigrant groups in France who are Muslim are analogous to 18th C Jews in Germany. But I am suggesting that there might be points of comparison and that it might be worth serious examination, and not just a blanket assertion, to ascertain the extent to which various Muslim groups want their children educated in the French mold, or, rather, want them educated in traditional Muslim fashion. One relevant benchmark: Do they want their children immersed in French in school so that they (the children) can learn their subject matter in French (like Hispanic parents in California regarding English vs. Spanish), or do they want their children to be taught in their own languages?
Katherine
@What was the reaction? Appeal to unity. A priest was killed in its church by a muslim. Again there was no reaction
Mais non. The immediate reaction was to condemn in the strongest possible terms… Le Front National, the extreme right-wing ‘fascists’ and solemnly pledge to do everything to stop them and the French people in general because they are Islamophobes.
Your question about what would happen in a Muslim country had these things happened is rhetorical. Hysterical rallies demanding the beheading of the offenders, burning of Churches (where there are not completely forbidden). Speaking of Churches, Christians and other non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the cities of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest cities, but they would consider normal to settle in mass in Saint-Denis, the spiritual heart of France. And to demand to transform churches into mosques.
Maybe the author does not have a religious hatred (or so he wants us to believe). But I am sure that he can’t see anything wrong in the fact that an Iranian delegation in France can impose banning wine at the official banquet although it is the tradition of the host to offer it as a token of good will, and at the same time to impose on officials visiting Iran to don the hijab, because that is the tradition of the host. The art of double-think.
I had not realised it had gotten that bad in France. Sounds like the Jewish zionist “clash of civilizations” has been very successful there. The immediate goal being to keep people divided so they can’t get together and perceive who their real enemy is. The more long term goal of these zionazis is genocide of Muslim peoples.
If one looks at how israeli society is structured, one can see what is behind the zionazi instigation of Islamophobia throughout their colonies. Israel is probably the most socially stratified country on the planet, with religion, culture and race being important factors to which layer a person gets put in. Muslims are at the bottom, with pretty much zero rights and status.
Thank you for another insightful, informative article! Like vot tak, I didn’t realise how bad the situation was in France for Muslim and black people.
Sidebar: I had spoken with one or two Germans who came (fled?) to Canada after being terribly overworked in Germany. It led me to conclude that the list of “things humans need protecting from” should definitely include “German industrialists”. German capitalists is an even better choice. A task for the Ältestenrat? :-)
So this massacre of Muslims, worshipping in Quebec City, definitely seems to be an attempt to fuel this cycle of violence and repression. (The language used by the author wearing the hijab is focusing on the tree, instead of the forest.) I wonder if Zion (Israel? NATO?) is hoping to recruit some Alexandre Bissonnette’s in France, leading up to the French elections. Likely, by monitoring social media, possible candidates could be identified. But why, I wonder? Unless there are tangible signs of solidarity forming among all of France’s underclasses??
“Predictions for French Islamophobia for 2017: Hopefully Marine Le Pen wins, and I say that seriously. I predict that a “Mexican Power” movement will rise up in the US against Trump to advance civil rights, and a “Muslim Power” movement would be the response here to Marine Le Pen. Both are what’s needed to lift the underclass out from hell…and this is the only proven route, failing a successful communist-inspired revolution like in the USSR, Cuba, China, Iran etc.”
I doubt that more bankster-funded phony revolutions are the answer. For example, even Putin admits that the Bolshevik revolution only served to put the persecuted Jews in charge of a Christian nation. That one worked out well didn’t it? Millions of Russian Christians were slaughtered.
Question to the Saker: isn’t preserving the Westfalian order a priority for world peace ?
In my understanding, Westfalian order means: one people, one nation (nation means: a territory with borders and a sovereign government).
My opinion:
Muslim Arabs such as the author do not share a common (cultural/racial/religious/political) identity and destiny with us French people. No hard feelings, it is a fact.
If these people (Arabs) colonize my nation as the author is suggesting (“muslim power”, French cartoonists deserving to be shot for drawing Islam’s prophet), the Westfalian order is therefore reaped apart.
Reaping apart the Westfalian order, that has taken so long and so much suffering to come to fruition, is a catastrophic development for world’s peace. Not just for France by the way, but in general for the world. When I remember that is has taken centuries of war to sign the treaty in 1648, and another 3 centuries to actually implement it (imperfectly, but mostly implemented)…
Ironically, The French intellectual nomenklatura has held exactly the author’s views for decades, whipping-up the hatred of (muslim) Africans against (white) French.
Under their command, France has been welcoming foreigners, mostly africans, amounting to circa 1/3 of its own population over 30 years (15m, out currently 65m). We have shelled out dozens of billions per year in infrastructure, healthcare, housing and education costs for them, far outweighing the benefits we drew from a lowly educated, overly criminal population. Please take note: the “french” muslim “leader” the author is referring to, Marwan Muhammed, makes gross orthographic mistakes in his tweets (i mean, GROSS, like writing: “leeder” instead of “leader”).
And so the author probably does not realize this, but once the politicians he is criticizing so harshly are gone, his only protection is gone. These politicians are the only reason the author has the GALL to talk about islamophobia, the same day an islamic terrorist attack occured. Once they are gone, and they will in the mid term, because polls give right wing parties a huge advantage to left-wing parties among.18-35 age-group (57% to 43), you can expect a very different reaction from us, my good friend Ramin Mazaheri.
One a side note on Charlie hebdo, i think i got censured by the Saker one year ago for voicing my opinion on this in too colored terms, but i think it is important for our ennemies (the author) to hear it so i’ll write it in more measured terms: while I certainly think Charlie was outrageously offending to all sort of people, including my own people here in France but also muslims (they were really mean to everyone), it unfuriates me to hear an Arab muslim say they should not be drawing of his prophet in my country.
For that exact reason, while I would normally have 0 interest in hurting the feelings of peaceful muslims around the world, or even just drawing, I will personally, or at least participate to start a fanzine running drawings of the author’s prophet, in the most insulting ways we can imagine. It would be published in France only, and no foreigner gets a say on that.
In french “nègre” means negro not n**ger. “N**ger” is derogative and only used by blacks, and in between themselves, in the ghettos.
Laurence Rossignol is a deeply unpleasant idiot socialist but she happens to be right, here: wearing the hijab (hejab) is widely considered by feminists and rational people in France to be a mark of submission to men, even by the like of progressive philosopher-writer Elisabeth Badinter who is also a feminist. Her husband, Robert Badinter, was the French Justice Minister in the Mitterrand government that abolished the death penalty in the 1980s.
I must add that I am neither socialist nor feminist and yes the the hijab is the symbol of the oppression of women by men.
“In french “nègre” means negro not nigger. ‘
Glad someone who (I assume) is fluent in French makes that point.
My “Larousse des debutants” defines “negre” as “personne de race noire.”
Even though this is an older dictionary, I am quite sure there would be some kind of note if “negre” were considered a derogatory term when the dictionary was published (1963).
No France expert here, but AFAIK France is a secular society that has gone to great lengths to preserve this element of its identity. To me that means that the nation and its citizens have the right to impose their social standards on those who live there. These secular standards are for the good of all. However, if men are allowed to wear yarmulkas in public, that makes it more problematical to prohibit women from wearing scarves. Also, women such as Brigitte Bardot and Jacqueline Kennedy have always worn scarves, often with large dark glasses. In the fifties and sixties this was a major fashion statement.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Brigitte+Bardot+in+a+scarf&biw=878&bih=447&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizyLix1_bRAhWMSiYKHc-YC5QQsAQIGQ
This style is no longer in fashion. But it gets thorny to prohibit a style because of the presumed *reason* it is adopted. I think it is reasonable to prohibit girls and boys from wearing anything on their heads while in school (including yarmulkes), and to prohibit any garb worn in public that hides any part of the face. WE wouldn’t allow men to go around with their neckerchiefs pulled up over the bottom part of their faces to hide their identity like outlaws:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-west-cowboy-bandit-2-outlaw-217955560?src=xD4KTkuT5KDGiTy7-nlnQg-1-6
No reason I can see to allow women to do it.
Katherine
Hi Katherine,
I am fluent in French as well and can assure you that “negré” is indeed best translated as “nigger”. You have cited a dictionary from 1963 as your intellectual support, but I think you need to use something which is not 50+ years old. If you check something more current you will keep coming back to my translation, and you will also find that “negro” already has a word in French – “négro”, which the Minister failed to use. I also live in France and can assure you that I am up to date on the current culture and lingo, as my story demonstrated.
Also, your picture of an “outlaw kerchief” is not at all similar to a hejab, which shows the entire face. What you have imagined to be a hejab is actually called a niqab – where only the eyes are seen – which has already been banned here. That was hardly a problem, because it something which is rarely worn anywhere but in the the Arabian peninsula, and certainly not France. If I recall correctly from my reporting, there were an estimated 1-2,000 women who wore the burqa or niqab in France out of an estimated…what….3 million Muslim women? It certainly was blown out of proportion as to the “societal threat” it posed, LOL! And from my reporting on that issue I would estimate that half of all the niqab and burqa-wearers I interviewed were…blue-eyed, white French female converts.
Your reasoning was a bit unclear, but I assume that what you think Muslim women in France need to do is simply to wait for the shawl to come back in style – like it was with Bardot – and then they will be “allowed” to wear it. Well, I don’t know any Muslim women who have viewed the matter like you seem to…I would suggest you talk with some Muslim women about it.
LOL, it does not to me. I live here, I’ve used the word – I told the story.
Check out the gold standard in multi-lingual web dictionaries – http://www.wordreference.com – and you’ll see they translate “negré” as both.
The Minister had “négro” at her disposal and did not use it. That is important. I’m done explaining myself.
I encourage people who refuse to take my well-informed word about it to come to France, call a Black person a “negré”, and then say “Hey, ‘Negro’ is not such a bad word, so there’s no problem.” Good luck with that.
I wonder where the spelling “negré” which the author uses three times could possibly come from.
There is nowhere to be found in the ‘gold standard in multi-lingual web dictionaries’ http://www.wordreference.com, where the one used by the French is used all along “nègre/nègresse”. Nor in any French dictionary.
LOL, that is my bad. Good and many thanks – it is “nègre”. And it is translated as ‘negro’, ‘nigger’ and ‘jigaboo’ by wordreference.com.
And this gives me a chance to make the main point – it was not some person on the street who used this word, it was a Minister, and an alleged socialist, and it was the Minister of Women’s Rights, and she did it in public.
Regardless of one’s views on the hejab (even those who have never talked to a Muslim woman about it, and really know very little) the Minister’s words show just how powerless Muslims are in France, and Muslim women are, that they can be talked about like this in public: as “niggers” who were dumb enough to support slavery.
THAT is the REAL story.
Not whether it’s “nigger” or “negro”, not whether the orthography is correct. That is the much, much larger issue – and it should be appalling, because to call 1/2 billion Muslim women ignorant slaves is…quite honestly fundamentalist and flat-out dangerous.
And it should give the scapegoaters of Muslims in France real pause – if a minister made such a remark about Whites or Christians there would be hell to pay. Muslims can be scapegoated, insulted, have their doors broken down – with no reprisal whatsoever. THAT is the real issue.
The minister was not sanctioned at all – Islamophobia and racism is perfectly acceptable in mainstream France today.
So, now I truly am done with explaining the language – back to the real issues!
Sorry, now you lost me. Only a small part of the world’s islamic population consists of black people. Weren’t Arabs ans Persians considered white? Then another huge part of Islamic people are Asian, like Indonesian, etc.
Another misconception: most slaves in the west were… white. First mostly of Eastern European and Slavic origin who, by the way, also formed the majority of slaves during the (Islamic!!!) Ottoman Empire, and then there were the millions of child slaves from Europe but mostly Ireland. Plesse read up on that one, truly interesting matter!
I think you are focusing a bit too much at an accidental non-politically correct slip of the tongue of a minister of a totally failed french government. Yes, of course it shows her true thoughts, but you and I knew that already for many years, didn’t we? This woman and all her colleagues have nothing but disdain for common ‘ploucs’ like all of us who didn’t go to school (ENA, etc.) with them.
Hi Ramin,
Like you I’m fluent in French and have lived here permanently since 1994. In the south(-west) I can’t find anything derogatory about the use of the word “nègre”. It’s being used less than before, that’s all. Nowadays many use the English word “black” pronounced as blak which definitely leaves a more negative taste than when nègre is used. Up north YMMV. :-)
Like WizOz I have to agree that doublethink is a huge problem. How can anyone expect Europeans to be more and more flexible and accepting and to let their local cultures be anihilated and to have to swallow all kinds of strange matters like traffic blocking prayers in the streets, mandatory halal for kids at school, minarets with loudspeakers making unintelligeable and totally illegal racket, up to and sometimes including sharia, whilst when we visit the islamic countries of origin of these people we have to abide not only by their laws but also their customs and local habits.
IOW: In Iran we all ought to do as the Iranians, in France thou shalt all do as the French. Don’t like that, or impossible because of religious reasons or whatever? Then there’s an easy solution. Go look for another more acceptable place to live. Some EU countries like the Netherlands even help unhappy people to relocate voluntarily with a monetary aid, also derogatorily called the “rot-op premie” (get out premium).
Whether with religion, politics, culture, immigration, social division or climate changes, the 1 percenters will always find a way to divide the silly rest of us, and that includes the victims of islamophobia…
If you would like to translate nigger in French then it would be “négro” , that is “nègre” with an injurious intent. But, still, it seems to me that nigger is even more offensive and insulting than “négro”; nigger is probably the most insulting word in America and it’s why the word nigger has been redacted by the moderator in my first comment. But “nègre” is not insulting and its usage has almost disappeared in the current language, it uses to refer to black slaves and africans in the French African colonies, so I suppose you could use this word to try and insult persons of black ancestry by referring to a time when the status of black people was lower. So it all depends on context and intent. In this particular context Laurence Rossignol used French correctly because in the nineteenth century that was the word used to refer to blacks and that was not injurious. So a correct translation would be: ““American negroes who were in favor of slavery”.
And yes, indeed, I am French but I have also lived, studied and worked in California and Australia for over 8 years.
“Le Bal Nègre” just forced to change their offensive name after petitions and demonstrations…and the problem was not “Bal”, LOL.
http://www.france24.com/fr/20170206-bal-negre-rue-blomet-racisme-noir-colonialisme-paris
Still waiting for a Black Frenchman to stick up for how inoffensive the word is, LOL.
Moving on….
“I must add that I am neither socialist nor feminist and yes the the hijab is the symbol of the oppression of women by men”
“…widely considered by feminists and rational people in France to be a mark of submission to men”
Lasting freedom is freedom gained, not freedom handed out, or even shoved down one’s throat. Not being a Muslim woman myself, I believe that my opinion on the subject is like what Dirty Harry said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVlYMctb7Y4). Let’s keep our motives clear and avoid the temptation of “The White Man’s Burden”, to save others from their primitive cultures.
Katherine called a spade a spade: “the nation and its citizens have the right to impose their social standards on those who live there”. That is indeed a valid principle. For Westerners, an interdiction of headscarves (or whatever), will not be based on rescuing the women that wear them (that will be just a pretext), but on the principle that “you’re in our house, you do as we do”.
However (and here’s the rub for “multicultural” societies) try explaining to 3rd generation Algerians that they are not actually in THEIR house. That the rationalist house they have to live in was built long before their grandparents’ arrival and that it will not change to accommodate them. They will always feel like guests, uncomfortable, and whistle the Marseillaise when the chance is given (France-Algeria football match 2001).
Hear, Hear!
The only rights which can exist are those which a given community have agreed will exist for the benefit of all those within that community.
The community has then the duty and the power to enforce those rights.
“When in Rome . . . .”
Simone Weill had this to say about ‘rights’:
“No talk of ‘rights’ without talk of responsibilities,”
“…do as Romans do”.
The question is: who are Romans and who are not?
The answer to the question is full of consequences.
In each and every case the “Romans” are the community . The “non-Romans” are those who are visiting, or seeking inclusion ; inclusion which requires acceptance of the rules of the community in order to enjoy such rights as the community has agreed for its members.
The community must , for its continued well- being , eject those who do not accept the rules.
Has a 3rd generation kid sufficiently attained the status of “Roman” to have a say in what the rules are? Or are these rules immutable since the time of “nos ancetres les Gaulois”?
Do cultures change with time? Yes of course they do if there is tolerance, healthy debate, acceptance of difference etc.
But the slow shift will be scarcely perceptible to the “Romans” : likely that only outsiders will see it.
So “third generation”, if it has not assimilated, is still an outsider.
@“third generation”, if it has not assimilated, is still an outsider.
Even the ‘nth’ generation. A Muslim would be assimilated (in France, for example, where the French are the ‘Romans’ – quite literally, the Gallo-Romains) when he would make pork and wine his everyday meal (which would be a net gain for him, the French cuisine being the best in the world). When he would happily celebrate le Noël et Les Pâques et la Toussaint and would revere the memories of Charles Martel and Saint Louis more than of Saladin. When he would stop striving to look defiantly different from the rest. When they would be able to say: mais, les Gaulois furent nos ancêtres aussi!
Why this will not happen:
-Because the cultural divide is too great. Portuguese and Spaniards were assimilated because they are Catholics (whatever you want to believe about the assimilative powers of the French “état laïque”).
-Because France chose to house them in huge projects (banlieues) where they made their own quasi-autonomous and self-perpetuating communities in which not even the police sets foot (and because the French middle classes would not rent them out their apartments, hence the need for the banlieues).
-Because the Western world no longer has an appealing spiritual and civilizational paradigm. Just better living standards and consumerism. These people came there for material needs, not for cultural admiration like Americans in Paris. They probably DO NOT WANT to be assimilated, and I doubt this question was ever raised when they were admitted.
-Because the people that are now ante portas have been marinating for years in war, violence and atrocities. Their first thought is not necessarily not to litter and to avoid jaywalking.
Look, I fully appreciate the sentiment of wanting newcomers to adapt to your way of living. I wholeheartedly do. I feel for the the French who can no longer say “Joyeux Noël” but has to use the rather coy “bonnes fêtes de la fin d’année”. Or the German who cannot enjoy his Octoberfest as he used to.
But let’s be adults about it: that genie isn’t going back in the bottle. No matter how much you wish it, the nth generation will not decide to eat pork to make you happy.
Do you want some Tums to help you digest this, at least if you come from a western ex-colonial country ? Here it is: the West broke down several Muslim countries, first economically through colonialism and then structurally through regime changes and proxy wars. It imported the first Muslim generation as cheap labour and radicalized the 3rd generation though its support for radical Islam (from mujahideens in Afganistan to ISIS in Syria). Maybe the man in the street was never personally consulted, but it was done in his name (through his “democratically elected government” as he would proudly say).
There are ways to handle the problem, but I will sadly inform you that they are all compromises. Deal with it. To paraphrase the common adage for the US-Ukraine debackle, “your grandpa/President/CEO broke it, you own it”. Welcome to the wonderful multicultural world Western colonialism created.
Accepting Islamophobia is difficult when it’s not politically correct to be phobic of anything. But here goes a willingness to examination: Islamophobia, a fear of Islam. Non Islamic people are afraid of Islam in one part because somewhere in the tenets of the religion lies a tendency toward belief that one is rewarded when one kills or dies in the name of Islam or the prophet Muhammad. How can a non-Islamic person feel confident that they are able to distinguish between extremists and non-extremists? A hijab strikes fear unfortunately for the devout woman wearing it because for non-Islamic people it represents the possibility of random acts of violence and covert hatred. How do we move forward? I never have the impression that a woman in a hijab is looking to be my friend–ever. So it feels that fear and mistrust are mutual. And all this racket against the Trump administration feels less like the underprivileged rising up than the neocon, Soros funded elitists arousing hatred that could literally split our country so I’m not sure I would wish for Le Pen…
Muslims could be deported, no matter how many generations are in France or any other country. I don’t know who will attempt to do it or how will do it, but never say never in politics and history. If demographics irreversibly change and there are tensions between the various ethnic groups in future Europe, everything is possible.
There is precedent as with the expulsion of Moors from Spain etc. USSR also expelled and deported numerous Chechens and Tatars in Central Asia. Christian communities have also been expelled from numerous muslim countries.
A strong sovereign authoritarian government is needed as there will be backlash by international media and other governments.
Economic pressure is another way to achieve the expulsion of an undesirable ethnic group.
Greeks were expelled from Istanbul in the 1950s by pogroms, westerners (including numerous Greeks) were forced to leave Egypt in the 1960s as they lose their businesses by Nasser’s nationalisations. Indians were forced to leave Uganda as the Ugandan government seize their businesses etc.
Many Israeli Palestinians were also forced to leave from Israel, as Israeli authorities used various ways to expel them (discrimination in jobs, housing, public services etc).
Another interesting fact is that numerous white south Africans are leaving South Africa because of discriminatory laws and forced seizure of their businesses. There is a reverse apartheid in place although no one dares to talk about it in international community.
Numerous white south african farmers have been murdered too. The same happened to the White people (usually farmers) of Zimbabwe (Ex Rhodesia) who lost their farms and left the country.
Many white south africans were born and bred in south Africa with family heritage that goes back for many generations. Especially afrikaners who built the first cities and are descended from the first Dutch colonists.
The white south africans are not recognised as refugees even though there are reasons to consider them as such.
Many south african whites (up to 500,000) are poor and many more have limited prospects in this country as they are discriminated and leave in a very dangerous country with high burglary and crime rates.
But according to modern standards, only dark skinned people could be “Refugees” even though most of them are bogus refugees. In a way, we have reverse discrimination against white people.
The elites have a strategy to divide and rule the people, creating tensions.
@ Ramin Mazaheri, I’ve been reading news reports about mosques across Canada increasing, or re-examing, security. First, I react defensively because the actions of one man does not mean this society is racist or anti-Muslim. But then, there does seem to be an international conspiracy, IMO, to target Muslims. Maybe just in French countries? What can be done about this? Should Interpol be involved? The UN? The Hague? Trudeau visited the Agha Khan a few weeks ago. Could the Agha Khan help to initiate some sort of international investigation or task force? Or I might just be overreacting? But the possibility is alarming.
Thanks for your question S113:
I would say, firstly, that it is absolutely the wrong idea for mosques in Canada to start increasing security – that is how the terrorists win, through increasing fear. I have seen this for 1.5 years nearly in France – the state of emergency – and it has been a pathetic and reactionary response to two terror attacks. Mosques, much like churches, should stay brave, which means staying open, welcoming, warm and pushing themselves towards repeatedly fulfilling their best ideals. The choice must be for Muslims to remain not just “Muslims” – a distinct group, locked away from the world to practice their particular religion – but good Muslims, who worship openly and generously in the face of adversity, and who sincerely try to fit in when and where they are sincerely invited to do so.
I don’t believe Canadian society – and I know it rather well – is racist, but even if I did: again, the courageous and religious choice would be the stand with open arms to their enemies. Mosques, if a reader has not been, are extremely warm and friendly places – great places to hang out and chit-chat freely – and adding security would take away that treasured feeling.
Is there an international conspiracy against Muslims? Yes, in the sense that from Morocco to Indonesia popular progressive movements have been forcibly aborted, right-wing regimes are supported despite their lack of concern for “European human rights” and the capitalist siphoning off of resources and riches has taken place since Napoleon invaded Egypt. And this is a very real thing. And this colonialist/capitalist effort requires not just a physical war, but a cultural war – and this has always been the case, too. Turning people against Muslims in order to create unity – getting people to despise and resent the real phenomenon of ‘Islamophobia’ and even the victims of it – is part of this.
The way out of this is to wise up to leftist ideals, which means rejecting petty nationalism or religious rivalries, and to not to be a sucker for such long-standing feudal/capitalist tactics, hejab or no hejab. Unfortunately, at least in France, many prefer to scapegoat Muslims – who hold now power and therefore cannot be responsible for the “French decline” – and this is proven by the fact that the far-right and right are leading the presidential race.
Or at least they were? New poll: Hamon and Melenchon have the highest approval ratings.
It’s always the right time to make the right move!
If you look at pictures of the counter-terrorist “Plan Vigipirate”, you will notice there are actually more and more policeman and soldiers in France from Northern African origin. So are teachers, nurses etc. By now, more than two generations after the large arrival of this population, there is a large variety of situations, and almost every family has an aquaintance of even a friend of northern african origin. Also, there are more and more mixed couples and children coming from these couples who are every bit the same as other children in France.
Furthermore, the french administration is full of coloured people who come from the french caribean islands, either directly or already second and even third generation.
As a frenchman myself I cannot see the racial situation depicted here.
There are, however, ethnic ghettos in large cities where many nasty people come from, and indeed you will find a lot of hijab-wearing women there etc, as well as insufferable ghetto types who hail their muslim origins. They are sometimes unwillingly ridiculous when for instance they swear “on the Coran of Mecca” – real Muslims don’t swear on their holy book, actually you only see that behaviour in TV series with tribunal audiences in the US system. These ghetto guys transpose the US protestant system seen on TV into something vaguely arabic or muslim.
The majority of frenchmen of North Afircan origins generally despise those ghetto types. Actually, the “clash of civilisation” scenario depicted in this article is something many frenchmen see as imported upon themselves by exterior forces.
Muslims do have rights as individuals, but they must also respect the culture that hosts them. Those who don’t should go home. There may indeed be attacks on Muslims by isolated bigots, but I see political correctness and censorship as bigger problems because they prevent an honest dialog on contentious issues like immigration and assimilation. Consider how many times Dieudonne, a brilliant comedian who is also an African immigrant, has been censured by the French authorities.
“French authorities” have not been ‘French’ since Sarkozy.
Excellent article. I’ve been in France since 2005 and things have got worse over the years. In an act of compassion and defiance – we housed some refugees from Africa for a while. They were muslims – but they didn’t really know what was going on in France. I worry for them……
Ironic (in a depressing way) that Ms Rossignol’s surname is almost synonymous with the cri de coeur of the oppressed woman in the classic Catalan song The Nightingale. Here’s Joan Baez:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gWsGnzZZfNY
Excellent article. Thanks.
Masha’Allah to Ramin Mazaheri!
A clear, honest assessment of the French neocolonial quagmire and the disgusting hypocrisy of its corrupt ruling class, from far left to far right.
Is someone working on a translation from english to french? Otherwise i would gladly do it.
As a general rule I avoid wading into the dangerous waters of race relations, although it is a subject I tackled in my formative years. It is riddle with emotions and charged with our sense of identity as a social being. I never forget the fact that we are wired, like all the inhabitants of the animal kingdom, to recognise our kin and that has consequences. Since we (humans) distinguish ourselves from the lower orders by assuming a higher value-system – which also implies our capacity to raise above genetic determinism and species-recognition – it follows that there is a stage in man’s social and moral development where race or ethnic diversity will have any import.
However, we are far from that stage and the closest we have come was the Soviet experiment of inclusion open to all ethnic groups in the Union, which still remains alive today when we hear a Chechen or Chuvash say he’s Russian – perhaps the same way some Europeans might have said if the EU project had not been highjerked by the global elites. I assume the same process was (is) taking place in the US, when most people identified themselves as Irish, German, Italian or whatnot although being primarily US citizens. I read recently a personal account of a young Yank of Portuguese ancestry who visited the UK shortly after the WWI and who wrote on the arrival card his nationality as “Portuguese” while carrying a US passport and that confused the border officer no end!
I visited Saint Denis recently – a must for a historian – for being, as Ramin aptly put, the spiritual centre of France. It is also a must for anyone interested in immigration, multiculturalism and also in the destruction of a country’s symbolic marks of itself. I was shocked beyond belief and felt actually sick because my idea of Saint Denis was shattered; it was not France and there were no French people there at all, even the gendarmes were black!
The same thing has happened in the major cities of Europe where some suburbs have been transformed into ghettos and the original inhabitants driven out because their physical and social milieu has been transformed into an alien space where they don’t feel at home. And that is an enormous personal loss, especially for the aged.
The social transformation of Europe has to be understood within the framework of politico-economic considerations. Obviously, there was never a popular home movement to bring in people of different races, cultures and religions. France has always accepted people from other countries, especially political exiles from as far as Russia, let alone from the immediate neighbourhood. And they have been happily absorbed into the fabric of French society almost seamlessly. Even in the aftermath of the Algerian independence – when about one million Pied Noirs “came home” – France accepted many Muslims without much of a ripple in the structure of French society. But that was in the 1960s when there was full employment and the economy was booming.
Fast forward to fifty years later and now you can see the cause of the current French – and European – social, political and economic distress.
@ Anon
“Fast forward to fifty years later and now you can see the cause of the current French – and European – social, political and economic distress.”
Do you mean the end of the Soviet Union, smashing of the left and the rise of globalisation?
It might be just a historical coincidence that the attack on organized labour by punitive legislative measures and opening the gates to immigrants to deflate wages took place when the free trade globalists got the upper hand. Yet, why bringing in immigrant labour when the low-paid jobs were being shipped offshore? I feel there is a discrepancy there, unless the purpose of more immigration was something else, like changing the demographics. For instance, the Blair government in Britain deliberately opened the gates to immigrants on the grounds that they would become Labour voters, therefore entrenching the party in power. Not only that, because the immigrants (mostly from the ex-colonies) reproduced at higher rate than the natives, that entrenchment would be permanently reinforced by future generations, That is “forward thinking”! But it didn’t work for too long, Blair became toxic and Labour is in the doldrums. Yet, it may work in future because the population of the UK is increasing and you can safely guess why.
“Muslim guy in the wilderness” – hope you are enjoying nature and thanks for your kind words!
I am not working on a French translation – if you could do it that would be greatly, greatly appreciated!!! Many thanks if you can!
@ Sir Humphrey /french-islamophobia-data-punching-the-garbage-mans-wife/#comment-319117
That sober assessment of “national multi-culturalism” illustrates the oxymoronic nature of the beast ; the emphasis is on moronic , I feel.
It has been clear for some time that multi-culturalism will not happen ; it probably cannot happen.
Here in N.Z. we still have a chance of avoiding this nonsense ; most immigrants are still coming here in order to become NZers, or Kiwis.
You state quite correctly that, (outside of places like NZ) this cultural assimilation will not happen.
We are seeing the mere beginnings of what will happen ; chaos.
The same reasoning applies to the ridiculous concept of borderless “globalisation”.
Indeed, in places like NZ a “multicultural” experiment might stand better chances: migrants of free choice rather than despair as it is a virtually impossibility to sneak in. Etnic and religious demarcations probably not excacerbated by class ones (if I understand correctly).
However, Europe doesn’t have this luxury and will have to find some intelligent solutions to avoid the danger of sectarian civil war. Agreed, the globalisation multiculturalism was a moronic project. But nevertheless, here we are with a fait accompli. Denial and incindiary declarations won’t help. Let’s hope that the bright eurocrat minds will finally realise that the solution will be to rebuild and develop the ME and Africa, or at least stop raping them.
Until then, try to live in peace in our parallel societies not stepping on each other toes?
One of our most prominent indigenous academics came in for a lot of flak from his own people for saying that your “ethnic demarcations” would be resolved in the bedrooms of the nation. My own children and grandchildren are living proof of the accuracy of his prediction.
Religion seems a little more problematic. Luckily rugby football fills the need for many. :-)
Indeed, the ‘clash of civilizations’ nonsense comes from one of the signatories of the Zionazi-penned ‘Project for a New American Century'(PNAC), Schmule ‘Huntington’. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/opinion/04brooks.html
The fact that Muslims try to impose the image of innocent, pure, immaculate sacrificial victims of the malignant ‘West’ which persecute and genocides them just because they are Muslims (imitating the Jews ‘persecuted just because they were Jews’) and not for what they do, shows that they don’t want to take the road of ‘reconciliation’. Their rejection of the slightest criticism of their ways shows that they want to isolate themselves even further.
Trying to deny the fact that they play the first violin in the ‘clash of civilisations’ (burning Churches, beheading Christians, imposing their rules on others, and promising to impose them on all and sundry – I wonder whether the appeal for ‘Muslim Power’ in France is anything else) is deception. Trying to explain their behavior as a result of Zionist ‘leading from behind’ reflects badly on their abilities to judge by themselves (besides being a full admission that they are the patsies of the ones they pretend to fight against) and adopt more ‘civilised’ norms of behavior.
Encouraging them to think that they are in the right and the French in the wrong, won’t help them either. It would make the reactions much nastier and nobody really wants to see an outcome like the Night of Saint Barthelemy.
Stop peddling the non-sense of the ‘Islamophobia” mantra and face the real music.
LOL, many thanks for this proof of racist trolling! And for your words of encouragement and solidarity. I will keep that in my heart.
The Saker attracts such idiotic but determined enemies because of the many years of great work The Saker and its community have done for years!
“Chapeau” to real Saker community!