Posted on 11/07/2005 5:32:04 PM PST by SirJohnBarleycorn
There is unease as the authorities encourage Muslim activists with megaphones to calm tensions
BEARDED Muslim activists have been wading into the night-time mayhem of the housing estates, megaphone in hand, and addressing the rioters “in the name of Allah”.
Far from inciting the violence, they have been urging the rioting teenagers to stop destroying property and go home. For the Government, the Muslim mediators have been playing a useful role calming youngsters from the mainly Arab estates who respect their authority far more than that of the police and local officials.
However, the Muslim mentors, who style themselves “big brothers”, are also causing unease in France because they symbolise what many see as a root of the unrest: the isolation of the ethnic Arab and black minorities into ghettos where Muslim law and outlook prevails. There is also a widespread belief — denied by the authorities — that the unrest is being fostered by the Islamists.
snip
Some on Left and Right were angered when police withdrew one evening last week from Clichy-sous-Bois, where the rioting started, in order to let Muslims keep the peace. “The supposed mediation of big brothers crying out Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) is one sign among many of the capitulation of the legitimate authorities,” said Bruno Gollnisch, a senior figure in Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front party.
Non-Muslim mediators who are active on the estates also disapprove of the presence of the Islamic brothers as peace-keepers. Magid Tabouri, 29, who leads a team of municipal, secular, big brothers at Bondy, in the troubled Seine-Saint-Denis département, said: “It is a scandal that they have asked imams to calm down the kids. You can’t apply a religious response to a social revolt.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
French are foolish to turn to the radical Islamists to help them out of their troubles.
The Tablighi Jamaat have done their jobs well.
Burkas are so in...
Call me harsh but I think any " Muslim activists with megaphones" make for clear and easy targets.
What a charade... the whole point of this is to put the power over those areas into Islamic hands - if the imams show they can do it and the state cannot, then "les banlieux" become part of Dar-al-Islam forever.
Talk about your short term solutions. Sometimes I really question the value of democracy when it leads to political decisions like this. Next it will be Hamas-like organizations setting up a parallel government.
You are so right. The Frenchies will never have control over these areas again. Well...until they call us to bail 'em out...again!
The intifada knows all too well the mindset of the French; that they will do nothing meaningful as long as the riots can be written off to the protests of 'youths'. I'd wager a month's salary there are thousands of AK's and RPG's in those cites, probably explosives too, but it's not time...yet...to bring them out. They are playing a very good game of French chess. Unfortunately, the French (the real French) are not in the game to win, they are only in the game to check. I have to admit that the intifada is in control of the board at this time.
Yep. If all this rioting were really so un-Islamic, where were these imams during the first 11 days of this? Cooling their heels waiting to step in, and thus claim authority as the true rulers and representatives of the immigrant population.
"Land for Peace" anyone?
I hope "W" has the phone off the hook. :-)
What? I hear you knocking...but you can't come in...
Seems the French have been able to completely knock out the most basic survival instincts of fight or flight out of their heads.
LOL!
FOX NEWS.com (AP): Paris - "FIRST FATALITY REPORTED IN FRENCH RIOTS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The victim was identified as Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, a retired auto industry worker who died after being beaten by an attacker. He was trying to extinguish a trash can fire Friday at his housing project in the northeastern suburb of Stains when an attacker caught him by surprise and beat him into a coma, police said.") (October 7, 2005)
JIHAD WATCH.org (AP): Paris - "RIOTING SPREADS TO 300 TOWNS IN FRANCE" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Arsonists burned two schools and a bus in the central city of Saint-Etienne and its suburbs, and two people were injured in the bus attack. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete, he said.") (November 7, 2005)
JIHAD WATCH.org (YNET NEWS): "PARISIAN MUSLIMS ATTACK SYNAGOGUES" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Arsonists threw at least two Molotov cocktails at synagogues in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine and Garges, leaving worshippers unhurt.") (November 7, 2005)
OK. The french can't control the insurrection in their country, but, the leaders of the insurrectionist...are. Got it. Oh boy!!!!
The Phillistine Intifada began with kids throwing stones.
If they won't respect you, then make them fear you. But then there is a good reason nobody fears the French.
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