Amir Taheri: FRANCE'S TICKING TIME BOMB [rebirth of "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire]

benadorassociates.com / Arab News ^ | November 5, 2005 | Amir Taheri

[Tolik]

As the night falls, the "troubles" start; and the pattern is always the same. Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones, and, ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. Once the police have arrived on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats. The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back, with real bullets.

The scenes described above are not from the West Bank but from 16 French cities, most of them close to the capital Paris, that have been plunged in a European version of the "intifada" which at the time of writing appears beyond control.

When the troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago France's bombastic Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to "impose the laws of the republic" and promised to crush " the louts and hooligans" within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no "outburst by criminal elements" that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons. By last Monday everyone in Paris was speaking of "an unprecedented crisis". Both the interior minister and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.

But how did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: Stealing parts of parked cars. Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened as the police have not been present in that suburb for years. The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something that meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them. Once the police arrived on the scene the youth, who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years, got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted. Once news of their death was out, Clichy was all up in arms. With cries of "God is Great", bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee. The French authorities, however, could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from part of the French territory. So, they hit back by sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.

Within hours the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By mid-week the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris with a population of 5.5 million.

But who lives in the affected areas?

In Clichy itself more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns the Muslim immigrant community accounts for between 30 and 60 percent of the population.

But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent. In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see "real French life" only on television.

The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of "assimilation" which was supposed to turn immigrants from any backgrounds into "proper Frenchmen" within a generation at most. The policy of assimilation worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.

France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: The obligatory military service that was abolished in the 1990s.

As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places", thus making assimilation still more difficult. In some areas it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.

The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid. Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be re-organized on the basis of the "millet" system that was in force in the Ottoman Empire. Under that system each religious community is regarded as "millet" and enjoys the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.

In some parts of France de facto "millet" system is already in place. In these areas all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheikhs. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling wine and alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin" such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters to close down and, seized control of much of the local administration often through permeation.

A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulany-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out!

"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheikhs, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb".

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture" but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life.

So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an advisor on Islamic affairs to Chirac, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.

The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power: Who will rule this new Andalusia — Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?

Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.

This item is available on the Benador Associates website, at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/18823

 

[Tolik]

Very Interesting!

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[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[vimto]

I don't get it.

.....the French are taking knocks for not integrating...people who don't want to be integrated! Have I missed something?

[ThomasMore]

Religion of Peace bump!

With cries of "God is Great", bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.

Islam is the problem!

[Darnright]

So, the French are looking at a series of secessions within their country. Are we witnessing the first days of civil war, or will the rioting, pardon the pun, burn itself out?

[vimto]

Your tag line caught my eye. Not just France but this whole Islamic thing has a Biblical dimension. They cannot win the war, but they may yet take many down with them before this is properly played out.

Why so the nations rage so furiously together against the LORD and His appointed. Ps 2
It isn't meant as a question but to point out the sheer futility of it?

[Sabatier]

"...the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs..."

Which in Islam is the same as its law.

The Muslims want total autonomy.

They're not interested in living under French law,
or Belgian law, or German law, or Israeli law, etc.
Only the law of Islam.

[FlipWilson]

The dam busted. Suddenly there is NO France. Very shortly, Le Pen will actually win an election in France and I predict a civil war that Europe has not seen since the French Revolution. In the end, I forsee mass deportations and some other bad stuff.

The French invited the muslims into their country to fill a labor shortage after WWII. But when their economy hit the skids, it was the native French who got the jobs and they had nothing for the Arabs/Africans. Even worse, they never shut down the flow into the country of Arab/African immigrants.

[CaptainK]

In some parts of France de facto "millet" system is already in place. In these areas all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheikhs.

Yesterday, on the various news outlets, I saw a lot of mewing by British pundits about the cause of the unrest. Of course they saw it as failure of the French to not assimilate its foreign populace, discrimination and lack of jobs.

No one seemed to notice that when the agitators were interviewed, there were no women anywhere to be seen. Not on the street, not looking out of windows. The mirror image of every scene you see from the Middle East, where men gather in the thousands while women appear to have vanished from the earth. To the European elites subjugation of women by the Muslims is fine and dandy, just as long as they keep it in the community.

[SlowBoat407]

The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building.

Please tell me this was sarcasm.

[ThomasMore]

The futility of hatred!

[eureka!]

Marking for later read....

[Gritty]

France has supported the Palestinian Cause for a good reason - it is looking more like Palestine every day!

[LibFreeUSA]

IF THIS IS TRUE, THEN ALL YOU HAVE TO SEE is the THIS IS PROBLEM...

-"nothing dramatic would have happened as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.

-"The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something that meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them. Once the police arrived on the scene the youth, who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years, got really angry.

ESSENTIALLLY, THE FRENCH GAVE UP THEIR SOVEREIGNITY "...YEARS AGO"!

[ladyjane]

The French invited the muslims into their country to fill a labor shortage after WWII.

There's a parallel here. Fortunately most of our illegals are Christian.

[Alia]

Just read Joel Kotkin's at WSJo ("Why Immigrants Don't Riot Here"). Mr. Kotkin attributes France's overregulatory programs and centralized government as creating pockets of misery. Strikes me as positing a pro for "enterprise zones". His arguments concerning immigration in the US and in lesser dense, lesser overregulated locations is quite good. Fascinating compare/contrast, very thoughtful, in parsing the two articles.

[NonValueAdded]

No, really. If only she kept her mouth shut, let the yutes strip her car and file her insurance claim, none of this would have happened. Instead, she cried out "the emperor has no clothes" and the rest is history.

Surely that is what the writer was telling us.

[kimosabe31]

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community.

Is it conceivable we may soon see the heads of chirac and villepin mounted on pikes. These two fools are incapable of leadership. If the muslims don't do it, the french may do it themselves.

[frithguild]

France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: The obligatory military service that was abolished in the 1990s.

These young have not been taught the value of surrender - the third level in the French methodology (First is "Run!", second is "Hide" and fourth is "Collaborate")

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered...

I am shocked by this! SHOCKED I tell you!!

[Earthdweller]

The French need to give up their "occupation" of the Islamic suburbs of Franco-Eurabia.

[bassmaner]

mass deportations and some other bad stuff.

Actually, if they have the cojones to pull it off (doubtful, but possible, considering the history of French colonialism), mass deportations of Muslims won't really be 'bad stuff': it'll mean that they'll manage to save their culture. If not, well, they can bid their culture adieu and say hello to dhimmitude.

[FlipWilson]

There is also a difference. The U.S. tries to assimilate cultures into its own and vice-a-versa. The expression "melting pot" sounds trite, but it is our approach. The French approach is the permanent ghetto.

[kimosabe31]

Anyone know where the French Foreign Legion is based these days?

[BureaucratusMaximus]

There's a parallel here. Fortunately most of our illegals are Christian.

You insult law abiding Christians by stating that, not to mention cheapening and distorting what "being" Christian actually entails.

[syriacus]

Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones, and, ransack cinemas, libraries and schools.

Few churches are being torched. Perhaps the fueligans are keeping them available to use for sanctuary.

[thinking]

with an older population, France is toast, throw in Germany as well...there will be no one, young enough, to oppose the Muslin tide....last one out, please turn off the lights!

[layman]

the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis

This is naive wishful thinking as are almost all liberal 'solutions'.

[Natural Law]

Why wouldn't the french Muslims try this? This abhorrent behavior has been rewarded in Israel by the commitment to form a Palestinian state within Israel.

[ladyjane]

My intent was not to insult Christians. If I had a choice - however - of being over run by Islamic illegals or Christian illegals I think the lesser of the two evils is clear.

[vimto]

What can I say? - there is appeasement enough around the globe to give them reason to do whatever they think is justified.

[kimosabe31]

Very shortly, Le Pen will actually win an election in France...

They need Le Pen right now to deal with this insurrection. These f...ing leftist politicians are allowing france to be overrun and destroyed. The muslims see the frenchies as a bunch of "gumballs". Le Pen should take over and arm all frenchmen who have had military experience. Place chirac and villepin under arrest. The french marines and foreign legion should begin search and destroy ops throughout these muslim regions. All mosques should be raided and razed. All imams and other trouble makers rounded up and imprisoned. All muslims deported. Thereby restore France to its traditional state.

[nutmeg]

In some parts of France de facto "millet" system is already in place. In these areas all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheikhs. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling wine and alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin" such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters to close down and, seized control of much of the local administration often through permeation.

A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulany-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out!

"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheikhs, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb".

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[FlipWilson]

Ok, easy there Jean Marie. I think Le Pen is a bit dangerous, but perhaps another member of his far right party will be able to temper Le Pen's ideas and come up with a lighter version of the solutions you put forth.

[NRA1995]

What I want to know is, where are those UN troops hiding?

[emiller]

Ebony and i-voryyyyy live together in perfect harmonyyyyyy

[kimosabe31]

Europeans need to wake up!! I believe Americans are waking up. The muslim objective is NOT to become model citizens and loving neighbors. Their objective IS to exploit the liberties of their host countries in order to to subvert and transform host countries into the same kind of islamic S#!THOLE they left behind. Islam is a subhuman demonic cult that should not be tolerated by any civilized society and worthy only of extermination.

[Tolik]

Great article. Thank you for the link.

[arkady_renko]

Truth is, there are areas of Chicago and Detroit that are under control of gangs. The police may visit there, but have no real control of the areas. I've said it before - we are one more Rodney King event away from riots here. Any excuse will do. You saw the start of it in New Orleans after Katrina.

The perplexing thing is this spin (even on FOX) that the chaos in France is somehow justified. One of my liberal friends said that 9/11 was our fault for not trying to understand the terrorist's gripes with Western culture. I told him his efforts at appeasement would not end until every woman in America was covered from head to toe in burkas. They want to destroy non-Islamic cultures. France will realize they are in a war too late. Bush realizes it now, even if he can't label the war by its true name.

A_R

[Lekker 1]

Didn't Ferdinand and Isabella expell the Muslims from Spain in 1492?

[NYer]

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture" but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life.

This has to be the understatement of the year!! Great article!

Meanwhile, the Muslims have literally surrounded Paris. GMA showed a great graphic this morning of Paris as the core of a charred circle.

[Steve_Seattle]

Actually, the situation in France raises a lot of questions for political and religious minorities in the USA, including political conservatives and traditional Christians who are increasingly at odds with the general trend of national politics, public education, and popular culture. Is what these Muslims are demanding entirely different from what some conservatoves/Christians might someday be tempted to demand for themselves?

Are we in principle opposed to what the Muslims are demanding, or do we oppose them simply because they are Muslims? Do people have a right to live in territories largely segregated along religious lines, and governed according to their religious beliefs? Doesn't that sound something like the founding of the American colonies? Are conservatives really believers in assimilation, or do we value maintaining the distinctive quality of ethnic and religious sub-cultures? Or are we totally reconciled to assimilation and cultural secularism, as long as freedom of worship is maintained? And do we fear Muslims because we [justifiably] think that the next step after they have their own territories is to make them larger, and ultimately to control everything and everyone? Just asking . ..

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

OK. France is lost. Now where do I get a good bottle of wine cheap? Do we have to send our sons to fight and die against the Muslims to ensure a steady flow of French wine?

For you bureaucratic hacks reading these web sites, read carefully. Inside every Muslim is a good person under the control of the Devil. Nuke Mecca and kill the Imams and the world will right itself. What religion combines the Ayn Rand's brute with the witch doctor? Islam is the only one I know. Kill the Imams. It's the short road to peace.

[Mark Felton]

It is not a parallel at all other than both groups have warm bodies and each share their own common culture;

1) The French Muslims arrived legally and the French people/government accept their presence; the American Mexicans arrived illegally and 80% of the US population believe they should be extradited.

2) The religion of Islam primarily uses force to convert people to their faith. Christianity uses only the words of God, scripture, to appeal to converts. No man can force another man to convert to Christianity. The Holy Spirit comes to those who willfully and voluntarily accept jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

Note: Catholicism however is a hybrid religion. It combines Christianity with a cult. As such The US Hispanic illegal immigrants have a subservient nature and culture. They wait for other men to tell them what to do. When their orders conflict with the teachings of Christ then they become passive and indecisive. Protestant Christians can act independently according to their own spirit and their own relationship with God and Jesus Christ. They tend to view authority with suspicion and have confidence in their own personal decision and actions. [This is the spirit that won WWII)

3) The French people are disarmed. The American people are armed and will shoot to kill to defend property.

[ladyjane]

Good points. However - even though 80% of the US population believe they should be extradited our government is doing little to enforce the laws in this regard.

I'll still take a Hispanic illegal over an Islamic one any day

[fdcc]

Note: Catholicism however is a hybrid religion. It combines Christianity with a cult. As such The US Hispanic illegal immigrants have a subservient nature and culture. They wait for other men to tell them what to do. When their orders conflict with the teachings of Christ then they become passive and indecisive. Protestant Christians can act independently according to their own spirit and their own relationship with God and Jesus Christ. They tend to view authority with suspicion and have confidence in their own personal decision and actions. [This is the spirit that won WWII)

This thread is not the place and I don't really have the time, but no one should be able to say something this stupid without getting called on it.

[Bigg Red]

Even worse, they never shut down the flow into the country of Arab/African immigrants.

&&
In addition, working French citizens continue to foot the bill for housing and feeding and health care for the islamos.

[keats5]

"I'll still take a Hispanic illegal over an Islamic one any day"

Hispanics have much more in common with us than do Islamics. Having said that, I still think we need to control our border.

[ladyjane]

Absolutely we need to control our border and return the illegals who are already here. Now!

[attiladhun2]

One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an advisor on Islamic affairs to Chirac, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.
What a clueless dope this Kepel idiot is. Andalusia was Spain under Moorish rule. A leading official of the French nation essentially has just called for the surrender of his nation to Islam. I think such idiotic socialist nonsense will do nothing but embolden the jihadists.
It won't be too long until the French and European answer to the growing Muslim populations will be to cave in and allow them extra-territoriality. Little Jihadistans will sprout up like weeds in a field. Muslim clerics will then declare western Europe a Dar al Sulh on its way to becoming part of the Dar al Islam. I don't think the Euro Weenies have the stones to confront this growing menace.