Posted on 11/09/2005 5:33:13 AM PST by SJackson
TRAPPES, France -- For the Muslims of Trappes, decades of praying in basements and cramped rooms in decrepit buildings will soon be over, once the finishing touches are applied to their new, hard-won mosque - a shiny domed structure with a minaret and wooden Moroccan doors.
It took sit-in protests in front of City Hall in Trappes, some 45 miles southwest of Paris, to get approval for the mosque in 2000.
With different customs, beliefs and often skin color, parts of France's large immigrant population have been shunted to the margins of French life and left to struggle with dual identities.
Those tensions partly explain the eruption of rioting that has engulfed low-income suburbs and towns - including Trappes - for nearly two weeks.
Trappes' new mosque, now open for Friday prayers and soon to be open full-time, offers hope for many here that, with a proper venue allowing Muslims to worship in the open, youths may be less tempted to turn to religious radicalism.
"We wanted a respectable place of worship," city councilwoman Khadija Aram said of the new $2.7 million mosque. Aram, a secular Muslim of Algerian origin, has lived in Trappes for 30 years.
"Christians have their church, Jews have their synagogue and Muslims pray in the basement," she said. "French Muslims are not yet at home in France."
But across the nation, many Muslims say they are still humiliated by the need to pray in cramped quarters in the basements of housing projects because of a lack of mosques.
Even in Paris, Muslims are forced to spill out onto the street, worshipping on trash-strewn pavements, at Friday prayers because some mosques are so small. France has some 5 million Muslims, the largest such community in western Europe.
The social unrest has forced the nation to confront immigrants' feelings of discrimination and France's shortcomings in integrating them.
Since colonial times, France's emphasis on integration has translated into a strong drive to assimilate cultures into a single French mold according to the nation's strong secular traditions.
In 2004, a law banning "ostentatious" religious symbols, and aimed at Islamic head scarves, went into effect - angering many Muslims.
Immigrants and French of immigrant origin - often Muslims from former colonies in North Africa - largely populate the low-income quarters ringing big cities.
In such conditions, Muslims "have no means to weigh in on decisions that could change their own situation," said Angelina Peralva, a sociologist who specializes in urban violence. "They are so consigned to their world that, collectively, they can't get out."
In Trappes - where about 70 percent of the 29,000 residents are Muslims - the National 10 highway cuts through the city like a demarcation line, the French downtown area on one side and the vast expanse of housing projects on the other.
"Religion offers a reference point," said Bechier Lassoued, a board member of the Union of Muslims of Trappes, which built the mosque and led the protests to get it. "Someone who follows religion normally doesn't get lost."
"For Muslims, religion is fundamental. Religion is life," he said.
Trappes has had its share of terrorism fears - linked to the practice of worshipping underground.
In September, police arrested four terror suspects in Trappes and are investigating evidence suggesting a plan to attack targets in France.
The alleged ringleader, Safe Bourada, served eight years in prison for helping Algerian Islamic extremists and was being lodged here by friends. The men had frequented a prayer room in the projects, Lassoued said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, French authorities have taken steps aimed at pulling Muslims from the shadows if only to watch them more carefully.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has condemned the plight of Muslims forced to pray in cellars because of a lack of mosques.
In March 2005, a foundation, to be privately funded, was set up to help finance mosque renovation and construction. A council that acts as an umbrella group for squabbling Muslim factions, and a link to the government, also was created.
The Muslims of Trappes have been saying prayers in a small room on the ground floor of an aging building for years. The overflow crowd prays in the basement.
On feast days, the huge crowds of faithful pour into the adjoining lot - or climb a ladder to the roof of a one-story building nearby.
"Fundamentalists and terrorists take in those who have been marginalized by the politicians," said city councilwoman Aram said. "To have a mosque open to all avoids anything deviant. It's in daylight. There is no secret."
Sounds like surrender to me.
Soon Chirac will be praying towards Mecca
Funny how other religions and churches are able to build their OWN places of worship.
Sounds like they're building new military installations for the muzzies. Their appeasement is worse than I thought.
Islam is a cancer spreading....cell by cell. Muslims have a system of claiming "holy sites" anywhere they wish to occupy. Soon, they'll be claiming the Vatican because a muslim pigeon pooped on the dome of St. Peters, evicting (Arabic for decapitating, for those not well versed in A-bonics)the pope, then proceeding to use St. Peters as a urinal.
"Funny how other religions and churches are able to build their OWN places of worship."
Actually, it should read: "HAVE to build". DOn't tell me that those "poor" muslims who are rioting using cell phones and laptops can't afford to build thier on mosques. And what about the government endorsing religion? Sheesh.
As are the Muslims. The foundation is privately funded. It sounds like they were having problems with permits and the like.
-Eric
Yo, France!
How is this bending over backwards (or forwards) for the "Religion of Peace" working out for ya?
And by they do feel at home France will no longer be recognizable, having been nibbled away by seemingly small demands.
***"To have a mosque open to all avoids anything deviant.Its in daylight ,there is no secret"***
And the moon is made of cheese!
So if the Nazis riot in France the solution would be what....build them bigger beer halls, of course.
I'll help them pray.
When they bend over I'll kick them in the ass. ...and then I'll help them slam there head into the mat. ...all the time yelling "PRAY HARDER"
I'd be a islamic prayer coach.
.....in the newly founded Islamic Republic of France.
Recently, the White House celebrated the end of the Ramadan. Condi Rice delivered a speech. She said, “We in America know the benevolence that is at the heart of Islam.”
Actually, we in America know that she was lying like a Clinton under oath. And yet, nobody asked her to define benevolence. Nobody asked her to cite even a single example of its manifestation. I guess nobody wanted to embarrass her more than she had embarrassed herself and the American people.
But wait. Who am I to speak for the American people? I've seen a few articles criticizing Dr. Rice's speech, but there has been no popular outcry. The Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee did not call a press conference to express his concerns by vomiting in front of the cameras. Nick Berg's dad didn't get up and say that Islamic benevolence had cost his son his head. Families of the victims of 9/11 did not try to organize a million man march on Washington. Everybody behaved like a Jew on a Saturday when no Shabbos goyim are available.
It's not easy nowadays to find a town in the United States without a mosque in it. But in the four years that have passed since 9/11, no one who matters has said that the mosque in his town constitutes not only an insult to the many American victims of Muslim murders, but also a clear and present danger to the continued existence of this country.
Let me spell it out for you. The danger of Muslim presence on the American soil is not limited to sleeper cells. This country became great because it was founded by people who cherished freedom above everything else. It is now being invaded by people who don't even have the equivalent of the word freedom in their vocabulary. This country was founded by people escaping religious persecution in Europe. It is now being invaded by followers of a cult based on religious persecution. By settling in America, perfectly peaceful Muslims are gradually turning the United States into a Muslim country, just like they have already turned Western Europe into a province of the Caliphate. There has never been a prosperous, democratic Muslim country. Neither France, nor the rest of Europe, nor even the United States of America will become the first one. The difference will be only in the degree of Talibanization.
Haven't you heard that “it takes a village”? Well, the village has already arrived.
Yeah..we can be sarcastic now..but the muslimes are working on the appeasers in the USA as well.
Will we nip this in the bud or roll over like yellow dogs? I'd bet good money the majority will do the latter.
You are right. I did not read your post before my first comment.
Me and the husband? We're locked and loaded..I never before pictured myself as a fiction-book survivalists..but I see what's coming.
You are right. I did not read your post before my first comment.
Me and the husband? We're locked and loaded..I never before pictured myself as a fiction-book survivalists..but I see what's coming.
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