My way, your way, and insults all around
Why is France Burning?
By Doug Ireland
The Nation
11/28/2005
There are ghettoes in France, filled with Arabs (who are also Muslim) from countries formally under French control (read: colonies). These are people who were brought into the country either as refugees (transported by military leaders who refused to follow orders to leave everyone not born in France-proper behind during a bloody massacre) or as laborers. They were placed in low-income housing out of view of the French cities.
Effectively, they are the imported working class that France no longer needs and would just assume leave the country.
So, now the Arab youth, fed up with treatment from all possible sides, have started burning things. Buildings, cars, shops…whatever. They are rioting all over the country and they are using their cell phones to communicate with one another when then see the police coming and need to move to a new area.
For some reason I never think of European Countries as having
The Dutch-Muslim Culture War
By Deborah Scroggins
The Nation
06/27/2005
Ayaan Hirsi is a woman who was raised Muslim in Somalia under full-veil. She has experienced female circumcision first-hand and is now living in the Netherlands after escaping from relatives who were taking her to the man (located in Canada) she’d been promised to as a wife.
Hirsi helped in the creation of a movie (Submission) about Islam’s oppression of women. As a result local radical Muslims have made death threats, and one of them has already killed her collaborator on the film.
The Netherlands has an immigrant population of Muslims that accounts for 5.5 percent of the population, but produces the largest number of women seeking help from battered women’s shelters and abortion clinics. There are those who would like to point to the patriarchal culture, and not the religion of Islam (which could be easily interpreted in a female-friendly way).
Some things I found interesting:
1) The most violent and radical Muslims are the one’s who were born in Europe and are disconnected from the lands of their birth. In the Netherlands, as elsewhere, the Muslim population lives in communities separate from the rest of the population, and enforces Muslim laws within their areas. Laws including honor killings are enforced among Muslims, and cause problems in the countries they live as national laws calls them murder.
2) 2) The countries facing the issue of Muslim populations, angry and disconnected youth, Muslim women getting their first taste of freedom and feminism (and the resulting problems within their community), and the fact that the European standard for working with Immigrants is to give them their own, separate, area to live and then either forget about them or make their lives difficult (or both), consists of most of Europe. The article mentions France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, The Netherlands, and Austria.
Can it Happen Here?
By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner
The Nation
10/17/2005
The integration of church and state is a significant factor in terrorist acts performed by European Muslims due to the estrangement from the local community, the inability to build a Mosque for worship, the lack of Muslim based schools (or the ability to build them), and state mandated integration of the local religion (primarily Christianity) in all fascist of government and life.
According to this article, when immigrants of any nation arrive in a country and are not brought into the community with an ability to practice their own religion freely, they are difficult to convert into patriots of their chosen country.
Thus, the Bush administration’s push to integrate Christianity into government affairs as much as possible (and often in backdoor and sneaky ways) is inviting acts of terrorism through the estrangement of community.
Thoughts on all Three Articles:
Racial issues are obviously a worldwide concern. Trying to deal with incoming populations and the language, culture, beliefs, and struggles they bring is not easy. There are no easy answers and everyone’s sense of identity is affected or challenged.
What is French or British or German or American?
Definitions change as populations change, but change can be both messy and violent.
That said, I think it’s dangerous to say that there is one thing that causes it, or one action that will fix it. It’s never that simple and the factors affecting each country will be different – regardless if every country is working with the same population (example: Muslims).
The separation of church and state is important. When the government gets tangled up in religion and philosophy, the possibility for holy wars (both inside and outside of the country’s borders) significantly increases.
For example: How can you say you’re Irish if you’re not Catholic? How can you say you’re British if you’re not Protestant? How can the British occupying Ireland allow the Catholics to continue their Catholic ways when the British now have control and they’re all supposed to act like they’re British anyway?
A government and a culture accepting of the fact that everyone has their own traditions based on family and experience, everyone has their own spiritual path, and none of that is anyone’s problem save the person living it, would probably have an easier time of it. But, that would require acceptance of that fact on all sides.
Which affectively makes evangelical Christianity a blatant deterrent to peace between people due to it’s near obsessive emphasis on recruitment and forcing the world to always state that they are correct in whatever they may choose to believe or demand.
However, Christianity is not the only religion or culture that takes a hard nosed (arrogant?) perspective to all persons living outside of their ranks. The us-versus-them thing is a powerful force imbedded into most (if not all) religions.
How does one govern a population having problems based on culture and religion without getting involved in those religions? Particularly when some (if not all) of those religions have hateful (if not violent) opinions and reactions to other religions in their area?
This is another commentary that I will end with the words: I don’t know.
I have no brilliant answer, I’m just pointing out that there’s more to this than is currently being discussed.
By Doug Ireland
The Nation
11/28/2005
There are ghettoes in France, filled with Arabs (who are also Muslim) from countries formally under French control (read: colonies). These are people who were brought into the country either as refugees (transported by military leaders who refused to follow orders to leave everyone not born in France-proper behind during a bloody massacre) or as laborers. They were placed in low-income housing out of view of the French cities.
Effectively, they are the imported working class that France no longer needs and would just assume leave the country.
So, now the Arab youth, fed up with treatment from all possible sides, have started burning things. Buildings, cars, shops…whatever. They are rioting all over the country and they are using their cell phones to communicate with one another when then see the police coming and need to move to a new area.
For some reason I never think of European Countries as having
The Dutch-Muslim Culture War
By Deborah Scroggins
The Nation
06/27/2005
Ayaan Hirsi is a woman who was raised Muslim in Somalia under full-veil. She has experienced female circumcision first-hand and is now living in the Netherlands after escaping from relatives who were taking her to the man (located in Canada) she’d been promised to as a wife.
Hirsi helped in the creation of a movie (Submission) about Islam’s oppression of women. As a result local radical Muslims have made death threats, and one of them has already killed her collaborator on the film.
The Netherlands has an immigrant population of Muslims that accounts for 5.5 percent of the population, but produces the largest number of women seeking help from battered women’s shelters and abortion clinics. There are those who would like to point to the patriarchal culture, and not the religion of Islam (which could be easily interpreted in a female-friendly way).
Some things I found interesting:
1) The most violent and radical Muslims are the one’s who were born in Europe and are disconnected from the lands of their birth. In the Netherlands, as elsewhere, the Muslim population lives in communities separate from the rest of the population, and enforces Muslim laws within their areas. Laws including honor killings are enforced among Muslims, and cause problems in the countries they live as national laws calls them murder.
2) 2) The countries facing the issue of Muslim populations, angry and disconnected youth, Muslim women getting their first taste of freedom and feminism (and the resulting problems within their community), and the fact that the European standard for working with Immigrants is to give them their own, separate, area to live and then either forget about them or make their lives difficult (or both), consists of most of Europe. The article mentions France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, The Netherlands, and Austria.
Can it Happen Here?
By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner
The Nation
10/17/2005
The integration of church and state is a significant factor in terrorist acts performed by European Muslims due to the estrangement from the local community, the inability to build a Mosque for worship, the lack of Muslim based schools (or the ability to build them), and state mandated integration of the local religion (primarily Christianity) in all fascist of government and life.
According to this article, when immigrants of any nation arrive in a country and are not brought into the community with an ability to practice their own religion freely, they are difficult to convert into patriots of their chosen country.
Thus, the Bush administration’s push to integrate Christianity into government affairs as much as possible (and often in backdoor and sneaky ways) is inviting acts of terrorism through the estrangement of community.
Thoughts on all Three Articles:
Racial issues are obviously a worldwide concern. Trying to deal with incoming populations and the language, culture, beliefs, and struggles they bring is not easy. There are no easy answers and everyone’s sense of identity is affected or challenged.
What is French or British or German or American?
Definitions change as populations change, but change can be both messy and violent.
That said, I think it’s dangerous to say that there is one thing that causes it, or one action that will fix it. It’s never that simple and the factors affecting each country will be different – regardless if every country is working with the same population (example: Muslims).
The separation of church and state is important. When the government gets tangled up in religion and philosophy, the possibility for holy wars (both inside and outside of the country’s borders) significantly increases.
For example: How can you say you’re Irish if you’re not Catholic? How can you say you’re British if you’re not Protestant? How can the British occupying Ireland allow the Catholics to continue their Catholic ways when the British now have control and they’re all supposed to act like they’re British anyway?
A government and a culture accepting of the fact that everyone has their own traditions based on family and experience, everyone has their own spiritual path, and none of that is anyone’s problem save the person living it, would probably have an easier time of it. But, that would require acceptance of that fact on all sides.
Which affectively makes evangelical Christianity a blatant deterrent to peace between people due to it’s near obsessive emphasis on recruitment and forcing the world to always state that they are correct in whatever they may choose to believe or demand.
However, Christianity is not the only religion or culture that takes a hard nosed (arrogant?) perspective to all persons living outside of their ranks. The us-versus-them thing is a powerful force imbedded into most (if not all) religions.
How does one govern a population having problems based on culture and religion without getting involved in those religions? Particularly when some (if not all) of those religions have hateful (if not violent) opinions and reactions to other religions in their area?
This is another commentary that I will end with the words: I don’t know.
I have no brilliant answer, I’m just pointing out that there’s more to this than is currently being discussed.
posted by A at 8:10 AM
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