What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

On French Youth

The quotable Lawrence Auster, on the media's conspicuous and universal avoidance of the accurate term "Islamic" to describe the rioters in France:

[E]ven if the French themselves no longer care, I am still very grateful to Charles Martel for turning back that youth invasion of France in 732. If they had won, they would have forced all the French to become teenagers.

Comments (56)

I had to go and get the context to get this, but it's very funny.

Ah, I tweaked the entry to make it at least somewhat more transparent.

That probably would have been needed only for me; I'm a trifle dense on stuff like that. But Auster is spot-on.

My understanding is that Islamic isn't a helpful descriptor of the present or past riots. The suburbs that had the most out-spoken Imans so to speak also had very little violence because the Imans didn't want attention drawn to themselves. My understanding also is that France is very proactive in rooting out militant elements; hence, the quietness of neighborhoods that had very contreversial imans out of fear of being deported.

My understanding is that Islamic isn't a helpful descriptor of the present or past riots.

But is it true?

No less true than there are a lot of Jewish film makers in Hollywood. If you don't like the term helpful, allow me to offer an alternative. Is Islamic an essential or accidental property of the rioters?

I think it is an important property. People often want to make a sharp cut between religion and ethnicity. I think the attempt to make that cut is often unhelpful. That these are ethnic riots is beyond all doubt. That religion is part of that overall ethnicity in this case is, again, beyond doubt to any unbiased observer.

Essential or accidental?

Well, that's kind of an open question, isn't it? The rioters are part of a fairly cohesive and highly dysfunctional minority. Does the fact that it's a mainly *Muslim* minority have anything to do with its dysfunctionality? You can't resolve that issue simply by pointing out that the rioters aren't particularly pious.

Oh yes, Islam makes people act like violent, oppressed, frustrated teenagers.

Ha ha, that quote is really funny.

I might add, it's also very mature for non-teenagers.

Royale, you seemed to have missed the point of the quote.

Lydia,
The implication is that these riots are or are a precursor to jihad. Personally my opinion is that the concerns are more pedesterian and not part of an international movement. The implication is that this is a precursor to an Islamic State much like immigrant protests here were the first signs of a coming Aztalan. My opinion again is that these riots aren't as much about Islamic identity as being able to live where one can provide for his family and have a future. Like the King riots in LA, this isn't to deny that they are indeed bad.

Steve,
The issue certainly isn't resolved I agree. I think when we examine the details, the argument that the French riots are part of a meta-narrative of Islamic takeover is pretty weak. This is certainly the narrative that VFR is embracing. I think your questions are good ones, but I think in the end their aren't applicable to other current issues.

I don't think anyone has to subscribe to my opinion on the situation by the way. I just offer it for fodder.

I think, M.Z., that you are again making the cut at the wrong place. The result of mass Muslim immigration as well as rioting is no-go zones that are Islamic in culture. This is true in other countries and cities in Europe as well. While it's true that the Muslims in this case are relatively poor, what they are doing is telling the civil authorities to get lost or get killed. They are turning their neighborhoods into street-goverened no-go areas where, you can be sure, that strange combination of tribalism, gang violence, vendetta, and religion that is modern European sharia will be applied in some form. I don't think allusions to poverty really change that.

I also think (color me Mr. Meanie) that these thugs have a lot of nerve living on welfare in a cradle-to-grave welfare state where they have more, materially, than they would have in their country of origin, and then rioting to get liberal and anti-capitalist sympathy on the grounds of economic hardship.

Well said, Lydia.

There is also, in the history of the Jihad, a long and fruitful history of alliance between pious jihadists and gangsters, between clerics and brigands. A good example is the extensive and effective use made by the Turks of the North African corsairs. More recently, we see some very disturbing trends in our own prisons, where Muslim chaplains have acted as recruiters for the Jihad.

We should not underestimate the appeal that Holy War might have for the young punk with a bit of ambition. Suddenly there appears a way to make his degradations legitimate, even holy, and unite himself to a cause greater than self-interest -- one that, incidentally, offers considerable rewards of the flesh.

Put another way: Leftism, with its emphasis on alienation, oppression, etc., functions awfully well as a soil-preparation for the coming of the Jihad. It stirs up the underclass with discontent, it appeases brigandy, it undermines the will of society to police. All that it lacks is a cause to which all this anarchic energy can be put to use.

Were the IRA and their supporters disrupting civil society in the Northern Counties because they were Catholic? Or was it because, as a result of being Catholic, they were a slighted minority?
Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.
It seems to me that all the "Warriors of the 10th Crusade" are every bit as guilty of not saying what they really want to do, as are the media for not using the word "Muslim" in relation to the rioting French 'yoots'.
If one is really Crusading against a global Jihad, the strategy is not to pick off a few Muslims, one by one, as they rise up with a bomb in their hands; the strategy is to take back Jerusalem--on the way to storming the Muslimcitadels.
The struggle is only (geo)political--until it becomes religiously motivated on both sides.

Of course, the conflict in Northern Ireland is perfectly incomprehensible without an understanding of the religious strife at the heart of it, so your example only cuts against your view.

Take back Jerusalem? From whom, the Israelis, our allies?

What are you talking about, man?

Gee, that's right, I've never heard the media mention the word "Catholic" or "Protestant" w.r.t. Northern Ireland.

Oh wait, I have.

Paul/Zippy--

If you two think that the strife in N. Ireland was over religious doctrine, more so than it was over socio-economic conditions, you apparently haven't talked with too many Irishmen from the Northern Counties.

As for "Crusade," I don't know what the term denotes other than offensvie war against the non-Christian proprietors of the Holy Land for the purpose of reclaiming it for the Cross. When the crusaders took Jerusalem, they killed the Jews, as well as the Muslims. There really isn't any love lost by Israelis on Americans, especially on Americans qua Christians. It's a marriage of convenience--much like the now mostly lapsed loyalty of a Joe Lieberman to his political party when the security of Israel seems to be at stake.
In any event, if you're going to use the term "Crusade" it would be best to acknowledge that it doesn't suggest a defensive struggle against "terrorists", but an offensive one, against Islam. And it doesn't suggest a geo-political struggle over resources, or "democracy", but a religious war of "us" against "them".
That's what I'm talking about. That said, I don't personally call myself a Crusader. I have long been on record as proposing that the Western powers withdraw completely from the Middle East and wait to be invited back to trade, according to term equitable to all parties.

Rodak, if you want to complain about the name of this blog, kindly send a note to us via the contact link on the mainpage, or wait for someone to post on the subject. Otherwise, this is a foolish threadjack and it needs to stop.

One need not argue that the conflict in N. Ireland was entirely, or even mostly about religion, in order to show that your example cuts against your view.

Zippy quoted Auster's sarcastic remark, the point of which was to show the craven reluctance of the media to include Muslim or Islamic in their descriptions of French rioters. It would be like the media talking about the Irish troubles without mentioning the religion of the various factions -- in which case, no one would really know what they were talking about.

"Otherwise, this is a foolish threadjack and it needs to stop."

Paul--
I don't consider it a "threadjack", in that the topic here is whether, or not, the French riots are jihadist in nature. The use of the word "Crusade" would seem to indicate the attitudinal starting point for several of the persons authoring the site. However, as it seems to be a sticky issue, I'll drop it.

If it's the case that the French media never identify the rioters as Arab, or Muslim, or Islamic, then I agree that the press coverage is less than fully informative. My remarks, however, were more in reponse to what M.Z. Forrest had to say about the motives for the disturbances. If the motives are not jihadist, but socio-economic, then the designation "Islamic" or "Muslim" might well be misleading. "Arab" might be better.
In Ireland, by constrast, althought the motives there were largely political, not religious, "Catholic" and "Protestant" were the two designations that most clearly identified the opposing sides. Although, in the Bronx, I often heard the Irish refer to the Protestants in the North as "Anglos" or "Brits" rather than "Prods".

My impression is that many of the thugs burning cars and attacking police in France are Moroccan in origin, which is often not Arab. Even the term "Moroccan" would be an improvement in terms of informative and accurate reporting.

I don't consider it a "threadjack", ...

As someone who has watched you post over a period of a number of years, Rob, I'm not convinced that there is anything at all that you would consider a threadjack, at least as long as you are the guy doing the talking.

"...I'm not convinced that there is anything at all that you would consider a threadjack..."

One can't fully describe a fish without describing the pond it swims in, if that's what you mean.

One can't fully describe a fish without describing the pond it swims in, if that's what you mean.

No, I didn't mean that, I meant what I said. If you felt like talking about baking cookies you would bring up Moroccan spices and French recipes and treat baking cookies as the central theme of this discussion.

I admit that the Crusade theme was slightly off-topic. But, in the sense that persons who are thinking of themselves as Crusaders against a global jihad are very apt to see any agitation by Muslims as Muslim agitation, when it is perhaps something else (and covered that way by the local press), I don't think that what I brought up is so far out in left field.

Sarkozy in the Telegraph:

"I reject any form of other-worldly naivety that wants to see a victim of society in anyone who breaks the law, a social problem in any riot."

KW--
I take, then, that Sarkozy sees the thing as a question of nihilistic hooliganism vs. law and order, rather than as an expression of jihad? To the extent that I care about what happens in France, I tend to agree.

@KW & Rodak

Sarkozy is fully aware of the motives and madness of the rioters. A president cannot just say "hey, these African muslim thugs are waging Jihad in the Banlieus". He would be slaughtered in the French leftist press. Mercilessly.

But, this whole assumption of Jihad is wrong. Muslim youths are not waging Jihad in the banlieus, nor are they part of the international struggle of repressed proletarians. C'mon, that's zombiethink neoconservative KoolAid.

Most of these young guys have no life, no job, no money, no girl and, hence, no future. Yet, they live in an affluent society in which a lot of people do very well. They want that too, but they fail.

They are not frustrated by that. French has imported an underclass. And the underclass, though very heterogeneous in composition (it's not just Maghreb youth, many black Africans join in), has reached the point of relevance. They can no longer be ignored. And they know that.

Surely, I have no answers for a solution. But both discrimination (white wickedness) and Jihad (immigrant wickedness) seem to be dead-end answers to an open question.

Indeed, what's wrong with the world?

@ Previous comment

"They are not frustrated by that" = They are frustrated by that.

I'm perfectly willing to believe the "imported underclass" narrative as juxtaposed to the "jihad" narrative on the French rioting; or even some mix, weighted lightly or heavily on either narrative. The post isn't about that, much as several commenters may have attempted to make it about that: the post is about the deliberate suppression of (factual) ethnic, cultural, and religious attributes in the media. This repression will I think have the opposite of the intended effect, which is to attenuate the importance of those attributes, in the long run.

Zippy--
I'm pretty sure that the French are well aware of the ethnicity of the persons doing the rioting. This is probably obvious to any Frenchman, just from the geographic location of the riots, as it would be obvious to us if we read that there were youths rioting in the streets of Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant, or Watts. I'm not equally sure that Americans can be aware of the impetus for the acting out of teenagers in France. If I were a betting man, however, I would bet against the probability that these kids are in the streets with the intent to force the implementation of Shari'a law in France. I.e. they might well be doing the same thing, under the same socio-economic conditions, if they were mostly Filipino and Catholic.

I'm pretty sure that the French are well aware of the ethnicity of the persons doing the rioting.

I'm pretty sure too, which makes the studious avoidance of making it explicit in the international media all the more interesting (whether we are discussing France or Harlem).

Zippy--
I'm not too sure how the situation is improved by giving the impression to the rest of the world that these French riots are "Islamic." What do we want--copycat riots in every other Western city with a large Muslim population?
This is especially true if, as I think, the riots are not "Islamic", but only riots involving persons who, in this connection, only happen to be Muslim.

Seems to me that a pretty basic principle of journalism is to report facts. If the fact is that predominantly Muslim youth are rioting, you go ahead and report that. The fact that there is a clear unwillingness to report this fact -- whether or not the inference will be drawn that Islam is the cause of the rioting -- suggests a deeper insecurity or bias here.

Also, going back to my earlier comments, we know that in Great Britain at least there is a convergence between the thug culture of inner-city youth and Islamic culture. See, for instance:

"It has long been thus: welcome to this outpost of Islamic civilisation, a colony where the stridency of the faithful collides with vogues that were once confined to the underclass of non-Muslim British society. Muhammad is not just the newest, and the final, of God's prophets; Muhammad is the newest, and the final, of the bling-bling superstars. Since the Rushdie Affair, and more recently the Cartoon jihad, even the most irreligious of the street-savvy Muslim rude-boys have come to know of the new universal limits: nobody disses Mo, the Final Gangster of all time and a Mercy to all the worlds."

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/once_upon_a_time_in_the_west_midlands.php

That little bit of back-alley jive, which is offensive in itself, is totally unpersuasive to me. Does the perverted use of the cross by the Ku Klux Klan allow non-Christians to paint every Christian as a mouth-breathing redneck and a racist thug?

Does the perverted use of the cross by the Ku Klux Klan allow non-Christians to paint every Christian as a mouth-breathing redneck and a racist thug?

Wouldn't it be odd for the press to report a KKK cross-burning as a mere bonfire: the burning of some studiously and deliberately unspecified object? I would certainly find that just as odd as the suppression of the truth about the French rioters.

The oddity, again, is not the implications of what is true and in various contentions over those implications. The oddity is in the suppression of what is true by the press in carrying out its supposed news-bearing function in the context of its own heresies and taboos.

Zippy--
The analogy would be that a cross was reported burned on the lawn of a black family in Alabama, and the Klan wasn't mentioned. But, then again, the Klan wouldn't need to be mentioned for everyone to understand who burned the cross. If there was some reason to think that giving the Klan this specific publicity and notoriety would result in increased Klan activity, it might be prudent to let the Klan's identity remain unspecified.
The other difference, of course, is that the Klan's motives would not be in question. The cross burning would be the Klan acting qua Klan. It is not seem to be clear that the Muslim youths rioting in France are rioting qua Muslims.

It isn't an "analogy" subject to the kind of redirection you are attempting; it is a matter of studiously avoiding reporting the basic facts of the matter. It seems very important to you that the press avoid reporting the facts in the case of the French riots. Apparently the public can't handle the truth.

"It seems very important to you that the press avoid reporting the facts in the case of the French riots. Apparently the public can't handle the truth."

My point is that everybody already knows the truth. That's why you and I are able to go 'round-and-'round arguing about the significance of that truth.
My further point is that it might be prudent not to give these rioting Muslim youths in France a lot of media coverage, making heroic figures of them in the eyes of other slum-dwelling Muslim youths in other European cities, who might therefore follow them into the streets.
If they aren't being exhorted toward a generalized, pan-European insurrection by some radical mullah, why risk having that notion created by the media?

My impression is that many of the thugs burning cars and attacking police in France are Moroccan in origin, which is often not Arab.

What are you talking about?
Accordingly to CIA Worldbook www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/mo.html, 99.1% Mo population is Arab/Berber.
Muslems are 98.7%.


Rodak makes 2 points above:

1. It is not seem to be clear that the Muslim youths rioting in France are rioting qua Muslims.


2. My further point is that it might be prudent not to give these rioting Muslim youths in France a lot of media coverage

How anything could be clear to you or anybody else if you propose to suppress all information about "youth" riots?

In general, who will decide what to suppress?
Ministry of Truth with you as a little functionary there?

What qualifies you to decide what I should read and hear?

You are so 1917.


Could it be that the immigrants to France from Morocco have been disproportionately black African? The photos wd. certainly seem to indicate so, yet when the media was reporting this a bit more honestly (last time), they were said to be Moroccan in national origin.

I admit my bafflement.

"How anything could be clear to you or anybody else if you propose to suppress all information about "youth" riots?"

I have already said how it could be clear to the French, whose concern it is; it would be clear by locations where it is happening. Just as the ethnicity of rioting "youths" would be clear to an American, if the riots were known to be happening in Harlem or Watts.
That said, if the ethnicity or religion of these French rioters is being suppressed, it can only be at the request of the new pro-American French government, no? Does Sarkozy demonstrate subtle Marxist-Leninist tendencies?

My point is that everybody already knows the truth.

Sure, just like everybody already knows the truth that statistically, on average, blacks are more athletic and have lower IQ's than whites. What is interesting isn't so much the facts in themselves, nor the additional fact that everyone knows them, but the studious desperation with which everyone avoids speaking them out loud.

I'll at least grant some credence to your "everybody knows it so it doesn't matter" position, Rodak, when on your own blog you make a post unequivocally headlining "on average Blacks have lower IQ's and greater athletic ability than whites, and this results in different group outcomes which have nothing to do with racism or historical oppression or anything racially extrinsic at all", with no transgiveration, hemming, hawing, or other Rodakian nonsense. Just state the truth, on your own blog, and put the alliegence of your unequivocal assent behind it publicly, and I'll be suitably impressed. (I won't agree with you that the deafening silence and the oppression of those who speak the truth doesn't mean anything, mind you, but at least I may start to believe that you yourself believe your own BS).

"...when on your own blog you make a post unequivocally headlining "on average Blacks have lower IQ's and greater athletic ability than whites..."

Zippy--
Why would I do that when I don't think that it would be a good thing to do? Hasn't that been my whole point on this issue?
Just recently we've been seeing a little outbreak of race-baiting noose-hangings around the country at places like high schools and universities. Why amplify knowledge that is really of value only to the scientific community and provide "respectable" ammunition to the hate-mongers out there who would, if they could, completely resegregation American society, and set race relations back 60 years?
I am being totally consistent in not raising this issue on my own blog. I don't understand why you suggest that I should do so.
That said, almost nobody reads my blog. I've made my opinion that Watson was treated unfairly quite clear on blogs that do have a fairly large readership. And anybody who reads what I say in comboxes like this one can go to my blog and see for themselves who I am and what I am interested in writing about there. I feel no obligation to have others choose my topics for me.

Why would I do that when I don't think that it would be a good thing to do?

So it is true, but you don't think anyone should actually say it?

Hasn't that been my whole point on this issue?

It is rarely the case that I perceive a single coherent "whole point" in what you write. More on this in a minute.

I've made my opinion that Watson was treated unfairly quite clear on blogs that do have a fairly large readership.

I wish I'd seen that.

So if I understand your point, it is that Watson and race realists who say things like he did are telling the truth, that the ruination of peoples' careers for speaking the truth on the matter is unjust, but the truth is so volatile, the public is so incapable of handling it, that we ought to suppress it and never speak it anyway.

Do I have it?

I want to be completely unequivocal that when I said:

"...with no transgiveration..."

I meant with no tergiversation.

(HT to a reader by email).

"Do I have it?"

That's the nut of it. I believe that using this information in scientific publications, for the purpose of advancing genetic science and medicine, is unavoidable. But the noose-hanging mouth-breathers won't ever see that kind of thing.
I don't think that NY Post headlines sensationalizing this kind of data for the purpose of selling papers is prudent.

As for Watson, perhaps it was inaccurate for me to me to say "blogs". Perhaps it was only on this blog that I explicitly stated that Watson was treated unfairly, or addressed the subject at all. Perhaps I am only remembering multple threads at WWWtW, rather than multiple blogs. If so, mea culpa; I misspoke. I'm not going to search the comboxes of every blog I visit to find out. But state it on this blog, I certainly did.


I don't think that NY Post headlines sensationalizing this kind of data for the purpose of selling papers is prudent.

Again though there are nontrivial possibilities which lie in between "sensationalize for the purpose of selling papers and rallying the KKK" and "ruthlessly suppress as heresy". Adulthood, for example, is a possibility; at least in the abstract.

I agree that Watson was treated unfairly. He should have stood up and fought it, rather than retiring. If the press had not bruited his words about, btw, this would not have happened to him.
I don't see what adulthood has to do with it, however, in the larger context.
It would not be a good (or "adult") thing, upon being introduced to a woman to cluck and say "What a pity. You would have been beautiful, if not for that hideous nose!" This may be true; but what you might want to say instead is "My goodness. What beautiful eyes you have!"
We have in this nation a problem with black youth not seeing any reason to stay in high school. This is caused in part by the pernicious notion that to read books and to study is "acting White."
They don't want to "act White"--and we might want to ask ourselves why that is. But I digress. If we are having trouble getting black kids to stay in high school because they see no point to it, how do we improve on that situation by making them feel that they aren't smart enough to succeed in school in the first place? There is a vast chasm between a kid who says "I'm as good as you, but I don't want to be like you" and believes it, and a kid who says it, but secretly no longer believes it. Why should he try?
If you want to discuss this issue, i.e. race, publicly, I suggest that you go up on the rooftop and proclaim it from the Christian point of view, according to which the average IQ or the sprinting ability of a black kid is of negligable relevance.

We have in this nation a problem with black youth not seeing any reason to stay in high school.

And we should address this by telling lies?

If you want to discuss this issue, i.e. race, publicly, I suggest that you go up on the rooftop and proclaim it from the Christian point of view, according to which the average IQ or the sprinting ability of a black kid is of negligable relevance.

I am doing that here, and indeed have been doing it for many years. The moral worth of a person doesn't depend on his IQ or athletic ability or any of that stuff. I am against starving people to death because they are disabled, etc, and the whole despicable modern notion of the self-created free and equal superman, including its "meritocratic" soft tyrannies, is something I regularly confront and argue against. I think that pretending that these differences don't exist and don't matter is a trope which supports the superman/untermensch mythology, and in any case I am not fond of us telling lies to ourselves nor do I see telling lies to ourselves or making a virtue of necessity as the Christian thing to do.

"I think that pretending that these differences don't exist and don't matter is a trope which supports the superman/untermensch mythology..."

I guess you also don't believe that it is possible to demoralize either an individual, or a group, or that one should take precautions against doing so?

"And we should address this by telling lies?"

It follows, then, that you would feel compelled, in the hypothetical I offered, to tell the the woman that you found her nose to be particularly ugly and ruinous to what otherwise would perhaps have been a lovely face? After all, if a truth is there, it must be told. Stiff upper lip. Soldier on.

It follows, then, ...

As usual, Rodak, your house of cards rests upon inferences which aren't.

if the ethnicity or religion of these French rioters is being suppressed, it can only be at the request of the new pro-American French government, no?

Please Rodak, you don't believe this nonsense yourself.

Weren't Muslim rioters called "youth" during previous riots under anti-American Chirac admin?

Also, you are casually insulting French.
French media quite capable to tell their admin where to shove their requests.

But French media is as PC as American in a different way.


"But French media is as PC as American in a different way."

Yes? Well, it's the government of France, not the media, that has to deal with the riots.
But, I don't really care at whose instigation the obvious is being omitted from the coverage. I think that it's plausible that the decision is the prudent one, given prevailing conditions. If this is situational ethics, so be it.

"As usual, Rodak, your house of cards rests upon inferences which aren't."

And, as usual, you deploy your immutable principles strategically.

Well, it's the government of France, not the media, that has to deal with the riots.

How that is connected with your previous nonsense about "conservative" Sarko dictating French media how they should cover riots?

Are you capable to stay on topic longer than 2 minutes?

Well, it's the government of France, not the media, that has to deal with the riots.

"Are you capable to stay on topic longer than 2 minutes?"

That was in response to this:

"Also, you are casually insulting French.
French media quite capable to tell their admin where to shove their requests."

Connect the dots, chief. Your mind may run on rails, but the course of human events does not.

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