Markgway wrote:If they're British then they didn't COME from the Middle East so I'm not sure what you mean?
Brad was clearly talking about British MUSLIMS and not Middle Eastern people living in Britain. You see, there ARE British Muslims, even if they didn't come from the Middle East.
Anyway...
I wrote a long comment today in the office at the news station I work at now. Let me try to gather a bit of it in English.
From the almost 60 million people, who live in France, 4 millions of them are Muslims from North-Africa and Black Africa and 1 million are Muslims from elsewhere. They were brought into the colonial power as guest-workers. They did the hard work, nobody else would do and after they finished, they were simply forgotten about by the nation. That's how youngsters from the suburbs think about their parents' experience with France. The neglecting of their integration into society has apparently been that strong, that once you are in such a suburb, you won't get far with the national language. The spoken language there is a mixture of Arabic and strong French language. When youngsters leave their suburbs to the actual cities like Paris, they feel as if they went abroad. They don't understand other people and other people don't understand them.
If the French government has difficulties to transform groups of outsider in the own country to active links of the community, don't one have to wonder whether it was too early for them to enter a European Union? After all, the European Union, shouldn't be called a union only due to the countries' common currency.
In France, you can seriously speak of an existing parallel community which could form its own nation. In Clichy-sous-Bois, different laws apply for example. Here it doesn't matter if you are French, black or Muslim, because when a local tragedy occurs the youngsters stick together. Just like during the current riots.
On October 27th, two youngsters were killed when they escaped from a police stop-and-search operation. The cops followed them and they hunted them in the direction of a dead-end street where the two boys hid in a small house with transformer of high voltage. Due to their panic, they didn't take note of the sign that said, "Stop! Danger of Death!" The 15-years old Banou and his 17-years old Tunisian friend Ziad burnt to death.
In the meantime, it is officially denied that the two guys were escaping from cops.
They were hunted to death. That's what their relatives, friends, fellow countrymen and fellow sufferers are saying. Enough is enough. It was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Since then there are fierce street battles are occuring every night which have put the French government into a crisis.
Maybe the wo boys shouldn't have try to escape in the first place. They could have surrendered. But Africans and Arabs from Clichy-sous-Bois don't feel safe at a police department. Police have always been dealing more aggressivley than is allowed with youngsters from the suburbs. In suburbian police departments, youngsters have been abused physically and psychologically. If one believes the statements of the youngsters, this must have been the order of the days.
Knowing this, having the instinct to avoid cops at all stakes, the two boys escaped into the high voltage house, not knowing that it would harm them more than the cops would have.
The French media speaks of the 'Failure of the Government' and that 'it is now paying for the arrogance it has always shown in the past'. This was seeded over the years. The youngsters from the suburbs have always been considered as scum. The last time they were verbally debased was when Sarkozy, who wants to become French president, called them 'riffraff'. They aren't accepted anywhere apart from the ghettos.
Due to the lack of state-aided integration, districts and communities have formed, which live totally seperated and with own law. The government's power has no access to them without being considered as an enemy intruder.
To get out of the ghetto is a dream which will stay unrealised for most of the young people who live there. They wonder what they need education for if they can't find a job. Even applications for part-time jobs are rejected due to the senders' addresses which are located in the ghetto areas.
Germany is also affected by unintegrated groups, but not to the same level as they are present in France. In order to prevent Germany from suffering the same crisis as France currently does, they should work on that problem from its root, instead of just repressing it.
8)
