Mark Steyn on France
In Mark Steyn's latest opinion piece in the Telegraph, he writes:
"Three years ago -December 2002 - I was asked to take part in a symposium on Europe and began with the observation: "I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark.""
Now I quite like a lot of Steyn's stuff (despite the fact that I'm a centrist not a rightist) but there's a constant theme running through this article that is just wrong. It's summed up best where he invites us to imagine the year 2020 or 2025, where the 'Islamic Republican Coalition' has just won a majority in France's national elections.
Seriously? The first thing a French Islamic Party of the kind Steyn's talking about would do is force these young rioters to grow beards, stop wearing their American sports gear, and turn off the French gangsta-rap they're listening to on their stolen stereos. They're just not those kinds of Muslims, but with a lot of commentators, sadly, this inconvenient fact doesn't fit into their grand theories of clashing civilisations, so it's ignored. Perhaps he's really talking about the UK, or Holland... maybe that would fit better, I don't know as much about the situation in those nations. But get it straight people -- as I posted to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit a while back now, 'It's not an intafada!'.
The French government aren't scared of the Islamic radicalism of the riots not because they're complacent, but because that radicalism doesn't exist. What does scare them (or should) is the fact that they can't solve the problem within the framework of the vaunted 'French System' (read 'Socialist Straightjacket') and they can't admit the whole system is broken, and so they've got no idea what else to do. The latest idea is to create a new volunteer civil service (no, I don't know what that means either) which seems to just give everyone government jobs. Great... French government debt already stands at more than 14 thousand Euros per person, the highest in Europe, and they're going to radically increase spending? Thus depressing the economy further, thus creating more unemployment, thus creating more crime and riots... you get the idea. They have to grow the economy, cut spending, deregulate housing, fix education, liberalise zoning laws, improve law enforcement... if France was producing lots of jobs, even racism would be less of a problem, because employers would have to hire skilled people where ever they found them, regardless of race or religion. But if there's ten applicants for each job, and it's an undisputed fact that many of the Muslim neighborhoods have terrible schools, it doesn't take much racism in society to imagine the white guys getting all the first preferences.
None of which excuses the rioters, who in any civilised society deserve jail, not concessions. But instead of doing what needs to be done for its own good, the French government are once again cringing and conceding, and insert your anti-French cliche here. The rioters don't even have much support in their own neighborhoods..; after all, whose cars do you think they're burning? Whose schools, and whose gymnasiums, and whose shopping centers? Local ones, of course. But Nicolas Sarkozy seems the only politician more interested in giving protection to victims than concessions to thugs.
The whole scene would be perfect for a French black comedy film... if it weren't so utterly humourless for the innocents caught in the middle.
"Three years ago -December 2002 - I was asked to take part in a symposium on Europe and began with the observation: "I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark.""
Now I quite like a lot of Steyn's stuff (despite the fact that I'm a centrist not a rightist) but there's a constant theme running through this article that is just wrong. It's summed up best where he invites us to imagine the year 2020 or 2025, where the 'Islamic Republican Coalition' has just won a majority in France's national elections.
Seriously? The first thing a French Islamic Party of the kind Steyn's talking about would do is force these young rioters to grow beards, stop wearing their American sports gear, and turn off the French gangsta-rap they're listening to on their stolen stereos. They're just not those kinds of Muslims, but with a lot of commentators, sadly, this inconvenient fact doesn't fit into their grand theories of clashing civilisations, so it's ignored. Perhaps he's really talking about the UK, or Holland... maybe that would fit better, I don't know as much about the situation in those nations. But get it straight people -- as I posted to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit a while back now, 'It's not an intafada!'.
The French government aren't scared of the Islamic radicalism of the riots not because they're complacent, but because that radicalism doesn't exist. What does scare them (or should) is the fact that they can't solve the problem within the framework of the vaunted 'French System' (read 'Socialist Straightjacket') and they can't admit the whole system is broken, and so they've got no idea what else to do. The latest idea is to create a new volunteer civil service (no, I don't know what that means either) which seems to just give everyone government jobs. Great... French government debt already stands at more than 14 thousand Euros per person, the highest in Europe, and they're going to radically increase spending? Thus depressing the economy further, thus creating more unemployment, thus creating more crime and riots... you get the idea. They have to grow the economy, cut spending, deregulate housing, fix education, liberalise zoning laws, improve law enforcement... if France was producing lots of jobs, even racism would be less of a problem, because employers would have to hire skilled people where ever they found them, regardless of race or religion. But if there's ten applicants for each job, and it's an undisputed fact that many of the Muslim neighborhoods have terrible schools, it doesn't take much racism in society to imagine the white guys getting all the first preferences.
None of which excuses the rioters, who in any civilised society deserve jail, not concessions. But instead of doing what needs to be done for its own good, the French government are once again cringing and conceding, and insert your anti-French cliche here. The rioters don't even have much support in their own neighborhoods..; after all, whose cars do you think they're burning? Whose schools, and whose gymnasiums, and whose shopping centers? Local ones, of course. But Nicolas Sarkozy seems the only politician more interested in giving protection to victims than concessions to thugs.
The whole scene would be perfect for a French black comedy film... if it weren't so utterly humourless for the innocents caught in the middle.
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