The failure of the ban on religiousity
Good article in the Telegraph today which sums up many of my thoughts quite nicely on why there's rioting right now in Paris.
I wanted to add some other thoughts as well...
Two years ago, the French government instituted a ban on religious headware in public schools and other government buildings.
In essence, they were trying to move forward with a forced assimilation policy.
Coerced assimilation rarely leads to successful integration into society.
Instead of developing a sort of "French Islam" in which French Muslims could be both proudly French and Muslim, the French government opted to go with a route that the Muslim community, by in large, found to be undignified and unjust (and indeed it was).
Of course, the resentment as expressed in the rioting isn't justified, but it isn't all that surprising either.
Integration is only successful when immigrants feel included; when they feel that they can latch onto something in their new society... something that they can call their own.
This doesn't happen in France. I don't know why... but I suspect that it's because of a deep-seated racism in French society that doesn't bother dealing with those, who on the surface, appear to be unFrench.
As mentioned in the article and in the post below, the second problem is clearly economic. Unemployment rates (and particularly the difference between immigrant and native unemployment rates) in Europe are a disaster, and they only seem to get worse by the year.
Free-market reforms and a willingness to genuinely include the Muslim population into French society through properly educating them (and therefore employing them) are the only two things that I could imagine saving France from further imploding.
Immigration need not mean social exclusion. Most of the people who move from
poor to rich countries do so with the best of intentions: to work hard and make
a better life for themselves and their children. I write this from the United
States, a country built on immigration. But the US has long excelled at
integrating newcomers into American society.
I wanted to add some other thoughts as well...
Two years ago, the French government instituted a ban on religious headware in public schools and other government buildings.
In essence, they were trying to move forward with a forced assimilation policy.
Coerced assimilation rarely leads to successful integration into society.
Instead of developing a sort of "French Islam" in which French Muslims could be both proudly French and Muslim, the French government opted to go with a route that the Muslim community, by in large, found to be undignified and unjust (and indeed it was).
Of course, the resentment as expressed in the rioting isn't justified, but it isn't all that surprising either.
Integration is only successful when immigrants feel included; when they feel that they can latch onto something in their new society... something that they can call their own.
This doesn't happen in France. I don't know why... but I suspect that it's because of a deep-seated racism in French society that doesn't bother dealing with those, who on the surface, appear to be unFrench.
As mentioned in the article and in the post below, the second problem is clearly economic. Unemployment rates (and particularly the difference between immigrant and native unemployment rates) in Europe are a disaster, and they only seem to get worse by the year.
Free-market reforms and a willingness to genuinely include the Muslim population into French society through properly educating them (and therefore employing them) are the only two things that I could imagine saving France from further imploding.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
11:44 PM
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