Rioting in Paris

Islamic extremists have been rioting in France for the past several days, setting cities on fire. This "civil unrest" must not happen in the United States as well.

The French have been attempting to assimilate Muslim immigrants into society, creating laws like the one banning head scarves in schools. However, they have large welfare programs for immigrants that reduce the need to learn the country's language, as well as the need to leave culture-specific sections of town to find job opportunities elsewhere. Also, public housing projects separate Muslim immigrants into such cultural areas, which prevents their integration into society. France has allowed these areas to degrade into lawlessness.

Mark Steyn: They have very strange things there...these public buildings that you have to have a kind of security card to get into. So, you'll be going to see someone, and you'll be frantically sticking this kind of key card in the door, while you're standing outside on this very exposed sidewalk. They're places where people who are not Muslim feel very ill at ease. They're places where the writ of the French state does not run. The police don't police there. They basically figure if you go there, you're on your own. You're taking your own chances there. I mean, I don't think Americans understand quite the degree of alienation of some of these groups. You know, there's a French cabinet minister whose title is the minister for social cohesion. And I think that would be a pretty odd title to have for a cabinet secretary in the United States.

Hugh Hewitt: How do they solve this? I mean, what do they even do in France to get a handle on this?

MS: Well, I think this is the dispute that's going on between Monsieur Sarkozy, whose the, what passes, I think, for a conservative figure in French politics, who really wants to crack down, and who wants to say to these people you can behave like respectable French citizens, or we're going to take action and we're going to clean up these street. And then Monsieur de Villepin, whose currently the prime minister, whose line is basically that we should accommodate their grievances, and all the rest of it. And judging from Chirac's speech, where he says we have to understand their grievances and their alienation, I think the European tendency to appease these people is coming into play in the French cabinet.

HH: What option do they have if these riots continue, though? They can't appease people who won't be appeased.

MS: No, they can't. And essentially, you're dealing with communities that are totally isolated from the mainstream of French life. Where all kinds of practices that wouldn't be tolerated, that are not officially tolerated by French law, such as polygamy, for example. Polygamy is openly practiced in these...in les Banlieux, as they call these suburbs, these Muslim quarters of Paris. You know, we kept hearing all this stuff ever since September 11th, you know, the Muslim street is going to explode in anger. Well, it finally did, and it was in Paris, not in the Middle East. (see Radioblogger.com "Mark Steyn on the Euroarabian war currently happening in the suburbs of France.")

Immigrants in the U.S. are different from those in France, but in many ways could be heading towards the same fate.

U.S. bilingual education and social welfare with insufficient work requirements undermine the assimilative effects that economic necessity has historically imposed on immigrants. A guest worker program would only exacerbate our problems, giving rise to an institutionalized underclass of citizens who lack any loyalty to the United States save the paycheck it provides them. As guest workers have children born as U.S. citizens to parents who are expected to leave the country it isn't hard to anticipate the very crisis in identity, fueling some misbehavior among rioting Parisians.

In the United States today, the most problematic enclaves are those where crime has been allowed to run rampant. (see "Paris riots model for U.S. social unraveling")

Instead of excusing crime as an understandable reaction to discrimination among minorities, we should be blaming the criminals themselves. This would keep communities of minorities from becoming like the Muslim ghettos in Paris. Integrating immigrants into society (part of which is expecting them to follow the same laws as everyone else) will result in a more peaceful society, as opposed to multiculturalism (melting pot as opposed to mixing bowl). Americans should learn from what is happening in France: European-style economic programs and social attitudes, while they seem tolerant, do not fit with the idea of treating immigrants as equals who can become part of society.

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Word of the Day: Umbrage

Article of the Day: Paris Burns Again: Let's Roast Frankfurters from FredOnEverything.net