Communism 'started’ in England. It wasn't due to take off in feudal countries like Russia and Mongolia until after a proper industrial revolution - but it did anyways. The socio-economic conditions - hungry people, a rotten power structure- were ripe for the horror that was the Bolshevik Revolution. Even if they weren’t what Engels and Marx were thinking of when they were thinking of a pre-revolutionary society. You get me?Johannes suggested that the religious extremists reportedly goading on the rioters in France are following the lead of the Saudi Arabians, who ‘started' reactionary Muslim extremism. However, I'm unconvinced that Saudi Arabian extremism is the key to understanding French Muslim extremism, and I'm sure it's got essentially dick to do with understanding the present race riots. Being Maghrebin in France has nothing to do with anything about being a Saudi Arabian in Saudi Arabia. Especially considering most Maghrebins I’ve spoken to on the subject have opined that all the guys in Saudi Arabia are gay. And, that that isn't cool.
This is a socio-economic question, not a religious one. Religions are just a bunch of made-up shitty ass dogmas people get excited about to give meaning to their socio-economic problems and to avoid spending time and energy approaching the divine directly. If it wasn't a bunch of Muslims goading on the rioters, it'd be a bunch of Catholics, Protestants, communists, fascists, anarchists, or whichever other retarded ideological force has turned Europe into a long series of ridiculous civil wars and bloodbaths by taking advantage of the anger of the marginalized and the paranoia of the dominant.
Instead of talking about Christian/Islamic incompatibility, it might make more sense to consider the social history of North Africa and the Near East versus that of Europe. Trying to work out the difficulty of communication between traditionally nomadic and clan-based nations and the more sedentary and mercantile European background is a lot more useful than wringing our hands over the crazy religions that sprang out of both conditions and got flogged to make everybody involved hate each other. Bruce Chatwin had some interesting things to say about this. I bet he was just stinking hot when he was alive.
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So the rioters are on the streets for sharia? Writing the French situation off to Christian/Islam incompatibility is way too facile. Not only socially (don't forget the social in socio-economic - that covers, for example, French hostility to ANY brown people, including non-Muslim descendants of slaves from thier dom-toms), but in terms of the broader question of the relationship of the colonizer and the colonized.
And just as I can't ignore religion, you probably shouldn't ignore, say, the brutality of the Algerian War when considering why Algerians might be '*far* from the ideal immigrant population' to have in France, or how Algerians might in fact be different from Egyptians or Saudis, or why we have generalized rioting in France versus fundamentalists in Holland assassinating targetted people. Come on. Not the same thing!
I believe you could put anyone into that situation in Paris and see the same results. The history of that city is a history of riots and civil disturbances stemming from social complaints! As a matter of fact, setting cars on fire should help these people socially integrate – the entire city was full of burnt-out cars during the French ‘summers of love’.
And I'm sorry, did you just dismiss colonialism and the Algerian War as 'historical gaffes'? Do you honestly believe a sense of being victimized by the West and the attendant swing to Islamic fundamentalism in some countries arrived in a vacuum?
And then you mention the headscarf ban, which was the most inflammatory bit of reactionary nonsense to ever make a bad situation worse, just to make me too pissy to notice you called colonialism and wars faux pas.
Naughty.
I hear you, but it's not the only naughty ideology waiting in the wings. Have you noticed the complacency of the French left? It'll flog this horrible energy for all it's worth to get power back, even though it's at least half to blame for the economic conditions that brought it about. And I've heard way too many French Socialists start sentences with "I'm not racist, but . . . "
Ah, no more posting about France until I post about another, nicer country first. The left there has no balls anyways so I don't know what I'm worried about.
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