From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The
French Conflagration
A week and a half of "urban unrest" in France has claimed its first
fatality, the Associated Press reports from Paris:
Rioting by French youths spread to 300 towns overnight, and a 61-year-old man hurt in the violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of unrest that has shocked the country, police said Monday. . . .
On Sunday night, vandals burned more than 1,400 vehicles, and clashes around the country left 36 police injured, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since rioting started last month, national police chief Michel Gaudin told a news conference.
The AP adds that "apparent copycat attacks" have taken place outside France, "with five cars torched outside Brussels' main train station." Earlier, Belgian blogger Paul Belien described the European elite's passivity in the face of barbarism:
Here are today's headlines in Belgium's (only) Sunday newspaper De Zondag. Page One: "No Sign of Revolt in Belgium Yet." Page Five: "Violence Moves Towards Belgium." It almost sounds like a weather forecast, anticipating the onslaught of a hurricane that is inevitably coming.
What is happening in France has been brewing in Old Europe for years. The BBC speaks of "youths" venting their "anger." The BBC is wrong. It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularised welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The "youths" do not blame the French, they despise them. . . .
Unlike their fathers, who came to France from Muslim countries, accepting that, whilst remaining Muslims themselves, they had come to live in a non-Muslim country, the rioters see France as their country. They were born here. This land is their land. And since they are Muslims, this land, or at least a part of it, is Muslim as well.
A somewhat different view comes from Stephen Schwartz in the New York Post:
France has special problems with its immigrant population. Unlike Britain (where radicals dominate Islam) or Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark (where small groups of Saudi-financed Islamists operate), France faces a predicament that has more to do with Arab and African nationality and race than with faith.
France is not an upwardly mobile society when it comes to immigrants. It doesn't reward education or entrepreneurship by encouraging fair integration of Arabs or black Africans. . . .
Assimilation in France means something very different from assimilation in America. Those who permanently pledge their allegiance to France must pay a much higher price: surrender of one's own identity, and full acceptance of "Frenchness"--meaning exclusive use of the French language, radical secularism, and, typically, abandonment of most attachments to the immigrant's former home.
"We don't have the American dream here," 45-year-old Mohammed Rezzoug tells the Washington Post. "We don't even have the French dream here." The Post attributes the "rage" of "French youth" to a "fight for recognition." But other news stories bolster Belien's point about the distinctively Islamic nature of the insurgency. From Reuters:
Ahmed Hamidi, a white-bearded Moroccan electrician long resident in France, had no patience with politicians in Paris, which lies hardly an hour away but seems like another planet.
"All the politicians care about are laws for homosexuals and all those immoral things," he fumed. "They are against headscarves, against beards and against the mosques.
And from the Boston Globe:
Mahmoud Khabou, 20, the jobless son of Algerian immigrants, knows little of the world beyond the concrete housing projects that rise in bleak rows barely an hour's subway ride from the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and other grand monuments of Paris.
But he knows who his heroes are. ''Osama bin Laden and Rodney King," he said, referring to the Al Qaeda leader and the African-American whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 spawned massive racial riots.
''One because he gives pride back to the Muslims," the young man asserted as he and a trio of friends stood near the charred ruins of a carpet shop. ''The other because he was just a poor man, a 'nobody man' of color, but he caused a great city to burn."
Mark Steyn sums up the geopolitical significance of it all:
The notion that Texas neocon arrogance was responsible for frosting up trans-Atlantic relations was always preposterous, even for someone as complacent and blinkered as John Kerry. If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.
Steyn adds: "French cynics like the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, have spent the last two years scoffing at the Bush Doctrine: Why, everyone knows Islam and democracy are incompatible. If so, that's less a problem for Iraq or Afghanistan than for France and Belgium."
We do not believe that Islam and democracy are incompatible. It seems likely that if France had a freer economy and a more supple sense of national identity (as does a certain hyperpuissance of our acquaintance), it would be better able to assimilate its Muslim immigrants and their children. Many Americans no doubt are tempted by schadenfreude, but a better response would be gratitude that we don't have to deal with an alienated domestic population that is to some extent aligned with global jihad. All we have to do is straighten out Iraq.
Grace-a-Dieu
Pour les Petites Choses
"En revanche, en région parisienne, le nombre de véhicules brûlés est retombé
à 426 contre 741 la veille et 656 dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi. A Paris
même, il y a eu 18 incendies de véhicules, au lieu de 35 la nuit précédente."--Reuters,
7 Novembre
When
They Get Done, Gaza Will Be as Peaceful as Paris
"The EU plans to announce on Monday that it will launch a three-year mission,
starting January 1, to help the Palestinians build up a credible police force,
EU officials said."--Jerusalem Post, Nov. 6
What
Would We Do Without Bolivian Cleaning Ladies?
"You Shouldn't Have to Burn Cars to Get a Better Life--Ask My Bolivian
Cleaning Lady"--headline, Sunday Telegraph (London), Nov. 6
James
Earl Coulter
Jimmy Carter is criticizing his party for pro-abortion extremism, the Washington
Times reports:
"I never have felt that any abortion should be committed--I think each abortion is the result of a series of errors," he told reporters over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, while across town Senate Democrats deliberated whether to filibuster the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. because he may share President Bush and Mr. Carter's abhorrence of abortion.
"These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush] and I basically agree," the Georgia Democrat said. "I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion." . . .
Democrats must "let the deeply religious people and the moderates on social issues like abortion feel that the Democratic party cares about them and understands them," he said, adding that many Democrats, like him, "have some concern about, say, late-term abortions, where you kill a baby as it's emerging from its mother's womb."
Carter added: "Believe me, you don't want the Democrats out there reminding the American people that it's a constitutional right to abort a baby five minutes before birth." Actually, that wasn't Carter; it was Ann Coulter, in a column released the day before the Times reported on Carter's remarks. When these two agree so emphatically, we're not sure whether to be heartened or terrified. So as usual, we'll settle for amused.
Spirits
in the Material World
This Associated Press story about John Kerry* crystallized
something that bothers us about contemporary liberalism's approach to religion:
Kerry called the Republican budget approved by the U.S. Senate "immoral" and said it will hurt cities like Manchester [N.H.].
"As a Christian, as a Catholic, I think hard about those responsibilities that are moral and how you translate them into public life," the Massachusetts senator said at a rally Saturday in support of Democratic Mayor Bob Baines, who is running for re-election.
"There is not anywhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ, anything that remotely suggests--not one miracle, not one parable, not one utterance--that says you ought to cut children's health care or take money from the poorest people in our nation to give it to the wealthiest people in our nation," he said.
Along similar lines, the New York Times reports that environmentalists are making common cause with some evangelical Christians to fight "global warming": "Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth."
Contemporary liberals are happy to beat you over the head with the Bible, but only when completely technocratic matters, like budgets or environmental regulations, are at stake. When the subject turns to abortion or same-sex marriage or Terri Schiavo, suddenly they become absolutists about the separation of church and state.
In other words, they fear and oppose religion when it comes to matters of sex and death--the two great mysteries of life, and the two areas where a religious outlook has the most to offer.
* "I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that."
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
- "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew
Jackson
- "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin
D. Roosevelt
- "The buck stops here."--Harry
S. Truman
- "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country."--John
F. Kennedy
- "All politics is a reaction to felt needs. You need to get people to feel the need. Our job is to make sure the right felt need is taken into consideration."--John Kerry
Klein and Fall
The Weekly Standard (link may require subscription) points out a passage in
last week's column by Time's Joe
Klein:
But it is an even better indication of how the White House reflexively dealt with unpleasant news: destroy the messenger. Last week there was more of the same, according to a prominent Republican, who told me that the White House had sent out talking points about how to attack Brent Scowcroft after Bush the Elder's National Security Adviser went public with his opposition to the war in the New Yorker magazine. "I was so disgusted that I deleted the damn e-mail before I read it," the Republican said. "But that's all this White House has now: the politics of personal destruction."
Like the Standard, we received the e-mail in question. We didn't give it a close read at the time, because we'd already drafted our own comment on Scowcroft. But the Standard is right: It's completely civil in tone, "about as ad hominem as a seminar paper."
Think about what Klein is doing here, though. He "reports" that the White House is trying to "destroy" Scowcroft, based on an anonymous source's description of an e-mail that not only Klein but the source himself hasn't read! It's such a hilariously inept bit of journalism, we have to wonder if Klein didn't intend it as satire.
Gandhi
Is Dandy, but Liquor Is Quicker
Over at DemocraticUnderground.com (warning: message title is both profane and
obscene), one "JohnnyCougar" outlines his ambitions once he joins
the real world:
Sometimes I just get so mad that my country is committing mass murder. What power have I to stop it?
I am going to start reading up on Ghandi [sic]. This is the breaking point. I have to do something drastic, like go on a hunger strike chained to a light pole next to the NBC building in Chicago. But it's starting to get cold and I have my thesis to work on and classes to finish up this semester.
When I graduate in May, if we are still at war, I will honestly be about doing this. I can go for weeks on a diet of a handful of rice per day. If it's Summer, I won't die of cold, either. I wish I had done this this last Summer.
Maybe I can get 20 or so people to do this with me. Maybe we can lie on the street covered with cow blood for weeks at a time and say we are calling attention to the murders of our own troops and Iraqi civilians. And only until the war has ended will we feel good enough to eat again. I could surround myself with pictures of dead soldiers and Iraqis. Do you think it would work?
Do you think the Chicago police would arrest me and take me in? Would you be willing to join me in May?
We thought about making some wisecrack, but it's not nice to make fun of the Gandhi-capped.
Coincidence?
The Associated Press reports that President Bush last week announced this year's
recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Among them: three-time heavyweight
boxing champion Muhammad Ali.
Earlier in the week, the president nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Samuel Alito" is an anagram for "Ali Soulmate," so he may prove to be "the greatest" Supreme Court justice.
The
Key Word Here Is 'Relevant'
"I think she wouldn't make as many mistakes because, you know, we're older and
more mature, and she is far more experienced now in all the relevant ways than
I was when I took office."--Bill Clinton on Hillary Clinton, Nov. 4
The
Passengers Must Be Really Jet-Lagged
"Iraqi Plane Lands in Iran After 25 Years"--headline, NewKerala.com
(India), Nov. 6
Generalissimo
Francisco Franco Is Still Dead
"Bin Laden Publicly Quiet for a Long Time"--headline, Associated Press,
Nov. 4
Now
for the Good News
"North Korea Propaganda Fails to Crush Humanity"--headline, Reuters,
Nov. 4
News
You Can Use
"Which Diet Is Best? The One That Works for You"--headline, HealthDay,
Nov. 4
That's
It, We're Becoming a Vegetarian
"Body of Worker Fallen in Sewer Recovered in Taranto"--headline, Agenzia
Giornalistica Italia, Nov. 5
Sweeney
Todd Democrats
The last paragraph of Ben Brantley's New York Times review of a new production
of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," initially struck
us as gratuitous leftism:
For many Americans, the course of current events, at home and abroad, has engendered an attitude that has progressed beyond cynicism into a wondering disgust and on into a blazing anger in search of an outlet. Unreleased anger has been known to turn simply being mad into madness. Mr. Doyle's production is perfect for vicarious venting. Instead of going postal, let Sweeney do the slashing for you.
But we were unfamiliar with the "Sweeney Todd" story, so we checked out this Court TV description. It turns out the protagonist is a "murderous barber who dispatched his customers with a flick of the razor and then had his lover serve up the remains in a tasty meat pie." Brantley seems to be suggesting that the Angry Left has reached a Sweeney Todd-like level of derangement. This seems like an exaggeration to us, but it's nice to see someone at the Times acknowledging there's a problem.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Matthew Beck, Brian Kalt, Ron Ackert, C.E. Dobkin, Christian Peck, Gary Petersen, Mark Nicholas, Ed Lasky, Allen O'Donnell, John Chilton, David Shapero, Monty Krieger, Terri Illes, Bob Woodyard, John Nickel, Ami Avivi, Barak Moore, Lem Marshall, Brent Silver, G. Chellson, Barry Harris, John Hartness, Ethel Fenig, David Schlosser, Andrew Robinson, Michael Zukerman, Leonora LaMantia, Greg Askins, Steve Jackson, Nathan Wirtschafter, Blaise Rhodes, Jim Orheim, Johnny D'Angelo, Richard Brum, Dan O'Shea, Rosanne Klass, David Bookless, Evan Slatis, Elizabeth Stimson, Michael Segal, M. Gilbertson, Charlie Gaylord, Thomas Dillon, Stephen Williams, Michael Conway, Thomas Gilfeather, Abe Beyda, Brian O'Rourke, Ruth Papazian, Mark Murray and Mark Holtzman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Should U.S. tax dollars fund forced abortions in China?
- Ezzie Goldish: Why I'm bullish on Bush.
- Joseph Epstein: Prizes are nice, but they don't say anything about the quality of your achievements.
