Freedom, where art thou?
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
This is why I prefer the American to the French conception of liberty.
The French have always had the tradition that the government can encourage/enforce a national culture. The promotion of French over “franglais,” and the aggressive support of cultural institutions and protection for local industries, and the whole business of “laicite” or the absence of religion from the public sphere. What this means is that they have trouble assimilating immigrants because “Frenchness” is such a rigid concept. [/quote]
I prefer the American concept too. However on this issue the French have a valid arguement. There are over 5 million muslims in a country of 55 million. The muslims are over 10 percent of the population and they are not integrating, they are setting up a seperate society that not only rejects the French culture but finds it abhorent. If this trend is not curtailed the future for France is going to be bloody.
A huge impediment for France (or any of the European countries) assimilating large numbers of immigrants is the high tax, socialist economic model. In France it is compounded by employment law.
Because of French employment law business owners are reluctant to hire anyone without extensive referrences or connections to the business owner because they can’t get rid of them once they hire them. Because employers do not want to take a chance on getting stuck with an employee who did not work out, if an applicant has an address in one of the slums their application just goes in the garbage.
Because of the high taxes and red tape it is very difficult for immigrants who are lucky enough to have a job to save up money and start their own business. So not only is it almost impossible for immigrants to climb the economic ladder through entreprenuerialism it is also difficult for immigrants to become their own employer and thereby create better job opportunities for their fellow immigrants.
The net result is the vast majority of French muslims are ghettoized in slums where there is no opportunity to get out. So they are not able to assimilate economically. The men in these ghettos have very little control over their own lives so they have an heightened desire to have control over something. So the men turn on the women because this where they can finally have a sense of control. Forcing women into burqas is is way of exerting control over them.
[quote]
Then sometimes they wind up going the other way. Last year, I believe, a court invalidated the marriage of a (Muslim) couple because the husband complained his wife was not a virgin.
I think this comes from a confusion as to what is the state’s business and what isn’t. They would see the burqa issue as anti-Muslim and the marriage issue as pro-Muslim. As an American (with individualistic beliefs) I see the burqa issue as an illegitimate attempt to dictate national culture, and the marriage issue as a failure to apply the law impartially to all citizens. But once you think the government can take sides as to whether France should be “more Islamic” or “less Islamic,” you open the door to abuse in both directions. [/quote]
I have read some of your other posts, you seem to be bright and educated but on this subject you need to do some studying. I would suggest you study about Samira Bellil
Samira Bellil (November 24, 1972 - September 7, 2004) was a French feminist activist and a campaigner for the rights of girls and women.
Bellil became famous in France with the publication of her autobiographical book Dans l’enfer des tournantes ('In the hell of the “tournantes” (gang-rapes)) in 2002. The book discusses the violence she and other young women endured in the predominantly Muslim immigrant outskirts of Paris, where she was repeatedly gang-raped as a teenager by gangs led by people she knew, and then abandoned by her family and friends. Her book is a portrayal of the predicament of young girls in the poor, outlying suburbs (banlieue) of French cities.
In the muslim slums young women who don’t wear burqas are targets for gang rape and other acts of violence. The French government has a duty to protect women from being gang raped. So the French government has a legitimate reason to intervene.
Just because raping women is a part of the Islamic culture that does not mean we should turn a blind eye to it when they are living in the west. When it comes to rape we have every right to impose our culture.
[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
And I think it’s fine as long as Jews aren’t allowed to wear yamakas, Christians aren’t allowed to wear crosses or any shirt with Jesus or a religious message on it, and other Muslims aren’t allowed to have beards or wear turbans.
While they’re at it, why not just make it that they have to specifically buy from a French clothing company so they can bring their shitty economy back up?
I am not keen on people putting their religion in other peoples faces but that is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. Throughout the world women have been subjected to horrific acts of violence because they were not wearing burqas. The burqa is a tool of subjugation used to keep women as chattel.
So has a bottle of whiskey and a backhand. But the women who stay with those kinds of guys are the same who wear the stupid fuckin burqa. Grow a set and take your rights, but no one will do it for you.
Your attempts to rationalize and/or justify mysogeny are failing. Your solution to what is a hostage situation involving threats of violence and acts of violence carried out over a period of years is naive, overly simplistic and downright ignorant.
so the logical step is to go from being forced to wearing them and being subjugated by not wearing them, to be being forced not to wear them and being subjugated for wearing them?
I’m confused where the misogyny got left out?[/quote]
Are you serious? Are you really that clueless about what is going on in this world? Are you totally unaware of the threats and acts of violence that have been perpetrated by muslim men against women because they chose not to wear burqas?
Are you totally unaware of what is happening in France? Haven’t you heard of Ni Putes Ni Soumises?
Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) is a French feminist movement, founded in 2002, which has already secured the recognition of the French press and the National Assembly of France. It is generally dependent on public funding. It is also the name of a book written by Fadela Amara, one of the leaders of the movement, with the help of Le Monde journalist Sylvia Zappi. Fadela Amara was appointed in François Fillon’s predominantly conservative government in May 2007. Amara collaborated with the Cercle de l’Oratoire (a think-tank which supported the US invasion of Iraq), and Mohammed Abdi, the actual president of the NGO, is a member of this think-tank.[
Goals
The movement fights against violence targeting women and it focuses on these areas:
Gang-rapes
Pressure to wear the hijab
Pressure to drop out of school
Pressure to marry early without being able to choose the husband.
NPNS was set up by a group of young French Muslim women, in response to the violence being directed at them in the suburbs (banlieues) and housing estates (cités) of cities such as Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, where rape and violence towards women have occurred at relatively high rates. Samira Bellil described in a CNN Interview a trial in Lille following the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl by 80 men.[2]
The slogan used by the movement is meant both to shock and mobilise. Members particularly protest against changes of attitudes toward women, reputedly due to an increased influence of radical Islam in those French suburbs that are mostly inhabited by people of Maghreb and black African origin. A particular concern is the treatment of Muslim women, who may be pressured into wearing veils, leaving school, and marrying early. However, the movement represents women of all faiths and ethnic origins, all of whom may find themselves trapped by poverty and the ghettoisation of the cités.
A translation of the key points of NPNS’s national appeal on its official website:[3]
No more moralising: our condition has worsened. The media and politics have done nothing, or very little, for us.
No more wretchedness. We are fed up with people speaking for us, with being treated with contempt.
No more justifications of our oppression in the name of the right to be different and of respect toward those who force us to bow our heads.
No more silence in public debates about violence, poverty and discrimination.
Two high-profile cases gave a particular impetus to NPNS during 2003. The first was that of Samira Bellil, who published a book called Dans l’enfer des tournantes (“In Gang Rape Hell”) in which she recounts her life as a girl under la loi des cités (the law of the housing estates) where she was gang raped on more than one occasion, the first time at age 13, afraid to speak out, and ultimately seen only as a sexual object, alienated and shunned by her family and some of her friends. The second case was that of 17-year-old Sohanne Benziane who was burned alive by an alleged small-time gang leader.
In the wake of these events, members of Ni Putes Ni Soumises staged a march through France, which started in February 2003 and passed through to over 20 cities before culminating in a 30,000-strong demonstration in Paris on March 8, 2003. The march was officially called la Marche des femmes des quartiers contre les ghettos et pour l’égalité (The March of Women from the housing estates against ghettoes and for equality). Representatives of Ni Putes Ni Soumises were received by French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin. Their message was also incorporated into the official celebrations of Bastille Day 2003 in Paris, when 14 giant posters each of a modern woman dressed as Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, were hung on the columns of the Palais Bourbon, the home of the Assemblée nationale (the lower house of the French parliament).
You’re right, the economic structure in France does contribute to the problems of immigrants. (Why do so many people not see that a business-friendly legal climate is an equalizer?)
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes, and that’s a horror. And you’re absolutely right that if a “culture” involves rape, or other violations of human rights, then no liberal democracy should tolerate it. “Cultural sensitivity” doesn’t extend to allowing people to be treated that way. On the other hand, I don’t see how that proves your point about the burqa. The way to stop rape isn’t by forbidding women to wear burqas, it’s by punishing rapists (and, in the long term, by attacking the roots of immigrant Muslim isolation and unemployment.)
There’s this idea of “thick” and “thin” cultural values. Thick values are the norms within a community: Muslim values, secularist values, Asian values. They determine how members of a group are expected to behave in common. Thin values are the rules reasonable people use when they know they’re dealing with a variety of communities – no matter how different we are, we have to respect human rights; we can expect people not to engage in aggression or theft or torture, etc. A democracy like France or the US, I think, has no business imposing thick values from above – they can’t tell me not to practice my religion in public because “we” as a nation don’t do that. But a democracy should defend thin values – like protecting women from rape.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
You’re right, the economic structure in France does contribute to the problems of immigrants. (Why do so many people not see that a business-friendly legal climate is an equalizer?)[/quote]
The upward mobility of American society is it’s best protection against the radicalization of any of the various groups living here. Because people can more or less carve out their own little niche.
People buy into socialism because of high minded ideas that sound good even though they might not work well. One of the groups that you will trying to lead people into socialism are rich kids from priviledged backgrounds who never had to work for what they have. So they feel guilty because they have had an easy life and because they never had to work hard they think nothing of taking away the hard work of others.
[quote]
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes, and that’s a horror. And you’re absolutely right that if a “culture” involves rape, or other violations of human rights, then no liberal democracy should tolerate it. “Cultural sensitivity” doesn’t extend to allowing people to be treated that way. On the other hand, I don’t see how that proves your point about the burqa. The way to stop rape isn’t by forbidding women to wear burqas, it’s by punishing rapists (and, in the long term, by attacking the roots of immigrant Muslim isolation and unemployment.) [/quote]
There is more to it than just the violence that is perpetrated against women who don’t wear burqas there is also the seperation that it signifies. If they want to move to France and become French citizens the French have every right to expect them to be part of the society. Right now they are a seperate society that instead of integrating is just waiting for the demographics to change in their favor so they can force their culture on the French.
[quote]
There’s this idea of “thick” and “thin” cultural values. Thick values are the norms within a community: Muslim values, secularist values, Asian values. They determine how members of a group are expected to behave in common. Thin values are the rules reasonable people use when they know they’re dealing with a variety of communities – no matter how different we are, we have to respect human rights; we can expect people not to engage in aggression or theft or torture, etc. A democracy like France or the US, I think, has no business imposing thick values from above – they can’t tell me not to practice my religion in public because “we” as a nation don’t do that. But a democracy should defend thin values – like protecting women from rape. [/quote]
Good point. I don’t like the idea of society imposing values either. However there are some things that in the US make good sense but in other countries maybe they don’t make such good sense. ie Germany’s holocaust denial laws would violate our first amendment and the government having the ability to dictate history is a slippery slope but given the history of Germany maybe it the right idea for them.
The situation the French are facing is French women are having less than 2 children so they are not replacing their population they are actually shrinking. The muslims are already at 10 percent of the population and muslim women are having more than 2 children so their population combined with immigration is rapidly growing. The French are sitting on a ticking time bomb where they will become the minority with muslims the majority. If they can’t get a handle on the Islamist culture in their midst France could end up becoming like Iran.
I’ve never really liked the natalist scaremongering. It presupposes two rather creepy ideas; first, that a growing brown population is scary, and second, that white women ought to reproduce more for the good of the nation. It’s telling that you oppose “the Muslims” and “the French.” Most of the Muslims in question are French, and have been citizens for two or three generations. The relative birth rates would not be a problem if the French Muslim population was not so segregated, heavily unemployed, isolated, and radicalized. People like Amara are the solution. I doubt she’d want to be lumped in as part of of the demographic menace.
I do not think that making burqa-wearers “not welcome,” in Sarkozy’s words, is the solution. That will be interpreted as declared enmity for a part of the French population. (The man has a tendency to do things in the most bellicose way possible. Remember “racaille”? And when he enacted budget cuts, he started by gutting historic preservation and children’s education. It’s bad PR if nothing else. You’d think he wants to look like the kind of guy who enjoys killing puppies. )
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
I’ve never really liked the natalist scaremongering. [/quote]
While I never liked the use of prejudicial comments like scaremongering as a means to denigrate a statements validity in order to avoid addressing it. The birthrates are a measured statistic so the scientific method can be applied to the discussion.
[quote]
It presupposes two rather creepy ideas; first, that a growing brown population is scary, and second, that white women ought to reproduce more for the good of the nation. [/quote]
Again you are resorting to prejudicial characterizations. This time by trying to make this a racial issue. This is not an issue of black, brown, yellow or white because I have seen muslims in all those shades.
On the issue of how many children French women should be having I think that is up to them. However in order for that to work out well immigration needs to be controlled in relation to that. If that isn’t done then the nation becomes vulnerable to losing it’s identity and islam has a long track record of taking over a host nation’s identity.
[quote]
It’s telling that you oppose “the Muslims” and “the French.” Most of the Muslims in question are French, and have been citizens for two or three generations. [/quote]
I could say the same back. It is telling that you think that merely getting a French passport automatically trumps all other loyalties. Especially when many of the French muslims are economic migrants. Many of them didn’t move to France because they had an overwhelming urge to take on the French culture and way of life. French muslim men forcing women to wear burqas is clear evidence of that.
When it comes to islam we are dealing with some very intense, ancient, tribal loyalties. The kind of tribalism that we haven’t had in the west for a long time and in some cases we never had that kind of tribalism. In Europe you can find a lot ultra liberal, starry eyed dreamers, who will go on at great length about how silly it is that we have borders and individual nations. What they do not appreciate is that not everyone in this world is on the same page as them. What they will not accept is that until such time as we are all on the same page there are some things we just should not do or at a minimum we should do with extreme caution.
[quote]
The relative birth rates would not be a problem if the French Muslim population was not so segregated, heavily unemployed, isolated, and radicalized. People like Amara are the solution. I doubt she’d want to be lumped in as part of of the demographic menace.[/quote]
The biggest factor affecting birth rates is womens educational levels. The countries with the highest education levels for women have the lowest birthrates. On the other hand if you can keep women uneducated, unemployed, marginalized you can put them to work popping out babies.
[quote]
I do not think that making burqa-wearers “not welcome,” in Sarkozy’s words, is the solution. That will be interpreted as declared enmity for a part of the French population. (The man has a tendency to do things in the most bellicose way possible. Remember “racaille”? And when he enacted budget cuts, he started by gutting historic preservation and children’s education. It’s bad PR if nothing else. You’d think he wants to look like the kind of guy who enjoys killing puppies. )[/quote]
If they really do get to feeling unwelcome they will probably flood into England.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
[/quote]
You could switch a few proper nouns around and you’d have an anti-Irish Know Nothing tract from the 1850’s.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
And I think it’s fine as long as Jews aren’t allowed to wear yamakas, Christians aren’t allowed to wear crosses or any shirt with Jesus or a religious message on it, and other Muslims aren’t allowed to have beards or wear turbans.
While they’re at it, why not just make it that they have to specifically buy from a French clothing company so they can bring their shitty economy back up?
I am not keen on people putting their religion in other peoples faces but that is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. Throughout the world women have been subjected to horrific acts of violence because they were not wearing burqas. The burqa is a tool of subjugation used to keep women as chattel.
So has a bottle of whiskey and a backhand. But the women who stay with those kinds of guys are the same who wear the stupid fuckin burqa. Grow a set and take your rights, but no one will do it for you.
Your attempts to rationalize and/or justify mysogeny are failing. Your solution to what is a hostage situation involving threats of violence and acts of violence carried out over a period of years is naive, overly simplistic and downright ignorant.
so the logical step is to go from being forced to wearing them and being subjugated by not wearing them, to be being forced not to wear them and being subjugated for wearing them?
I’m confused where the misogyny got left out?
Are you serious? Are you really that clueless about what is going on in this world? Are you totally unaware of the threats and acts of violence that have been perpetrated by muslim men against women because they chose not to wear burqas?
Are you totally unaware of what is happening in France? Haven’t you heard of Ni Putes Ni Soumises?
Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) is a French feminist movement, founded in 2002, which has already secured the recognition of the French press and the National Assembly of France. It is generally dependent on public funding. It is also the name of a book written by Fadela Amara, one of the leaders of the movement, with the help of Le Monde journalist Sylvia Zappi. Fadela Amara was appointed in FranÃ?§ois Fillon’s predominantly conservative government in May 2007. Amara collaborated with the Cercle de l’Oratoire (a think-tank which supported the US invasion of Iraq), and Mohammed Abdi, the actual president of the NGO, is a member of this think-tank.[
Goals
The movement fights against violence targeting women and it focuses on these areas:
Gang-rapes
Pressure to wear the hijab
Pressure to drop out of school
Pressure to marry early without being able to choose the husband.
NPNS was set up by a group of young French Muslim women, in response to the violence being directed at them in the suburbs (banlieues) and housing estates (cit�©s) of cities such as Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, where rape and violence towards women have occurred at relatively high rates. Samira Bellil described in a CNN Interview a trial in Lille following the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl by 80 men.[2]
The slogan used by the movement is meant both to shock and mobilise. Members particularly protest against changes of attitudes toward women, reputedly due to an increased influence of radical Islam in those French suburbs that are mostly inhabited by people of Maghreb and black African origin. A particular concern is the treatment of Muslim women, who may be pressured into wearing veils, leaving school, and marrying early. However, the movement represents women of all faiths and ethnic origins, all of whom may find themselves trapped by poverty and the ghettoisation of the cit�©s.
A translation of the key points of NPNS’s national appeal on its official website:[3]
No more moralising: our condition has worsened. The media and politics have done nothing, or very little, for us.
No more wretchedness. We are fed up with people speaking for us, with being treated with contempt.
No more justifications of our oppression in the name of the right to be different and of respect toward those who force us to bow our heads.
No more silence in public debates about violence, poverty and discrimination.
Two high-profile cases gave a particular impetus to NPNS during 2003. The first was that of Samira Bellil, who published a book called Dans l’enfer des tournantes (“In Gang Rape Hell”) in which she recounts her life as a girl under la loi des citÃ?©s (the law of the housing estates) where she was gang raped on more than one occasion, the first time at age 13, afraid to speak out, and ultimately seen only as a sexual object, alienated and shunned by her family and some of her friends. The second case was that of 17-year-old Sohanne Benziane who was burned alive by an alleged small-time gang leader.
In the wake of these events, members of Ni Putes Ni Soumises staged a march through France, which started in February 2003 and passed through to over 20 cities before culminating in a 30,000-strong demonstration in Paris on March 8, 2003. The march was officially called la Marche des femmes des quartiers contre les ghettos et pour l’Ã?©galitÃ?© (The March of Women from the housing estates against ghettoes and for equality). Representatives of Ni Putes Ni Soumises were received by French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin. Their message was also incorporated into the official celebrations of Bastille Day 2003 in Paris, when 14 giant posters each of a modern woman dressed as Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, were hung on the columns of the Palais Bourbon, the home of the AssemblÃ?©e nationale (the lower house of the French parliament).
[/quote]
If you think banning hats will do anything to ebb this, well you should apply for a position in the obama admin.
I’m not saying their treatment is ok in anyway or that these “men” should be free to act that way, I just don’t think transferring misogyny from one culture to the next is any logical way to deal with it. These women’s freedom is being denied either way.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes, [/quote]
For reference, rape is seven times more prevalent per capita in Australia it is in France. It is also six times worse in Canada and twice in the US.
[quote]lixy wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes,
For reference, rape is seven times more prevalent per capita in Australia it is in France. It is also six times worse in Canada and twice in the US.[/quote]
While this is probably true, that statistic has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on the importance of the issue of gang-rape INSIDE France. If it is a growing or steady problem inside the country, then it doesn’t really matter that other countries are WORSE, does it? No. It’s the same as the fact that narcotic use in certain areas of the US is a big problem while narcotic use in Mexico is orders of magnitude higher— but that fact doesn’t mean it’s a non-issue in the US. It is and should be an issue for US domestic policy.
Besides which, you are taking national average statistics, when the problem is clearly not of homogenous concentration throughout France. Instead the problem is a very concentrated problem in certain areas (slums with a high population of Muslim immigrants), and not very much of an issue outside of those areas. So while the national average could be lower than other countries, the incidence of gang-rape in those areas concerned could be off the charts relatively speaking.
Statistics don’t HAVE TO mean what you think they mean unless they’re properly sorted.
All right Sifu:
I cut some corners. Religion is not race. And if you don’t want me to call it scaremongering, then all right, I won’t.
My problem with these kinds of demographic “They will overwhelm us” arguments is that it leads to no good solutions.
Tighten borders? Won’t work. The people in the banlieues have been in France for several generations.
Make non-Muslim French women have more babies? Sorry, an indidvidual’s womb is her own. I’d put subsidizing or officially encouraging childbirth in the same category.
Make Muslim French women have fewer babies? I hope you shudder too.
Make Muslims feel as unwelcome as possible with gestures like Sarkozy’s? Seems totally unsuccessful at promoting upward mobility. More likely to please a few nativists and possibly entrench French-Muslim radicalism.
A little bit of history http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,902695,00.html (I hope it won’t be misunderstood) should give some perspective here.
What I would get behind is broadening and improving education (including making sure everyone knows French), loosening up labor laws, enforcing the law in the banlieues, possibly some urban renewal (though it has a mixed track record), and, though I know you won’t like this, perhaps having more of a culture of diversity that could provide some role models. As it is, a lot of these people seem to think, quite reasonably, that they don’t have a chance in hell of a job, let alone reaching the middle class.
There’s no affirmative action in France; Muslim schoolkids don’t even see anyone who looks like them in their textbooks. Reviled as all this stuff is by the right, I think it makes a difference in the self-perception of minority groups in the US vs. France. Knowing that you are nothing but a “problem” to the authorities will make you less willing to participate in the system.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
lixy wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes,
For reference, rape is seven times more prevalent per capita in Australia it is in France. It is also six times worse in Canada and twice in the US.
While this is probably true, that statistic has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on the importance of the issue of gang-rape INSIDE France. [/quote]
Don’t be ridiculous! The importance of gang-rape is not in question here. It’s completely silly to claim that the issue would be more important within a set of imaginary landlines than outside it.
I commented on Alisa’s sentence that talks about her ignorance of the “prevalence” of gang-rapes in France, by providing a frame of “reference”.
It’s neither.
I totally disagree. But that’s another story…
True. What’s your point? Is Islam behind it? Their Maghrebian blood? Or is it socio-economics?
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
All right Sifu:
I cut some corners. Religion is not race. And if you don’t want me to call it scaremongering, then all right, I won’t.
My problem with these kinds of demographic “They will overwhelm us” arguments is that it leads to no good solutions.
Tighten borders? Won’t work. The people in the banlieues have been in France for several generations.
Make non-Muslim French women have more babies? Sorry, an indidvidual’s womb is her own. I’d put subsidizing or officially encouraging childbirth in the same category.
Make Muslim French women have fewer babies? I hope you shudder too.
Make Muslims feel as unwelcome as possible with gestures like Sarkozy’s? Seems totally unsuccessful at promoting upward mobility. More likely to please a few nativists and possibly entrench French-Muslim radicalism.
A little bit of history http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,902695,00.html (I hope it won’t be misunderstood) should give some perspective here.
What I would get behind is broadening and improving education (including making sure everyone knows French), loosening up labor laws, enforcing the law in the banlieues, possibly some urban renewal (though it has a mixed track record), and, though I know you won’t like this, perhaps having more of a culture of diversity that could provide some role models. As it is, a lot of these people seem to think, quite reasonably, that they don’t have a chance in hell of a job, let alone reaching the middle class.
There’s no affirmative action in France; Muslim schoolkids don’t even see anyone who looks like them in their textbooks. Reviled as all this stuff is by the right, I think it makes a difference in the self-perception of minority groups in the US vs. France. Knowing that you are nothing but a “problem” to the authorities will make you less willing to participate in the system.[/quote]
The real answer is for everyone to stop being so precious about false concepts like national identity, historic culture and whatever other claptrap and realise that we are all human beings. These are exactly the same areguments that come up when people debate gay marriage, Mexican imigration into the US or whatever other NIMBY issue you want to pick.
The lines on the map have moved countless times over the years and with the globalisation afforded by the information age these ideas are totally outdated.
[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
If you think banning hats will do anything to ebb this, well you should apply for a position in the obama admin.
I’m not saying their treatment is ok in anyway or that these “men” should be free to act that way, I just don’t think transferring misogyny from one culture to the next is any logical way to deal with it. These women’s freedom is being denied either way.[/quote]
It is amazing the attitude that many of you are bringing to this issue. The burqa is part of a culture that sees nothing wrong with human trafficing. The suggestion that this is a matter of choice for muslim women is bullshit.
The burqa is a portable prison cell where the public does not know what is going on behind that mask. It is a tool for abusers to get away with abusing women.
[quote]lixy wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I hadn’t known about Samira Bellil or the prevalence of gang-rapes,
For reference, rape is seven times more prevalent per capita in Australia it is in France. It is also six times worse in Canada and twice in the US.[/quote]
This has already been argued here. Australia also has higher rates of crime reporting for rape. The muslim rape gangs terrorizing French women don’t get reported to the police because they are dangerous. There is a lot in that muslim community that doesn’t get reported to the police. Burqas are a way to keep things in the community.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
All right Sifu:
I cut some corners. Religion is not race. And if you don’t want me to call it scaremongering, then all right, I won’t.
My problem with these kinds of demographic “They will overwhelm us” arguments is that it leads to no good solutions. [/quote]
Just so you know whom you’re dealing with, Sifu advocates discriminating on religious grounds when granting visas and residencies, sending all Muslims “home” (whatever that means). When I asked him what can be done about the second/third/fourth/fifth generations, he proposed building detention camps and locking the Muslims in there.
That’s when I stopped replying to him.
[quote]lixy wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
All right Sifu:
I cut some corners. Religion is not race. And if you don’t want me to call it scaremongering, then all right, I won’t.
My problem with these kinds of demographic “They will overwhelm us” arguments is that it leads to no good solutions.
Just so you know whom you’re dealing with, Sifu advocates discriminating on religious grounds when granting visas and residencies, sending all Muslims “home” (whatever that means). When I asked him what can be done about the second/third/fourth/fifth generations, he proposed building detention camps and locking the Muslims in there.
That’s when I stopped replying to him.
[/quote]
link please.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
PB-Crawl wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Sifu wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
If you think banning hats will do anything to ebb this, well you should apply for a position in the obama admin.
I’m not saying their treatment is ok in anyway or that these “men” should be free to act that way, I just don’t think transferring misogyny from one culture to the next is any logical way to deal with it. These women’s freedom is being denied either way.
It is amazing the attitude that many of you are bringing to this issue. The burqa is part of a culture that sees nothing wrong with human trafficing. The suggestion that this is a matter of choice for muslim women is bullshit.
The burqa is a portable prison cell where the public does not know what is going on behind that mask. It is a tool for abusers to get away with abusing women. [/quote]
Forcing someone to wear a burqa is wrong. The issue however is not the burqa, it is allowing someone or a group to force someone else to do something against their will. Banning the burqa doesn’t fix that issue.
Sifu is also a staunch supporter of a UK political organisation with proven links to Neonazi Paramilitary groups which is headed by Holocaust deniers.