Fade the Butcher
11-10-2005, 09:00 PM
by Ron Liddle
http://www.spectator.co.uk/cartoons/2005-11-12-0.jpg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1519429/posts
As France burned, the mullahs arrived on the scene, shook their heads sadly and immediately issued a fatwa. However, for the many Frenchmen who may have shuddered inwardly when they heard the term so invoked, this was a good fatwa, a nice fatwa, a fatwa to be proud of. The mullahs swung by and ordained that Allah would be extremely cross if Muslims torched any more cars, shot any more policemen, lobbed any more petrol bombs or murdered any more elderly white people. Allah wanted Muslims instead to stay at home, potter about the house, maybe watch a little TV. The fatwa was issued on day 11 of the rioting, which by then had spread to about 300 towns and cities across France, from Toulouse to Lille, and was already nosing its way along the North Sea coast into Belgium and Holland and north as far as Denmark. And while the French public — or at least the majority of it, those not on the streets with the chavhoods pulled over their heads shouting Allahu Akbar and the like — may have been pleased with the mullahs for taking the time to address this pressing social problem, they may also have been a little confused. Because the arrival of the mullahs made explicit what had scarcely even been hinted at before.
As you might expect, French television news has led its morning and evening broadcasts on the latest from the multifarious battlefronts every day since the rioting began in the dismal, characterless Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Every day we have seen angry dark faces throwing things and shouting stuff, buses alight, scattered and smoking debris, frightened white people and retreating policemen. And there have been whole legions of pundits wheeled out to offer an explanation. It’s deprivation, a lack of integration, poverty, unemployment, incipient French racism and so on. But the dreaded ‘M’ word has scarcely been mentioned at all; these were ‘young’ rioters or sometimes ‘immigrant’ rioters — they were never Muslim rioters. Islam was almost never mentioned, but instead hovered unseen behind the words of every newsreader, tick-ticking like a little weapon of mass destruction, ready to detonate and thus demolish the self-delusions of the French journalists, politicians and public. You may have caught a whiff of this delusion on the BBC news back in Britain: on Monday the 10 O’Clock News devoted nearly nine minutes to the riots, but the one thing the rioters had in common — their religion — was not mentioned once. Instead, we got more stuff about deprivation, poverty, unemployment, etc. Is this official censorship, self-censorship or merely ignorance allied to wishful thinking?
I wandered up to Grigny, some 35 minutes south of the Place de la République, where the ‘angry, impoverished youths’ had upped the ante a little by actually shooting at the police, rather than simply throwing rocks and petrol bombs at them. ‘Now they are really trying to kill us,’ said one copper, visibly shaken from the night’s exertions, which had left 13 of his colleagues requiring hospital treatment.
The town is perched upon low hills which form the valley of the river Seine, surrounded by light industry and deep, rather sinister lakes which might once have been quarries. In British terms, I suppose it might equate to Hounslow or Feltham, an impression not lessened by the planes banking to land at nearby Orly airport. But it is the weird demographic of the place which is striking: the town is precisely divided into two unequal — in terms of size and prosperity — constituent parts. There is the little area which surrounds the presentable and even bustling high street with its well-stocked boulanger — all agreeably faded turn-of-the-century villas replete with provincial French charm.
. . .
http://www.spectator.co.uk/cartoons/2005-11-12-0.jpg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1519429/posts
As France burned, the mullahs arrived on the scene, shook their heads sadly and immediately issued a fatwa. However, for the many Frenchmen who may have shuddered inwardly when they heard the term so invoked, this was a good fatwa, a nice fatwa, a fatwa to be proud of. The mullahs swung by and ordained that Allah would be extremely cross if Muslims torched any more cars, shot any more policemen, lobbed any more petrol bombs or murdered any more elderly white people. Allah wanted Muslims instead to stay at home, potter about the house, maybe watch a little TV. The fatwa was issued on day 11 of the rioting, which by then had spread to about 300 towns and cities across France, from Toulouse to Lille, and was already nosing its way along the North Sea coast into Belgium and Holland and north as far as Denmark. And while the French public — or at least the majority of it, those not on the streets with the chavhoods pulled over their heads shouting Allahu Akbar and the like — may have been pleased with the mullahs for taking the time to address this pressing social problem, they may also have been a little confused. Because the arrival of the mullahs made explicit what had scarcely even been hinted at before.
As you might expect, French television news has led its morning and evening broadcasts on the latest from the multifarious battlefronts every day since the rioting began in the dismal, characterless Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Every day we have seen angry dark faces throwing things and shouting stuff, buses alight, scattered and smoking debris, frightened white people and retreating policemen. And there have been whole legions of pundits wheeled out to offer an explanation. It’s deprivation, a lack of integration, poverty, unemployment, incipient French racism and so on. But the dreaded ‘M’ word has scarcely been mentioned at all; these were ‘young’ rioters or sometimes ‘immigrant’ rioters — they were never Muslim rioters. Islam was almost never mentioned, but instead hovered unseen behind the words of every newsreader, tick-ticking like a little weapon of mass destruction, ready to detonate and thus demolish the self-delusions of the French journalists, politicians and public. You may have caught a whiff of this delusion on the BBC news back in Britain: on Monday the 10 O’Clock News devoted nearly nine minutes to the riots, but the one thing the rioters had in common — their religion — was not mentioned once. Instead, we got more stuff about deprivation, poverty, unemployment, etc. Is this official censorship, self-censorship or merely ignorance allied to wishful thinking?
I wandered up to Grigny, some 35 minutes south of the Place de la République, where the ‘angry, impoverished youths’ had upped the ante a little by actually shooting at the police, rather than simply throwing rocks and petrol bombs at them. ‘Now they are really trying to kill us,’ said one copper, visibly shaken from the night’s exertions, which had left 13 of his colleagues requiring hospital treatment.
The town is perched upon low hills which form the valley of the river Seine, surrounded by light industry and deep, rather sinister lakes which might once have been quarries. In British terms, I suppose it might equate to Hounslow or Feltham, an impression not lessened by the planes banking to land at nearby Orly airport. But it is the weird demographic of the place which is striking: the town is precisely divided into two unequal — in terms of size and prosperity — constituent parts. There is the little area which surrounds the presentable and even bustling high street with its well-stocked boulanger — all agreeably faded turn-of-the-century villas replete with provincial French charm.
. . .