A Nurse with a Gun

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

City of Lights Lit Up.

There are some who wonder what occured to set off riots in Paris France that threaten to destroy centuries of history. Here's the official story.

Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15, thinking they were being chased by police, hid in an electrical sub-station in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on 27 October. Perhaps they should have had less fear of the police and more respect for voltage. They were electrocuted. A third badly burned teen survived. He recounts a tale of victimization and fear of the police.

Rioting began in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor suburb largely populated by North African immigrants and their French-born descendants when rumors spread that the police had actually chased the teens. Well guess what........ when the police give chase, innocent people stop. Rather than stating this fundemental precept of law and order, the Parisian police claim to not have given chase at all, thus legitimizing the burning of Paris as a righteous response to a percieved oppressive police force.

But none of this explains why grande Paris is burning.

Burning other peoples' property in anger is wrong, and a crime, no matter what your cause. Trespassing into a power substation that is clearly marked as dangerous is stupid and wrong, no matter what your reason. Paris is burning because Parisians fail to recognize these facts. Paris is burning because Parisians prefer to disarm themselves and accept a big brother government to define and take care of them rather than remember the lessons from July 14 1789. Paris is burning because Parisians do not care enough to fight it. They believe it is somebody else's job. Kind of like those pesky Nazis were.

So in the end, what occured to set Paris ablaze? A critical mass of anger was reached among immigrants, and an apathetic, apologetic French populace allows it to occur. Appeasement, no matter how civil, does not stop violence.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home