Unrest

If you're a bit dismissive of US and Allied (that means British, French and German) involvement in the Middle East, here's why that's a dangerous attitude. Basically it is a race of people (Christian Caucasians) making war on another race of people (Muslim Arabs). That's not because the US doesn't like Muslims, they just need to ensure easy access to more and more precious oil resources. Remember the US has one third of the world's 600 000 cars. It has to keep its industry (which is basically suburbia) running, and its an Empire based on oil. Problem is, none of that oil is in America any more.

Kindergarten logic says, when you've finished your cake, wipe your face and wash your hands. Not: get a stick and take out some pocketmoney and buy off your teacher and threaten the other kids to get the rest of your cake.

I've reported that there's been an unsurge in violent riots in Birmingham, a model of multiethnicity (supposedly).
The reality is, everyone who owns a car and who feeds off the global system has an interest in this. They want to be able to afford to do the things they want to do, and maintain their lifestyles the way they've always done. If they're told they can't, they'll revolt. They'll be enraged. Many US consumers are already angry about rising prices.
But on the other side of the coin, is the bought off teacher (which is a symbol of the real powerholder here, the populations beneath the governments of both the US and Arab States). The other children are other countries, like Russia and China, who also want cake, but for the moment go hungry because of a big, rich bully, who sometimes does nice things for them.

If you live in a community where Muslims live then that's where the fabric of society will begin to tear, and rip. These enclaves are everywhere. They're in South Africa, Britain, the USA, France, Singapore...
If we can't attend to the basic dignities of people around us, then people will get angry. If one person is favored over another, eventually the stick is less effective.

"Your country has abandoned you."
This is not a hollow tirade, it is increasingly true. Governments and multinationals don't really care about ordinary people, unless they are shareholders. The poor are pushed aside and overlooked, and of course the poor greatly outnumber the elites. Any kindergarten child who, through whatever means, tries to hog the whole cake (a cake meant to be shared equally) will eventually be overpowered, and probably ostracised. It's just not good manners. It's not fair. The world may not always be fair, but in some things, like basic equilibrium, the principle holds.

People need to remember that they, everyday, through their consumption, approve and endorse the systems of the world. I know, for the moment, that almost no person will willingly let go of their lifestyles, downsize etc. For the moment it's enough just to prepare ourselves mentally. When society starts to destabilise on a massive level, the instinct will be to blame. And get angry. We ought to be angry with ourselves, for our own pride and greed and vanity. That is what underlies our daily activity, and none of those motives serve us, or others, in the long run. Humility, sharing and sensitivity is what we need to bring back to our communities. In a word: manners.
It will be in our best interests to not resist the new urban reality of the next few years, but to concentrate on co-operation with like-minded individuals (forming co-operative local communities).

Seventh Day of Violence Erupts Near Paris
By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 36 minutes ago

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Menacing youths smoked cigarettes in doorways Wednesday and hulks of burned cars littered the tough streets of Paris' northeastern suburbs scarred by a week of riots that left residents on edge and sent the government into crisis mode.



In a seventh consecutive night of skirmishes, young people threw rocks at police Wednesday in six suburbs in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris — about a 40-minute drive from the Eiffel Tower. In one of them, Le Blanc-Mesnil, about a dozen cars burned and curious residents, some in slippers and bathrobes, poured into the streets.

Some said the unrest — sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers last week — is an expression of frustration over grinding unemployment and police harassment in the communities, where many North African immigrants live. "It is not going to end. It is going to explode," said an 18-year-old who would only give his name as Amine.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy both canceled trips abroad to deal with the unrest.

"The government is entirely mobilized. Its immediate priority is to restore public order, and restore it without delay," de Villepin said.

Muslim leaders at Clichy-sous-Bois' mosque, meanwhile, prayed for peace and asked parents to keep teenagers off the streets after skirmishes broke out after two teenage boys were electrocuted last Thursday while hiding in a power substation because they believed police were chasing them.

The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs — fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers.

The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.

"They have no work. They have nothing to do. Put yourself in their place," said Abderrahmane Bouhout, president of the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, where a tear gas grenade exploded Sunday evening. Local youths suspected a police attack, and authorities are investigating.

The violence cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community — its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest — by playing down differences between ethnic groups. But rather than be embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children often complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities.

"If French society accepts these tinderboxes in its society, it cannot be surprised when they explode," said Claude Dilain, the Socialist mayor of the Clichy-sous-Bois suburb.

Eric, a 22-year-old in Clichy-sous-Bois who was born in France to Moroccan parents, said police target those with dark skin. He said he has been unable to find full-time work for two years and that the riots were a demonstration of suburban solidarity.

"People are joining together to say we've had enough," he said. He refused to give his surname because talking to reporters was poorly regarded in his neighborhood.

"We live in ghettos," he added. "Everyone lives in fear."

Many immigrant families are trapped in housing projects that were built to accommodate foreign laborers welcomed by post-World War II France but have since succumbed to despair, chronic unemployment and lawlessness. In some neighborhoods, drug dealers and racketeers hold sway and experts say Islamic radicals seek to recruit disenchanted youths by telling them that France has abandoned them.

"French society is in a bad state ... increasingly unequal, increasingly segregated, and increasingly divided along ethnic and racial lines," said sociologist Manuel Boucher. Some youths turn to Islam to claim an identity that is not French, "to seize on something which gives them back their individual and collective dignity."

French governments have injected funds and job-creation schemes for years but failed to cure ills in suburbs where car-burnings and other crimes are daily facts of life.

"No matter what the politicians say, some neighborhoods are all but lost," said Patrice Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie police officers' union. "Police patrols pass through but without stopping and with their windows rolled up."

Police said 180 vehicles were torched overnight Tuesday, most in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that includes Clichy, Aulnay and other violence-hit neighborhoods. Police made 35 arrests in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails near Aulnay's town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. In nearby Bondy, a blaze engulfed a store.

Officials said police were harassed by "small, very mobile gangs."

De Villepin postponed a visit to Canada and Sarkozy canceled a trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

President Jacques Chirac told a weekly Cabinet meeting that "the law must be applied firmly" but "in a spirit of dialogue and respect" to prevent "a dangerous situation" from developing.

Chirac acknowledged the "profound frustrations" of troubled neighborhoods but said violence is not the answer and that efforts must be stepped up to combat it.

"Zones without law cannot exist in the republic," he said.

In Aulnay-sous-Bois, another northeastern suburb where riot police fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths Tuesday night, workers cleaned up charred debris Wednesday. A group of teenagers chased and threw stones at Associated Press reporters, some shouting "Go home!" and others yelling: "See you tonight."

"I am afraid. I have children," said Aulnay resident Houcine Yahiaoui, who watched the violence from his windows. "I have never seen anything like this here."