COPY THAT

THE SHOCK OF THE NEW voice of underclass discontent may shout over Europe. What started in stone throwing and flames may be a sonic boom as those told to assimilate assume more assuredly an identity their own as cars and opinions burn in Paris. [story] 

France's national police chief warned Monday that a "shock wave is spreading across the country" as rioting intensified in cities throughout France during an eleventh night of violence. Officials from neighboring countries expressed concern that the unrest could leap across international borders. . . . "We are witnessing a sort of shock wave that is spreading across the country," police chief Gaudin said, adding that the violence seemed to be subsiding slightly in the Paris suburbs as it worsening elsewhere in France. He said police made 395 arrests in connection with the unrest Sunday night.

THE POWER OF THE INTERNET and television are blamed for the “copycat” effect.  The original cause now clearly is lost.  More than just the death of two Muslim boys fleeing police is driving this. Is this some Spiritus Mundi?

"What do you expect?" said Paul Merault, a police spokesman interviewed by telephone in the southwestern city of Toulouse, where bands of youths set fire to 50 cars Saturday night. "For the last 10 days these kids have been watching TV, and naturally there is a copycat effect, a desire to imitate what they see on the screen."

SOME CLAIM  a clear connection to the politics of the Middle East here. But much of this problem is French and homegrown.  Politics may be global, but the French must act locally. Now. 

PREVIOUS RELATED HERETIK POSTS [City of Light on Fire]  [The Inferno]

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING
COLOR BLIND? [Times Online] Under the ethnically colour-blind “French model”, the immigrant workers who came in the 1950s and 1960s from the former colonies in North and black Africa were to be regarded as equal citizens. They and their descendants would take advantage of the education system and generous welfare state to assimilate with “white” France. To promote the idea of assimilation, neither the State nor any other body publishes statistics on ethnic or national origin.
In practice, France turned its back on the minorities, shunting them into suburban cités denying access to the so-called ascenseur social (social elevator) that was supposed to lift immigrants into the mainstream. Unemployment on the estates is up to three times the 10 per cent national average. Laws supposed to promote integration and oppose multiculturalism, such as the ban on Muslim headwear in schools, have often heightened resentment and the feeling of exclusion. This has in turn fed the rise of Muslim radicalism, which has now become the dominant creed of the young in the French ghettos.

THE HERETIK SEES that while the French have claimed to be color blind, the reality is they have looked more to the ideals on paper for success and been blind to realities on the street.

MORE SERIOUS BACKGROUND found here, here, and here. [via Blogoland]

A KEY EXCERPT
THE FRENCH MODEL [link] Academics and policy-makers in France share a certain way of conceptualizing immigration that is differs fundamentally from what we might loosely call the Anglo- American model. For many French politicians, demographers, social scientists and commentators, the concept of ethnic minorities is an unacceptable Americanism. It opposes the French republican or, as it is sometimes called, the Jacobin tradition, of assimilation and is considered by many, as a euphemism for ghettoization or a kind of `soft apartheid'.
A key strand within the republican/Jacobin tradition in France has been the assimilation of regional and ethnic differences to a unitary idea of Frenchness and French citizenship. French national identity should ideally take precedence over other forms of ethnic, linguistic or religious identification. The key concept here is assimilation: the immigrant takes on a French identity and becomes a full French citizen in the process.

THE HERETIK NOTES “minority,” while small possesses the strength of identity, which is lost in assimilation.  Assimilation, by its nature, presumes the larger majority superior. Here is the root of the problem.  The "minority" doesn't want nor will accept being a faded copy of anything else.

COULD IT HAPPEN HERE? [Iddybud] This new trend of Westen governments summarily stripping people of their citizenship and smothering their freedom of speech is going to reinforce an already-growing image of Western elitism in the Middle Eastern world that will weaken the war of Western ideas and strengthen the cause of extremists  . . . France's failure to ensure the social mobility of ethnic minorities is a likely contributor to their current troubles. The growing appeal of radical Islam is another major contributor. America is not immune from either of these factors - especially with the economic and foreign policies promoted by the current presidential administration and the Republican leadership that has blindly supported those policies. We've made big cultural strides - backwards - for the past five years. We're inviting what we see happening in France today, but it's not too late to find our vision and to once again show this world how to lead - instead of following them down the path of sure failure. 

THE HERETIK AGREES and sees a larger problem with government that strip the rights of citizenship and muffle free speech.  At some point more than minorities in Europe and immigrants here affected by the Patriot Act will do more than just speak up.