scored what it called the “forced integration” represented by the French government’s prohibition of Muslim head scarves in public schools. That is, the Paper of Record reminded its readers of the twig of a petty statute while obscuring the forest of immigration without invitation, which must lead to involuntary association—-forced integration if there is any such thing. But involuntary association is the daily reality of France and of virtually every other European, and European-derived, country. France has a significant non-French minority, but mainstream pundits seem unable to put things so starkly, even though without that forest there would be no offending twig.
The French are the ethnic group from whom the rioters and their relatives are “alienated.” Logically, they must be distinguishable from the alienated aliens or the latter’s grievances against the former make no sense. For one is not French merely because one speaks French and obeys French laws, like paying taxes to the French central government—not if “French” is to retain its distinction-respecting meaning. That is because “France” does not refer merely to land amidst the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, etc. Nor by one’s uninvited presence and the passage of time does one build up the cultural equivalent of “equity” in French or any other society.
The non-French in France now demand more than standing room in the country into which their parents and grandparents barged without specific invitations from individual French citizens (who at least could be held accountable for their guests’ behavior). That is, the French are guilty of nothing more than generally having treated the non-French among them the way a reluctant dinner party host treats uninvited guests.
Unfortunately many, perhaps most, of the accused have pathologically embraced their guilt and now wallow in a toxic mixture of anger and shame. In expiation for their sins and in attempted appeasement of the aggrieved, they will soon democratically subject themselves to an utterly wasteful transfer payment from French pockets to non-French, replete with such delights as affirmative action programs. Utterly wasteful because futile:
money spent to appease envy only buys more of it. (Paris “recently
granted Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots began on Oct. 27, 330 million euros for renovating its worst housing projects.”)
The non-French in France are now forcibly denying the French the luxury of postponing what to do about them. Tragically, they do not know what to do, at least not in accord with their sense of identity and justice, not any more than do other descendants of those who were Roman Catholics in 1500, be they in Europe or America.
As at dinner parties, so in countries: the non-invited rarely get the message and leave. They have to be thrown out, but the probability of that happening is nil. After all, France is not Israel circa 1948. Should expulsion happen, it will almost certainly be done imperfectly, which will result in new grievances. But it hasn’t entered French minds -– except those in the service of
Jean Marie Le Pen’s minority party –- even to
ask them to leave, let alone to cause them to. (Only convicted vandals will face that consequence.) After all, there’s a welfare state to keep afloat, and the French, unlike the non-French, have been noticeably lax in reproducing themselves.
It goes without saying that the French state will not only not acknowledge the right to discriminate—-to decide with whom one will and will not associate—-but will rather vigorously enforce existing edicts that prohibit its exercise. Compounding this social surd is the fallacious notion of “public property,” specifically “public land,” land owned by all and none, for which all pay taxes but whose usage only a few determine.
Now maybe those who refuse to relinquish that fuzzy idea can escape its tragic consequences.
And maybe Mohamed of Aulnay is French.
