BLOGDIAL : We are the best

Mort pour rien - Dead for nothing

Members of Paris’s African community have been rioting in the streets of Paris for the past 9 days. The riots were triggered by the death of two youths of African decent, Bouna Traore, aged 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, were electrocuted at an electricity sub-station in Clichy-sous-Bois as they ran from the police. A third youth who escaped death, said they panicked and ran because they found themselves near the scene of a break-in incident where police began to arrive. The police of course deny any involvement in the boys death. It should be noted that these young people are not immigrants. Their grandparents and possibly their parents are but they are born in France and are French citizens. Constantly referring to them as "immigrants" is a problem in itself and reinforces their exclusion from mainstream French society.

The boys did not have criminal records nor were they known to the police so why did they run. The explanation given in Indymedia Paris by Laurent Levy is very plausible given the appalling racist record of the French police. They knew what would happen to them if they were stopped for an ID check. They would risk being detained and spending several hours being humiliated at the police station - you do not have to have much of an imagination to know the kind of taunts the boys would be subjected to. It was late and they wanted to get home where they were expected by their families. Levy also asks why the Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy had to say that this drama took place after a burglary attempt implying the boys were invovled or boys "like them" ie Africans and Arabs. [...]

http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/

My emphasis.

Do I need to spell it out? Britain is next for this type of outbreak, should all the correct conditions be met; ID cards, profiling, mass stop and search of individuals....

Notice how the BBQ is spinning this; the sympathetic language that is being used to explain and justify these riots compared to the unsympathetic language used to describe the 'insurgents' in Bhagdad. In france they saying that,"... the riots are an outpouring of anger caused by many years of living as France's second class citizens", wheras in Iraq the insurgents are just 'terrorists'.

Think about this; if a single explosion destroyed 4500 cars, it would be a huge international event. Spread out over 11 days, its a rolling national crisis for the government, barely registering in foreign news. This should be a huge revelation to all those wannabe self immolators. Nationwide riots, distributed disruption, molotov cocktails; these are all far more effective at damaging governments than doing single event outrages.

A single event outrage produces massive psychological shockwaves but they also bolster the very governments that the perpetrators want to damage, simultaneously giving these very same governments carte blanche to make whatever new and bad law they want which represses everyone.

Rolling destruction, nightly riots, like burning peat is harder to control, effective at discrediting and disrupting authority and, up till now, not associated with 'terrorism', even though its the very 'same' people who are doing the work.