11-14-2015, 09:02 PM
(11-14-2015, 08:42 PM)Donald Dank Wrote: The connotation that a number of muslims in France overtly and covertly hate the country and most of it's people? I don't even think that's something that can be argued against and has been the case for years. I can think of about 5 attacks in or en-route to France within the last couple of years, not to mention the large numbers of jihad tourists or riots that have happened.
The conflation of suburban riots with Islam, as above, is part of the problem in action. Suburban riots have generally been triggered by confrontations with the police (i.e. those of 2005, probably the most significant in recent years, which came after the deaths of teenagers who hid from the police in an electric substation in Clichy-sous-Bois. Banlieue resentment of the police and of bourgeois France is multifactorial: social deprivation, discrimination (real and perceived) and race all play into it. So does religion. Claiming banlieue riots as a sign of the existence of an Islamist fifth column is reductive, simplistic and suggests that you haven't done your research.
All of which is irrelevant because you've still missed my point. I wasn't suggesting that there aren't a number of radical fundamentalist Muslims in France; I was suggesting that the term 'fifth column' comes with baggage which will always make it unhelpfully divisive. I think that anyone who claims not to see that is most likely being wilfully obtuse and would question why anyone would want to use it that badly when other, perfectly serviceable terms exist.
As an aside France has, to my knowledge, a Muslim population of around 6 million. If one tenth of a percent of that population was genuinely bent on overthrowing secular France, there would already be a civil war.