Terrorist attacks throughout Europe

I mentioned him on the French borad, but Fethi Benslama (no idea if he was translated into English) has written some insightful stuff on this topic, at the crossroads of politics, history and psychoanalysis, as he puts it. Here's an interview (in French) from 2015 for the curious:

https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2015/11/12/pour-les-desesperes-l-islamisme-radical-est-un-produit-excitant_4808430_3224.html

Might be intelligible when run through Google Translate as well, which has greatly improved in recent years.

sorry folks, i really shouldn't post to these threads when i'm angry, i'll hang back.

I don't see why its values, to which it tries and fails to reach, are White.

I'm glad we're moving off this conflict (are we?) but I did want to come back to this because I think there was a big leap here and I didn't see it addressed?

It's not that equality is a "white" value, it's that the values that lacite reifies are those of the ruling, law-making class, which is...white people without religiously or culturally complicated identities? It sort of refuses to acknowledge that anyone else exists, in order to purport that everything is a flat plane and all people are equal. But nothing is equal to whiteness and the in-group identity! Extremely problematically so. It's like...saying "I don't see color" instead of addressing the harm of racism and white supremacy.

the right to free and open expression of their faith

in the USA our version of this argument over free expression of religious beliefs is whether Hobby Lobby can prevent their employees from obtaining contraceptives under the ACA, or a bakery that opens its doors to serve the general public can refuse service to a gay couple.

ding ding

Beautifully put, in orbit :)

"It's not that equality is a "white" value, it's that the values that lacite reifies are those of the ruling, law-making class, which is...white people without religiously or culturally complicated identities? It sort of refuses to acknowledge that anyone else exists, in order to purport that everything is a flat plane and all people are equal."

Yeah this is really good, seconded.

Thank you, because it seemed so simple that I was afraid I was being stupid by belaboring it.

Haha it is like, basic identity stuff that semiotics students learn when they're teenagers but I've rarely seen it articulated so well. And sometimes I guess ya gotta to get back to the basics when there appears to be such a fundamental divide in agreement.

gyac's big post upthread, which i've just now read, is fantastic too.

Euler I really don't detect a desire to 'zing' you there!

xp absolutely not, it was succinct and otm

nv said it early this morning, basically, just a slightly different facet of examination:

and the extent to which this doesn't create a cultureless space but a space containing only state acceptable cultural signifiers, including but not limited to brand logos for example

― Notes on "Scamp" (Noodle Vague)

It's just a matter of whose culture gets to be "neutral."

One might even say "secularisation cannot eliminate its long Christian tradition"... like Macron approvingly did two years ago, when meeting with a bunch of bishops!

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/8879/macron-accused-of-tampering-with-la-cit-after-church-state-remarks

Macron letting the cat out of the bag there.

I remember reading at the time something like 4 out of 5 Catholics voted for Macron

Of course, notorious melt Robespierre reined in the dechristianizers, secularism can only go so far.

cult of the supreme being should be the state religion of France clearly

Don't knock it till you've tried it.

It's just a matter of whose culture gets to be "neutral."

That's an essentially accurate observation of an underlying truth and defining a problem is usually a basic step toward solving it. However, no matter which way I turn that truth, I can't see a solution falling out of it that resolves the essential conflict that rises out of fundamentally clashing cultural values. The particular Islamists who encouraged this crime do not want toleration or neutrality, but enough power to create a hegemony for their own religiously-inspired or religiously-justified ideas.

If it is their culture that gets to be 'neutral', then the result would be far harsher laws suppressing other cultural norms than the French laws against the display of religious symbols in public schools. Full and free expression of secular humanism would absolutely not be allowed. I don't see that outcome as preferable, according to my culturally hegemonic 'western' beliefs.

So, when it comes to whose culture is considered 'neutral' in this power struggle (because that is what the execution of the teacher was about), I am going to side with the French Republic over the Islamists who perpetrated this crime every time. At least the Republic allows avenues for the redress of wrongs and may conceivably arrive at a compromise solution amenable to the majority of muslims in France.

But does it need to be framed as an either/or-type situation with no hues in between? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone here is playing ISIS's advocate.

Aimless... the idea that there are enough pro-murder Muslims out there to enact some fanatical Islamic Republic in France is..... un peu bizarre, n'est-ce pas

Indeed they are not, and that “opinion” is conspiracist nonsense at best. We’re dealing with France as it is, not France as it might exist in some flatulent old edgelord’s novel.

While you're at it, why don't you side with the Land of Oz in their struggle with the Wicked Witch of the West?

A bit tired this whole situation is expressed as a clash of civilizations when it's once again just the story of kid humiliated by a culture that will never give him a decent job, who needed to see a psychiatrist that was never hired for him and fell in the hands of cult that knows too well how to weaponize the ange of angry young males.

I don't feel so bad for how simplistic and dumb and useless some of my posts upthread where now, cheers VHS!

We did that part too but it was 7 hours ago so you have to scroll a bit.

VHS, did you read that Benslama interview I linked to upthread? You may find it interesting. Also, you should visit Je déteste tout more often.

Yeah it's true, I keep forgetting there's a french board here.

and yeah sorry, i'm responding to the situation more than the board recent posts.

Tbf it doesn't see much action.

the idea that there are enough pro-murder Muslims out there to enact some fanatical Islamic Republic in France is..... un peu bizarre

The reason I am specifically addressing pro-murder Muslims is not because I think they predominate within the Muslim population of France. I expect they are much less than 1% of the muslims in France. I am addressing them because this is the "Terrorist attacks throughout Europe" thread and that tiny handful of pro-murder muslims recently committed an act of terror, specifically to emphasize that any act they regard as blasphemy deserves death. It was a political act, aimed at imposing a form of power that most of us would not regard as legitimate: impunity in sentencing people to death.

It seems equally bizarre to think that the root cause of this murder was a law prohibiting the display of religious symbols in a well-defined subset of public spaces. Racism, xenophobia and economic ghettoization are the real problems to address. Discussing this as an unacknowledged consequence of semiotics seems very bizarre to me.

Terrorism is a language of the powerless - it doesn't make it right - but looking at the full picture of power is important - and yes that includes many decades of religious intolerance in France

Basic critical theory around identity (which you'd think French people would have an edge in) since at least the 1970s has established that the people who benefit from ostensibly 'neutral' spaces are those who already hold power

But frankly we can take it back to 1870s, with Anatole France's famous observation that the rich and poor in Paris are treated perfectly equally: they are both disallowed from sleeping under bridges

Maybe now you're going to say that my argument is that Anatole France caused this atrocity? Whatever man

You are not connecting any dots, you are fixating on one dot and going “Eh? Eh?” in a higher and higher vocal register

OTM

Terrorism is a language of the powerless

Which is why I described this as a power struggle. The Black Lives Matter movement is also a power struggle and will not achieve its ends until the Black community has been ceded a more significant portion of the nation's political and economic power, but they express it rather differently.

for now

agreed

it's actually surprising that assassination has not played a larger role in US politics

Er, not recently but...

You are not connecting any dots

I... is this to me?

*repeats in a squeakier voice*

is this to me???

No, I think you're providing the dots.

xps Well, the KKK was really into it for a long time.

It's more difficult to carry out these dasys, yer assassinating.

*quietly stows airhorn*

From my understanding, in France hate speech is not protected by freedom of expression, you can discuss freedom of expression and the Charlie Hebdo events without showing the caricatures themselves. The moment you show these caricature, in an educational context of all places, not only you enter n-word or holocaust denial territory, you are just showing who is boss. No one should die for doing such a thing, but that teacher's behaviour is more or less the norm and it both shows the incredible patience most muslims in France have, and how freaking little they are cared for. The only consequence of such topics and discussions are that kids no matter how religious they are, it's that they will understand 'well this is the situation, see? we can't get along, how interesting, here's who right and here's who's wrong' and the bullying keeps going on and on and on because once you oppose a teacher you oppose la France and you oppose freedom of speech.

So of course the Muslim Brotherhood wins and shit like that happens. I'm seeing absolutely nothing from the left or right in France that shows any desire to change course because France is oh so great and La République is les droits de l'homme yada yada yada, the only sensible voices on this are immigrants sharing similar experiences but they are not a norm whatsoever.

I wouldn't give a shit really, I've long accepted the inherent racism in republican ideals, some of my family there is racist but they are far, it's that this poisonous view of society keeps creeping in Quebec and that I can't fathom.

So yeah Aimless I'm a bit peeved by your assumptions, the situation is not that one person should take a side within a power struggle, it's hitting 17 years olds in the back of the head for making the wrong choice over and over when really there are other societies that have proven you can give enough individual freedom for someone to build their identity along the way. Since, the most powerful side in this case is 'french culture' as a whole, the onus is on them to make them feel accepted and not navigating some sort of no man's land.

lol Tracer

I presume you are not peeved when I make the assumption that (quoting myself) "racism, xenophobia and economic ghettoization are the real problems to address." Not having seen the Hebdo caricatures, I have to take your word that they constitute hate speech. Nor do I know how the teacher conducted the discussion about them. I have not read a description of how that lesson was taught, but have seen it asserted that the lesson being taught was within the curriculum.

My major assumption is that France needs to work much harder and more visibly on alleviating the real problems of economic stagnation within and xenophobia against muslim communities. That's pure justice. But I also consider that this act was not merely a blind lashing out, but a demonstration of intent and no society can afford to concede the legitimacy that intent, no matter how legitimate the grievance.

Well yeah, I am not for murder. I don’t think many people are.

From my understanding, in France hate speech is not protected by freedom of expression, you can discuss freedom of expression and the Charlie Hebdo events without showing the caricatures themselves. The moment you show these caricature, in an educational context of all places, not only you enter n-word or holocaust denial territory, you are just showing who is boss. No one should die for doing such a thing, but that teacher's behaviour is more or less the norm and it both shows the incredible patience most muslims in France have, and how freaking little they are cared for. The only consequence of such topics and discussions are that kids no matter how religious they are, it's that they will understand 'well this is the situation, see? we can't get along, how interesting, here's who right and here's who's wrong' and the bullying keeps going on and on and on because once you oppose a teacher you oppose la France and you oppose freedom of speech.

So of course the Muslim Brotherhood wins and shit like that happens. I'm seeing absolutely nothing from the left or right in France that shows any desire to change course because France is oh so great and La République is les droits de l'homme yada yada yada, the only sensible voices on this are immigrants sharing similar experiences but they are not a norm whatsoever.

I wouldn't give a shit really, I've long accepted the inherent racism in republican ideals, some of my family there is racist but they are far, it's that this poisonous view of society keeps creeping in Quebec and that I can't fathom.

really good post VHS that sums up a lot of the realities

a discussion about the importance of enlightenment values to colonialism and their ongoing complicity in framing a colonial world view probably belongs in another thread, but it's central to the development of modern western polities

Nations can have their national cultures, even if they mean erasing those of recent emigrants. Lots of people who have immigrated to my country have had to give up eating the occasional dog to fit in.

On the other hand, we don't discuss freedom of speech and Miller v. California in high school classrooms by showing hardcore porn.

emigrants immigrants