I e-mailed NY Post columnist Fred Siegel to ask him what evidence he had for his assertions about "intifadas" and "Ramadan riots". He kindly sent a prompt reply:
There are a number of reasons why I see a relationship between Islam and the violence in France (and elsewhere in Europe). The most important is self-definition. The French police have referred to an "intifada" in part because that how some of the guys torching cars define what they're doing. Not all shout "Allah Akbar". But the guys torching cars express their admiration for the "chebabs" the Palestinian Muslims who throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israelis. They are a model to emulate.
Timing: Around the Muslim world violence surges during Ramadan. The same is true of the banlieue. Even before last years 3 weeks of riots, the period of Ramadan with its intensified religious feeling in the banlieue produced an upsurge of violence.
There are those who argue that the violence by Muslim youth is matter of socio-economic matters and there's some truth to that. But it doesn't explain why other groups of poor immigrant in France and across Europe are far less likely to be involved in criminality or violence.
In France today as among the Black Muslims in the US over the past 30 years violent crime and an opposition to western ideals in the name of an Islamic alternative have gone hand in hand.
Hmmm. I'm still puzzled about the dearth of first-hand evidence. I'm happy to be proved wrong on this, but as far as I'm aware, that police quote comes from a spokesman for one particularly outspoken union group. Here's yesterday's dispatch from the Daily Telegraph's man in Paris, David Rennie:
Some police representatives, notably the small, fringe trade union Action Police, squarely blame radical Muslim imams for whipping up the violence, talking of an "intifada" in the banlieues. But a leaked report by the French police intelligence service, the Renseignements Généraux (RG), concluded last year that Islamists had "no role in setting off the violence", which it described as a "popular revolt" against the authorities.
A more recent report by the RG, leaked to Le Figaro last month, also reported, in a tone of some relief, that rumours of angry youths in different suburbs linking up in organised networks were not true.
A close study of the CGT trade union report also revealed a less than political motivation for attacks. Many workers from the gas board, electricity or telephone companies reported being attacked after accidentally witnessing drug deals, or stumbling on caches of drugs or weapons belonging to criminal gangs.
If firm evidence comes up about an Islamist role in the violence, I'll post it here. (Martin Peretz, another advocate of the "intifada" school of thought, has details of the security alert at Charles de Gaulle airport.) I'm trying not to be overly obsessive about this particular subject. My point is that if American commentators have a skewed vision of what's going on in a society as open as France, what hope is there of getting it right on, say, Iran or North Korea?
