French generals cause backlash with 'civil war' warning

Kaybaykwah

Hamachi wrote: »

I’m not a fan of mass immigration or multiculturalism. However, I believe that a Le Pen lead government is an impending travesty for France. Things should never have gotten this far. It’s yet another warning siren that the political class has been ignoring the deepening concerns of native European populations for decades.

It’s laughable to claim that France is not a multicultural society. Certainly, they make noises about pursuing a policy of assimilation and not recording the ethnic distribution of the population. Anybody who has been to Paris knows this to be false.

If you take a trip around inner Paris on the metro, the passengers are mostly the stereotypical well groomed, white French. However, jump on the RER trains serving the far flung suburbs, and it’s clear that the passengers are from very different backgrounds and leading very different lives from those in the chic central districts. Similarly, a trip to Saint Denis, about 15kms to the north west of Paris is like entering a different world. Market day in the main square more closely resembles a North African souk than anything else.

It’s clearly a nonsense to claim that the populations in the suburbs are well assimilated and are regarded as their brethren by mainstream France. This anxiety about changing demographics, coupled with increasingly frequent violent incidents, has lead France to where it is now. A country on the verge of electing a truly right wing demagogue.

When will the political class across Europe finally start listening to the concerns of the electorate on this flawed policy of multiculturalism?

I walked around St-Denis a month before the fateful attacks in Paris in 2015. As you say, when you step out of the metro station, it's another world. The St-Denis basilica where French kings were buried since the early middle ages is central to a town that is now overwhelmingly foreign, and in many cases muslim. But, there are many Russians and Eastern Europeans there, also sharing space with the black and brown people use the current expression in North American parlance.

I took a picture of a guy painting a doorway in the rue de la République, and another guy came up to me, nearly swiped my phone from me, and said: "non, non c'est pas beau çà, pas bien, faut pas faire çà." They were illegals, North Africans.

A couple weeks later, after the sad events, the apartment bldg where some of the attackers were hiding was stormed on a side street. The squat had been rented out by a "marchand de sommeil" who was a small time dealer fresh out of prison.

I am not suggesting there will be a civil war, or that French checks and balances are not robust enough to prevent major upheavals, but you know: who knows?

As jackboy aptly said, I would be more wary of the idea that people and things don't change. Heck, we have all been somewhat confined now for more than a a year because of a lil' bug, no less.

TomTomTim

Kaybaykwah wrote: »

I walked around St-Denis a month before the fateful attacks in Paris in 2015. As you say, when you step out of the metro station, it's another world. The St-Denis basilica where French kings were buried since the early middle ages is central to a town that is now overwhelmingly foreign, and in many cases muslim. But, there are many Russians and Eastern Europeans there, also sharing space with the black and brown people use the current expression in North American parlance.

I took a picture of a guy painting a doorway in the rue de la République, and another guy came up to me, nearly swiped my phone from me, and said: "non, non c'est pas beau çà, pas bien, faut pas faire çà." They were illegals, North Africans.

A couple weeks later, after the sad events, the apartment bldg where some of the attackers were hiding was stormed on a side street. The squat had been rented out by a "marchand de sommeil" who was a small time dealer fresh out of prison.

I am not suggesting there will be a civil war, or that French checks and balances are not robust enough to prevent major upheavals, but you know: who knows?

As jackboy aptly said, I would be more wary of the idea that people and things don't change. Heck, we have all been somewhat confined now for more than a a year because of a lil' bug, no less.

Douglas Murray mentioned this in his great book The Strange Death of Europe. He highlighted the great irony in the fact that, Charles Martel, who had heroically defeated the invading Islamic army in the 700s, was now buried in an area dominated by people of the Islamic faith.

Hamachi

TomTomTim wrote: »

Douglas Murray mentioned this in his great book The Strange Death of Europe. He highlighted the great irony in the fact that, Charles Martel, who had heroically defeated the invading Islamic army in the 700s, was now buried in an area dominated by people of the Islamic faith.

Louis VXI and Marie Antoinette are also buried in the crypt of the basilica in St-Denis. It really is a surreal experience visiting the site of an incredible amount of French history and then walking out to a street scene that could just as easily be Algiers or Rabat.

Kaybaykwah

TomTomTim wrote: »

Douglas Murray mentioned this in his great book The Strange Death of Europe. He highlighted the great irony in the fact that, Charles Martel, who had heroically defeated the invading Islamic army in the 700s, was now buried in an area dominated by people of the Islamic faith.

Hamachi / Louis VXI and Marie Antoinette are also buried in the crypt of the basilica in St-Denis. It really is a surreal experience visiting the site of an incredible amount of French history and then walking out to a street scene that could just as easily be Algiers or Rabat.

Yes, it really is a fascinating thing to witness this great bazaar right as you exit the metro station closest to the church. I actually enjoyed this lively marketplace in October 2015. It is part of the richness of experience that presents itself in Paris.

The stade de France is also right behind the Basilica, a few hundred meters away. There is a huge office park that stretches for miles in that part of the Seine St-Denis. All is not gloom and doom, but France does have to address growing questions of integration vs disintegration.

Kaybaykwah

Kaybaykwah wrote: »

All is not gloom and doom, but France does have to address growing questions of integration vs disintegration.

The whole western world needs to address those issues, because over time, greater degrees of friction arise. It's been the case in every European country, that initially it seems to be relatively fine, but over the years, greater problems come about from all manner of issues, from employment, to clashes over cultural values. This is especially true with the second generation who often feel that they neither belong to their host nations culture, nor their own ethnic culture.

This isn't so much of an issue in non-western nations because there is little expectation that foreign culture could gain a foothold beyond the most superficial of expressions, but also there is a greater obligation to conform to the host nations culture, and common behavior/taboos.

You don't see civil unrest in Japan, or Indonesia due to multiculturalism, because their own cultures remain dominant, even though they both have a sizable foreign born population.

Dyr

Deleted User wrote: »

The whole western world needs to address those issues, because over time, greater degrees of friction arise. It's been the case in every European country, that initially it seems to be relatively fine, but over the years, greater problems come about from all manner of issues, from employment, to clashes over cultural values. This is especially true with the second generation who often feel that they neither belong to their host nations culture, nor their own ethnic culture.

This isn't so much of an issue in non-western nations because there is little expectation that foreign culture could gain a foothold beyond the most superficial of expressions, but also there is a greater obligation to conform to the host nations culture, and common behavior/taboos.

You don't see civil unrest in Japan, or Indonesia due to multiculturalism, because their own cultures remain dominant, even though they both have a sizable foreign born population.

The Japanese assign citizenship by blood, very different to the wests notion.

You can be naturalised as a Japanese citizen but you have to revoke your existing citizenship

You will never see them buy into nonsense like the "New Japanese"

Kaybaykwah

Deleted User wrote: »

The whole western world needs to address those issues, because over time, greater degrees of friction arise. It's been the case in every European country, that initially it seems to be relatively fine, but over the years, greater problems come about from all manner of issues, from employment, to clashes over cultural values. This is especially true with the second generation who often feel that they neither belong to their host nations culture, nor their own ethnic culture.

This isn't so much of an issue in non-western nations because there is little expectation that foreign culture could gain a foothold beyond the most superficial of expressions, but also there is a greater obligation to conform to the host nations culture, and common behavior/taboos.

You don't see civil unrest in Japan, or Indonesia due to multiculturalism, because their own cultures remain dominant, even though they both have a sizable foreign born population.

The immigration patterns in Japan are fairly recent though. There was a minority of maybe 300,000 Koreans and their descendents who did jobs relegated to them like garbage pickup, etc... There are now more foreigners in Japan, but I wouldn't call it a sizeable population. They will accept more people because their native population is aging fast, that is for sure, the other alternative which they seem to like, is to have robot tarecakers for the elderly...

Kaybaykwah

Kaybaykwah wrote: »

The immigration patterns in Japan are fairly recent though. There was a minority of maybe 300,000 Koreans and their descendents who did jobs relegated to them like garbage pickup, etc... There are now more foreigners in Japan, but I wouldn't call it a sizeable population. They will accept more people because their native population is aging fast, that is for sure, the other alternative which they seem to like, is to have robot tarecakers for the elderly...

Is it 2 or 3% foreign population in Japan? Not too sure but don't think it's much more. Ireland is over 18% and rising every year.

AbusesToilets

Kaybaykwah wrote: »

The immigration patterns in Japan are fairly recent though. There was a minority of maybe 300,000 Koreans and their descendents who did jobs relegated to them like garbage pickup, etc... There are now more foreigners in Japan, but I wouldn't call it a sizeable population. They will accept more people because their native population is aging fast, that is for sure, the other alternative which they seem to like, is to have robot tarecakers for the elderly...

Issues like that are temporary though. Population levels will reach homeostasis after a decade or so. Importing immigrants en masse to deal with it is a permanent solution to a transient problem. Same thing with fretting about the declinong birth rates in western countries. For my mind, that's rebalancing things to a more sustainable level. The Boomer generation continue to skew and damage societies, even as they age out.

Punting 365

Punting 365 wrote: »

Muslims hate the west and yet half them would swim across the Med to live in Europe.

Over the past 100 years westerners moved to palestine, as friction increased - riots and unrest, terror groups formed, then small armies. Happened over the course of 100 years, gradually at first...


What were a small number of unwelcome migrants into palestine.... now palestine doesn't exist.

Maybe they are coming over in the hope of reverse repeating this!

Kaybaykwah

Kaybaykwah wrote: »

The immigration patterns in Japan are fairly recent though. There was a minority of maybe 300,000 Koreans and their descendents who did jobs relegated to them like garbage pickup, etc... There are now more foreigners in Japan, but I wouldn't call it a sizeable population. They will accept more people because their native population is aging fast, that is for sure, the other alternative which they seem to like, is to have robot tarecakers for the elderly...

Deleted User wrote: »

Is it 2 or 3% foreign population in Japan? Not too sure but don't think it's much more. Ireland is over 18% and rising every year.

The reference to a sizable population is because the majority of foreign groups will end up in the main cities, where their presence will be known, due to the same clustering of foreign groups, whereby they live/work/play in the same areas. The use of Japan, or Indonesia, were simply examples of cultures which place a greater importance on their own, rather than pandering to others, which is what we see in the West.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that these countries have such a foreign population that is comparable with their own. They have no interest in allowing that. Most of these countries have retained strict immigration laws to prevent mass immigration from occurring. Which I completely understand, and agree with.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Over the past 100 years westerners moved to palestine, as friction increased - riots and unrest, terror groups formed, then small armies. Happened over the course of 100 years, gradually at first...


What were a small number of unwelcome migrants into palestine.... now palestine doesn't exist.

Maybe they are coming over in the hope of reverse repeating this!

Except, of course, Palestine does exist, and the reason it does continue to exist is due to Israel. Palestine would have been conquered and taken over by the other Arab nations in 1948 if Israel hadn't won the war. It's well documented the interests of the Arabs in taking over Palestine.

No. M.Easterners come to Europe because we're prosperous nations, and within a relatively easy distance for travel. The levels of infrastructure, quality of living, accessibility to services, etc all firmly reinforce their own nations as being essentially third world nations. Western nations spread their wealth within their whole territory.. however when you spend any amount of time in M.Eastern nations, wealth and investment is particularly focused on certain groups and certain areas.

Due, in part, to Identity politics, but also due to other reasons, Western culture is going through a hard time resisting the influence of other cultures, since there is little practical consideration given to how many cultures interact with each other. In the past, the only serious consideration was given to western cultures interacting with each other, and an extreme minority of external groups. With the rise of privilege movements, anti-nationalism, etc, Western nations are particularly vulnerable to the influence of non-western groups, and they're going to take advantage of that.

If you were coming from a crap place, you would too. Take every advantage to improve your lives, but also ensure that the culture (and religion) that you believe in should become dominant in your local area, so that your children will grow up surrounded by it... even if you culture hasn't been successful at achieving success. Better to take what others have and adapt it to suit your perspective.

jmreire

Deleted User wrote: »

Except, of course, Palestine does exist, and the reason it does continue to exist is due to Israel. Palestine would have been conquered and taken over by the other Arab nations in 1948 if Israel hadn't won the war. It's well documented the interests of the Arabs in taking over Palestine.

No. M.Easterners come to Europe because we're prosperous nations, and within a relatively easy distance for travel. The levels of infrastructure, quality of living, accessibility to services, etc all firmly reinforce their own nations as being essentially third world nations. Western nations spread their wealth within their whole territory.. however when you spend any amount of time in M.Eastern nations, wealth and investment is particularly focused on certain groups and certain areas.

Due, in part, to Identity politics, but also due to other reasons, Western culture is going through a hard time resisting the influence of other cultures, since there is little practical consideration given to how many cultures interact with each other. In the past, the only serious consideration was given to western cultures interacting with each other, and an extreme minority of external groups. With the rise of privilege movements, anti-nationalism, etc, Western nations are particularly vulnerable to the influence of non-western groups, and they're going to take advantage of that.

If you were coming from a crap place, you would too. Take every advantage to improve your lives, but also ensure that the culture (and religion) that you believe in should become dominant in your local area, so that your children will grow up surrounded by it... even if you culture hasn't been successful at achieving success. Better to take what others have and adapt it to suit your perspective.

And thats it in a nutshell.

rossie1977

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Except, of course, Palestine does exist, and the reason it does continue to exist is due to Israel. Palestine would have been conquered and taken over by the other Arab nations in 1948 if Israel hadn't won the war. It's well documented the interests of the Arabs in taking over Palestine.

No. M.Easterners come to Europe because we're prosperous nations, and within a relatively easy distance for travel. The levels of infrastructure, quality of living, accessibility to services, etc all firmly reinforce their own nations as being essentially third world nations. Western nations spread their wealth within their whole territory.. however when you spend any amount of time in M.Eastern nations, wealth and investment is particularly focused on certain groups and certain areas.

There isn't even many Middle Easterners living in Europe. The vast majority of Arabs living in Europe are from North Western Africa and they are mostly in France and France has had political influence over Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia for over a century.

I played an online game with a Tunisian and he told us he worked outside in 45 degree heat for 10 Euro a day..in that situation it's not surprising people move to France.

jmreire

Yes, and he actually had a job. And Tunisia is not the only Country like that...I stayed in a guest house in a similar Country, (same economic situation ) and one of the staff, slept in the hallway to the bed rooms, in case someone needed something during the day or night. He was about 18 or 19 years old, and got a weekend off once a month to visit his Family,a trip that took him most of a day. So much for very high population nrs that an economy cannot take care of.

Yes, but as with most Human endeavors there are contradictions involved. When you look at Arab based societies, they're hierarchical (so social mobility is almost non-existent), and incredibly corrupt (those with power abuse that power). People without power will want to leave (for Europe or Asia), so that they can provide a better standard of living for themselves and for their families. And while, population centers are low in western nations (of Arabs), they can mix western customs with their own, however, as populations increase, there will be greater pressure to conform to traditional behaviors. This is especially true as people become older, and want the security of traditional beliefs.

After all, Western culture/society doesn't provide much in the way of solid structure for living... The hierarchy system comes back into play, along with the extension of influence. As time goes by, with populations of like minded people increase, the population also becomes older, with a greater focus on traditional beliefs, we see a spread of traditional views on living, along with an intolerance of "others" living outside of that tradition. Since anyone outside of that traditional living, is a threat to the existence of the traditional structure, as young people will be tempted away from the traditional system, therefore reducing the power/authority of the older generations.

So we see a growth and enforcement of traditional cultural values, along with the taboos that provide the structure being applied in a localised area, a geographical area, as that provides the greatest reinforcement of a traditional system. Which is why we see suburbs/neighbourhoods, taken over by various groups, who slowly turn the social norms away from the Host culture, towards that of the ethnic groups living there.

Since western culture places so much importance on individual freedoms and that other cultural expressions should be protected.. we're all vulnerable to imposed change by these groups. Their faiths/cultures are protected, but the host culture isn't. So, natives are forced to accept this foreign culture locally, or be pushed out. Any resistance to those cultures is seen as xenophobic/racist/etc, and so, various enclaves come into being with a degree of "native" flight moving away, and guaranteeing that the new culture becomes dominant. It's a common enough result across Europe, even when the overall numbers of that migrant group remains small compared to the overall population... because they don't need to have overwhelming numbers. Western culture provides a layer of protections and advantages for these groups, giving them the time and space to establish themselves.