Posted: November 8, 2005
© WorldNetDaily.com

by Jack Cashill

The definitive French newspaper, Le Monde, reports deep in its headline November 7 story that for the first time French street terrorists have turned their “colere” (anger) on “eglises,” churches. Over night, they attacked one church in the town of Sete in the south of France and another in the town of Lens in the north.

In Arabic, intifada means “shudder, awakening, uprising.” A mounting, 11-day long attack on policemen, institutions of state, and now Christian churches by bands of angry, Arabic-speaking youth would seem at least as worthy of that term in Paris as it is in Jerusalem.

Of some concern to the British is that Lens is located in Pas-de-Calais, the French departement geographically closest to England. Indeed, every European country with a Muslim population fears that the intifada will erupt in its own quarters.

That much said, neither of Britain’s two most prestigious newspapers, The Times and The Guardian, lead their online editions with the story of the riots, even after the most violent of the 11 nights. The Times’, in fact, cannot check its urge to bash Blair in one article and Bush in a second-- “Bush trade deal failure”—before moving on to the most compelling story every else in the world, “French riots spread.”

In its reporting on France, the Times honors the plot line followed by most of the leading European media, best captured in its haughty summation: “ The subsequent outburst of anger has since fanned out into a nationwide show of disdain for French authority, high unemployment, poor housing and discrimination.”

Neither British publication mentions the church burnings, although virtually all European media have repeated the story of a tear gas grenade launched in front of a mosque under uncertain circumstances. The tear gas story, like the Times summary statement, is used to justify the rioters’ anger and to solidify their role as victims, which is how they choose to see themselves whether in Paris or in Palestine. Indeed it is the rare European editorial, like the one in the (relatively) right-leaning French publication Le Figaro, which discreetly acknowledges that “the descendants of French immigrants” have “too often been soothed by speeches presenting them as victims rather responsible citizens.”

To be sure, the major French media represent the views of the average French citizen about as well NPR and The New York Times represent the views of the average American. It is just that in France the media and government are so centralized in Paris—and so entwined-- that no effective alternative electronic media have emerged. The fact that opposition is so splintered does not help much either.

As a result, the all too silent French majority has watched with mounting frustration over the decades as, in the worlds of the Le Figaro editorial, “Ideology has trumped pragmatism in dealing with the problems of the suburbs.” Le Figaro does not have to specify that the “ideology” in question is the zero sum multiculturalism (ZSM) dominant to the point of intimidation throughout official Europe and North America.

As taught in the schools and implied in the news, ZSM suggests that the minority culture is good and worth defending, but that the majority culture is implicitly racist, oppressive, and worthy only of attack. On the street level, this means it is OK to attack a church, but an outrage to set off tear gas even in front of a mosque.

Until European progressives at least acknowledge the damage their ideology has done, they will have many more sleepless nights in their future and a lot fewer cars and churches.

Jack Cashill spent a year in France as a Fulbright professor at the University of Nancy and visits often.