tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8435065948620169670.post2720367889349489195..comments2023-08-29T03:31:24.755-07:00Comments on Under the Burning Bridge: France's 'race' and 'terrorist' issues highlight the failure of laïcité and social policyFripouillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321346986665375480noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8435065948620169670.post-14130908082742050942012-10-08T13:27:04.799-07:002012-10-08T13:27:04.799-07:00Helo Greg, and you offer some very pertinent opini...Helo Greg, and you offer some very pertinent opinions. I too am an atheist and as such in favour of secularism, but I consider that France's strict interpretation of it is doing more bad than good in today's world. I was particularly struck by this;<br /><br />"People that were immigrants and felt ostracized from the community suddenly latch on with a huge fervor to something that allows them some kind of family, some kind of core value, no matter how abhorrent they may be to others."<br /><br />That is incontestably true. Moreover, and as an extrapolation, extremist Muslim groups the world over (most notably Hezbollah) have recognised this and developed vast networks of social aid and education (according to their version of history) to Muslim populations and organisations.<br /><br />And this is why in my view more effort should be made to integrate France's immigrant populations. <br /><br />(Oh and by the way, your English is excellent! :)<br /><br />Fripouillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14321346986665375480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8435065948620169670.post-49251415772936300022012-10-08T13:08:17.706-07:002012-10-08T13:08:17.706-07:00But do you really think it's defusable ? Past ...But do you really think it's defusable ? Past policies have made it so that a large part of the immigrant population has been s*** upon for a long time. Sufficient time for this group to have absolutely no desire to integrate into the general population.<br /><br />Personally, I'm all in favour of laicite, even though I feel it has been used as an excuse to legislate against anything that is deemed "un-french", and that France's long christian history tends to muddle the water (veil in school, official christian holidays....).<br /><br />I'm an atheist, my parents are as well and so were my grand-parents which make if not religion as a whole, but very religious people quite alien to me. Yet my parents baptized me. "In case"my mother told me "I became religious". <br /><br />Which shows quite a bit that even though the country is officially laic, Catholicism is still the faith of choice for some.<br />If not as a religion, as a culture and past people can rally around.<br /><br />Like you said laicite is not something one can really build a country around, and after living for some time where Christianity has been somewhat neutered, suddenly being faced with another culture with it's own more vibrant religion people act like asshats.<br /><br />People that were immigrants and felt ostracized from the community suddenly latch on with a huge fervor to something that allows them some kind of family, some kind of core value, no matter how abhorrent they may be to others.<br /><br />And I can't really see how the damage that has been done can be repaired,I've gone from thinking about ways to defuse it to thinking about what I will do when it blows up.<br /><br /><br />(sorry I'm out of practice with my English)<br /><br /><br />greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00469439564549455472noreply@blogger.com