Riots in France, who and why

The reasons behind the riots in France have resulted in plenty of theories as to why by everyone in the blogosphere and media. Most of these, mine included, have been based on ignorance and designed to fortify preconceived beliefs on what is going on in the world. Today in the Asia Times Ehsan Ahrari has the best analysis I have seen. You should go read all of Why Paris is burning but I give you a few snippets.
Who

Many of these immigrants were known as "Harkins", ie, those Algerians who sided with their French colonial masters during Algeria's struggle to overthrow the yoke of French colonialism. More than 100,000 Harkins were massacred by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) for being "collaborators". Those who entered France "were parked in unspeakable, filthy, crowded concentration camps for many long years and never benefited from any government aid - a nice reward for their sacrifices for France, of which they were, after all, legally citizens".

Today's "ghettoized" protestors and arsonists are the children and grandchildren of those Harkins. Naturally, they "harbor certain resentment" toward France, which long pretended they didn't even exist, as long as they were willing to suffer silently the malignant racism of official and unofficial France.

Why

The answer goes to a detailed description of the hypocrisy of French political culture, which gleefully depicts itself as too civilized, too secular and too "sophisticated" to nurture hostility or animus toward any ethnic group or religion, including Islam. The reality, alas, is quite the contrary.

The demonstrators, to be sure, are young men, mostly of North African origin. Almost all of them are second- or even third-generation Frenchmen, but that depiction remains only in the government record of birth certificates. For the blue-eyed, blonde-haired French, all those young people of North African origin will always be "Africans" or "Arabs", words that manifest their not so latent disdain.

While it's similar to the attitudes that led to the race riots in America in the 60's there is an important difference.

Unlike the racism against African Americans, no North African version of Martin Luther King Jr heightened the political and moral consciousness of the French middle class by declaring, "I have a dream!" The leftist French Catholic priest, Father Christian Delorme, called for the integration of those French people of North African origin, but that did not create a lasting political movement, as with the American civil rights movement of the 1960s.

French Politics feed the fire

The official French response to this violent outburst was epitomized in the petty and selfish ambitions of two French politicians. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy - two contenders for the presidency of France - did not manifest any amount of sophistication or a genuine desire to take immediate proactive measures to calm the situation.

On the contrary, both of them used the unfortunate outbreak of violence to placate the racist feelings of the French extreme right wing. Then Sarkozy decided to outbid his rival, de Villepin, by declaring he would "karcharize" the ghetto (Karcher being the well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peals away the outer skin of encrusted dirt - such as pigeon droppings - even at the risk of damaging what's underneath). The protestors' response was: "It's us who are going to put Sarkozy through the Karcher."

This type of puerile, political one-upmanship is both highly deleterious to the French populace in general and the rioters in particular. If France is serious about integrating its citizens of North African origin, its politicians must immediately deviate from racist and hyperbolic sound bites. For its French Muslims, cooler and mature heads must also prevail in calming the anger of the youngsters.

Go read the entire thing.

Update
Over at The Moderate Voice Jack Grant has some observations. He is currently in France and has seen the violence first hand.

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