Imam Zaid Shakir on the French Riots
Published by Haseeb November 22nd, 2005 in Current News, Zaid ShakirImam Zaid Shakir has recently contributed his thoughts on the recent French violence. The full article is available on Zaytuna.com, and another version in the San Francisco Chronicle.
As the violence that has vexed France recently begins to wind down, the search for explanations is intensifying. Insight can be gained into the causes of those riots by reflecting on the violent disturbances that occurred here during the 1960s…
The rioting in France has similar roots. During the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of North Africans, mostly from the former French colony of Algeria, were encouraged to migrate to France, primarily to engage in manual labor. Herded into suburban ghettos, these immigrants were left isolated in high-crime, drug-infested communities, characterized by under-funded, overcrowded, failing schools. Their children, finding little hope for higher education, or a meaningful economic future, due to the gradual elimination of the economic sectors that had accommodated their parents and grandparents, were bound to explode.
…The description of their suburban ghettos mirrors that of America’s impoverished urban communities. …
Similarly, politically expedient answers, such as attributing the French riots to Islamic radicalism, will not address the deeper causes of the violence. As was the case here in the 1960s, those causes are associated with the existence of barriers to inclusion rooted in racial prejudices and institutionalized discrimination. Overcoming those barriers is a challenging task. However, it is a challenge that should be readily taken up. If that challenge is not met, both here and in France, then the lofty words inspiring our twin revolutions will ring hollow, and the work of democracy will remain unfinished.
What Imam Zaid Shakir says is partially true, there are likeness between France and the United States. Notably when he says :
“The Kerner Commission found no foreign influences, instead it found, “The nation is moving towards two societies, one black, and one white – separate and unequal”.
Certain things are true and others are exaggerated and outside of the reality. But I don’t agree when he says :
Naturally, there are difficulties in France notably in the suburbs of Paris. But the drug didn’t infect our community, on the contrary, no cocaine, heroin or ecstasy… Let us speak about high crime, it’s true that many young people find themselves in prison but to have burn a car, to steal something. They don’t find themselves in prison, for sexual attack, murder, pedophilia… For me they are grave crimes and it’s not the fact of these young people or our community..
With regard to this passage it reflects well the situation of our suburbs but the drug and serious crimes, the confrontation between young people don’t infest our community and simply the France. If there is confrontation it is between the police and the young people.
They said in France that the riots were due to the Islam (manipulation of the young people) or that many Muslims were polygamous (notably those of Black Africa).
It is ridiculous no young person claimed his membership at the Islam, and I don’t see the relationship between the polygamy and the riots. The French government always needs to put back the fault on somebody or something.
What happened in France, is due to a social problem and not a religious problem. However most of the young people who participated in these riots were with majority of Moslem confession and a Christian minority or other.