Paris burning

[Marla_Singer]

While I agree with what you wrote in the second part, I don't really like the tone of the term "foreigners". You might be better informed if you are a local person, but at the same time you can be as much biased as the "foreigners".

True. However with experience I've realized that the image France has abroad is totally disconnected from the reality of the country. And people living in the US, Russia or China interprets those events according to the vision they have about France, which is already totally off the point.

I've seen many documentaries on TV about those recent events with things such as a team of rioters being followen during a whole night by the police, or about people in the neighbourhoods giving their opinion, etc... No one ever mentions Islam. The rioters hate France, that's obvious. They consider their country is the one from which their parents come from. They wear cloathes about West Indies, Africa, or North Africa, some wear their pant above the anckle in honour to their ancestors who were reduced to slavery. But there's nothing about Islam... for the simple reason that those kids don't know anything about religion, and the only thing those from North African origins see in Islam is the fact it's the religion in "their" country. It's a matter of identity, it's not about spirituality.

It's not like "foreigners" are all biased and narrow-minded, in fact in many cases offering a perspective from outside can help in understanding the situation.
And since French are also foreigners for everybody else, your statement could be turned easily.
And those who still buy anything from the corporate media... well, they really deserve it.

I'm sorry, but when Fox News is arguing it's about the veil being banned from French school, they base their opinion on no facts. It's not an insult, it's simply ignorance.

It's certainly not about people being narrow-minded, it's simply that they know nothing of the country they talk about. And when I see a map of France as the one CNN has broadcasted, I'm sorry to tell you that I even doubt they've put one foot in France in their whole life.

 

[kryszcztov]

I even doubt they've put one foot in France in their whole life

Nor watched any French movie. And BTW I should watch "La Haine" again, I saw it looong ago... Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie's lover), and that motto ("So far... so good")...

Whereas we Frenchies and other people in Europe and overseas are completely invaded by American movies. Not that they all picture the reality, but when you know that around half the movies here are American, despite the very strong French movie dynamics, you got to know the USA quite well. And I've never put a foot on the American continent. That's Lars von Trier's opinion as well (to make good measure ). Many Europeans would have a good idea where all the American states are, whereas I doubt the same can be said about Americans knowing the European regions (where is Auvergne ? where is Bayern ? were is Andalusia ? where is Piemonte ?). Not that we're superior or more intelligent, but mostly because we're driven into knowing America. Like the people knowing the lord (not God) and not vice-versa (since the USA are so keen on being the world superpower).

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Ok everybody, there you have it, its official: from now on, only people who have been to France, or have seen a French movie, can comment on events in France. What a bunch of baloney

 

[Marla_Singer]

Ok everybody, there you have it, its official: from now on, only people who have been to France, or have seen a French movie, can comment on events in France. What a bunch of baloney

The only newsmagazine I receive every week is called "Courrier International", it's about press stories coming from the whole world which are translated in French. In that news magazine, there are also articles about France from various countries, and they are always very interesting to read.

DP, the point isnt that anything foreign is necessarily irrelevant, that's crap. However, there are everything in this world, insightful stories about France coming from foreign points of view, but unfortunately there are also superficial analysis which are off the point. Saying the law about the veil has anything to do with the recent events is unfortunately part of the second category.

This being said, I've been very interested by the articles from the british newspaper "The Independent". As you see, there's everything in this world. It's granted that we can have very insighful analysis coming from foreign countries, but unfortunately we can also have totally superficial analysis.

Bozo, have you seen that map of France from CNN ?

There it is :

Just to compare, he's an actual map of France.

How can you explain CNN can broadcast such a screwed map when you just have to type "France map" on google to get something accurate ?

 

[Leha]

Nor watched any French movie. And BTW I should watch "La Haine" again, I saw it looong ago... Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie's lover), and that motto ("So far... so good")...

Whereas we Frenchies and other people in Europe and overseas are completely invaded by American movies. Not that they all picture the reality, but when you know that around half the movies here are American, despite the very strong French movie dynamics, you got to know the USA quite well. And I've never put a foot on the American continent. That's Lars von Trier's opinion as well (to make good measure ). Many Europeans would have a good idea where all the American states are, whereas I doubt the same can be said about Americans knowing the European regions (where is Auvergne ? where is Bayern ? were is Andalusia ? where is Piemonte ?). Not that we're superior or more intelligent, but mostly because we're driven into knowing America. Like the people knowing the lord (not God) and not vice-versa (since the USA are so keen on being the world superpower).

May be european movies are not good enough to give us picture of Europe?
You know, it's not like that I watch movie to learn about geography. But there are allways good pieces of art that give us urge to know more about place of events. "Notre Dame de Paris" for example.
People watch Hollywood stuff just because it is more "watchable". Nothing to complain about.

 

[Leha]

I think they just had this Radeon bug thing.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I think they just had this Radeon bug thing.

Yeah right. And none of their so "insightful" journalists noticed it...

 

[Urederra]

Yeah right. And none of their so "insightful" journalists noticed it...

THey might have been very busy beta testing Civ IV....

 

[Leha]

Actually, city placement is not very good.

 

[EdwardTking]

The mistake the immigrants made was to speak French.

Now us "rosbifs" know better!

Say "Bonjour Monsieur" with your worst accent,
and the French decide that the only thing
worse than speaking in English is having
an illingual englishman mangling lu franckais.

 

[Masquerouge]

There is an excellent article about France and its problem facing its colonial legay in the NYT of today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/international/europe/11france.html

It pretty much explains why the current stance that worked at unifying France after the Revolution fails now.

 

[klazlo]

True. However with experience I've realized that the image France has abroad is totally disconnected from the reality of the country. And people living in the US, Russia or China interprets those events according to the vision they have about France, which is already totally off the point.

I don't disagree with you. But French aren't any better when judging other countries than other country nationals when judging France. If the riots would be in the Czech Republic, those peope in Prague could be equally mad.

I'm sorry, but when Fox News is arguing it's about the veil being banned from French school, they base their opinion on no facts. It's not an insult, it's simply ignorance.

I wouldn't call Fox News "media", that is pretty much just extremist rubbish crap. I've been a journalist before I turned into a sociologist, and what Fox does is simply outraging. It doesn't even make any sense to come up with them.

It's certainly not about people being narrow-minded, it's simply that they know nothing of the country they talk about. And when I see a map of France as the one CNN has broadcasted, I'm sorry to tell you that I even doubt they've put one foot in France in their whole life.

Yes, I've seen your CNN map at least three times... And that just proves my point about the lazyness and inaccuracy of the corporate media.

 

[Leonel]

Ok everybody, there you have it, its official: from now on, only people who have been to France, or have seen a French movie, can comment on events in France. What a bunch of baloney

Hahaha how ironic. When America experienced Katrina that exposed injustice and discrimination, France had a field day but now that France has been exposed to have injustice and discrimination in its own shores, they don't like us to make even a sniff! If you looked up the definition of Irony, you would see a picture of the riots in Paris.

 

[Sparta]

Look on the bright side - at least they've graduated to only making glaring mistakes in city placement, rather than whole countries ...

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Hahaha how ironic. When America experienced Katrina that exposed injustice and discrimination, France had a field day but now that France has been exposed to have injustice and discrimination in its own shores, they don't like us to make even a sniff! If you looked up the definition of Irony, you would see a picture of the riots in Paris.

Nah it was Bozo who turned kryszcztov words around by assuming that kryszcztov said that No American could give a worthwile input on this topic because he was never in France.I think what kryszcztov ment was that people being actually closer to the event unfolding have sometimes an theoretical x% more insight in the situation than outsiders ,wich is matehematics of probabilety probably the case to.

Ive never been to the USA...

Afcourse there more mathematical factore's involved to insight in a event ,but for characterlimit sake lets keep out of that.However i ,probably we in general ,notice a certain rift in this discussion between Europeans and American's because of fundamentaly different viewpoints.

Now i'm still a European ,but i'm no Frenchy ,and there are many non-French Europeans who seem to share the French general oppinion.Afcourse for most Europeans France represent an important partner in the EU ,hence certain interrests are shared.

What i do notice though is some hostilety from American posters ,a sort of feeling of shadenfruede towards france ,an evolution probably because of recent events like Iraq and the growing anti-French attitude in America.

Repeatedly certain American's posters have tried to blame "the muslims" for this problem (maybe because they have problems with muslims themself) while the French specificly note that this event has nothing to do with Islam.

And that it hasn't anything to do with Islam has been so far well documented and backed by sources here.Actually you can read sources here posted by an American who wanted to make the Islam argument ,but used sources that countradicted hisargument fully.

Now we have the Katrina argument ,different situation altoghether.Katrina's main failure laid in the fact that The most potent country in the world logisticly unsurpassed failed to deliver certin basic needs to people in a disaster zone.It's a different matter ,but Rescue aid in Eruope has a fairly different form.Because of the diplomatic ties and interrest ,often when a disaster happens in Europe youll see an over-extended aproach to the situation ,sometimes because just to many EU members want to make a nice expression by sending aid.I guess that many Europeans genneraly have an excelent impression of EU aid work in disaster zone's ,and that we were surprized by the way the Katrina disaster was handled.Though granted it was a BIG city ,on such scale it might have been difficult for the EU too.

However ,nevertheless i must pound on the fact that very few people got hurt in this event ,even katrine featured way more death ,and in a sense from a humanistic point of view this situation was very well managed ,and i think most EU country's have respect for that.Afcourse as to effeciancy of succes such a soft aproach has ,well lets see.

But i don't think France will just deal with this situation and then neglect it again for decade's.Politicly and socialy it will have been an important event ,hopefully it will have the effects of constructive reforms in the future.

On the other hand ,none of the French posters are claming that no mistake's have been made.If you want to argue that these people have been to a certain level discriminated then Most Europeans will easily agree to that ,That is actually our point anyway.Would Americans admit that people in New orleans were dscriminated?

 

[Babbler]

Look on the bright side - at least they've graduated to only making glaring mistakes in city placement, rather than whole countries ...

OMG...

They put Poland in the wrong place!

It should be west of Germany! WEST!

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Ok everybody, there you have it, its official: from now on, only people who have been to France, or have seen a French movie, can comment on events in France. What a bunch of baloney

No kidding.

Just a question, but why don't they just send in the military to calm them down. It could be what one of my friends said, "The French Military: Last in, First to Run." Well, I have to admit he is a little crazy. But he can be hilarious at times.

 

[Elrohir]

It will depend on the situation. Japanese did it in WWII and nobody thinks that Japanese are crazy violents. When you are at war things are different.

Not the Japanese in general, but I doubt there are many who deny that the Kamikaze's were crazy violent people. Your own example works against you, I never claimed all Muslims were violent terrorists, if you read my initial post I quite clearly stated that many Muslims chose to live a life of peace despite what Mohammed did, something I commend them for.

Do you know words like Crusades or Inquisition? Christians also did terrible things and afterwards managed to make a different interpretation to their book. Besides, no one is killing infidels in Paris, so don´t get things out of proportion.

Those events are vastly overstated, and i'm sick of hearing about them. Do you know words like "Jihad" or "genocide"? Look up the slaughter of the Banu Qurayza, and the other Jewish tribes by Mohammed, and then get back to me with your "Islam is peace, Mohammed was a peaceful man" crap.

Welll, Elrohir, I know you'd like to make your own personnal little Crusade against Islam, and that facts doesn't really matter when you wish something to be like you want, but we actually live in the country, we actually know it (as stunning as it may be ), and we are actually getting information from sources which doesnt put Toulouse in the middle of Switzerland and Strasbourg in the middle of Germany, so I dare to say we know a bit more about this situation than Americans who are unable to even get their locations on a map, much less to teach us about the subtleties of our own society.

Maybe if I was part of CNN and made that map, then you would have a point. But I'm not, so you're just wasting your breath. your "We're Europeans so we know more than you ever could about this" argument is stupid, just because I am not European does not mean I cannot learn about European politics and events. You are not American, and yet I don't think you have any trouble commenting on American politics. Hypocrite.

 

[theim]

Nor watched any French movie. And BTW I should watch "La Haine" again, I saw it looong ago... Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie's lover), and that motto ("So far... so good")...

Whereas we Frenchies and other people in Europe and overseas are completely invaded by American movies. Not that they all picture the reality, but when you know that around half the movies here are American, despite the very strong French movie dynamics, you got to know the USA quite well. And I've never put a foot on the American continent. That's Lars von Trier's opinion as well (to make good measure ). Many Europeans would have a good idea where all the American states are, whereas I doubt the same can be said about Americans knowing the European regions (where is Auvergne ? where is Bayern ? were is Andalusia ? where is Piemonte ?). Not that we're superior or more intelligent, but mostly because we're driven into knowing America. Like the people knowing the lord (not God) and not vice-versa (since the USA are so keen on being the world superpower).

It's not our fault if your movies suck and people like ours better. But here's some advice. Quit subsidizing (sp?) the entertainment industry. If all they're going to pump out is utter dreck, don't give them money for it.

 

[FriendlyFire]

ROFLMAO We must have missed France invading germany during the last week or so.