I understand the biases you are trying to dispell, but I do not agree with your interpretation in the slightest. The reason for these riots is because of the French/European social model which segregates a specific subgroup into concentrated publicly subsidized slum neighborhoods (although the housing itself isn’t always so bad). The population that is isolated and self-isolating from the general society faces an even more accute version of the general French/European malaise—the unemployment rates hovering around 10%, the restrictive work and business regulations, the near total rejections of the young males by French females, etc. So far it would seem that I haven’t said anything all that different from what you are focusing on.

But the reason why these people are seperate from the general culture is because they have been kept from assimilating/encouraged when they choose to actively reject assimilation (and even when they promise to tear down the europe they choose not to leave). And the reason why they are kept seperate is because of their source of origin. The word religion may be tricky in this sense, because an unreformed Islam is not a religion in the sense that the secularized post-modern West thinks of religion. It is more traditional in that it is an identifying thought and life system which combines elements of basic life practices (otherwise looked at as worship and belief—you are told what to do rather than what to feel) and a nationhood/peoplehood that crosses national borders.

These riots aren’t limited to only one factor, and they are spiraling out of control as any release of so much pent up energy will… transforming beyond what may have been the original causes. But it’s hard to deny that a violent rejectionist Islamism is the predominant force in the breeding grounds throughout Europe for the kind of discontent which fuels these fires. Yes, the general young (and not so young) thugs of Europe who seek to take advantage of the failings of the social state will be out in force in any situation like this, mixed right in with the Islamist oriented crowds to the point where it’s hard to tell who is who.

But just with other sicknesses, when the body is weakened by one assault, it makes it all that much easier for other things to go wrong, often in groups, and for the symptoms to come together until they form something worse. A general Islamist-influenced uprising in segregated Eurabia is that something worse.

But this isn’t just standard immigrant isolation. You have to willfully ignore the other factors involved in order to reach such a conclusion. Islamism (not the same as Islam) plays a much larger role than other ethno-national identifying traits, because it is an ideology—not just a source of origin. There is a war going on. A long war that started decades ago. It makes no sense to look only at impersonal systemic variables and not recognize that the x’s and y’s we are talking about are people—attuned to the world they live in, internalizing whatever stories about themselves they choose to for better and for worse, and living in the context of their times, locations, and the war that is intimately about them. The experiences and actions of these rioters and of the groups they come from cannot just be reduced to some standard formulaic interpretation that corresponds to all unintegrated minorities surrounded by any sea of some majority with customs different than their own. Values matter. Interests matter. The general pattern of what makes up the day to day focus, desires, behaviors, and all of the rest of the lives of these people matter. What these people choose to do will have just as much of a concrete impact (or more) as the theories of social and economic determinism that you seem to be giving so much emphasis.

No, there isn’t anything inherent to the people of the Islamic world that makes them have a monopoly on turning violently radicalized, and many other peoples have gone through periods of the same, including to a degree as violent as pretty much any other group in history the many European tribes/nations. But the reality today is that there is an irreconcilable wing of Islam that is out looking for a reckoning with us, and whether these rioters originally intended to feed right into that, they are doing so. No doubt about it.

I am not saying that all the rioters are Islamists. I am saying that Islamism is the strongest beneficiary of these riots and is the fuel feeding them. Islamism is irrevocably bound up in these riots. It is the predominant factor along with the failed French/European social model—which itself has a symbiotic relationship with Islamism. Giving nuture to it’s rise out of weakness, appeasement, and a general array of terrible social policy.

Radical Islamist movements have the possibility of feeding off the dissatisfaction from the riots, but you are far wrong when you say it is fueling them. As Chirol and others noted, the main culprits in the violence are young dissaffected immigrant youth with poor prospects for employment, not Jihadies out to expand the Ummah. I believe someone noted that the average age of rioters that have been arrested so far is only 16? These people hardly qualify as ultra-pious to begin with, they are modern ghetto thugs who as Chirol said and are drawn not only from Muslim Arabs but from the entire spectrum of the French immigrant community.

I have to agree with J.Kende. Aren’t these disaffected youth the perfect recruits for Jihad? Not that everything is fuelled by jihadists, but I think that they are playing some kind of role in it all, what with the coordination of attacks going on.

Overall, it may mostly or largely be rioting for rioting’s sake, but it seems that Jihadist elements are involved to some degree and as with right and left extremists, I’m sure the Jihadies are trying to take full advantage of the situation to further their ends.

I don’t see what evidence you have that these riots aren’t at all related to the Islamist activities in Europe. What seems clear from pulling together all of the many sources of information on these events (even while they continue to develop) is that the riots are a mix of three things: 1) youth lashing out at social model (with similarities to race and class riots of the past), 2) a flare up of the European front (specifically the unresolved conflict between a failing Europe and an unassimilated and radicalized Arab Islamic and Islamist population), 3) all purpose civic mayhem. It’s one thing for small groups to coordinate by cell phone, but riots spreading nationwide where the specific tactics employed seem to be followed to the degree we are seeing, is not likely without some organiztion from worse elements. And to show such a political insightfulness in choice of targets and going right up to the line of how hard it is ok to push while getting away with it—that it is not common amongst the “wild rampaging youth” you argue in favor of it exclusively being. If they really are just upset youth on the rampage, the destruction pattern would be more haphazard.

But again, I’m not at all saying that rampaging upset youth aren’t involved, or don’t make up the majority of people involved… What I am saying is that they are swept up in the current of events beyond their own choosing in many ways at this point, and that the events have become already more than that simple lashing out by youth which many wish to view it as. I don’t understand why you don’t give more consideration to where these riots started, and what the history of these ghettoized suburbs has been as hotbeds of Islamist radicalism and organization, as well as being places where the police simply don’t go. There is more here going on than just the French versions of Crown Heights and Watts.

Where you get this “rabid fear” thesis from, I don’t get either. It should not be a choice between fearing Islam on the one hand and Dr. Pangloss on the other. There is a world of room in between, and I think that is where the reality of these riots can be found.

Thank you Chief. I think you are absolutely right on all of that.

Here is another link to add to the growing collection of perspectives.

Stratfor agrees:

A Question of Integration

For more than a week, France has been torn by riots that have been, for the most part, concentrated in the poorer suburbs of Paris. The rioters essentially have been immigrants—or the children or grandchildren of immigrants—most of whom had come to France from its former colonies. They are, in many cases, French citizens by right of empire. But what is not clear is whether they ever became, in the fullest sense of the word, French. And in that question rests an issue that could define European—and world—history in the 21st century

The rest is for subscribers only.

Chirol, you said:

No, I do understand that is a big problem, however, to use Barnett’s soundbite, it’s the disconnectedness which equals danger, not Islam.

I like barnett, but he is touchy when discussing islam. Yes disconnectedness defines danger, but what causes disconnectedness? France has a large vietnamese population and slavic immigrant population, why aren’t those youthes rioting?

When Barnett is asked, “why is the islamic world so disconnected today?” he will reply “not enough equality for women.” Thats true, but is it not the religious tradition of Islam that causes the inequality? That secular government an religious pluralism (the critical rulesets of the core )also violate scriptural tenets of Islam?

If you need proof that Islam has something to do with the riots, watch the rioters proclaim allah’u akbar! in this video:
http://media.putfile.com/French-riots
Also Rioters are avoiding destruction of muslim property
http://www.nysun.com/article/22671

The source of the disconnectedness has to do with a refusal for the previous generation to distance themselves from islamic family traditions and assimilate to western society; their kids are now wards of a welfare state they dont feel a part of; they adopt the worst of both worlds; and Islam is like a unifying badge amongst rioters defining “us versus them.”