Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Honest question

With the ongoing riots in Parisian suburbs, I'm genuinely puzzled about a couple of things. Maybe some of y'all can shed some light on this:
  • Even in the event that the police is at least partly to blame for the deaths of the two teenagers (who rode a motorcycle without helmets) - why would the suburbian teenagers think that anything good can come out of waging a war on the police? Or more specifically; how dumb would you have to be to think that someone in their situation would benefit from this?
  • If the police is appointed Main Adversary by the suburbians - exactly how do they think they accomplish anything by setting their neighbors' cars and houses on fire? 'Cause they don't venture to central areas, but opt to torch their own neighborhood.

One has to question the logic in this. Even from an "eye for an eye" perspective, this is more than irrational. You don't see Palestinians exacting revenge on Israeli invaders by torching the next-door Palestinian kebab shop (or whatever the hell would be the equivalent).

6 comments:

Cathy said...

A few years back, when I lived in France, a car got burned just outside my balcony and somebody set a garbage can on fire just after placing it in the elevator of my bulding. Walking up in the middle of the night because of the smoke was quite scary. The site of blackened walls and of that car's shell every day wasn't fun either. The smell was quite tenacious too. They did that on two special occasions: Christmas and New Year's Eve. Oh well, I guess celebrating was in order. But to use two children's tragic death as a pretext to start a "riot" is beyond my wildest expectations.
No W., I'm afraid there's no decent explanation for what's happening.

Anders said...

These things just makes me said. I hate it when mobs takes out their anger on completly innocent people. Regardless of whether they have a right to be angry or not.

Wilhelm said...

I agree - this is pretty disturbing. And C - I can imagine that this must've been scary and depressing.

Cathy said...

I was more angry than scared and depressed at the time. Man, should've gone out and burned myself a car or two. I heard it can be very relaxing.

Unknown said...

Cause they don't venture to central areas, but opt to torch their own neighborhood.One has to question the logic in this.

There's somehow a logic in this (weird but there is)

Indeed, when a car is on fire, the firemen and the police have to show up. Then it's easy to just wait for them and attack them. That's it.

Wilhelm said...

..so in other words they're terrorists, and should be dealt with accordingly, right?

I mean - if they're screwing over a third innocent party in order to have a chance to retaliate against their perceived enemy, they're no different from someone hijacking a plane, right?