If Only The Names Were Changed

The New York Times has a piece, Immigrants Dreams Mixed With Fury Near Paris, which is as ridiculous as it is disturbing. The article, by Elaine Sciolino is a purported 'heartfelt' look at the plight of Muslims in France. The article could just have well been written Dr Sanity, whose post on victimization must have served as a template for Ms Sciolino's drivel.

If one were to replace the words 'Muslim' or 'Arab', with 'Italian', Irish', 'Jewish' or 'Greek', the magnitude of stupidity of the NYT piece would be immediately apparent.

One 22 year old Arab says,

"The sun never shines," he said. "The buildings are gray. The people are gray. Everything is gray. It's the same people and there is nothing to do, nothing to do. You wake up every morning looking for work. But why? There isn't any."

When Italian and Jewish immigrants landed in NY, they were often assaulted with baseball bats as they got off the boat. Literally. They didn't speak the language- and yet they managed to find work and began the process of becoming a part of the fabric of America. To be clear, immigrants to France and other European countries managed to integrate into their respective societies, too.

Outside the Balzac, the toughest public-housing apartment block in this tough town outside Paris, a young man rams a Peugeot into a parked car, piercing the afternoon ennui with the sound of crashing metal and tinkling glass. No police officers witness the act, but a band of comrades approve it with a loud whoop.

Can you imagine that sport a regular part of an Italian or Greek nighborhood? The image of Italian and Greek matriarchs raining down the fury of God upon those fools comes to mind. And yet, we are expected to 'understand' these victims- and forgive their hatreds.

One immigrant mother said the following about her son:

a "good boy who makes mistakes, doesn't work but has a golden heart. He has everything ahead of him. Our young are not bad. They are very loyal to each other, like a family. All is not completely lost."

And just who is her son?

"I didn't have a choice; the national education system told me what I had to study even though I wanted to know right at the beginning whether there would be a job at the end," he said over coffee with three of his friends at Le Pasteur, a cafe-restaurant. "People on the outside see us as car-burners and strange beings, when what I want at 22 is not to have to ask my mother for money."

The French bastards wanted him to get a high school education. Bastards.

His mother is helping out- with strange ground rules for such a 'good boy'.

His mother has paid $400 for a training program so that Looping can get a special license to drive construction vehicles. He is grateful, despite the strict rules she imposes on him - the early curfews, the limits on his comings and goings, the careful monitoring of his friendships.

Somehow, being grateful to his mother is an extraordinary gesture on his part, one we must celebrate.

But he is disgusted by the litter in the hallways and the habits some of the new immigrants, who toss trash out the windows and allow their young children to wander the streets. "They even throw diapers out the windows," he said. "It's miserable to say this, but it's as if we live in a garbage dump, so what difference does it make if there is one more bag of trash thrown into it?"

Ever see an Italian, Greek or Polish neighborhood described that way? Woe unto the child- any neighborhood child- that might be inclined to litter or dump refuse in those neighborhoods! Every child had a hundred mothers and another 200 aunts. That's the way it was.

We once witnessed, first hand, how a classmate was celebrated by his parents and family when it was announced he was to be our class salutarian. The praise and joy could not be more effusive, we thought- until the rest of the neighborhood came to share in the celebrations. It was like the Feast of San Genaro was being celebrated, all in his honor. That closely knit group of immigrants might celebrate his his good fortune together- and they would just as quickly take him out to the woodshed together. They understood community, identity, pride and family.

Read the whole article- and replace the word 'Arabs' and 'Muslim' with any other ethnic group. The word 'victim' doesn't even enter the equation.