The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 14)

p> IS PARIS BURNING? br> Re: Christopher Orlet's From Watts to Paris : /p> p>I noticed that the Europe's scrutiny of Iran's nuclear program has stopped since the rioting. Could it be that Iran is coordinating the riots? br> -- David Govett br> Davis, California /p>

We are forbidden in this politically correct milieu of ours from drawing irresponsibly superficial cultural parallels. The Islamic fundamentalists who are today torching cars in the suburbs of France supposedly have no connection, ideological or otherwise, to the Islamic fundamentalists killing Jews in Palestine, funding al Qaeda in Afghanistan, slaughtering school children in Chechnya, or blowing up cars in Iraq. But one recurring theme does seem to emerge doesn't it?

p>Yet by blindly adhering to the faulty premise of the brotherhood of all nations Mr. Chirac failed to learn a valuable lesson from his own country's history of Arab-European relations, which is that the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns upon a fundamentally foreign culture has seldom been known to override the native religious fervor of the individuals who compose it. And therein lies his problem, which is by extension France's problem, and hardly a problem to be fixed by simply lifting the ban on the wearing of Muslim head scarves in French schools. br> -- Miguel A. Guanipa

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