Positive Liberty

Dr. Kuznicki’s contention that the French riots aren’t “the result of Islamic extremism” may be correct, but still not be the whole story. As with all large scale historical events, there are a variety of causes, and it’s often easy for causes and effects to intertwine. There’s good reason to believe that at least a large part of the Islamic world does see the situation in France as an Intafada. On the other hand, it is also true that there are a great many more, and more complicated, causes for the rioting. The better pundits have (I suspect rightly) blamed the riots on the growth of an extremely insular immigrant population, which, even when it has assimilated in some ways, has failed to do so in many other ways—often because of culturally chauvinistic attitudes among the French themselves. Meanwhile, a stagnant, stratified economy that perpetuates unemployment and essentially punishes entrepreneurship, exacerbates the personal and social distances between people. Now, as we all know from history—e.g., the history of the Weimar Republic—an angry mass of economic and social outcasts, which comes to see itself as exploited by another large segment of the community, is ripe for the picking by radical, violent ideologies. In particular, by ideologies that teach people (especially young men) that their economic and personal woes are the fault of an exploitative race which somehow runs everything and is degrading their own precious culture. Now, assume that I’m right. If militant Islam does offer such outlet to such people, and they adopt it and employ it by engaging in enormous civil unrest, is that the “result” of Islamic extremism? Is it the “cause” of Islamic extremism? In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that a proletariat—a genuine proletariat which is denied the chance of social mobility because the nation’s rulers are busy exploiting them for their own political and economic gain—is finding a violent outlet for its anger. As Kuznicki puts it, “with such widespread resentment and alienation, it might not take much before organized terrorist elements gain the foothold that they don’t now seem to have.” Pessimist that I am, I suspect it’s already too late.

Trackback URI |