Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

I would say the Paris riots have more to do with the current IR laws than the terrorism laws. Why? Because the riots are primarily a result of an over regulated employment market keeping economic growth low and unemployment high. But to try and say it is because of Rap music is even more of a stretch!

James Squires, I agree that there is a direct correlation between a highly regulated labour market and high unemployment (particularly youth and long-term unemployed). Something we should consider in regard to Australia's big fuss over IR laws.

But I also think that the French situation is little more complicated than just unemployment. Sure it's a major factor, but France is also a very racist country. The non-white immigrants are being treated as outsiders, while the French political and media establishment dismiss this as absurd. A perfect cocktail for social unrest.

The riots have everything to do with the latter day misadventure of socialism. So yes their system of IR and the unemployment due to it plays a major role.

Idle minds means idle time and going from the unemployment figures there are plenty around. I hope you're reading this Damian Lataan because the answer to the problems in Paris is for the French to turn their collective backs on socialism once and for all.

The UK has and let's just compare the nations shall we?

I think Theodore Dalrymple summed up the problem well in his article titled Barbarians at the Gates of Paris:

"Whether France was wise to have permitted the mass immigration of people culturally very different from its own population to solve a temporary labor shortage and to assuage its own abstract liberal conscience is disputable: there are now an estimated 8 or 9 million people of North and West African origin in France, twice the number in 1975—and at least 5 million of them are Muslims. Demographic projections (though projections are not predictions) suggest that their descendants will number 35 million before this century is out, more than a third of the likely total population of France.

"Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim. But it has separated and isolated immigrants and their descendants geographically into dehumanizing ghettos; it has pursued economic policies to promote unemployment and create dependence among them, with all the inevitable psychological consequences; it has flattered the repellent and worthless culture that they have developed; and it has withdrawn the protection of the law from them, allowing them to create their own lawless order…

"But among the third of the population of the cités that is of North African Muslim descent, there is an option that the French, and not only the French, fear. For imagine yourself a youth in Les Tarterets or Les Musiciens, intellectually alert but not well educated, believing yourself to be despised because of your origins by the larger society that you were born into, permanently condemned to unemployment by the system that contemptuously feeds and clothes you, and surrounded by a contemptible nihilistic culture of despair, violence, and crime. Is it not possible that you would seek a doctrine that would simultaneously explain your predicament, justify your wrath, point the way toward your revenge, and guarantee your salvation, especially if you were imprisoned? Would you not seek a “worthwhile” direction for the energy, hatred, and violence seething within you, a direction that would enable you to do evil in the name of ultimate good? It would require only a relatively few of like mind to cause havoc. Islamist proselytism flourishes in the prisons of France (where 60 percent of the inmates are of immigrant origin), as it does in British prisons; and it takes only a handful of Zacharias Moussaouis to start a conflagration."

Jay White Sorry, but wrong, wrong, wrong. See this and this It's not socialism any more than it's right wing policies. It's French. We've had that discussion already.

"Voters rejected the proposed EU Constitution. They were not fooled by the politicians' fake vision, a virtual Europe. They saw how it could only lead to more ghettos of those cast aside by the march of the globalised economy."

A globalised economy creates ghettos? This is France we're discussing here, the great nemesis of global competition.

Just the opposite is true. The ghettos were created, at least in part, due to strict labor laws and regulations that place a disincentive on French businesses to hire. When they do hire, they desire only the best prospective employees. There is little margin for error.

Remove rules and strictures on labor practices and France would enable the market place to seek the best ingredients for a successful business. Where the lower tiers of the French working class can obtain competitively lower wages AT FIRST and where businesses know that they are able to shed such workers in years of business downturn, employers will seek out such persons TO HIRE FIRST. If they're working, chances are they will be too tired to torch a Renault.

Jay White your assertion that the riots in France are connected with 'socialism' are completely baseless.

You use the recent French example of civil disorder to push a barrow without ANY basis in fact. You completely ignore more credible explanations for the riots, such as the failure of the French policy of assimiliation.

You don't seem interested in exploring the real issues involved in the French riots, rather your interest is in linking these events with your own hobby horse. You use the people involved, the chaos created and distort any lessons to be learned for your own purpose. You have little knowledge of what is happening France and the little you do know you twist to meet your own agenda, which appears to be to beat 'socialists' about the head.

Your theory of socialism = riots has more holes in it than a French cheese. Where for example are the riots in Switzerland or Sweden or Norway? Or Germany? Or in fact in any other EEC country?

There are important lessons to be learned from what's occuring in France, lessons of alienation and its destructive expression. Riots in Macquarie Fields and Redfern in Sydney in the past year seem to me to contain much of the same flavour. But nothing is to be gained by using these events to push ideological barrows.

Anthony Daniels, rightwing conservative, rarely if ever writes anything pro-Islam, especially as his Theo Dalrymple nom de plume. If he can stick the knife in he will, check out his writings for yourself. Rather consistent non? It makes his Islam phobia a little tediously predictable.

Why do right wingers peddle their known bigotry writers and expect anyone to be interested? They are the first to dismiss the "left wing" writers of Pilger and Chomsky etc. How does one find a non-biased writer to consider, or non labelled-into-one-camp = author that can't be dismissed as such? That is starting to be the modern day challenge of the armchair analyst.

Come on Ron, haven’t you any other sources of educated non biased writings that we can all discuss? What do you think of the Ecuadorian riots lately, the Moslem model doesn't fit too well does it, but the underprivileged injustice model perhaps does. Same as here with Macquarie fields and Redfern-or should we be sending Aborigines back?

Personally I think the intelligent response has been from De Villepin, showing statesmanship that France needs in times such as these, and promising to cure the ills of social deprivation. Saky is proven himself a rabid right intent on causing trouble, for what ever reasons one conjectures. Perhaps wedge politics for the coming election, that’s be known to happen before.

Do we have any of those here? Any fomenting ethnic or religious tensions or bigotry? They are truly the enemy of our happy society. That is what we should be looking out for isn't it Ron? "Never Again" is such a potent message as to how it can all end.

Gareth Eastwood - Yes it is more complicated than just unemployment, but racism is being used (in my personal opinion) as an easy answer to a complicated question. Racism exists everywhere (unfortunately). For example, look at how Indians and Bangladeshis are treated in Saudi Arabia (or the entire middle east). Yet there is no rioting.

I see the French are beginning to try and formulate an answer along the 'racism' line of thought, but it is not racism alone that results in high unemployment for the poor. The unemployment rate in France at the moment is close to 10%. Among the people involved in the rioting, it is 25%. But the uneducated are always the hardest hit by slow economic activity, so you would expect a higher rate of unemployment in these areas regardless of race. So I think that France should be focusing on lifting all people out of the unemployment trap, rather than those from the affected areas. To do this, it will require massive restructuring of the economy (along the lines of the 'Anglo Saxon model' much despised in France). Unfortunately, when a country is itself on a form of welfare (9.4 billion euros in farm subsidies anyone?), it will be awfully difficult to put these reforms in place.

Ron Wright - Yes, that article should be required reading. An excellent article!

And Jay, I wouldn’t hold my breath for a response.

Really James,

And precisely what is the difference between the riots occasioned by this 'highly regulated labour market' that you seem to know so much about, and the riots that occur in US cities every decade or so, where the labour market is regulated solely by the market? What explains the high levels of unemployment among young black males in the US? A highly regulated labour market? High welfare? Hmmm. The attempt to link the French riots with IR laws is simply beyond thunderdome. It makes as much sense as blaming the London suicide bombers of July 7th on the unregulated labour market of Blair's UK. But I guess in this environemnt, where we are told we have to take a pay cut to ensure that our wages stay high, any old argument will do, no matter how ludicrous.

Damian, ho hum... Yawn... You're more than predictable, even more than Jay White.

“…the answer to the problems in Paris is for the French to turn their collective backs on socialism once and for all.”

What poppycock, Jay White. Entrenched quasi-facism and years of pent up racial hatreds that are left over from France’s days as a colonial power are at the root of today’s unrest and violence in France. To even suggest socialism had anything to do with it demonstrates your ignorance and disregard for the facts and reality.

What we have quite simply is an impoverished and angry French youth who have nothing to lose when confronting a taunting racist Gendarme and CRS.

Socialism has nothing to do with it – it’s the lack of it that’s the problem!

Jay, do you actually read the articles, or is this just a forum for you to push your own agenda. The article was about how 60 minutes tailored the story to suit the message they wanted to send.

I suspect we will see much more of this. We have already seen how willing the media were to suppress certain (anti-war) views and commentary prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Sadly much of mainstream media (especially Murdoch media - suprise, suprise) has become merely a mouthpiece for covert (and not so covert) Government propaganda.

It is important that especially in these times we are critical and enquiring about the 'information' we are being given.

To much is at stake to blindly believe everything we are told. Fortunately through the internet, one has access to sites such as this, and a variety of foreign media as well.

Using a diversity of sources one can usually get a much clearer picture of what is going on.

"The French people are not stupid, nor are the Nine Network audience, though it sometimes appears the producers think so."

If the audience isn't stupid, then why do they watch that rubbish?

The "Muslim" angle was overplayed by 60 Minutes because it gave the story a context that appealed to bigots, terror-fied conservatives and indignant progressives alike. The report was designed to attract ratings, not to present a balanced perspective; the agenda was commercial, not political.

Jane Doe, can you point me in the direction where I could find information about riots in the 80s USA? Or riots in 00s? I mean there should be plenty about, as you state they happen every decade. Or are you talking about the LA riots? Or the riots during the 60’s and 70’s during the civil rights movement? All of these can be attributed to racism / perceived racism. No doubt.

My point on the IR reforms was in reference to the article (which I presume you didn’t read). The article talks about 60 Minutes grouping the riots in with terrorism overseas and here. I am not saying that without the IR reforms we would have a situation like that here, I was just stating that if you had to try and compare it to any current issue in Australia, it would be the IR reforms, as the riots are about unemployment. I didn’t think it was that difficult to follow.

“What explains the high levels of unemployment among young black males in the US?”

One simple answer is education levels, but for an interesting look into the real cause of the problem, I suggest you read a book called Freakonomics. In it you will find some amazing information. For example, the impact that crack cocaine has had on lowering African American living standards and education levels (which were on track to be equal to white America by 2000 before the drug was invented). Before you call me a racist, read the book, and respond to the statistics.

Now answer me a question: Using your same faulty argument, why in racist countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Japan) do we not see race riots? If racism is what is causing the violence in France, why have we not seen the same amount of violence elsewhere? Or is France the most racist country on the planet? Using your logic, it must be, as it has had the longest running “race” riots of any nation on earth (including South Africa!).

As I said in my previous post, racism is an easy answer to a difficult question, and generally if you do that, you are wrong (as much as I wished it wasn’t the case during my days at university!).

Damian Lataan: "Socialism has nothing to do with it - it's the lack of it that's the problem".

How true. In real socialist countries, and there aren't many now, there simply aren't any riots.

Wrong Damian. It is France's employment laws (set down by the socialists) that are the root cause of this problem. It has absolutely nothing to do with France's colonial past other than that is how these groups entered France, ie because France had colonial connections these people were able to enter France. Once they arrived they discovered an employment system so restrictive that they were unable to work.

The UK does not share this problem. Why? Because practically anyone can get a job as soon as they arrive because employers do not fear wrongful dismissal and the stupid Euro restrictions designed to keep Euros in and others out are ignored by the majority of the UK.

Let's take an example. I challenge Damian to hail a taxi in Paris... you can choose the time and place. Almost impossible because of the restrictions around employing cab drivers and the mini cab market. In London the great majority of minicab drivers are recently arrived foreigners or cab companies are owned by second and third generation immigrants. Not so in France where it is the socialists' desire to protect the existing Frnech cab driver from competition so he can work two hours a week for maximum pay. End result, no cabs for Damian and no jobs for these groups. I'm amazed it has taken them this long to riot.

I think we can safely set France aside from the fundamentalist argument. Those rioting in France are not fundamentalist or in any way related to other bombings et al; they simply desire a fair go under a socialist system that does anything but allow them a fair go.

There are no complex social theories that need to be understood about the problems that France is currently faced with. When one visits these ghettoes around Paris and, indeed, cities across France, one can immediately see the problem. As this article notes, it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened more often.

Ghettoes filled mainly with blacks and North Africans that have been marginalised since they first arrived in France as cheap labour are the sources of these violent disturbances. And note I said ‘mainly’ because there is also an element of class as well as race involved here. White French youth are also part of the impoverished culture within these ghettoes and this in itself can often be a problem on some of these massive estates. In today’s war with the authorities, however, they have put aside their differences and are now fighting what they see as a common foe.

The inhabitants of these ghettoes have suffered deteriorating incomes and employment opportunities for decades. This huge seething underclass is now erupting. Everyone in France knows why the problem exists. Everyone in France knew one day it would erupt. What nobody can now come up with is an answer! Fascists like Jean-Marie Le Penn are rubbing their hands together with glee. They’ve finally got what they always wanted – a reason to exist and people falling over themselves to join his National Front.

This is a good article but really, what do you expect from 60 Minutes? You’re not going to get a serious and balanced analysis of any issue. It’s so bad I can’t watch it.

Remember their story on Mamdouh Habib? They allowed the viewer one of only two positions: either you think he’s innocent of any wrongdoing and has been subject to torture etc, or you think he’s a terrorist who deserves whatever happens to him. In other words, let's slip past the ethics of extraordinary rendition, our Government’s complicity in his torture, and any discussion on justice. They boiled it down to just one question: is he a terrorist or isn’t he? Completely brainless and populist TV. Of course, it regularly rates through the roof.

I mean, isn’t ignorance and a lack of enquiry one of the biggest problems in Australia today? It’s what the politics of fear are all about: emotion over intellect. At the risk of sounding elitist, I’m not sure that the average Australian spends as much time reading about, thinking about and discussing political issues as the average Webdiarist. (We're a clever bunch, let's face it).

If you get your news from the Herald Sun, your ‘current affairs’ from 60 Minutes, and your analysis from Andrew Bolt, what kind of understanding are you going to have of the Paris riots, multiculturalism, or anything else? A very simplistic one, I would suggest.

I work with people who think all Muslims should just be deported – I’m serious. This is what we’re up against. The polarisation is ratcheting up all the time and unfortunately we have a Prime Minister who not only does little to calm public fear and paranoia, but whips it up for political advantage.

Stephen Smith, I have some issues regarding your article.

"Moisi too failed to note the sway of a rap music culture in the poorer suburbs."

What the?

Rap music is an almost universal cultural form now days. Rap music is dubbed over Jihadist recruiting videos. Rap music can be found playing in the bedrooms and studies of the most white-bread middle class teenagers in Sydney or LA or Paris or Munich or London.

What is your point? Are you suggesting the "sway" of rap music somehow contributed to the riots? I'm sorry, I just don't get it? Puts me in mind of those holy rollers in the '50s who thought rock-and-roll caused juvenile delinquency.

Stephen Smith: "The 'new proletariat' implies a link to class, not race or religion. It also gives due respect to the youth as able to shape their own identity."

Huh? What if, instead of shaping their identity according to their economic class, the principle organising social principle in their lives actually is their religion? Or their ethnicity?

What are you saying? That the fact that ethnicity underscores the conflicts in, say, the former Yugoslavia or Ireland somehow renders them politicaly and historically irrelevant?

Should we not have given "due respect to the youth of South Africa as being able to shape their own identity" under apartheid if they drew attention to the differences in life opportunity for blacks and whites, then?

Or how about in Israel and Palestine? Like, religion plays no important or determining role there?

Stephen Smith: "I've always taken Australia (and the UK) to be multicultural societies. France is not a multicultural society. It is multi-ethnic."

Actually, it is so bizarre that you should have said that. I just spent a half-hour discussing this very matter with an Iraqi Australian girl I know. Our conclusion was that while a great deal of lip service is paid to multiculturalism in Australia - it is in fact merely ethnically diverse. And that in practical terms very little is offered by why to support cultural diversity.

Perhaps this helps explain why rap music is so popular with Arabic Australian kids. And Tongan Australian kids. And Vietnamese Australian kids. And Anglo Australian kids.

Bceause they're all participating in globalised commercial youth culture. And there's not much cultural diversity here at all compared with, I dunno, France, maybe?

Stephen Smith: "But they are also joined on the streets by white youth and other ethnic groups who share the same background of poverty."

Now, at least there's a straightforward empirical statement open to verification or falsification.

So, where's the evidence in support of this claim?

Also, to what extent would readers here say that Stephen's analysis is informed by a set of a priori assumptions about the prior social determinancy of economic class? And that perhaps he's projecting his "conclusion" on to the phenomena?

C.Parsons: "Stephen Smith: 'But they are also joined on the streets by white youth and other ethnic groups who share the same background of poverty.' Now, at least there's a straightforward empirical statement open to verification or falsification. So, where's the evidence in support of this claim?"

From the article:

"Respected journalists (Gwynne Dyer, Panic in Paris) make the point that the riots are not about radical Islam."

Gwynne Dyer's article is about the diverse mix of people involved in the riots, quite contrary to your unproven assertion of the opposite.

Ron Collins: "In real socialist countries, and there aren't many now, there simply aren't any riots."

Well, weren't any riots. When socialist countries existed.

There used to be the occasional national uprising instead. Usually after which the socialist country in question would soon cease being socialist.

However, there were also mere garden-variety riots from time to time.

You'd hear about them if any of the rioters later managed to escape the GULAG they were sent to for being riotous.

Except in North Korea where they are so malnourished they cannot stand up long enough to riot.

In Cuba, riots are explained as the entire fault of the US Trade Embargo. And subversive librarians and poets.

If they could just sell cigars and sugar cane the Americans, there would be no need to riot at all.

Rcently there was a riot in China.

Actually, there are lots of riots in China. What you can't get is a decent cup of coffee.

Gee Jay White, I regard myself as a socialist and I've already confessed to voting for Keating but I'm not putting my hand up for the Paris riots.

"60 Minutes" is a woeful program. I gave up watching it years ago.

If you think poor employment prospects were a factor behind the riots, then you have to accept that the French socialistic system and its tight employment regulations has contributed heavily to its extremely high unemployment rate when compared with western rates. It is not a coincidence that France, Germany with their regulated IR policies and anti-business attitudes have high unemployment rates among western nations and UK has strong employment prospects for its citizens because of its deregulated and pro-business economy.

I've been trying to work out what the HTML tag for "irony" is for a while. Seems an obvious gap to me...

60 Minutes? Say no more.

C Parsons, sorry, I was trying to be ironic, I thought tranparently. Apparently I overdid it. Of course riots don't occur in socialist countries because those with the necesary energy whip across the Caribbean to the dreaded USA or knock down the Berlin Wall. Or are totally under the thumb, as in North Korea. Or as in China, become capitalist under the guise of socialism - to be rich is glorious - though preserving the party's political control. Riots don't happen there, at least Tianamen Square, but since then everyone in China knows what happens if you riot.

James Squires, if you went to University, then your teachers should be sacked. Take your point about South Africa - there wasn't race riots there much - there was a full scale insurgency (terrorists I think was the term applied by conservatives to the ANC). There were few riots and demonstrations as such during the apartheid era, simply because civil repression was so successful. That is why the oppposition turned to armed struggle.

The same could well apply to Saudi Arabia btw, but your idea that it is a racist country as such is interesting. Have you any examples of this? It is certainly repressive, particualrly against women of course, but as you would have learned at University it is important to be able to draw distinctions between phenomena that might look the same but are in fact, conceptually, and existentially, different. That is why your original comment about the current IR legislation in this country and the link between failing to agree to those changes, and the situation in France was not just wrong, but a fundamental category error.

Now would someone who supports the IR laws please explain just how they will do all these things together - increase the number of jobs, increase the pay of everyone, increase productivity, lower unemployment, and improve pay and conditions for all. That is the test people who suppport these changes have to meet. Those who propose have the onus of demonstrating the proposition.

Because I am familiar with the arguments being deployed in support of these changes by the BCA, the IPA and the Centre for Independent Studies (not). I know exactly what the real calculations are. Some of you who support these changes might also be familiar with the real thinking that underlies this crap. For those who have the good sense or good fortune not to be required to wade throught the deceitful, mendacious and self serving nonsense spewed forth by these mouths for hire, let me assure you, when their arguments are boiled down for consumption by the 'punters' as Howard likes to call the electorate, they are literally open mouthed with shock and disgust.

Bullying people by linking failure to agree with a future illustrated by the French riots simply won't cut it, but if Allan Jones and the rest of the Liberal Party lie machine want to lose all credibility forever, then go ahead. I am happy to tell people the latest strategy being deployed to ensure that their rights, rights they know are important to them and their children, and which are widely understood as being part of the 'Australian way', are being trashed by people who link opposition to this snatch and grab with terrorism. Just make my day.

C Parsons, Ni hou ma? I have to take great issue with you. I know from personal eperience that one can indeed have a great cup of coffee in Beijing where Starbucks has been there for five years. No more of that savage culinary derogatory throwaways. Chinese have always been proud of their food, even if it is American or parts of an animal that people can't pronounce in Chinese, or wouldn't eat if in English.

Cheers.

PS Why do you always bring up Cuba, have you been there? Had a bad experience? Exploding cigar? Havani belli?

Following up on my post asserting that the causes of the current troubles in France are not difficult to understand, Webdiarists may find this article useful.

The difficult bit is in trying to solve the problem. Successive governments have always been aware of the problem but have repeatedly tried to brush it under the carpet in the hope that someone else will deal with it when it comes the time that it gets out of hand. Well, now it is out of hand and a centre-right government hasn’t got a clue how to deal with it. The result is that the government will possibly now lurch even further to the right in what could become a violent crackdown with the possibility of more lives being lost. It will be to France’s shame if this happens.

Jane Doe (or is it Fletch?), go back and read my original statement. I didn’t say that the reason for the IR reforms was to prevent rioting happening here, my point was that the 60 minutes show tried to connect the rioting with terrorism and anti terror laws here, and that if you wanted to try and connect the events in France to Australia, a better place to look would be our IR reforms and employment rates. Get off your high horse, read what is written (or didn’t you need to do that at university for your arts degree?).

As for Saudi Arabia, I suggest you do some research on how people from all over the world are treated there (mainly from the subcontinent). This article can get you started. As for South Africa, there were plenty of riots (as well as the armed struggle), but none of the riots lasted two weeks.

And I am still waiting on the evidence from your previous post about race riots in the USA every decade. But I suspect, like the rest of your post, it is non collaborated drivel.

Anne Brookes: "Gwynne Dyer's article is about the diverse mix of people involved in the riots, quite contrary to your unproven assertion of the opposite."

Well, actually. I'm not asserting it one way or another.

Stephen Smith is making the assertion that the rioters were "joined on the streets by white youth and other ethnic groups."

This is a straight forward empirical claim, and I don't doubt that at some level it must be true. But to what extent?

What is the basis for this simple claim? Was there a head count? Were there samples taken?

What proportions of different ethnic groups are we talking about here?

This claim seems to be central to the analysis being offered - yet it is not supported empirically.

It is merely asserted.

Stephen makes the point: "The 'new proletariat' implies a link to class, not race or religion."

Okay. Fine. But what's the empirical evidence in support of this? As opposed to the media claims it was essentially an ethnic conflict?

Gwynne Dyer's article - hardly more than a few paragraphs actually - simply reasserts the same claim as Stephen:

"The low-income housing estates that ring Paris and other big French cities are dumping grounds for everybody that hasn't made it in the cool 21st-century France of the urban centers, the old white working class as well as immigrants from France's former colonies in Arabic-speaking North Africa and sub-Saharan black Africa and from all the poorer countries of Europe."

If that is the case, then we should indeed expect to find an ethnically diverse crowd involved. One that became more diverse, perhaps, as the riots continued.

But, what is the empirical basis of such a claim? To what extent is it literally true?

That's the point. It seems to me most media are claiming this is some sort of race riot, perhaps with class undertones.

But that then prompts the question, if it is not an inter ethnic conflict, if it is not a failure of multiculturalism, then we should find, say, large groups of non-Muslim for colonial people involved. Say, Vietnamese Buddhists? Or old European French working class?

Is this in fact the case? As opposed to merely asserting that it is?

Where's the evidence?

Also, why is it any less credible that ethnicity would be the organising principle behind such a social phenomenon than economic class?

I mean, I am quite happy to be proven wrong.

So, let's do it...

Angela Ryan: "Why do you always bring up Cuba, have you been there? Had a bad experience? Exploding cigar? Havani belli?"

Well, I could be cruel and bring up North Korea all the time, I suppose.

No, I merely like to refer to Cuba because, for the last 46 years, the "look at me" Marxist psuedo-intelligentsia of this nation have been obsequiously fawning all over Fidel Castro as if he were the Messiah or something.

And endlessly singing their groveling praises of Cuba as the concrete expression of the superlative excellence of their Marxist doctrine in practice.

And I don't want them all later denying it - as they did with the USSR, Communist China, North Korea, The Democratic People's Republic of Kampuchea, East Germany, Rumania, Albania, Poland, Hungry, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Laos and other miracles of socialism.

That's all. And because they bring Cuba up all the time themselves.

Why do you ask?

Jane Doe: "The same could well apply to Saudi Arabia btw, but your idea that it is a racist country as such is interesting. Have you any examples of this?"

It is not legal for Jews, any Jews, to vist Saudi Arabia.

"Jews cannot get a visa into Saudi Arabia precisely because they are Jews! Whew! And that's not racist?"

The Saudis, of course, regularly denounce Israel as racist. Er, I mean "Zionist".

I think you mean non 'corroborated' don't you? Riots in the US. 1960s-Watts, Chicago, New York. 1970s-Chicago. 1980s-LA. 1990s LA. 2000s? Well the decade is exactly half way over, let's wait and see, but the scenes in New Orleans were not exactly pretty were they? Oh and by the way - never make assumptions about people you don't know - you have no idea what I studied, and you should learn not to call people you disagree with names.

Saudi Arabia is repressive towards its guest labour as well as to women, but the tactic of deflecting criticism of the behaviour of advanced democracies by pointing to regimes like Saudi Arabia and apartheid South Africa puzzles me. Are we supposed to breath a sigh of relief that we are not actually being shot on the spot? Once again, it was you who said the events in France are better connected to the IR laws and their supposed effects on employment rates. So once again if that is a better connection, (as opposed to a proper analysis of the events in their own cultural and political framework) can you please let everyone know, just exactly how the IR laws will do the following for us suckers here in OZ: increase jobs, simultaneously increasing the number of job seekers, at the same time increase productivity, and increasing wages and work and family balance all at the same time?

I am still waiting, and it seems we must wait forever for the proponents of these laws to detail, with evidence, comparative studies, projections, graphs and detailed analysis, the empirical basis for this ideological nonsense.

What we are getting instead is bluster and bullying from News Ltd, barely disguised untruths from a flummoxed Minister, spin from the Prime Minister, and self serving half truths from the Business Council of Australia, representing as it says itself, businesses that employ barely one million of a workforce that is closer to eight million. People opposing these laws have also been called liars by the supporters of the laws, despite the fact that the predictions about what the laws would finally look like erred on the side of conservative, once we actually got to look at the detail.

The real liars are those who simply will not level with people about what the game really is. I doubt we will ever see in this country the kind of civil insurrection we have seen in France. Different traditions apart from anything else. However, what we are seeing in this country is a form of social reengineering that would make a French 1960s Maoist proud. Howard knows it, his supporters know it, his backbench are too scared to say much because they know their jobs depend on Howard keeping his, and the media that seeks an audience (and income) from the - ahem - battlers - are being very careful, as opposed to those who speek to the battlers betters in the broadsheets and 'little' right wing mags.

France's shame, Damian Lataan, is their socialist employment system.

Jane Doe, when you said to James Squires, "There were few riots and demonstrations as such during the apartheid era, simply because civil repression was so successful. That is why the opposition turned to armed struggle." you are overlooking the Soweto uprising of 1976 and what followed from it.

That uprising, which began in June 1976, continued over several months and spread, in the face of vicious oppression, across South Africa. It was followed by boycotts and demonstrations, at great risk to the millions of blacks who joined them and at the cost of the lives of many of them, until by the mid-1980s, the whites of South Africa got the message that apartheid in South Africa had no future and that without democracy they had no future in South Africa.

I write this only so that the courage of those brave people does not pass unacknowledged.

A Mills says: “France's shame… is their socialist employment system.”

But then says nothing. No supporting evidence. No qualification. Nothing.

Well done A Mills, your contribution to the debate and suggestions for solving the problem I’m sure will be appreciated by everyone concerned.

Jane Doe, the “name” I called you was Fletch, and was in reference to the self titled movie, as Fletch publishes a newspaper column under the name Jane Doe. It was a little thing called humour, you should try it.

I am intrigued, a riot in LA in the 80’s, hmmm, well here is a full list of world wide riots, and there is no LA for the 80s. Now I know there is no way to have a complete list, but surely a big event like a riot in LA would make a mention (considering some of the ones on the list). Perhaps you meant Miami?

Also, I wasn’t trying to “deflecting criticism of the behaviour of advanced democracies”, I was pointing out the flaw with the logic that the riots in France are because of racism, something you seem to have a problem with understanding.

Yes, I said the riots in France are better connected to IR reforms THAN terrorism. It’s a comparison. The point being that the riots in France are caused primarily by high unemployment, not terrorism. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise? Even the French interior Minister thinks this to be the case. Do you need to go and talk to him about the cultural background he is obviously missing out on? Or you could go and lecture him about the political framework of France?

As for your questions on the IR reforms, well I can assume you didn’t do economics at university! “Just exactly how the IR laws will do the following for us suckers here in OZ: increase jobs, simultaneously increasing the number of job seekers, at the same time increase productivity, and increasing wages and work and family balance all at the same time?”

So lets look at this shall we:

Increase Jobs: When an employer has less restriction on hiring/ firing, he is more likely to hire people when he needs them. The situation in France, it is extremely difficult to both hire and fire people, so a company will not hire any one extra unless the need becomes critical. If they think they might need someone, but are not sure, they won't risk it, because the costs are far too high (very basic version of the story).

Increase the Number of Job Seekers: who and where was this claimed by anyone? It might have been, I have just not heard it before?

Increase productivity: With an AWA, improved performance can be recognised and rewarded, which encourages more productivity (hint: economics is all about incentives).

Increasing wages and work and family balance: Depends on how you negotiate your contract (see above) and therefore what priorities you have. Some people might want less money and more time with their families, and so will negotiate accordingly, others would prefer less time with their family and more money. So you see, it is up to the individual to decide (a concept that seems to frighten you).

You are arguing for someone to negotiate on your behalf. But IR reforms and in depth debate are for another thread. I believe this one is about France?

James Squires: "I also notice in today’s news how bad Howard's master plan is going. I reckon Costello should challenge for his job straight away, otherwise the workers of Australia will continue to keep being employed at record levels and receiving increasing rates of pay".

You can't post that type of evidence around here James. Have you not been made aware that all statistics relating to wage growth and employment growth are all lies? No evidence they just are.

Yes pretty soon all these working Australians with their higher wages will discover they are unemployed and wages dont exist. At that time there will be Holdens burning aplenty. Also here somebody no doubt will have discovered the moon really is made of cheese.

It was evident in the 60 Minutes report on France that a search for a link with the riots and an al-Qaeda influence would prove to be unproductive. The French never tied the two elements together. Stephen Smith is correct - the confrontations and fires resembled Macquarie Fields on a huge scale. The 1995 prescient movie, La Haine, showed us how life in a banlieue ghetto goes crazy without al-Qaeda’s beckoning hand. The endless “fear” rubbish being fed to us by politicians and their media acolytes is sad for this country. I certainly don’t discount the possibility of a mad bomber having a go, but the way we amplify our fears must be attractive to jihadidsts and their nihilistic under-studies. Our involvement in Iraq (and its consequences) has distracted us from major social issues. France has neglected the proper education of its under class. We have now seen the result. Are our politicians learning anything from it? As long as the likes of 60 Minutes keep frightening the populace, Canberra will be content.

Have you been there? I looked up the stats on Cuba the first time you were critical of that country and they seem to be doing OK compared to elsewhere like the US in health, education, women's position etc. Comparing apples and apples they seem to certainly be a nicer place to live than any other nations near by that seem to bear the brunt of whatever the current "democracy" leader the US wishes to push there.

Reading about the regime pushed out by the Fidel mob I think that the current population are better off than they were don't you? Forget all the left and right spin rubbish, which regime has really benefited the people?
I too was sceptical as always of what I read about the place until I met a friend whose daughter had just returned from there. It sounds like as OK place for that regime to live as anywhere.

So have you been there or talked to anyone who has or what are you quoting when you criticise the place? You are usually caeful with facts I notice and respect.

Cheers.

Your quote from the Wikipedia describes religious intolerance not racism.

Prior to the creation of the state of Israel, the Jewish people did not have a homeland, and came from many different countries.

So you can accuse them of being anti-semitic, but not racist.

Once again Jane Doe, you have missed the point entirely! Where have I said that the riots in France could happen here? Can you PLEASE point this out? If not, can you stop attributing statements to me that I have not made?

The point you have missed, and continue to ignore, was the statement that France’s current problems are caused by high unemployment. To counter this, you offer here-say and wishy washy allegations without any evidence. I find it rather comical that you are insisting (still) that it is cultural issues, even when the Interior Minister for France agrees it is because of high unemployment. Do you know something he doesn’t about his culture?

As for your question, Australia’s capital productivity has been remaining steady, whilst labour productivity has been increasing significantly since 2000. But the problem with capital productivity is that increasing it does not necessarily increase overall productivity. And in order to increase overall productivity, you realistically need both to increase. Why do you ask?

So, I am waiting now on some evidence to support the following claims:

Riots in LA in the 80’s (I have, on previous posts with you already mentioned the ones in the 90’s).

French Police Racism. The French being the Most Productive in the World (they are quite high, but not the highest).

“The point is that civil unrest happens in polities as disparate as France and the US, much more regularly and far more violently than it occurs here” - that’s very insightful. So basically you are saying riots happen everywhere. Wow! I never knew. Is there some sort of newsletter I could sign up to in order to gain this insight?

And yes, what a horrible thought about the welfare to work. Here I was thinking it was the government trying to get people off welfare for their own betterment, but evidently it is actually a Howard government plot to lower wages. It all makes sense now! But hang on a sec. If he really wanted to lower wages for business, wouldn’t it be better to have a “recession we had to have?” It would certainly put a crimp on the wages?

I also notice in today’s news how bad Howard's master plan is going. I reckon Costello should challenge for his job straight away, otherwise the workers of Australia will continue to keep being employed at record levels and receiving increasing rates of pay.

"Stephen Smith is making the assertion that the rioters were 'joined on the streets by white youth and other ethnic groups.'

This is a straight forward empirical claim, and I don't doubt that at some level it must be true. But to what extent?"

C Parsons, you acknowledge that 'on some level it must be true' so I'm not too sure what point you are trying to make by asking for more 'evidence'.

If you accept on any level Stephen Smith's comment then you must acknowledge that the rioters were not connected necessarily with 'terrorists' or any particular 'ethnic' group.

Jane Doe: "The same could well apply to Saudi Arabia btw, but your idea that it is a racist country as such is interesting. Have you any examples of this?"

Here's a fairly typical example:

Saudi Arabian government newspapers state that hatred of all Jews is justifiable. "Why are they (the Jews) hated by all the people which hosted them, such as Iraq and Egypt thousands years ago, and Germany, Spain, France and the UK, up to the days they gained of power over the capital and the press, in order to rewrite the history?"

- Al-Riyadh, Saudi government daily, April 15, 2002, Turki 'Abdallah as-Sudayri, All of History is against Them

That's a government owned newspaper, mind you. Not IndyMedia Melbourne.

Try the welfare to work legislation James - that is where the increase in job seekers will come from. You know - 'a job, any job, is better than no job at all' - the Minister has proudly boasted of the fact, and supporters of the government regularly opine that the increase in supply will be handy in ensuring relief from ahem - wages inflation - but you know what they mean don't you? So we will have more people looking for jobs, we will have new job starts in the normal course of events (school leavers and the like) being employed on below award wages and conditions (the new 'protected' five minimum conditions), together with the handy capacity to fire any employee for any or no reason at all (firms of less than 100 employees), and every new agreement that is negotiated will start from a theoretical base of those five minima, not the existing award.

Now I am quite aware that the immediate results in many parts of the labour market will not be obvious - for a while. But if you have been following the submssions of employers in the hospitality industry to the Senate Inquiry into these matters and others, you might have noticed that in their view, wages and conditions are way too high for the likes of existing employees.

Use your head and it is obvious what is going to happen. Now once again do not assume you know what I have studied, and tell me how lowering the price, (by increasing the supply and lowering the actual not nominal) cost of labour, actually increases it's productivity? And explain to me and everyone else here, whether Australia's current productivity problem relates to capital productivity or labour productivity?

Actually, the French are the the most productive people in the world, hour for hour. It may be that third generation immigrants aren't so much pining for crap jobs at Maccas, as wishing that the French polity spent less time insisting on the doctrine of 'our way or the highway', and more time including immigrants in a way that didn't make them feel like third class French men and women.

And btw, the french police are notorious for both their racism and their violence towards immigrants and outsiders generally. They have a tradition of acting with impunity against the young, the immigrant and the indigent. Just like the Howard government actually.

Oh, and there were riots in LA South Central in the 1980s and in the 1990s we had the Rodney King riots. The point is that civil unrest happens in polities as disparate as France and the US, much more regularly and far more violently than it occurs here, and from traditions which are vastly different. That is why any comparison with what happens in France with social policies being proposed here, no matter how misguided or brutal, misses the mark entirely.

Webdiarist Mary Jenkins contributes this interesting Guardian article Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative on the potentially positive outcomes of the Paris riots:

[extract]

Those who wondered what French youth had to gain by taking to the streets should ask what they had to lose. Unemployed, socially excluded, harassed by the police and condemned to poor housing, they live on estates that are essentially open prisons. Statistically invisible (it is against the law and republican principle to collect data based on race or ethnicity) and politically unrepresented (mainland France does not have a single non-white MP), their aim has been simply to get their plight acknowledged. And they succeeded.

Even as the French politicians talked tough, the state was suing for peace with the offer of greater social justice. The government unrolled a package of measures that would give career guidance and work placements to all unemployed people under 25 in some of the poorest suburbs; there would be tax breaks for companies who set up on sink estates; a €1,000 (£675) lump sum for jobless people who returned to work as well as €150 a month for a year; 5,000 extra teachers and educational assistants; 10,000 scholarships to encourage academic achievers to stay at school; and 10 boarding schools for those who want to leave their estates to study.

"We need to respond strongly and quickly to the undeniable problems facing many inhabitants of the deprived neighbourhoods," said President Chirac. From the man who once said that immigrants had breached the "threshold of tolerance" and were sending French workers "mad" with their "noise and smell" this was progress indeed.

"The impossible becomes probable through struggle," said the African American academic Manning Marable. "And the probable becomes reality."

And the reality is that none of this would have happened without riots. There was no petition these young people could have signed, no peaceful march they could have held, no letter they could have written to their MPs that would have produced these results.

Amid the charred chassis and broken glass there is a vital point of principle to salvage: in certain conditions rioting is not just justified but may also be necessary, and effective. From the poll tax demonstrations to Soweto, history is littered with such cases; what were the French and American revolutions but riots endowed by Enlightenment principles and then blessed by history?

The article does not advocate rioting as a means to an end but it does suggest that with proper attention, the end result in Paris could form the beginning of a meaningful resolution.

The issue of when and how rioting is effective is more problematic. Riots raise awareness of a situation, but they cannot solve it. For that you need democratic engagement and meaningful negotiation. Most powerful when they stem from a movement, all too often riots are instead the spontaneous, leaderless expression of pent-up frustration void of an agenda or clear demands. Many of these French youths may have had a ball last week, but what they really need is a party - a political organisation that will articulate their aspirations.

... riots carry great risk. The border between political violence and criminality becomes blurred, and legitimate protest risks degrading into impotent displays of hypermasculinity. Violence at that point becomes not the means to even a vague aspiration but the end in itself, and half the story gets missed. We heard little from young minority French women last week, even though they have been the primary target of the state's secular dogma over the hijab.

Finally, violence polarises. The big winner of the last two weeks may yet prove to be Sarkozy. The presidential-hopeful courted the far-right with his calculated criticisms of the rioters; if he wins he could reverse any gains that may arise. Le Pen also lurks in the wings.

The riots in France run all these risks and yet have still managed to yield a precarious kind of progress. They demand our qualified and critical support.

Power has made its concessions. But how many, for how long and to whom depends on whether those who made the demands take their struggle from the margins to the mainstream: from the street to the corridors of power.

Angela Ryan, I believe you are correct about the stats between the US and Cuba being quite similar, except for GDP per capita. If Cuba is such a great place to live, why then do thousands of Cuban refugees show up in America every year?

Anne Brookes: "If you accept on any level Stephen Smith's comment then you must acknowledge that the rioters were not connected necessarily with 'terrorists' or any particular 'ethnic' group."

Well, the obvious question - and indeed that central to the disagreement here - is how representative demographically were the rioters of the French working class?

Or were migrant groups over, or perhaps under represented? And if so, by any significant degree?

If migrant groups, for whatever reason, were substantially over represented then you may be looking at a failure of French multiculturalism as much as any other social policy failure.

To just cram the phenomena into some more emotionally satisfying category - say, class warfare - simply because that's what you want to believe is not a very sound approach to social analysis.

And if there were substantial cultural differences evident, it would be reckless at very least to ignore them.

We didn't pretend, did we, that when the riots happened in Redfern, that they were unrelated to issues of Aboriginality and reconciliation?

That somehow the Redfern riots were informed merely by radicalised class consciousness?

I note, still, nobody here has offered any empirical evidence in support of Stephen's and Anne's bald assertion - for that is what it is merely - that the riots in France had broadly based working class support.

None whatsoever.

Anne Brookes: "So you can accuse them (the Saudi Government and its proxies) of being anti-semitic, but not racist."

We are in a state of denial, aren't we?

Anne, if Australia, for argument's sake, were to forbid by decree the entry of Muslims into this country solely on the grounds of them being Muslim, or to dish out to them the kind of intemperate abuse that 'Al-Riyadh', and other Saudi government agencies daily direct at Jews, there would be little doubt that it was being racist.

Anne Brookes: "Your quote from the Wikipedia describes religious intolerance not racism."

Okay. Well, here is the wikipedia definition of 'racism' then:

"Racial discrimination is differences in treatment of people on the basis of characteristics which may be classified as racial, including skin color, cultural heritage, and religion."

The Saudi policy is, therefore, by this definition, racism.

The suggestion that discrimination against Jews, it being characterised by extremes of abuse, invidious stereotyping, and generalised slander of Jewish people is somehow NOT racism is one of the more insidious recent developments in political discourse.

I see it as part of a general rehabilitation of anti-Semitism as a "legitimate" political rhetoric.

The Left and its dalliance with Islamist extremism is doubtless a major contributing factor to this, and a further indication of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left generally.