Who Should be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism?

[JustAnotherGen]

2. What about the Symbolic nature of attacking Paris?

The article linked to is very well written - but I'm inclined to write to counterpunch and ask them to take another step back in time.

I had a hell of a conversation with my dear friend Arnaud last night. How I met him is knd of funny - he's 85 now - still devastatingly handsome and has lived quite the life on the French Riviera. Born and raised in Ramatuelle - you can imagine the stories he has to tell as a child of war and the occupation. He's also extremely honest about what his country his. Most important - a historian of his Var.

This article - in light of this weeks events in France - doesn't go back far enough or address the concerns of the elderly men sitting in the bar tabac. The Barbarian/Franks who created that culture and country - not saying any other country (US, Great Britain, UN, Israel, etc etc) . . . Their descendents wre eating tarts and hot cocoa with brandy in it yesterday morning and saying this was revenge for Poitiers.

The crusades, Charlegmagne - the continued dismissal of the Muslim world and the modern resentment of Muslim immigrants- this is much older in Europe (take us completely out of it - the " messaging of the far right in country is what drives this) and steeped in the development of countries in Western Europe than we probably realize.

Watch Marine Le Pen - look at what her father tweeted the other day. Look at her statements and party's approach to "sending all their money to Belgium". She's tapping into xenophobism, nationalism, etc etc. We've seen this before. It's like the propaganda they gave my great grandfather to keep him in the trenches in WWI - that stuff about the Germans cutting off the right hands of Belgian children and the Belgian parents "holding out their arms to let them do it".

What the old man knows? It's going to get really ugly in Europe. If she wins in 2017 - and I believe she can - it's got the potential to be very ugly for Muslims in France.

What the poor, disenfranchised Muslim young man in the suburbs doesn't know - is that the poor Christian Frank/Celt/Italian young man in the small towns anf the provincial is being fed pablum of hate blaming the Muslims, the EU, the Americans, the Germans, the Belgians for all of their ills.