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Non-Jewish Paris woman suffers anti-Semitic attack (Wake up, France) (pg. 2)
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Now with the anti-Semitic attack in France, Chirac publicly condemned it and instituted policies aimed at curbing further such attacks. Where was Bush was this one? Oh, sorry, that's right. He was actively inciting further anti-French attacks by giving his staff carte blanche to spout their xenophobic invective. So instead of public condemnation of such attacks (like the anti-semitic attack, this was not an isolated incident), we got "freedom fries" in the Congress cafeteria. We got Rumsfeld's "old Europe" jibes. We got Wolfowitz and Perle making explicit threats to the French nation. We got Rebublican congressmen making jokes that - had they been about any other nation or race of people - would have gotten them fired in a second. Of course all this biggotted hyperbole was all the convincing conservative sycophants like you needed to know that France - despite the fact a healthy Franco-American alliance that had lasted 200 years prior to this point - was evil and that it was probably a good thing to stop drinking Evian, start eating "freedom toast" and - in extreme cases like this - fire-bomb any businesses that happen to depict famous French monuments (except this one of course). Where the French government has moved to quash xenophobic extremism, yours has openly encouraged it - remind me again why I should be condemning those "-ass" French?
I'm not quite sure why conservatives feel so intimidated by the French that they have to lash out randomly like this, but I do know it makes you look stupid. How are you any better than the xenophobics that, in this case, you rightly condemn? |
Well I agreed with your argument until this part. How you arrived at the conclusion that the Bush administration's diplomatic rits with the French government was some sort of sanction or incitement for crimes against the french people or muslim culture is beyond me. I'm afraid that that cbs story isn't quite the story that would draw national attention or national response as would the French story for whatever reason, so to imply that simply because Bush did not speak about the incident he's sanctioning or inciting such activity is false. When issues of racist attacks did become a cause for national concern, Bush did indeed speak out about it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1549619.stm |
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| ogvh5150 |
No one here was aboard that train on that day with that woman and her child and the thugs that did this to her. Only a coward attacks a woman with a child.
The fact is that she is not Jewish. The fact is the area from where she was from is not Jewish. Only the blanket statement that the assailant made was anti-Jewish and an ignorant one considering the statements made by people here in the forum that know about the area.
The fact is that by your blanketing of French, Muslims and Good Samaritians in the worst of terms is still a racist agenda despite your previously living there.
Yes it is ashamed what happened to the both of them and why. But don't think for one minute that because of her supposed pedigree granted to her by her assailants does it make her plight special. All too often I hear tales of a person getting ambushed by thugs because of their status and only because of that status. Had she been of African descent would this not have made the Jerusalem Post unless she were an Ethiopian who just so happened to come from an Ethiopian/Jewish village. (Yes I know there are no more of them since they were airlifted out of Ethiopia years ago but you should get the meaning here.) |
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| arctic |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Are you completely blind to irony? You're condemning anti-Semitism and then following it up with your own racist / nationalistic generalisations - fine work, imokruok. |
Precisely. Imokruok -- if you're going to condemn anti-Semitism but concurrently do the exact same thing but with another nationality/race, then you're a hypocrite.
It's also worth mentioning that people may have done nothing because the attackers were armed. People stand by everywhere, this kind of apathy isn't confined to France. Come to think of it, there's actually a proper psychological term for this type of behaviour (standing by whilst a crime takes place in front of you), isn't there? |
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| ogvh5150 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Are you completely blind to irony? You're condemning anti-Semitism and then following it up with your own racist / nationalistic generalisations - fine work, imokruok. |
My argument exactly.
| quote: | Originally posted by arctic
...Come to think of it, there's actually a proper psychological term for this type of behaviour (standing by whilst a crime takes place in front of you), isn't there? |
Kind of like when Germany's concentration camp victims did nothing despite their outnumbering their captors. (Insert previous "-ass" statements here).
Yes what is that called?
Mass hysteria? |
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| malek |
| imokruok, just shut the up. |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by arctic
...Come to think of it, there's actually a proper psychological term for this type of behaviour (standing by whilst a crime takes place in front of you), isn't there? |
I guess
| quote: | Originally posted by Palestinian
I would guess the reason the other passengers in the train did nothing was due to what we call in Psychology 'bystander non-intervention', asking yourself why doesn't the guy next to me do something or if no one else is doing anything then it's probably right to stay seated and say nothing, or simply wait and hope for the chance that someone else will do something.
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would be a nice answer to that? |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well I agreed with your argument until this part. How you arrived at the conclusion that the Bush administration's diplomatic rits with the French government was some sort of sanction or incitement for crimes against the french people or muslim culture is beyond me. I'm afraid that that cbs story isn't quite the story that would draw national attention or national response as would the French story for whatever reason, so to imply that simply because Bush did not speak about the incident he's sanctioning or inciting such activity is false. When issues of racist attacks did become a cause for national concern, Bush did indeed speak out about it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1549619.stm |
I was talking about antipathy and abuse towards the French, not Muslims. The situation with anti-Islamic activity in the US after September 11 is probably similar to the situation with anti-semitic activity in France now - political events had caused a surge in racial violence and, to their credit, the governments in each case made a plea for the violence to stop, instituting policies aimed at curbing the violence (some specific policies made by the US administration against anti-Islamic violence can be seen in the first link I posted).
What I'm talking about was the anti-French sentiments actively fanned by the vitriolic comments of several Republican (always Republican) politicians in the lead up to and after-math of France's threatened veto at the UNSC. While I suppose you're quite right in saying that it would by unlikely that any US politician would explicitly encourage such behaviour, you only have to look at some of the comments made by members of the Bush administration and members of congress (see some of the comments/jokes made by a guy named Roy Blunt especially) to see that they had no issue with fueling an anti-French mentality among the US populace, even if you want that argue that this wasn't their original intention. The point is, the French were not subject to violent attacks or the most bitter of verbal abuse in the US until Rumsfeld and co were given the green light to start their completely unfounded smear campaign against the French (who they then had to crawl back to for assistance when the threatened veto that started the whole thing proved to be justified). I know that the US and France haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but you have to admit that this sort of antipathy never existed before US officials began their very public tantrums. Had US politicians been more diplomatic in their approach, surely impressionable people like imokruok wouldn't have been poisoned to the point of writing the crap that he just did or fire-bombing a dry-cleaners because it had a picture of the Eiffel tower on the window? |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by arctic
Precisely. Imokruok -- if you're going to condemn anti-Semitism but concurrently do the exact same thing but with another nationality/race, then you're a hypocrite. |
If he assaulted a woman and her one-year-old child because he thought they might be French, then he'd be a hypocrite.
I think we can agree there's a big difference between suggesting that most French are cowards and attacking someone because they might be Jewish. So he's not exactly "[doing] the exact same thing" if you catch my drift.
Oh, and on another note: bystander non-intervention? Just what kind of crap is that? Anyone who's brain works like that deserves a swift kick to the head and a verdict of "too stupid to live." There's a word for those kind of people, and that word is "cowards." Oh wait, that was just what imokruok was saying. Uh oh, spaghettios! Perhaps he's on to something. Now, if only it were specific to the French! |
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| tathi |
Silent Witness
- Villagers who stood silent watching while a gang rape took place in the Indian Village of Bhamtola may be prosecuted, it was reported yesterday. The government of the central Indian state of madhya Pradesh is considering imposing a community fine on villagers for remaining mute spectators to the rape of three Dalit (lower-caste) women last week |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by imokruok
I am viciously difficult with the French on this forum, only because I have lived in Paris, and have many friends who also live there. They exemplify what I've just written in the preceeding paragraph. As long as they can keep their cafe lifestyle in Paris, they don't worry about what goes on around them, because it's just to difficult to stick your neck out. My friends and I have had occasion to discuss this issue before, and their position is basically: "we can't see it yet, so it's not our problem." Outside of the US, Paris is the city about which I care most deeply, and I really wish that things were different. |
This pretty much describes any nation in the world. When there was war in Yugoslavia, I was living in the US and I remember most of the people having an attitude like "oh, that's horrible, but I really don't want to know anything about it, so just let me watch the superbowl, ok?".
As for the bystanders, people are usually cowards and they very rarely interfere, mostly because they're hoping someone else will. Hell, if you'd see 5 guys with knives assaulting a person, would you help? More likely, you'd get scared that they'll stab you with the knife too and walk away. |
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| arctic |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
I guess
would be a nice answer to that? |
There we are, for some reason I completely missed Palestinian's post.
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
If he assaulted a woman and her one-year-old child because he thought they might be French, then he'd be a hypocrite. |
I was really referring to his condemnation of anti-Semitism, whilst in the very same post there are anti-Islamic and anti-French pot shots.
| quote: | | I think we can agree there's a big difference between suggesting that most French are cowards and attacking someone because they might be Jewish. So he's not exactly "[doing] the exact same thing" if you catch my drift. |
I'm not suggesting that he's doing the same thing mentioned in the article, I'm suggesting that he's behaving in a hypocritical fashion by condemning a principle, yet doing something that's in actuality essentially identical. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by arctic
There we are, for some reason I completely missed Palestinian's post. |
Hehe, me too. I guess it's because whenever I see the words Palestine or Israel, I somehow manage to avoid noticing the post alltogether. |
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