French riots

I find the French riots very disturbing, not because I live in a city with a similar ethnic composition as Paris, but because of the way the developments have been presented through the media. They’ve twisted the reality in such a way that a lot of people don’t even know why the youth in French towns are burning cars or throwing stones at the police. Of course, I’m not talking about the critical media. But hey, who looks for anything else than CNN and other crappy channels, except for a small group?

I don’t support violence against innocent citizens. But I do like the idea behind this uprising. It’s the outrage of the underclass, the oppressed, and the dominated. It’s the classic Marx’s theory put in practice. Of course, a segment of the unrest may have been caused by people who have nothing better to do, but let’s not delegitimize the protests entirely.

The way the riots have been presented in the media is, however, is a completely different story. First of all, the media have transformed the problem from an issue related to social-economical class to a multi-cultural drama. In doing this, they have placed the riots at the heart of the current public discourse in Europe about the multi-cultural society. Indeed, in the beginning, the riots were caused by “youth in underdeveloped neighborhoods”, then they suddenly changed it to “immigrant youth”, and a few days later the media were talking about “Muslim youth”. It was only then that the media could “really” blame the protesters. Within a few days time, people were already talking about the multi-cultural catastrophe in Paris, wondering why the hell these Muslims can’t integrate in their oh so great society and fearing an expansion of the riots to other European cities. The public opinion didn’t need much evidence. The fear of Muslims is intuitive, always there and easily activated. There was no mention of the fact that African French people were also taking part in the riots, no mention of the fact that those people who were screaming on streets, have been treated as second rank citizens all their lives, no mention of the fact that they have been left to perish in nasty neighborhoods with no prospect on a job or a decent life. What goes around comes around, folks!