Quote:Here, young men try to rule their families and neighbors under a macho code drawn partly from Muslim tradition, partly from the violence and porn in the media. Women submit to men, they say. Good girls, good sisters, cover themselves and stay home. Otherwise they are putes, whores, who can be used and abused even if they say no.

GRIM AS SUCH crimes may be, they’re becoming commonplace in the police ledgers of Paris, Lyons or Toulouse. The scene is almost always the same: the housing projects called cites on the outskirts of France’s major cities. Built by socially progressive governments in the 1960s, they’ve since been taken over by a generation of mostly Arab immigrants—impoverished, cut off from their native lands and culture, ghettoized. Here, young men try to rule their families and neighbors under a macho code drawn partly from Muslim tradition, partly from the violence and porn in the media. Women submit to men, they say. Good girls, good sisters, cover themselves and stay home. Otherwise they are putes, whores, who can be used and abused even if they say no.
Such stories, then, are not just about urban crime and rough neighborhoods. They reflect a core issue of Muslim integration in Europe. Can the young men and women of the cites break out, or will they become ever more isolated, turning inward against themselves? Will they build their lives and relationships on egalitarian values, or on the worst of Islam and the Internet? Young men trapped in a world with no jobs and no future, and violently confused about sex, tend to make women the symbols and the victims of the frustrations around them. Ten years ago, the boys in these hoods burned cars in the streets. Today, they increasingly turn their anger against “their” women in the basements of their apartment blocks.
Recently, a few young women of the cites have begun to fight back. One organization in particular, Ni Putes, Ni Soumises, (roughly, Not Whores, Not Servants), has been organizing protests and speaking out so loudly that the French public and the French government have taken notice—and sympathized. In one grandiose gesture on Bastille Day, July 14, huge photographs of 14 women from the cites, posing as Marianne, the symbol of French liberty, were hung on the columns of the National Assembly looking out on the Place de la Concorde. Will these girls’ fathers and brothers now show them as much respect?
That looks to be a longer fight. “Sexuality has always been a thorny issue in the quartiers ,” says Safia Lebdi, 29, who is one of the first members of Ni Putes, Ni Soumises, and could be a poster girl for confident, in-your-face sexuality. The other day she was wearing a pink see-through top, low-rise cargo pants and soft, beaded slippers. Born into the cite outside Clermont-Ferrand, where Michelin makes tires, she knows what she’s talking about when she says that “feminist thinking never reached the ghettos.” Girls, for their own protection, have taken to wearing loose-fitting track suits or veils over their hair. “They’re locked up in a world where their fathers have failed to break out of unemployment, where they have failed at finishing school or finding a job,” says a young woman activist with another group, Female Voices, Rebel Voices. Lacking hope or the opportunity for a better life, she adds, “all the men have left is their virility.” And some have savage ways of asserting it.
Late last year, two events galvanized the women of the cites. A young woman named Samira Bellil published a book, “In Gang-Rape Hell,” recounting her experiences in the ghetto, including twice being subjected to the tournante —men taking turns using her, one after another. She urged her “sisters in suffering” to speak out before they lost all self-esteem. Then reports hit the press about another —incident even more gruesome than those before it. A 17-year-old woman named Sohane told off an old boyfriend, and he burned her alive.
So it was, earlier this year, that the eight young women of Ni Putes, Ni Soumises came together and began touring France to publicize their plight. They weren’t sure what they were doing or where they were going. But they knew they were fed up. “We were f—-ing scared,” says Lebdi. “We were heading for the unknown.”
Unknown then, perhaps, but no longer. Today, all of France knows of them and their cause. They have been received in Paris by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The government has promised that police stations would be more receptive to women in distress filing complaints, and that housing should be provided for women, whom these activists and the government agree, need rescuing from severe abuse. So far some 50 women have moved into such apartments, and Ni Putes, Ni Soumises gets a steady stream of abused and battered girls. “It takes time to make change happen,” says Lebdi, “but we don’t have time. Every single situation we deal with is an emergency and often even a matter of life and death.”
The problem is that to help the women of the cites in the long run, you have to help the men—not only to find jobs and education, but to learn to live in Western societies. And precious little has been done about that.

Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 11:30 AM Wrote:Remember when it used to be said that black guys liked to rape white women as a matter of fact?
Most stories are partly true and most stories are only half the story.
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Doc,Sep 30 2005, 09:02 AM Wrote:Such stories, then, are not just about urban crime and rough neighborhoods. They reflect a core issue of Muslim integration in Europe[right][snapback]90599[/snapback][/right]

Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 12:40 PM Wrote:And its well documented that some black hoodlums raped some white women.
Take note your term "extremists" would imply a minority.
That said I am no fan of Islam; I think its is nothing more stone worship with hints of gencide. However all the Muslims I have personally met and talked to directly online are wonderfully reasonable people.

Also look at some of the stories(verified) of Russian atrocities on Chechan civilians before you completely blame Islam for the deravity of given individuals.
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Doc,Sep 30 2005, 12:47 PM Wrote:And in reply to your black vs white banter, there are plenty of white men who raped black women. Humans rape. It's not always about skin colour. Some times it is. In this case, it's more about culture. In particular, these assholes believe that rape and humiliation is fitting punishment for any woman that they think is a whore or does not meet their standards.
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 12:57 PM Wrote:Thank you Mr Obvious.
Seriously just how big is your head?

I cant tell if your problem is that, you are too clueless to to get other peoples point(in this case that its easy make generalisations about groups of people you arent familier with) or if its that you think were all 3rd graders who dont understand what we wrote ourselves.
Anyway get the #$%^ over yourself. Either take your insight to a higher level or just stop.
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 01:20 PM Wrote:Wrong.

I showed that anyone can pick on a minority they arent familer with and make generalisations.

Its a common rhetorical method to compare a new situation to something the audence is familier with.
Basically I gues no one is allowed to even look sideways at a a black guy - because your black, but its opn season on other minorities?
I find your frequent rants about how you are/were a black man fighting the oppresive system a bit bufoonish, but I mostly let it go because thats how you define yourself it seems.
But its some what offensive to the notion of high discourse to see YOU doing the same thing, that you gripe about others doing.
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 01:40 PM Wrote:I could really care less what you are.
You complain about people generalising when it affects you and then you go and do it about others.
Get it?
Probably not - oh well.
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 08:30 AM Wrote:Remember when it used to be said that black guys liked to rape white women as a matter of fact?
Most stories are partly true and most stories are only half the story.
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jahcs,Sep 30 2005, 01:49 PM Wrote:Perhaps using a less inflamatory statement or avoiding examples and saying what is meant would help avoid the vitriol that has followed.

Most news stories will have spin put on it and just enough research done to prove the point that was sought from the beginning.  Once that goal is reached most reporters rarely dig any deeper.

And a website called jihadwatch.com may not be the most unbiased source of information out there ;)
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 05:57 PM Wrote:Thank you Mr Obvious.
Seriously just how big is your head?

I cant tell if your problem is that, you are too clueless to to get other peoples point(in this case that its easy make generalisations about groups of people you arent familier with) or if its that you think were all 3rd graders who dont understand what we wrote ourselves.
Anyway get the #$%^ over yourself. Either take your insight to a higher level or just stop.
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Ghostiger,Sep 30 2005, 12:57 PM Wrote:The vitrol was the point.

I said something no more offensive than him(actually I didnt say it as fact the way he did I said what people used to say) - the only difference is mine an example of historic hokum where his example is one hes preaching.
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