Disturbing News from France

For the 11th straight night, French youths have burned buildings, burned cars, and shot at police. Last night, ten police officers were shot. These riots have spread from the suburbs of Paris to other French cities like Nice and Cannes. This is disturbing.

What is equally as disturbing are some of the comments coming from French youths. In the NYTimes article linked above comes this comment:

While everyone seems to agree that the latest violence was touched off by the deaths of the teenagers last week, the unrest no longer has much to do with the incident. "It was a good excuse, but it's fun to set cars on fire," said Mohamed Hammouti, a 15-year-old boy in Clichy-sous-Bois, sitting Sunday outside the gutted remnants of a gymnasium near his home. Like many people interviewed, he denied having participated in the violence.

Excuse me? It was "fun" to set cars on fire? Nice.

Evidently an informal bomb making factory was discovered the other day.

Police also found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building in Evry south of Paris, with more than 100 bottles ready to turned into bombs, another 50 already prepared, as well as fuel stocks and hoods for hiding rioters' faces, senior Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press. Police arrested six people, all under 18.

The discovery Saturday night, he said, shows that gasoline bombs "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms."

Opinions in the US seem to be varied over what is happening in France. Given the general anti-French feelings of some in the US, they see this as France getting what it deserves. Some have seen in these events all sorts of ominous things concerning not only French politics but also immigration policy and welfare. I do not know enough about French politics or policies to know.

And yet, I am not sure there are any conclusions to be gleaned from these events, yet. I remember well the riots (uprising?) here in Los Angeles following the first Rodney King trial. Burning and shooting and killing happened for days. It dominated the news. My dad, who never called me for any occasion, was so concerned by the images on the TV, he called to find out if we were all right. In fact, even though these horrible things were happening less than ten miles from our home, we were quite safe. But we did not feel safe at the time.

Still, if someone overseas was watching, they could have assumed, "Well, this is what the US is really like. Riots. Mayhem. Shooting. Racism. What a country!"

They would, of course, have been wrong. There were no riots in 99% of Los Angeles, and no riots in 99.999% of the US. And yet, the media images were omnipresent.

I guess I am wondering, this morning, as I read about this and pray for the French government and people to come to grips with these events, I am wondering how much of our views of the world are distorted by what we see on TV, hear on the radio, read in the newspaper, and link to on the internet.

I am also wondering about why these things happen. I wonder at the root causes championed by the NY Times, such as poverty and unemployment. It strikes me that during the Depression in the US, that in places like Akron, Ohio where the unemployment rate was 80%, there were no riots like this.

People burning down their own buildings, their own cars, their own stores, their own neighborhoods seems to be insane to me. And yet, this was what evil is like. There is no rationale to evil. And there is a spiritual force within the human heart that needs to be tamed, or it results in this sort of behavior. In what moral universe is it "fun" to burn cars? What short-sighted vision of the world would lead to that conclusion?

So I will pray for the French goverment. But I will also pray for a spiritual awakening in France. That people will see the folly of their behavior and repent. I was very glad this morning to see that leading French Muslims had condemned the violence.

In an effort to stop the attacks and distance them from Islam, France's most influential Islamic group issued a religious edict, or fatwa, condemning the violence. "It is formally forbidden for any Muslim seeking divine grace and satisfaction to participate in any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone's life," the fatwa said, citing the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad.

It's a start.