The lesson that France is currently teaching is one that applies far beyond its borders, and spectacle readers in Britain, in Ireland, in the United States, in every country where the same austerity and the same contempt and the same degradation of public services is being imposed by governments with no mandate and no answers, should be paying close attention. The French are demonstrating something that is easy to forget when you are watching from inside a system that has been designed to make organised resistance feel futile: the state does not respond to reason alone. It does not move because of petitions or polite letters or even electoral pressure, because all of those things can be absorbed, delayed, managed, and eventually forgotten. It responds to disruption, to the credible assertion that the country cannot function normally while its people are being ignored, and the French people have been making that assertion, with remarkable consistency and remarkable discipline, for weeks.
They let the ambulances through. They block the roads and then they open them for the fire trucks and then they close them again, because they understand that their anger is not directed at the people the state is also failing to protect. They have chosen their targets carefully, and their message is clear. The system that is telling you there is no money for schools spent billions on war. The government that is cutting your pension sent its children to private school. The state that fires tear gas at 14-year-olds is the same state that has an answer for every question except the ones that matter.
Setting fire to cultural heritage sites is over the line. It is akin to cultural genocide, in particular if a minority/other group is hit.
Hi, French here and I can testify from my own experience of what happened that day in Paris, I also have direct contact with other regions (Marseille, Corrèze or Bretagne).
You shouldn’t talk about “cultural genocide”. It’s inappropriate and misleading.
There are several layers to this riots but since the spectacle only retains “burning and looting” you should know that even this is really understandable. But you need to put apart your racist biases first.
Human over building
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French genociding themselves? Explicitly pro fascism and state terrorism lemmy?
Imagine someone setting fire to your local, historic city hall, church, museum, or library. That’s not ok and removes a part of your identity. Calling that bad isn’t fascism. Having historic buildings and art isn’t state terrorism.
Blowing up an teen hand by the police is fascism and state terrorism and worse than anything protesters would do. You are participating in the current propaganda campaign to delegitimize completely the protests . The same tactic was used during the protests against the Vietnam war
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There are many genocides happening right now. I used that language to convey the danger of destroying and defacing culturally significant sites. Which they did to that one city hall, for example.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide
Culticide exists, I didn’t mean genocide. Sorry if that got lumped in. And I just wanted to raise awareness that cultural sites do in fact have a large value to the people and are not akin to burning down a big box store or housing. You are right to point out that we should moderate radicalizing substance posts more. And admirably constructive.
Given how sensitive lemmy is to that word i’d go with cultural murder instead. Yes the violence committed on both sides is inacceptable, and undermines the messages / negociations.
Whoever set fire to that building should spend the rest of their lives paying it back, because as it currently stands the whole population will. Even the nazis didn’t go that far, but these looters respect nothing.
That’s not quite accurate. The Nazis rise to power was accompanied by burning of historic buildings though who did it and why is in part debated. I agree with you otherwise.