As interesting as this would be on another occasion, the fact is, its not poverty which leads people to commit terrorism.<p>The problem of les banlieues is a social problem for France, but ghetto youth are more interested in girls, drugs, and otherwise acting out than in terrorism.<p>As Osama Bin Laden and others show, you can be given every opportunity in life and still choose terrorism. You can be well educated (many Daesh members are) and choose terrorism.<p>The elephant in the room that many refuse to address is that terrorism exists anywhere Islam does, there are insurgencies in nearly every country where Muslims are a sizeable minority.<p>A little anecdote - my wife comes from a very poor country, from a Muslim region. The poor kids aren't the ones growing up wearing hijabs, aren't the ones committing terrorism. Terrorists have been apprehended from her village trying to get into the west - the one thing they had in common - they went to a local madrassa funded by a Gulf state.<p>A similar comparison can be made in the US. Ghetto youth don't go around committing mass shootings. They don't join Daesh. It's the middle class, outcast white kids that are doing mass shootings, or newly converted/radicalized middle class youth that join Daesh.<p>Anyhow, it is a brilliantly written piece, but on this occasion I'm not sure its particularly relevant.
For anyone interested, La Haine (Hatred) is a fascinating film about a day in the life in the Paris suburbs anno 1995
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/</a><p>This quote has stuck with me ever since I first saw it:<p>"C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui tombe d’un immeuble de cinquante étages. Le mec, au fur et à mesure de sa chute se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer : jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien.
Mais l'important n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage."<p>Which loosely translates as:<p>"This is the story of a man falling from a fifty-story building. The guy, during his fall reassures himself by constantly repeating: so far so good, so far so good, so far so good.<p>But the important thing is not the fall, it's the landing."
I note that the first indications about who was behind this indicate that at least 3 of the people carrying out the attack were from Belgium (a suburb of Brussels to be precise) and that one entered the EU through Greece somewhere in October. I don't know anything about the rest of the attackers and that does not detract from the points made in the article but it is worth noting that this is not an issue confined to France but pan-European even though France has some unique elements that definitely factor into all this.
Didn't read the whole article yet, but being close to such places since birth, I'm often thinking about it. From immigration, post-war building efforts, architectural and urban paradigms[1], the new technologies that make these projects possible.<p>From a distance it can look as governments just wanted to park immigration, and that was part of it, but they also believed, if you look at the ads of the 60s, they were opening the gates of heaven. Which was partly and honestly true since at that time many populations lived in ghettos. The idea of having a place to sleep with a modern electric kitchen even (the average family still had countryside way of life), with parks and services under your window ... isn't far from a dream.<p>Unfortunately nothing went as planned. Failed integration, failed approach to urban planning[1], ... hard to say what was the real problem.<p>[1] Often blame has been put onto people like LeCorbusier, but his ideas have also been stretched too thin for socio-political purposes.
The article makes an important point. It points out that those drawn to Jihadism in the west tend to be woefully ignorant of the teachings of Islam.<p>Whenever there is an attack, both the snark about the "religion of peace" as well as the claim that Muslims don't condemn these acts both resurface. The fact is that both terrorism and ISIS have been roundly condemned by large panels of Islamic scholars.<p>It would not surprise me that, once the religious background of these terrorists is examined, that it is proves to be very flimsy.<p>The challenge, in my mind, and as a Muslim is that Muslims need to figure out how to prevent the brainwashing of impressionable young people in an era of instant communication.
'Are the suburbs of Paris incubators of terrorism?'<p>If true then this might be the case for most poor suburbs in many countries. People with nothing to loose who want to make a point.
The Battle of Algiers, in French<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7j4WVTgWc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7j4WVTgWc</a><p>I watched it in French and I don't speak French. The story is easy to follow.
what a fantastic read, thanks for submitting. I planned to read something on my phone until the kid falls asleep, then stayed in the room for 1.5 hours. :)