Matthew Yglesias (May 07, 2007) - La France Multiculty (Foreign Policy)

And of course Sarko is a second-generation Hungarian immigrant.

Posted by Jackmormon | May 7, 2007 5:52 PM

Surely this is just throat-clearing for expelling Arabs from Israel? (Perhaps under the guise of 'compensating' the Palestinians for those West Bank colonies?)

Posted by otto | May 7, 2007 5:58 PM

They have a right to define the qualifications for membership in and even admission to their societies.

Ah, yes:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurmlaw2.html

With Arab-hatin' Marty, there's a Godwin score of 1 from the outset.

Does Sarko think that les beurs are lazy, undeserving ingrates? Probably not. But he undoubtedly campaigned for the votes of those who do.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 7, 2007 6:26 PM

Marty's pining for the good old days of the Vichy regime, who really knew how to deal with inconvenient minorities.

Posted by Jon H | May 7, 2007 6:35 PM

And of course Sarko is a second-generation Hungarian immigrant. - Jackmormon

I always got a Voldemort "I may not be a full blooded wizard, but I do believe that I and full blooded wizards are superior to mudbloods" vibe from Sarkozy.

Anyway, it's not taking long for the spin on France's election to start, ain't it?

Posted by DAS | May 7, 2007 6:54 PM

And DAS wins the thread.

Posted by sangfroid826 | May 7, 2007 6:58 PM

Does Marty really want to argue that? Does he really think that, in the long run, Jews would fare well if majorities around the world adopted his view? I hate to break it to him, but, in global terms, Jews are not in the majority. Truth is, they're only a tenuous majority in Eretz Israel!

As for Sarkozy, he is every bit the French Bush he appears to be, with the distinction that he's reputedly physically abusive with his wife, which is why she never wants to be seen with him.

Sarkozy will stoke intolerance and cruelty (his rhetoric, Mr. Peretz, is almost verbatim drawn from Petain, as any French speaker can see), will broker deals for his billionaire pals, and will disintegrate psychologically as his personal life unravels.

From the looks of things, of course, Mr. Peretz has no problem with that.

Posted by alex | May 7, 2007 7:20 PM

Europeans and Euro-Americans need to become more vigilant. A third-world invasion of the West is taking place, and they are taking no prisoners. As Jean Raspail said in Camp of the Saints, unless we make a stand and make it soon, the West is doomed.

Posted by Patriot Pearl | May 7, 2007 7:28 PM

Five bucks says this French government winds up resembling more that of the Italians than its own dysfunctional predecessor.

Posted by bubba | May 7, 2007 7:56 PM

PP, do you realize that you sound like a bedwetting moron?

Posted by John Emerson | May 7, 2007 7:57 PM

People should be aware that defamation law applies on the Internet, and that being anonymous is not a defence.

Posted by Pithlord | May 7, 2007 8:21 PM

France may be full of the French, but it is still true that France has tried the ultra-assimilationist assimilation policy that the US right wing recommends for the US. There is one France, one French-ness, one citizenship, one culture which is officially completely color- and culture-blind, and therefore, ethnic racial and religious discirminiatoin is logically impossible, right? Sure. 90% the US right was clueless when they denounced 'multicultural' France during the recent riots. Now even a right wing lawnorder dude like Sarkozy has to consider it might not be enough.

Posted by anon | May 7, 2007 8:24 PM

Um, who's anonymous and who's defamatory?

Posted by John Emerson | May 7, 2007 8:24 PM

"Majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories."

I look forward to my people (who, it turns out - contrary to my father's crazy ideas of recent years - turn out to have been quite Prussian, not Jewish) taking up their longstanding tradition of sword and helmet-making (this part it turns out was true) and raiding Roman settlements on the northern frontier.

Posted by Linus | May 7, 2007 8:33 PM

Europeans and Euro-Americans need to become more vigilant.

Patriot Pearl is just Marty's internet tag, no? What the fuck kind of term is "Euro-American" anyway?

Posted by Mike | May 7, 2007 8:49 PM

You know, for a while now I've been watching this anti-Marty party from afar, not really paying attention to the details, not really caring about whether all the bad things said about him were true or not true.

Now I know that he's a dangerous fool. No question about it.

Posted by ScottS | May 7, 2007 9:09 PM

Apparently, I'm not the only one who finds it ironic that my fellow Jew Martin Peretz is calling for "a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories."

I wonder what it would be like if my family were still living in the Pale.

Posted by Dave in the Corn | May 7, 2007 9:09 PM

"a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories."

Wierd, wierd, thing for a revisionist zionist to say.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 7, 2007 9:12 PM

Wierd, wierd, thing for a revisionist zionist to say.

Well, less weird for a revisionist (Jabotinskyite) Zionist than for a mainstream Ben Gurion-Herut type, no?

Posted by Matt Steinglass | May 7, 2007 9:41 PM

Yeah, I thought about that afterword.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 7, 2007 9:50 PM

All that's missing is the "...by any means necessary."

Posted by daveNYC | May 7, 2007 9:53 PM

Wierd, wierd, thing for a revisionist zionist to say.

I think Marty sees it this way: Defending a nation's right to Purity of Essence both exonerates Israel's discrimination against non-Jews, and could very well result in more Jews immigrating to Israel to escape hostile PoE policies in other countries, which would then help to counter the demographic threat that Arabs pose to Israel's Jewish majority. That's what Marty calls a win-win.

Posted by M. Duss | May 7, 2007 10:05 PM

I'm a member of every Majority I know of where I live, and no minorities (except one - I'm male), so I'm trying to understand my "obligation" as Peretz would have it.

Is it enough for Us to disenfranchise Them, or should we drive Them into the sea? I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean that we should exterminate Them, but he didn't really say. We must take it under advisement.

In any case, getting rid of everybody who doesn't live up to the "ethics, norms, cultures and histories" of Texan Society is going to be a gargantuan task.

Posted by de Selby | May 7, 2007 10:22 PM

I love it when pundits try to sound like they know things even though they are clueless.
My mom is from France. Arabs have been a part of the country since she was a child and they have yet to integrate them.
This speaks to France's grip on their identity. They even tried to ban slang several years ago fearing it would lead to American style laziness in language and France would lose its idenity.
I must say this is not something learned. something in the French character makes them want to cling to their identity very hard. Though born and raised in America, I even have some feelings like this in regards to france. For it to be real France forever.
America is a multiculture society. always has been. embrace it. for the french, it will be a very difficult job. almost impossible as the french tend to get stubborn and resentful and rebellious if they think you are forcing something on them.

Posted by vwcat | May 7, 2007 10:39 PM

As Matt alludes to, different European countries have tried different policies toward immigrants (France assimilationist; Sweden, Britain, and Netherlands multiculturalist; Germany benign neglectist), but the results seem driven less by the host countries' efforts than by the qualities the immigrants themselves bring with them. For example, in Britain, Hindus and Sikhs, who were mostly from South Asia's middle-class, have done reasonably well, while Pakistani Muslims (who were mostly unskilled peasant laborers recruited to work in the mills to provide cheap labor) have done poorly.

In France, the Vietnamese and the European immigrants, such as Sarkozy's ancestors (he's half Hungarian, one quarter Salonikan Jewish, one quarter French), have generally done well, while the North and West Africans have tended to lag.

The vast car-burning riots of 2005 probably had less to do with radical Islam than with the fact that setting cars on fire is fun.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 7, 2007 10:44 PM

How short Marty's memory is. I guess he's forgotten about anything before the end of WWII and the establishment of Israel.

One wonders if he thinks the arabs in the middle east, clearly the majority, have the same obligations to define the qualifications for membership in and even admission to their societies - from Turkey to West Africa and Iraq. By any means necessary to their obligations...

I'd bet France's actual policy changes will be minimal and cosmetic, since the French know how to handle governments that become oppressive. There even may be some guillotines still operational if the need arises.

My bigger worry is that France, Germany and the UK (after the Torries take control) will get into some spats that harken back to the first half of the 20th century. Nationalism is a dangerous thing when your neighbors are just across the fence figuratively.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | May 7, 2007 10:48 PM

Steve Sailer:

"The vast car-burning riots of 2005 probably had less to do with radical Islam than with the fact that setting cars on fire is fun."

They're still averaging 100+ car burnings per night, on quite nights.

Steve: why do you think the Arabs and North Africans have lagged versus the Vietnamese and European immigrants to France?

Posted by Fred | May 7, 2007 10:55 PM

I'm not Steve, but I'll take a crack at this:

"why do you think the Arabs and North Africans have lagged versus the Vietnamese and European immigrants to France?"

Could it be that Vietnamese speak French and Europeans are white Christian (excuse me - JUDEO-Christian) Europeans?

Or is it something more nefarious?

Posted by de Selby | May 7, 2007 11:05 PM

Steve Sailer said: "For example, in Britain, Hindus and Sikhs, who were mostly from South Asia's middle-class, have done reasonably well, while Pakistani Muslims (who were mostly unskilled peasant laborers recruited to work in the mills to provide cheap labor) have done poorly."

Who told you this? The Hindus are just as bad as the Muslims. They are disrespectful, rude, and hate the West with a passion. They will look you in the face, smile and be polite, and behind your back talk about the eradication of whites.

Remember, Jean Raspail spent much time with Hindus, and in the Camp of the Saints he has them lead the invasion of the West.

Posted by Sir Nelson | May 7, 2007 11:15 PM

There was also a "game" in East London a while back where Hindu Indians were competing to see who could infect the most white women with HIV.

Posted by Sir Nelson | May 7, 2007 11:19 PM

My understanding is that most of the vandals in the recent riots in France were born in France, French was their native tongue, or at least they had been bilingual since they entered grade school, had the same level of education as most others in France, and they are not part of radical Islam. Read Juan Cole on the background of the rioters and their neighborhoods. Americablog has a resident of France, and he provided some background too.

Anyone know differently?

The root of the riots seem to be the distance between the myth of egalitarian civic-minded, color and culture blind French assimilationist immigration policy, and the de facto reality of employment and housing discrimination.

Posted by anon | May 7, 2007 11:22 PM

"Jean Raspail"

Hmm. How does Tancredo feel about the heathen swine?

Did Torquemada leave a written opinion?

That's not the first time I've heard Hindus were rude. I heard even Ghandi was rude.

Posted by de Selby | May 7, 2007 11:23 PM

Matt -- I wish you would stop picking this scab. He's a douchebag. We know he's a douchebag. If you want to throw up the occassioanlly two-line post that says "Marty Peretz still a racist douchebag; see this here link," by all means be my guest. But it's almost painful to watch you keep engaging with the man as if he was worthy of analysis. Why do you even read him?

Posted by Diablevert | May 7, 2007 11:25 PM

Sarkozy advocates a Canadian-style system of selective immigration designed to improve the welfare of existing citizens by bringing in highly skilled foreigners.

What we've seen all over the world is that the amount of human capital immigrants bring with them fairly accurately forecasts how well their children and grandchildren will do. The Canadians have a complex point system to identify immigration applicants who would most benefit Canadians. For example, in 2001, I took the Canadian test ... and failed. Don't Call Canada, We'll Call You was the message. To see if you have what it takes to be a Canadian, see:

http://www.isteve.com/Canada_Doesnt_Want_Me.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 7, 2007 11:30 PM

Wow, teh Crazy is hoppin' in this thread.

Somebody wondered upthread "What the fuck kind of term is "Euro-American" anyway?" It's a term used by people who wear a shirt and tie over their White Power t-shirt.

Posted by kvenlander | May 7, 2007 11:43 PM

The question of why various immigrant groups do "better" than others applies to lots of countries. In the USA for example why do recent immigrants such as Koreans (for example) do "better" than some members of the African-American community?

Works both ways in both cases: in France there is obvious racism against North African Arabs and they in turn reject the system which rejects them. To be more specific there is the legacy of the bloody colonisation of Algeria, class differences (the Chinese-Vietnamese were business-oriented and the Algerians were peasants brought in to work in heavy industry).

Sarkozy has been successful because he has sliced through the culture of empty rhetoric that is French politics. He has also dealt with an issue that only Le Pen was touching on - that there is a real problem when immigrants objectively reject the French model of equality - i.e. young Algerian men do not want to be French citizens because that would make equal to women! A terrible thing for Mediterranean machos, boy-kings who rule over their mothers and all females.

I reiterate that they are also objectively and in particular economically - 50-80% unemployment in the projects - rejected by the system. Vicious circle, but not everyone is caught up in it. Aside from work / education the real test will be with political representation. There is no (or hardly any) non-whites in Parliament. This is marked contrast to the UK for example.

The problem with Sarko is that he gets perilously close to xenophobia. For those whose French is good, I recommend watching this clip where Gerard Miller uncovers what lies behing the Sarkozy rhetoric: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vfyt_gerard-miller-analyse-sarkozy

Posted by matrok | May 7, 2007 11:44 PM

Matrok asks:

"why do recent immigrants such as Koreans (for example) do "better" than some members of the African-American community?"

Immigrants from South Korea tend to come from the professional class in their home country, so they are above average just compared to other Koreans.

Further, South Koreans as a whole have perhaps the strongest work ethic in the world, working the most hours per year of any country in the industrialized world. Finally, South Koreans in total average about 5 or so points higher than white Americans on IQ tests. It would be remarkable if immigrants with these levels of human capital didn't do well.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 7, 2007 11:59 PM

For example, in 2001, I took the Canadian test ... and failed.

I wondered what 'Are you a purveyor of dodgy race-based bullshit? [ ] YES [ ] NO' was in there for.

(A clue, though: Canada never really governed that much else around the world.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 8, 2007 12:01 AM

Unh, I don't know from IQ tests - besides wasn't the Virginia Tech shooter from a pretty lower-class family? I guess it's not a good idea to generalise too much. My point is that are strong differences in how various non-whites are treated by the dominant white culture and that simply ascribing "success" to innate characteristics is a little misguided: the playing field is not level - why would you need positive discrimination otherwise? (But you may be against that, I dunno)

Posted by matrok | May 8, 2007 12:07 AM

So is Marty implicitly bashing the States for letting his people in decades ago? Fucking ingrate....

Posted by sglover | May 8, 2007 12:16 AM

But it's almost painful to watch you keep engaging with the man as if he was worthy of analysis. Why do you even read him?

Because there's a substantial segment of American discourse these days that is actively tolerating or promoting violent anti-Islamic bigotry. That discourse must be eradicated; it is intolerable in modern American society. The figures on the right who are slinging this crap are untouchable to Matthew Yglesias; it doesn't matter what he says about them. But Marty Peretz can eventually be hounded out of the world of Democratic punditry, and that will establish that on one side of the aisle, this sort of language is not permissible. Then, eventually, we can take on the racist crap on the right.

Posted by Matt Steinglass | May 8, 2007 12:19 AM

Matrok claims in a discussion of why South Korean immigrants prosper:

"My point is that are strong differences in how various non-whites are treated by the dominant white culture and that simply ascribing "success" to innate characteristics is a little misguided"

This is a good example of white liberal self-absorption: we see here the assumption that Korean immigrant prosperity is driven by how whtes treat the immigrants, rather than by the efforts of the immigrants themselves!

In reality, whites pay little attention to Koreans, especially because Korean immigrants frequently bought businesses in black ghettos.

On the rare occasions when whites do pay attention to Koreans, if they see Koreans as generally hard-working and well-educated, well, it's not because whites have some Random Stereotype Generator embedded in their skulls, but because Koreans really are on average hard-working and well-educated.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 8, 2007 12:39 AM

"Majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories"

If only my ancestors had thought of that sometime around October of 1492...

Posted by The Local Crank | May 8, 2007 12:54 AM

Re. the "immigrant success" thread - I don't doubt that Koreans are very hardworking. My point is that it does matter how the dominated community see themselves. Do you really believe that in the US Koreans and poor blacks are a) treated in the same way and b) brought up in the same way? And that there is no link between the two? Sorry to have to break it to you, but history does exist, and it does impact the present, by generating cycles of negative or positive growth. No matter how many times you say "those lazy so-and-sos better start pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps!"

Posted by matrok | May 8, 2007 1:00 AM

Matrok condescends to inform us:

"Sorry to have to break it to you, but history does exist, and it does impact the present ..."

This is a good example of white American self-absorption, where history is assumed to begin the moment a group arrives in America, and not a moment before. In reality, history extends far back into the past and far beyond America. If Korean immigrants in American work on average exceptionally hard and smart, which they do, the major causes must be found far back in history before they began to arrive in America in the 1970s.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 8, 2007 1:13 AM

"Because there's a substantial segment of American discourse these days that is actively tolerating or promoting violent anti-Islamic bigotry. That discourse must be eradicated; it is intolerable in modern American society...Marty Peretz can eventually be hounded out of the world of Democratic punditry, and that will establish that on one side of the aisle, this sort of language is not permissible."

I'm fine with houding the jerk, as I indicated above. MY's post doesn't hound, it politely queries. Here, take this sentence:

"Obviously, Marty doesn't like Arabs and Sarkozy's given some indication that he feels the same way, but does he really think France of all places is in the grips of the 'cult of multiculturalism'?"

MY is here discussing Peretz's post as if he, MY, were actually confused about whether Peretz is merely a fool or a man whose racist predjudices incline him to foolishness. MY knows, and we know, that it's the latter; and as I said, I see nothing wrong with pointing this out. What I don't get and don't care for is posting about Peretz in faux-headscratchy polite disagreement, as if Peretz were someone one could argue with in good faith. He's not. MY _knows_ he's not; MY has written lengthy articles in the Prospect illuminating this very point. It's like worrying a scab.

Posted by Diablevert | May 8, 2007 1:20 AM

Koreans can't hack in Japan and have a lotta gripes about discrimination against them there... oops, excuse me, I meant to say "they are indulging in pathetic whining and sour graping about losing out to a better race and culture, and not eating their just deserts like they should, dammit". Guess them Japanese are harder working and smarter than them Koreans. I sense within myself a general interest in the topic, and could make the time to look into it more, but I might be accused of indulging in white liberal guilt, or closed mindedly buying in to liberal orthodoxies, or some such ghastly and ignoble and humiliating state of mind, which would make me appear ridiculous

Posted by anon | May 8, 2007 1:53 AM

A meta-point about this thread, for those of you who criticize Steve Sailer for having racists leave comments on his blog: I read both Sailer's and Matt's blogs on a pretty much daily basis, and Sailer has left more comments in this thread than he has left in any of the comments threads of his blog in at least a week. It's worth noting that Sailer engages with this blogs readership far more often than he engages with his own.

Posted by Fred | May 8, 2007 1:54 AM

I think Sarko's anti-immigration plank is just there to keep France's far right from backing far right candidates. Sarko comes from the neoliberal economic tradition of Maggie Thatcher. I don't endorse those views for the most part, but he isn't the extremist people say he is.

I hope he really pushes for real affirmative action. France's narrow concept of national identity, which he seems to struggle with despite his anti-immigration plank, is idiotic.

He should give The Difference by Scott Page a read when it comes to these issues. I highly recommend that book.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | May 8, 2007 2:02 AM

I want to intervene: will you please stop to play along with that "sarkozy is an hungarian immigrant" crap?
His father was an hungarian aristocrat (read cosmopolit mitteleuropa), and left the family when Sarkozy was a child.
When and if I want to categorize him as french compatriot, I think of him as a mix of Parisian and meditteranean French. If you want to play that game, I would prefer for instance Presidents north of the Loire over southerner, protestant over catholic, and ashkenaze over sepharade, and parisian are difficult to order, for what it is worth, but it´s just me.
I am convinced the hungarian bit is irrelevant in the case of Sarko.
The immigrant bit is irrelevant too: his mother was a divorced mother in the sixties who became a successful lawyer, daughter of a doctor, living in a posh neighborhood, do you believe it hints to a difficult immigration background???
His father is only relevant if you want to do a freudian analysis, not a sociological one.

Posted by info | May 8, 2007 2:08 AM

"They're still averaging 100+ car burnings per night, on quite nights."

Most of those are probably shitty Peugots and Renaults self-immolating to end their pathetic existences.

Posted by Jon H | May 8, 2007 2:29 AM

Steve Sailer jabbers:

"This is a good example of white American self-absorption, where history is assumed to begin the moment a group arrives in America, and not a moment before. In reality, history extends far back into the past and far beyond America. If Korean immigrants in American work on average exceptionally hard and smart, which they do, the major causes must be found far back in history before they began to arrive in America in the 1970s"

Dear oh dear:

What makes him think I am white?
What makes him think I am American?
What makes him think I was only talking about American history?

Self-absorption, indeed..

Enough of my "liberal whining" (I will condescend to that description - harharhar) - and back to Sarkozy / Iznogoud (famous French comic book character from the 1960s-1970s, a scheming grand vizir who is constantly thwarted in his efforts to be "califf instead of the califf") Apart from the ambition they actually look alike.

I agree that he is not a poor immigrant (he was the mayor of Neuilly which is THE poshest suburb of Paris) BUT he is not from the grandes ecoles (unlike Royal who went to ENA) and he does break the mold a little - speaking of positive discrimination in France is very new for instance. In the end he is French because of culture not blood - which differentiates him from Le Pen and his ilk though he does pander to the same racist instincts occasionally - viz Miller video which I linked to earlier.

Posted by matrok | May 8, 2007 2:43 AM

Took the Immigration Test when I was backpacking around Australia- had a Brit mate who wanted to give it a shot. We both missed it by five points (hadn't finished my degree then, and oil prices were in one of their periodic collapses, so there was zero demand for my skills in seismic survey).
The officer taking the applications looked them over, winked, said "no worries, mates", and stamped them approved.

Wondered why till I noticed we were the only two white people in the line.

The racist troll rating has really soared since the move from TAP, hasn't it?

Posted by MikeN | May 8, 2007 4:13 AM

Sailer brings them with him, like fleas from a dog.

Posted by tequila | May 8, 2007 4:40 AM

I wonder WTF Sarkozy's talking about. France's economy hasn't stagnated because of its 35 hour work week or immigrant population. It has cyclic bouts of growth and stagnation like everywhere else.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 8, 2007 7:23 AM

the qualities the immigrants themselves bring with them

Sailer, for example, comes over to Matt's blog, and brings a lot of vile racism with him . . .

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La France Multiculty

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