Proto-Fascist Europe braces itself for the impending witch-hunt....
portal.telegraph.co.uk
Excerpt:
Many of France's five million-plus Muslims live on estates in suburbs - banlieues - such as Trappes, tantalised by the wealth of the country's prestige cities they surround. Now, with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the ever-present racial tensions between city and suburb dwellers are ready to erupt.
"I can't go out into town without people looking suspiciously at me," said Rashid, whose bar is a focal point at the heart of the Merisiers estate. "If you are with a woman and she is wearing the veil you can see they think you are an extremist." Some say there is good reason to look anxiously beyond the ring roads towards the estates.
No one has forgotten Khaled Kelkal, a young man from the working-class Lyons suburb of Vaulx-en-Velin, recruited by Algerian GIA terrorists for their 1995 bombing campaign on mainland France. Learning that a local boy had tried to blow up the high-speed rail link between Paris and Lyons was almost as great a shock to the nation as the GIA's toll of 10 deaths and several hundred injured in other attacks.
Trappes has always been particularly tense. It was here that students spoke only Arabic in class to show their solidarity with Iraq at the outbreak of the Gulf war. It was here that the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada was celebrated by setting fire to the local synagogue.
It is also at the mosque here that the only imam from Afghanistan in the Paris region chooses to preach. Now, France is asking itself whether more young men like Kelkal are waiting to emerge from suburbs like Trappes.
[snip]
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And keep in mind that, so far, Europe's quietness hasn't been troubled, not even by a damp squib... I let you imagine what lies ahead should a terrorist threat --factual or imaginary-- materialize...
Gus |
