How is setting buildings and cars on fire going to do anything other than create hatred?

Let me just say at the outset that I love French culture, but that I know very little of French society and history. I am commenting as an American with the perspective of an ‘outsider’ and I know it, so if you are French, please do not be offended by what I write here. It may be that I just don't know what I'm talking about, or maybe an outsider's viewpoint can have some value.

I have been trying to understand what is going on in France with the riots, and looking for something comparable in my own experience and that of America. We did have race riots in the 1960s (around the time I was born, actually). But these riots were different. Though some of the people, members of the Black Panthers for example, did seem to hate America, most of the protestors were actually pro-American. Our riots came towards the end of a civil rights revolution that was peaceful mostly and largely successful. When they occurred, Congress had already passed the Civil Rights Bill that essentially eliminated the injustices that sparked the riots. The movement led by Martin Luther King was challenging America to live up to its creed -- though he was killed, his words still live:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I, too, have that same dream. I think that a majority of Americans share that dream. Sometimes it feels like we’re heading in the wrong direction though as we reach for that dream. The color of one’s skin or one’s ethnicity should not matter, particularly where government is concerned. It pains me when particular ‘groups’ of people are given special rights that other groups do not share.

I think that the violence back in the 1960s was motivated primarily by frustration with the pace of integration and black advancement socially, economically and politically. Patience is one thing that Americans could probably use a lot more of, even today.

But back to France and the seemingly racially motivated violence happening there right now. I’m trying to see a parallel, but it is not working for me. For one, it seems to be more of an immigration issue, while the issue underlying the riots in the U.S. in the late 1960s had more to do with left-over injustices and prejudices relating to slavery which had been abolished one hundred years prior, and by a demand for equal rights for all Americans. I don’t think that the riots in France are pro-France, and though social, economic and political disparity do seem to be motivating factors to some extent, this does not appear to be anything like the relatively peaceful civil rights movement we had in the U.S. Certainly, the intention of the rioters is not to do away with what's left over from slavery. They are legal immigrants but anti-France, while the hostility of the 1960s was rooted in the very pro-American ideal that “all men [and women] are created equal.” I feel like I'm missing some key piece to a puzzle -- perhaps if I knew more about French history and/or colonization it might make more sense to me. I do want to learn about it - this article seemed enlightening in that it paints a historical background for the riots. An excerpt:

Aubervilliers, Clichy, Vitry were and are ghettoes, and are now aflame. France must confront the reality of its bad history with minorities of various kinds, but especially with North African Arabs, who have never been forgiven for the beating the Algerians inflicted on France in the late 1950s, as evoked in the dramatic film The Battle of Algiers.

I haven't seen that movie, but just now ordered it; here is its description from Netflix.

I sincerely doubt that these riots will cause the average French citizen to sympathize with the rioters or change their attitudes towards them in a positive way. Do the rioters even want to integrate with the rest of French society? I don’t know what they want. Se-Se la Tulipe says that they are saying, loudly, that "they exist." Well, they have everyone's attention, that's for sure. But if they are motivated by discrimination against them, then how is setting buildings and cars on fire going to do anything other than create hatred and more discrimination? If they have given up hope, then why haven't they moved elsewhere?

If there is a parallel with the American experience of the 1960s, perhaps it is in that those who feel that opportunities for success in life are out of reach, particularly the young (blacks in the U.S., Middle Eastern and North African immigrants in France), were/are impatient for change. Perhaps the reason that the violence in France and other parts of Europe is more severe than what happened in the U.S. in the 1960s is because, whereas things were changing for the better in terms of civil rights in the U.S. in the '60s, things are not changing in Europe. Or maybe I'm way off-base. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I don't really know much about French society.

UPDATE: Ok, I just watched that movie, The Battle of Algiers, and I have to say I was disappointed. I was expecting more of a documentary, but it was clear that the film producers and director had an agenda. What I got was a movie, or rather a story. I do not know how accurate it is, so I can’t say that I feel like I’ve learned much about French history. I do not think it was an objective look at that conflict.

Some of the scenes in Algiers were actual footage of the violence of that time, like the footage of injured and dying people being pulled from the rubble of a bombed restaurant, but most of it was not real footage. The acting was poor by today’s standards (providing a little comic relief), and some of the lines were just not believable, like when a French commander tells his troops (or are they police?), “In our situation, humane considerations can only lead to despair and confusion.” I know this was the fifties, but the way I’ve seen our own military portrayed by Hollywood leaves me with great doubt about the accuracy of any western military’s portrayal by moviemakers or by the TV media. The modern day moral equivalence for example between humiliating prisoners, all caught either shooting at people or making bombs, on the one hand while the other side is kidnapping innocent civilians and chopping off their heads on a regular basis … let’s just say that I am distrustful about claims of torture, ok? Humiliation and intimidation, though sad and repulsive, are not the same as torture in my book. Besides, what happened at Abu Grahib was not policy but a couple of sickos on the night-shift getting off on a power trip (though I do think that the American commander of the division in charge of Abu Grahib at that time should have been prosecuted instead of being let off with a reprimand and a discharge). The media has so overblown that issue as well as many other issues relating to the military that I am to the point where I have a hard time believing any such reports. I know the movie is set in the 1950s, but making interrogation seem evil while making the assassination of police officers look valiant, even if it was a subtle effect, seems wrong to me.

One thing that made me think though, was a scene where an Algerian went into a dance club with a bomb in a bag, put the bag under his chair, and then just watched the clock. Here I thought that Yasser Arafat was the inventor of the suicide bomber, but according to this movie I was wrong about that. I guess I learned something new today. Or not. Like I said, I doubt the accuracy of The Battle of Algiers movie.

Overall, I give the movie a C.

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