Althouse: "Merah is certainly a monster, but he was a French monster."

April 12, 2012

"Merah is certainly a monster, but he was a French monster."

"Our passports may say that we are French, but we don’t feel French because we were never accepted here. No one can excuse what he did, but he is a product of French society, of the feeling that he had no hope and nothing to lose. It was not Al Qaeda that created Mohammed Merah. It was France."

31 comments:

Tank said...: Diversity is also the French strength.; 4/12/12, 11:39 AM
Known Unknown said...: Assimilation is a two-way street.

Sharia is a dead end.; 4/12/12, 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: If you spend any time in the neighborhoods just outside of the Périphérique, you'll really get a sense of the exclusion and alienation.

The fruit of a culture with a large component designed to repel other-culture invasions of any and all kinds.

The great irony is that nobody can be truly French except Parisians.

Not even provincials.; 4/12/12, 11:41 AM
Cedarford said...: Classic Islamoid ploy - "It is not us, it is the country or ethnic group we do our butchering and crimes against that makes us so!".; 4/12/12, 11:41 AM
edutcher said...: They sowed dragon's teeth in the banlieus.

No excuse for what he did, certainly, but importing an underclass and expecting them to like it ain't gonna work.

PS This is what the bi-lingual, multi-culti, diversity crowd hopes happens here.; 4/12/12, 11:55 AM
Revenant said...: What a bunch of nonsense.; 4/12/12, 12:04 PM
ricpic said...: Sounds like the muzzie mascots of the French Left are as blameless as Hussein.; 4/12/12, 12:09 PM
Christian said...: Let's see. If you took away Islamic extremism, would he have attacked Jews?

If you took away France, would Islamic extremists still exist?; 4/12/12, 12:14 PM
Amartel said...: It's really very simple.

Follow along.

1. France hurt our feelings.
2. Therefore, we murder Jewish schoolchildren.

Get it?

No?

Sigh.

(Hint: The Jews are FROM FRANCE!); 4/12/12, 12:15 PM
ricpic said...: When the Irish, Italians and Poles were imported by the U.S. they were an underclass who didn't necessarily like it but took the hard work get educated route out. This is impossible for muzzies in France?; 4/12/12, 1:15 PM
Capt. Schmoe said...: Why would one stay at a place where they weren't wanted or accepted?

I guess it's easier to murder innocents rather than to move on or even to move back to where your parents came from.

What tripe.; 4/12/12, 1:34 PM
Tarzan said...: NO NO NO.

Hopelessness and despair are things all people deal with from time to time.

That jackass had friends, family and food in his belly. Any despair was strictly of his own making and his own responsibility, entirely.; 4/12/12, 1:34 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: It was not Al Qaeda that created Mohammed Merah. It was France.

Yeah...by givning out too many passports to guys named Mohammed.; 4/12/12, 1:41 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: How do you say "Why do they hate us?" in French?; 4/12/12, 2:12 PM
William said...: Some time back I read a history of Scotland. During the Scottish Enlightenment, the lowland Scots considered themselves not so much Scots but northern Britons. They liked the economic perks that came with being members of the UK. Unlike the French, the Scots of this enlightened generation had no special love for the Noble Savage. They had only to look across the Forth of Firth to see the Highlanders whose nobility was not improved by living in poverty, ignorance, and perpetual combat. In the '45 rebellion, lowlanders were conspicuous for their absence....Several generations later, thanks to the romanticism of Walter Scott, Scots became a more cohesive group and aware of their superiority to English people......There you have it. Assimilation is a sometime thing. A granfaloon, but a lesser granfaloon than nationality......If the Arabs really want to spite the French, they should become French. That's what the Scots did in the 18th & 19th Centuries. They were much better at being British than the English.; 4/12/12, 2:43 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: I've told you all this too many times:

France is not the city of Paris or even the place of your (mediated) dreams, but a discriminatory socialist Hell hole which, I guess, you (might) have to have the wrong skin color to experience. Our ignorance - of even our friends - is staggering. I knew one African lady who couldn't get her driver's license after 5 years of trying. That's the kind of old school discrimination we left behind long ago, and yet we still listened to France when they said, if we didn't elect Obama as president, we were racist. Why? And, considering our excellent media - and Rick Steve's travel documentaries - how do Americans not know what goes on over there?

I'm not defending the Muzzies, but I'll not defend the Frogs, either. I'm standing as ONE for honesty, and nothing more. We live within a web of lies:

Lies we're telling to ourselves,...; 4/12/12, 3:32 PM
Alex said...: But Crack hey - at least we'll string up poor George Zimmerman. That's justice for ya.; 4/12/12, 3:49 PM
ed said...: What a load of bullshit.

I don't believe for a second that someone with all of the technology advantages available today couldn't pull themselves up by the bootstraps. I did it with a library card and the public library system.

Have I encountered discrimination? Sure. In my personal life? You bet. In my profession? Without question.

But if I can show you can make money off my skills and you still don't want to hire me? Well there's a line of people behind you that do. The primary criteria is that I have to put forth the effort to have those skills, that ability and the willingness to work hard with no nonsense.

So the idea that you can grow up in a first world country with all of the available technology and not make something of yourself? Nonsense.; 4/12/12, 4:59 PM
William said...: I wonder why the Algerians made no effort to integrate the pied-noirs, the French settlers, into their country. Many of them had useful skills. Also why did not the Vietnamese make an effort to keep the ethnic Chinese in their country rather than expelling them from the South Vietnam after the war. Most of the people in exile from Cuba are the kind of people you need to keep a country growing. Ditto with Zimbabwe and now, increasingly, South Africa.....We rightly note how stupid the Germans are in destroying some of their most creative and entrepeneurial citizens, the Jews. But third world countries routinely follow the m.o. as the Germans. They confiscate the property of the wealthy groups within their countries without any appreciation for the skills that those groups which enabled them to gain their wealth.; 4/12/12, 6:28 PM
Big Mike said...: It was not Al Qaeda that created Mohammed Merah. It was France.

Probably true.; 4/12/12, 6:38 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: If only the NYT would be as critical of Islam as they are of the West.; 4/12/12, 7:02 PM
pst314 said...: All sorts of non-Muslims come to France from Asia and Africa, and they seem to assimilate and succeed.; 4/12/12, 7:51 PM
cubanbob said...: Apparently how ever terrible France is, its not sufficiently terrible for those immigrants to leave.; 4/12/12, 7:57 PM
Kirk Parker said...: I'm with Crack here--all you "pull-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps" folks are Americans, not French, right?; 4/12/12, 10:59 PM
Penny said...: On the money, Kirk Parker.; 4/12/12, 11:20 PM
Penny said...: But what if Crack is wrong? And wrong about religion?

And then he ended up back here "reincarnated"?; 4/12/12, 11:42 PM
Penny said...: Ha ha

My mind wanders sometimes, and it wandered tonight!; 4/12/12, 11:43 PM
Penny said...: Crack's coming back as a french whore wearin' her combat boots to bed!; 4/12/12, 11:46 PM
Penny said...: Ooh la la!; 4/12/12, 11:49 PM
Carnifex said...: Crack ain't comin' back. They'll try to send him, but he'll tell them "Eff you, I don't believe in that shit. Now where are the women at?"

I just remembered Steve Martins old bit, about how if you died, and got to heaven, and it was like they told you all along...

Walk up to St. Peter..."So, you have my life story in that book?"
St.Peter "Yes sir we do.
"Well, I wasn't that bad. How many times did I use the Lords name in vain?"..."Million six?...Jesus Chri...!"; 4/13/12, 1:21 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Bullshit. He created himself.

All these assassins are losers who have no girlfriends.

It has very little to do with religion or politics and everything to do with their personal inability to live a normal life. They fail at everything but think they must be important, so they start killing people. Same thing as the idiot who shot Rep. Giffords. They tend to hate women, have no fathers, and have flirted with the military or police.

Not all terrorists fit the profile, but these "lone wolf" types almost always do. They speak for no one but themselves. The stated cause for which they kill is completely disposable- they'd have happily adapted another one if necessary.; 4/13/12, 9:48 PM