Fifth night of rioting at Clichy-sous-Bois
Clichy-sous-Bois cristallise les tensions politiques et sociales (Clichy-sous-Bois cristalizes political and social tensions — article in French).

The Brussels Journal headlines, A Civil War Underway in Old Europe, an article that also points out that

There was rioting in Britain too, last weekend. Two people were shot dead during riots in Birmingham.

Lost Budgie has the details on the Birmingham riots.

Theodore Dalrymple explains,

Such are the joys of multi-culturalism. The situation has, in my view, been inflamed by years of reflex political correctness on the part of the authorities and the authors of official reports that coin phrases such as “institutionalised racism” – a blood libel, in the sense of being impossible to disprove, if ever there was one.

We now live in a political culture in which a sense of grievance stands as its own justification: you are wronged if you think you are. Thus, the definition of bullying employed by many NHS trusts for disciplinary purposes is merely that someone should feel bullied: there is no requirement whatever to establish that it is reasonable that he should feel thus bullied. The reason for this absurdity is not hard to seek: it increases the power and provides the locus standi of bureaucrats to interfere endlessly in the lives of employees, and gives them the extra work by which they prove the indispensable nature of their posts. The more grievances the better, therefore.
. . .
It is characteristic of the grievance culture that it should encourage people to blame others for their discontents, rather than to reflect upon themselves to find possible ways out of the impasses in which they find themselves.

In some circumstances, of course, there really are institutional barriers to self-improvement: under apartheid, for example – though even under that system’s grotesquely unjust laws it was possible to do better or worse. Be that as it may, nothing like apartheid exists in Lozells (unless it be self-inflicted) to explain the present discontents.

We have reached the stage when it is difficult even to speak publicly of such matters as the Lozells riots with frankness and without self-censorship, but only the abandonment of politically correct speech and thought will prevent repetition and worse than repetition. It is not so much the truth that will set us free, but the ability and willingness to seek it fearlessly.

Lileks asks,

Multiculturalism is a fine and necessary idea. Cultures that seal themselves off wither and die. England is better for having ska and curry, just as Saudi Arabia is poorer for lacking, oh, women’s rights and a penal code that does not hand out amputation. So to speak.

But as an ideology, multiculturalism is not only predicated on a falsehood, but a lie even it doesn’t believe.

Multi-culti dogma asserts that all cultures are equal, but refuses to defend the dominant culture when assailed for insensitivity, no matter how retrograde or niggling the charge. Rather than assert the primacy of a generally shared idea, it simply eliminates any official manifestations of the idea. Problem solved! See also, Christmas.

Europe today, America tomorrow?