No more paranoia please

Submitted by Olivier (France), Jan 28, 2007 at 03:36

What is all this debate around the so called muslim or arab domination of France ? Do you live in France ? Where ? How do you feel living next to people that are not christians like you ? I really wonder.

I'm french, 34, and I moved from the mostly white and catholic Brittany to the southeast alps, where a large population of various immigrants live. And I really love this. There's no claims in these populations to impose the charia, at the contrary, they're conscious to have in France laws and rights that are far better than any place they have lived before.

Moreover, most of comments refer to muslims and arabs as if they were synonyms. But it's definitely not : In iran and iraq, a part of the population is persian. Persians are not arabs, worse, they are caucasians according to the ethnic us classification. And in Lebanon, arabs are not all muslims. A friend of mine is married to a 'marronite', a lebanese arab of christian faith - remember that lebanon was a creation of France, for this christian minority, in the middle of the XXth century. And, coming to palestine, a part of its population is also christian ! Don't you remember Yassr Arafat was christian too ? He even attended the christmas mass each and every year, and the Fatah, its movement, is a secular movement.

So please, France is quiet, and serene. We don't need your 'War Against Terrorism' rhetoric. We don't need to be afraid of our neighbours, their religions or their cultures. Benjamin Franklin said this, and we've made it ours now : "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

Your government is the worse I ever seen in my whole life, even through american history. I think USA are clearly on the slope to fascism, and world-conscious people like me are much more afraid of the US leaders than this ridiculous hollywood like 'al Qaeda' and its puppet, the arch-villain Bin Laden.

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