aztlan infitada..

the french riots are brining about some ominous thoughts from our hispanic friends in california.. if you are not familiar with aztlan, take a peek at www.aztlan.net -

these folks consider themselves american palestinians.. they outwardly call for the toppling of the government and are hoping to make los angeles the capitol of their new country.. they are hoping for a similar type of uprising as we are seeing in france

here is an article from their site:

http://www.aztlan.net/french_muslim_rebellion.htm
The French Muslim Rebellion of 2005
Can a similar insurrection occur in the USA?
byErnesto Cienfuegos La Voz de Aztlan
"Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh.....Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind."- - - Charles Dickens in 'Tale of Two Cities' - - -
Los Angeles, Alta California, November 7, 2005 - (ACN) French cities are still burning, after 11 nights of rioting, primarily because of the attitude of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy toward its immigrant and Muslim populations. Sarkozy, with ambitions of becoming France's next president and acting perfectly like the Marquis Evrémonde in the novel "Tale of Two Cities", threw gasoline into the fire when he referred to Muslim and immigrant disaffected youths protesting racism, unemployment and police harassment as "scum". Sarkozy is an Islamophobe and the son of a Hungarian immigrant who had airs of being an aristocrat and of a Jewsih mother. This sort of attitude from French "aristocrats" is precisely what brought about the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille in 1789.

In France today the slogan "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" does not apply to approximately 10% of its population that have origins in the nation's former colonies. Most of these are impoverished Muslims and North African immigrants and their children. This sector of the French population is forced to live in squalid tenement buildings in segregated neighborhoods. There are over 750 of these types of neighborhoods throughout France and some have unemployment rates as high as 35%. Violence, drugs and police brutality is the order of the day for most, who by necessity, have to reside in these French "ghettos". There are approximately 5 million Muslims in France and the large majority live, because of religious and racial discrimination, in hopeless poverty and destitution. Under these circumstances, all it took was a small spark to start the major rebellion the French are witnessing today. That spark occurred on 27 October in the Paris ghetto of Clichy-sous-Bois, after two teenagers of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin were electrocuted in a power substation while attempting to hide from the usually brutal French police.

The circumstances that have brought the worst violence to France since World War II are eerily similar to those that produced the "Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992". Though there were other major riots like the "Watts Riot of 1965", the L.A. rebellion was different in that for the first time Chicanos, Mexican-Americans and other Latinos joined in the fracas making it the costliest in the city's history. These two riots, like those in France today, were caused by incidents of police brutality, racism and lack of economic opportunity affecting Black and Latino youths.

Today, here in Los Angeles, we are already seeing ominous signs of an impending social explosion that will make the French rebellion by Muslim and immigrant youths seem "tame" by comparison. All the ingredients are present including a hostile and racist police as in France. In fact, we came close to having major riots on three separate occasions just this year alone. The first incident was the killing by the Los Angeles Police Department of 13 year old Devin Brown, a Black youth, out for an innocent "joy ride" at night. The second was the shooting death by the LAPD SWAT Team of 19-month-old Suzie Peña, a baby of Salvadorean origins. In this case LAPD Police Chief Bratton made a very insensitive public comment (ala French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy) after he ordered the baby's body tested for drugs. As if to excuse the baby's killing by his police department, he said, "The body tested positive for cocaine!" The third serious police brutality case was the savage beating of Black Muslim Minister Tony Mohammed while he was ministering to a family that had lost a son to gang violence.

On top of all this, there are major rumblings in the high schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the USA. A few days ago, thousands of students, predominantly of Mexican descent, simply walked out of their schools to protest overcrowding, lack of texts, lack of desks and unqualified teachers. There is a strange feeling here in Los Angeles that something sinister is about to happen but no one knows when. All it will take is for a "bird-brain cop" to do something stupid and all hell will break loose. If another major rebellion breaks out here in L.A. it could rapidly spread throughout the USA as it has spread in France.

The social and economic conditions that exist in France that adversely affect its immigrant and Muslim populations also exist here in the USA. These conditions negatively affect our Black, Latino and immigrant populations in the same way. The rebellion that is occurring in France can and will most probably happen here. If it does, it will have grave consequences on the social, political and economic structures of the country and it could possibly topple a government already weakened by the Iraq War and corruption within its ranks.