The Barbarian Within
THE immigrant rioters of Paris, Lyon and Marseille may have been seduced by the trappings of European consumerism, but unlike their hosts they were never fooled by the illusion of so-called 'democracy'. What does that say about the indigenous Europeans who will do anything to keep the peace, terrified that the fragile fantasy of fast food, fast cars and fast sex will come to an end? There really is no difference between the convicts who throw slates from the prison roof and those who storm the streets of our towns and cities like institutionalised brutes. To imagine that modern Europe is anything other than a glorified concentration camp in which people are exploited by a ruling class of ennobled sheep-farmers is madness. At the very least, these African mutineers should remind us of the untamed savage that lies within us all and which - in the dim and distant past - would violently resist all forms of domestication and confinement. That is not to say that their cause is just, only that the reaction it has evoked in their critics is reminiscent of the dog who has forgotten how to hunt.