Recent events in France remind us of the plot of the recently released French film Athena, which tells the story of how the murder of a young Algerian-French boy by the police sparks a civil war in France. Our discussion begins with a devastating spoiler—I highly recommend, therefore, that anyone who has not watched Athena do so before proceeding, as it is, in my estimation, one of the best films to come out in recent memory.
This is not a review, however, and the spoiler I am leading up to—revealed in the very last scene—is key to the present discussion: For after the violence and tragedy of the plot have run their course, we learn that it was not police officers who murdered the lad, but some criminals belonging to a far-right group disguised as police, precisely in order to coax immigrant communities into rioting against security forces and so initiate a civil war.
Recently, something not entirely dissimilar seems to have taken place in real life.
Paris faced riots over the Christmas weekend in response to the shooting of several members of the Kurdish community. Protesters were also apparently reacting against the official account provided by French authorities concerning the crime, according to which the murders may have been motivated by racism:
The prosecutor said the suspect had at least two prior run-ins with police: an attack on migrants in tents in eastern Paris in 2021, and a recent conviction for another crime in a Paris suburb.
Kurdish activists, for their part, have compared the attack to a similar, decade-old case in which three militants, including Sakine Cansiz (one of the founders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK), were shot at a cultural centre in Paris. Although “a Turkish citizen was charged with their killing … suspicion also fell on the Turkish intelligence service.”
After the recent Kurdish deaths in Paris, protesters were heard chanting “Erdogan, terrorist” and “Turkish state, assassin.” Reported France24:
The Kurdish community was left incensed by the attack, with many—without evidence at this stage—again pointing the finger at Turkey. They also accused French authorities of not doing enough to protect them … The Kurdish Democratic Council of France, an umbrella Kurdish group headquartered in the cultural centre targeted on Friday, pointed the finger at Turkey during a press conference after the shooting.
According to Kurdistan24, the centre the murderer targeted “is pro-PKK, and the PKK has played a significant role in promoting the notion that Turkey was behind the attack,” which
may also help explain the vehemence of the protests that followed, which included throwing rocks and other objects at French police, injuring eleven of them, while setting fires in the street, and damaging property, including automobiles.
The outlet described the reaction as “extremely short-sighted,” given that “France is not the enemy of the Kurdish people. Rather, it has been a long-standing supporter, as Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani affirmed.” And yet, it also suggests that the murders may be part of a shadowy political manoeuvre:
It has been only 24 hours since the murders, and what we know is relatively little. It may turn out that the murders are what they seem: the depraved violence of an aging, racist Frenchman. Or they may prove to be something more complex, engineered by a party seeking to promote Kurdish-Turkish tensions. Only time will tell.
According to the view that Turkey was behind the attack, insofar as French authorities do not reveal this fact, they would be incompetent or complicit.
The idea is bolstered by the fact that trust in public institutions and official pronouncements across the world is, understandably, low. Indeed, we even have evidence that some western governments, including Germany and the U.S., have propped up the spectre of extremist right-wing violence by creating fake social media accounts.
One of the consequences of mass migration is that international conflicts have become domestic affairs in major western cities; a consequence of the contemporary ideological climate in the West is that trust in public pronouncements has eroded. The recent riots in Paris show how these two tendencies can combine disastrously.
Paris Riots: Migration and Mistrust
Recent events in France remind us of the plot of the recently released French film Athena, which tells the story of how the murder of a young Algerian-French boy by the police sparks a civil war in France. Our discussion begins with a devastating spoiler—I highly recommend, therefore, that anyone who has not watched Athena do so before proceeding, as it is, in my estimation, one of the best films to come out in recent memory.
This is not a review, however, and the spoiler I am leading up to—revealed in the very last scene—is key to the present discussion: For after the violence and tragedy of the plot have run their course, we learn that it was not police officers who murdered the lad, but some criminals belonging to a far-right group disguised as police, precisely in order to coax immigrant communities into rioting against security forces and so initiate a civil war.
Recently, something not entirely dissimilar seems to have taken place in real life.
Paris faced riots over the Christmas weekend in response to the shooting of several members of the Kurdish community. Protesters were also apparently reacting against the official account provided by French authorities concerning the crime, according to which the murders may have been motivated by racism:
Kurdish activists, for their part, have compared the attack to a similar, decade-old case in which three militants, including Sakine Cansiz (one of the founders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK), were shot at a cultural centre in Paris. Although “a Turkish citizen was charged with their killing … suspicion also fell on the Turkish intelligence service.”
After the recent Kurdish deaths in Paris, protesters were heard chanting “Erdogan, terrorist” and “Turkish state, assassin.” Reported France24:
According to Kurdistan24, the centre the murderer targeted “is pro-PKK, and the PKK has played a significant role in promoting the notion that Turkey was behind the attack,” which
The outlet described the reaction as “extremely short-sighted,” given that “France is not the enemy of the Kurdish people. Rather, it has been a long-standing supporter, as Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani affirmed.” And yet, it also suggests that the murders may be part of a shadowy political manoeuvre:
According to the view that Turkey was behind the attack, insofar as French authorities do not reveal this fact, they would be incompetent or complicit.
The idea is bolstered by the fact that trust in public institutions and official pronouncements across the world is, understandably, low. Indeed, we even have evidence that some western governments, including Germany and the U.S., have propped up the spectre of extremist right-wing violence by creating fake social media accounts.
One of the consequences of mass migration is that international conflicts have become domestic affairs in major western cities; a consequence of the contemporary ideological climate in the West is that trust in public pronouncements has eroded. The recent riots in Paris show how these two tendencies can combine disastrously.
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