French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar by claiming that not all civilisations are equal, with some more advanced than others.
"Contrary to what the left's relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value," Gueant on Saturday told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.
"Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not," he argued in his speech at a meeting organised by a right-wing students group.
"Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred," he went on his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
He stressed the need to "protect our civilisation."
The interior minister's comments provoked a torrent of criticism from the opposition and on the Internet, less than three months a head of a French presidential election.
The left denounced his speech as an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to woo the far-right National Front voters ahead of the presidential election.
The Young Socialist Movement condemned Gueant's "xenophobic and racist" speech, while the minister's entourage attempted to dismiss his comments as merely condemning those who practise repression and inequality.
On his Twitter account Harlem Desir, the number two in the French Socialist Party, slammed "the pitiful provocation from a minister reduced to a mouthpiece for the FN (far-right National Front party)."
The ruling UMP party is in "electoral and moral decline," he added.
For her part, Cecile Duflot, national secretary of the French Green Party "Europe Ecologie les Verts," wrote of a "return to three centuries ago. Contemptible."
It is not the the first time Gueant has courted controversy.
Gueant has repeatedly linked immigration with crime in France and last month said the delinquency rate among immigrants was "two to three times higher" than the national average.
Last April, he declared that an increase in the number of Muslim faithful in France posed a "problem".
He also said then that he wants to reduce the number of legal immigrants entering France, including those coming to work legally or join their families.
His latest controversial comments come as the anti-immigration National Front's presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is credited with 20 percent support in the opinion polls, a figure which is sounding alarm bells throughout the French political establishment and beyond.
Incumbent Sarkozy is trailing in the opinion polls to Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande.
Not all civilisations equal, French minister says - Yahoo! News
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
Gee, if I didn't know better I'd suspect that this guy's boss is facing an election where he is in danger of slipping to third behind a right wing candidate.....oh.....wait.
No doubt there will be right wingers everywhere congratulating mr Gueant for his 'frankness' and 'courage speaking out in the face of rampant political correctness'.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
An interesting question but one which again is more suited to a University debate than a political one.
"Letchimy said in parliament: "You, Mr Gueant ... you bring us back day after day to those European ideologies which gave birth to the concentration camps".
He then asked: "Mr. Gueant, the Nazi regime, which was so worried about purity, was that a civilisation?"
That provoked uproar among government ministers and deputies from President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party, who walked out en masse. The weekly question time was subsequently suspended." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...azi-taunt.html
Last edited by snapper; 08 Feb 12, at 10:56.
Questioning the reasons,the place and the man still doesn't adress the points made.
Those who know don't speak
Whats the reason for the uproar from the left, have they abandoned social liberalism?Originally Posted by Doktor
"Mr. Gueant, the Nazi regime, which was so worried about purity, was that a civilisation?" Seems to be a fast track to 'Godwins Law'.
Mihais' law:every resort to Nazis should be countered with a mention of the Gulag,the natural outcome of the egalitarian ideologies.
Bring it on,b....es.
Those who know don't speak
Then what are they afraid of.
Why so terrified of other cultures
Why the need to clarify. Is it in question.
I hear variants of this same argument in my country too.
Im not sure that we are terrified of other cultures. More that we have time to consider other cultures. In the Western world all of our basic 'needs' are taken care of. No need to search for food, look for shelter etc.
If Coles or Safeway were to have their shelves bare than our thoughts would shift to the more pressing issues such as the need to survive.
Us westerners need not worry about the basic human needs because they are taken care of. We are then given time to view othe cultures critically and we tend to see their fualts and short comings. So I suppose we then view those faults and short comings apprehensively.
But why do you care about other cultures in other countries.
The only time is when you think they are a threat to you.
And this goes back to the orginal question whether western culture is strong enough to withstand them or not. Is it the fittest or not.
To use terms like advanced is subjective and does not say too much.
Last edited by Double Edge; 08 Feb 12, at 13:26.
Gun Boat,
make your argument without resorting to personal attacks.
The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"
-Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
According to some Canadian study (Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes) right wingers are less intelligent than pinkos. Does this make Hitler less civilised than Stalin? Or maybe more inteligence is not related to more 'civilised' (whatever that means). I just think politicians should keep out of academic debates. The Frogs seem to have a different view.
Is the "best" culture necessarily the "fittest"? Are we applying Darwinian theory to the clash of cultures?
Is the idea to allow cultures to clash and by definition that which emerges is best, and worthy of existence?
I would suggest that superior cultures can be completely obliterated by monstrous ones. Think "Mongol invasion." Thus, a culture can be worthy of protection. Note that I am not drawing parallels to today's conflicts, simply looking on it in an abstract fashion.
"...No doubt there will be right wingers everywhere congratulating mr Gueant for his 'frankness' and 'courage speaking out in the face of rampant political correctness'."
Concur. Allow me to be the first of such "right wingers" here at WAB to do so.
I suppose it'd be important to see the full text of the presentation. Only there might the insidious presence of a neo-nazi reactionary tone be detected. If our left wing friends here and elsewhere object to Mr. Gueant's words solely on the face of the yahoo news article then I'd like them to describe why I might view with any equanimity social cultures whom defend tyranny, subservience of women and social, ethnic and religiously-inspired hatred.
All those elements are present, btw, in our "more-advanced" civilization. The question might be whether we largely marginalize or celebrate skin-heads, religious zealots and those who'd brutalize women?
I've personally no cause yet to give thanks to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao-Tse Tung, Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jung Il, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, and/or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for the gifts and dubious blessing their visions have bestowed upon the rest of us.
I view my society's mores and cultural values as ascendent by comparison. Had I not, then I'd hardly have been prepared to defend such by force of arms. Clearly, it is those values which separate and distinguish the quality of my dirt from that found in China, the former Soviet Union, Iran or Pakistan. I hold that dirt, therefore, valuable, not for its chemical composition but for the values imbued by our way of life upon it.
I'm sure I'd feel very comfortable were I to visit New Zealand or Australia. The sights, sounds, food, language, religion and more would seem sufficiently familiar so as not to alarm my senses. So too in many places elsewhere.
Correct me, though, were I to suggest that upon arriving at the immigration desk in Pyongyang or Teheran if I might notice a more ominous milieu? Should I embrace such with a spontaneous outburst of Kum-ba-yah among my new-found friends?
Until I read Mr. Gueant's words and perceive something worse than has been conveyed by this article, I'll not disparage him.
In fact, I'll agree with him.
Last edited by S2; 09 Feb 12, at 14:45.
"This aggression will not stand, man!"
Jeff Lebowski
Well said, sir!
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.
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