French roast
Amy Alkon’s comments on the riots in France are as good as any I’ve read elsewhere. Antoine’s family there seems pretty unaffected by it all, to the point of not mentioning it at all in phone conversations.
Antoine’s take? The original rioting was just jerks being pissed off and seeing an opportunity to loot, and the fact that they were Muslims (in background if not in practice) had little to do with it. But the actions in the centre of Paris seem to him to be more like the opportunism of a political movement that is going to milk this for all it’s worth. “There’s no one in a cave planning riots in France,” he said. “Scumbags don’t need a reason to kick off. But there are political agitators who are going to get as much mileage out of it as they can.”
Antoine was supposed to give a talk at this Friday’s Putney Debate on intelligent design vs Darwinism (or something like that), but it may change to a talk about the riots. I wasn’t going to attend if the topic was the former, because militant atheists bring out the worst in me, but I will definitely go along if he talks about the situation in France.
Filed under: Life