French Cabinet meets over hostages

[mudfish]

Well France change their ban on the wearing of head scarves by Muslim girls in public schools?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe...ges/index.html


I think they will!

[Ex-FB]

I'm not sure they will. They can't really be seen to be giving in to terrorists, otherwise they will keep on doing it to get more concessions.

I think it's a shame that they claim to be willing to kill in the name of a Muslim cause. They are an embarresment to Muslims everywhere.

The world is a pretty frigged up place.

[wossname]

How can they possibly justify banning headscarves in the first place? Surely that's institutional racism? Plus its just asking for this kind of trouble.

[DeadEyes]

France is a secular country with no affiliation to any religion, there is no "God bless France". They are not banning just hajibs, they are banning all overt religious symbols.

[mendhak]

The group holding the two -- the Islamic Army in Iraq -- is demanding that the French government repeal a law that bans from public schools -- among other religious items -- head scarves worn by Muslim girls.

Right. Great way to allow for people to sympathize with you and your cause.

As for it being racism, I think I'll differ. If a government were to start recognizing the religious and cultural sentiments of everyone, things would be very screwed up, worse than they are at the moment. If a country doesn't affiliate itself with a religion, then the people who live there should also keep that in mind. You cannot expect everyone to change just because you think they're doing something wrong.

Religion should have no place in schools. Separation of the church and state, that's what they call it, right?

[Wally Pipp]

You know what this is? This is grandstanding.
Asking things that they know will not be granted in any way and then murdering hostages to send out a message.
The object is the same as sticking heads of the slain on a spear outside your castle: "Do not come here or suffer the consequences"

They're talking right now, probably with empty promises etc ... but there's no way the French will turn their secular state upside down again for a few journos.

[DeadEyes]

What I think happened is they kidnapped two westeners found out they were French, went oh bugger we can't demand France get out of Iraq cause they didn't invade and were actually opposed to the war. So let's complain about some stupid rule instead.

[wossname]

"Damn it they are French, oh well, we'll just have to do the best we can!"



Anyway since when did France grow a pair?

[DeadEyes]

Originally posted by wossname
Anyway since when did France grow a pair?

Not sure about pairs but they're pretty good with grapes

[Ex-FB]

Originally posted by DeadEyes
What I think happened is they kidnapped two westeners found out they were French, went oh bugger we can't demand France get out of Iraq cause they didn't invade and were actually opposed to the war. So let's complain about some stupid rule instead.

I suspect you've hit the nail on the head.

[mudfish]

Originally posted by DeadEyes
What I think happened is they kidnapped two westeners found out they were French, went oh bugger we can't demand France get out of Iraq cause they didn't invade and were actually opposed to the war. So let's complain about some stupid rule instead.

I can hear them now, "French what are we going to do with them?"

[Xcoder]

The lack of reasoning by this terrorists just puts them in the worst position and only diminishes the value of other claims they could have.

[Shaggy Hiker]

So those guys grab a few people and ask them what country they are from, then they sit around trying to figure out what they can ask for.

That's pretty good. Lets just get contract workers from out of the way places like Chile. They would really be at a loss:

"Ok, they have no troops over here."
"They don't have any laws that we know anything about."
"They don't have many ties."
"Let's ask for.......snow! Yeah, we don't have any of that, and they have lots of it."

[demotivater]

They wasted the 12 Nepalese hostages, guess they couldn't think of **** to ask from Nepal

[DeadEyes]

Originally posted by demotivater
They wasted the 12 Nepalese hostages, guess they couldn't think of **** to ask from Nepal

When you've got a country whose people are so poor they think going to work in Iraq is a good career move, what can you ask for?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Heck, they're even short of Oxygen up there!