In the banlieues Osama bin Laden was a hero. When news of the 9/11 attacks reached La Cite des 4,000 -- so named because it had 4,000 public housing apartments at the time of its construction -- young men poured out of their apartments to cheer and chant in Arabic, "God is great!" France a couple of weeks earlier had held the first soccer match between a French and an Algerian team since Algeria's war of independence ended in 1962. The North Africans in the stadium hooted and whistled during the French national anthem. They chanted, "Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Bin Laden!" Two French ministers, both women, were pelted with bottles. As the French team neared victory, the Algerian fans, to stop the game, flooded onto the field.
"You want us to weep for the Americans when they bomb and kill Palestinians and Iraqis every day?" Mohaam Abak, a Moroccan immigrant sitting with two friends on a bench told me during my 2001 visit to La Cite des 4,000. "We want more Americans to die so they can begin to see what it feels like."
"America declared war on Muslims a long time ago," said Laala Teula, an Algerian immigrant who worked for many years as a railroad mechanic. "This is just the response."
It is dangerous to ignore this rage. But it is even more dangerous to refuse to examine and understand its origins. It did not arise from the Quran or Islam. It arose from mass despair, from palpable conditions of poverty, along with the West's imperial violence, capitalist exploitation and hubris. As the resources of the world diminish, especially with the onslaught of climate change, the message we send to the unfortunate of the earth is stark and unequivocal: We have everything and if you try to take anything away from us we will kill you. The message the dispossessed send back is also stark and unequivocal. It was delivered in Paris.
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