In France and Belgium, what are euphemistically called “student protests” are actually, or have now become, riots intended to overthrow the entire civil order, and are fomented by anarcho-communists and Islamists.
Now, one might well agree that the deposing of President Macron and the whole godless globalist project that he represents would be a good thing. But leaving aside that the forces of violence involved are even more leftist and utopian than the EU project, whether they are after a Caliphate State or no State at all, it remains a fact that the escalating violence is not a carefully targeted coup d’état. Rather it involves arbitrary attempted lethal force against the police sent to control things, looting of innocent shop-keepers, and the burning of vehicles belonging to ordinary people as well as public buildings belonging, actually, to communities rather than to the Government. Taxpayers will get the repair bills.
One needs to remember that to many Muslims, the French Republic has no legitimacy, but only the Islamic deen. So the callous intimidation and looting of that French shop-keeper in the news today is not simply owing to adrenaline rush, or even pure greed, but the “principled” humbling of a kafir, and a blonde female one, at that. Her livelihood and welfare are less than insignificant to them.
When violence reaches this level, even a police force equipped with water cannon and tear gas – as well as side-arms – cannot keep the peace. It is the kind of situation where some governments would call in the army, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.
It has been said by some (though not the MSM, which is coy about the potential collapse of our neighbour-nation just 22 miles across the Channel) that Britain is next for such riots. This is not at all implausible, for although the demographic situation is somewhat different, many of the same ideological forces are simmering just beneath the surface, and have already demonstrated their propensity to violence through Antifa and Palestine Action. So let us play with the scenario that it does happen here, and consider how the nation might avoid a similar conflagration. In particular, what role ought Christians to have?
My first thought is that our police force was instituted as a body of civilians like us, if granted some extra powers. They have notoriously become something more like a repressive arm of the State, but it is still the case that anarchist violence would be directed primarily against working people who are our neighbours, whose children we meet at the school gate, and who would be even more vulnerable than the French police, who at least carry personal arms (and seem a bit less flabby overall). Under usual circumstances, it is legitimate to call the police rather than confront, say, armed robbers with our umbrellas and handbags. But since the police are simply our own representatives in law-enforcement, can it be right for responsible citizens simply to sit at home tut-tutting whilst men with machetes beat the s**t out of them, if they are badly outnumbered?
Then again, if such police were being chased through the streets by stone-throwing mobs, whilst other rioters lagged behind to smash up Tesco or loot some small-trader’s shop, is it the able-bodied Christian citizens’ role simply to film it all from the safety of an upstairs window? In principle, is it not the duty of law-abiding people to protect neighbours and their property if they can? Didn’t the good Samaritan risk robbery and death to do so?
Now, of course, in many cases to rush down from that upstairs room brandishing a rolling-pin would be suicidal, though perhaps better than filming. But what if organised bands of local traders and residents were prepared enough to form human barricades around premises at risk? They might even (dare I say it) shout at the rioters or even push them or throw empty plastic bottles at them. If so, would that be blameworthy, or civically responsible? Is it only the State’s job to resist evil?
I say this because, in our country, bands of concerned working-class citizens – many of them openly professing Christian faith – have been training together. Their current aims have been to protest, within the law, against situations that might well be seen as stocking up fuel for the kinds of conflagration we are seeing in mainland Europe. For this they have been branded as “Far Right thugs” by the Government and media, and as pseudo-Christian Nationalists by much of the Church, whilst Downing Street struggles to re-jig the laws as quickly as possible to criminalise their legal activities.
But in France, if there were groups of citizens trained, like the police one hopes, to protect civic life in a disciplined if forceful way, rather than simply escalating the mindless violence, might that not be a good thing for suppressing the mob? Is it more Christian to pick through the wreckage of your burned-out church, or to organise your members to rally round and discourage the arsonists in the first place? I have a feeling that, if we would prefer our police to tackle incendiaries rather than stand by whilst they destroy our property, we (or at least our young, fit, men) probably ought to be prepared to take a stand ourselves, in solidarity with those chaps in uniform, or be exposed as hypocrites.
But maybe I’ve just read too much church history, from a time when passive non-resistance was not in fashion so much as it is now (for us, but not for the policemen we employ!).
