The Other France
As interesting as this would be on another occasion, the fact is, its not poverty which leads people to commit terrorism.<p>The problem of les banlieues is a social problem for France, but ghetto youth are more interested in girls, drugs, and otherwise acting out than in terrorism.<p>As Osama Bin Laden and others show, you can be given every opportunity in life and still choose terrorism.  You can be well educated (many Daesh members are) and choose terrorism.<p>The elephant in the room that many refuse to address is that terrorism exists anywhere Islam does, there are insurgencies in nearly every country where Muslims are a sizeable minority.<p>A little anecdote - my wife comes from a very poor country, from a Muslim region.  The poor kids aren&#x27;t the ones growing up wearing hijabs, aren&#x27;t the ones committing terrorism.  Terrorists have been apprehended from her village trying to get into the west - the one thing they had in common - they went to a local madrassa funded by a Gulf state.<p>A similar comparison can be made in the US.  Ghetto youth don&#x27;t go around committing mass shootings.  They don&#x27;t join Daesh.  It&#x27;s the middle class, outcast white kids that are doing mass shootings, or newly converted&#x2F;radicalized middle class youth that join Daesh.<p>Anyhow, it is a brilliantly written piece, but on this occasion I&#x27;m not sure its particularly relevant.