Thierry Henry - Ghetto Blaster

[reggiepaul]

http://www.people.co.uk/sport/conte...55768_headline=-GHETTO-BLASTER-name_page.html

Edit - article removed and replaced with link.

 

[Alexone234]

nice piece. I can really see the French in some of those quote like ""Go and ask them in Les Ulis and they will tell you that"

The suburbs in Paris are really dodgy too. I wouldn't have liked have been brought up there.

 

[patrick42uk]

good post

most of the french players come from a rough background. when they are on the pitch you can feel the solidarity amongst them. they have that 'rough beginnings' in common and realise how lucky they are now. They play for each other and that is a factor in the success they have had, plus thierry, of course.

 

[Alexone234]

If M. Le Pen came into power, not one of them would have made it out of there. Not only that, he would drop all the Non-White players from the team, leaving Petite and Lebouf to protect Bartez.

 

[reggiepaul]

The French ghettos, especially the Parisian ones are tough places to be. Having personally wandered around out of interest they make some areas of NY look like a quaint English Village. Some would be surprised why such people from such areas get a break in the big world. They get a break on the simple factor they are talented. They have something that others dont have - football is the business and that's all that matters. If you're good it's because you've worked hard with the serious intent to be good - meaning you take football seriously, that's all that matters.

Really, most footballers have rough beginnings but that's what football is - it's something that binds these kids from an early age. Even that's why they make it big. Yet, they know how tough it is and appreciate more so the position they are in. Even those that don't seem to have tough beginning come from immigrant families (Zidane, Vieira) that were basically throw in to the deep end in new countries to make it big. Supposedly this is part of the success at Highbury too, players that know what working hard means.

 

[Alexone234]

It must be the same with scousers? They live in a s==thole and must wish for an escape.

 

[reggiepaul]

I've seen worse places in London than Liverpool.

 

[JGooner]

Articles like this should be shown to Guardian-reading leftwingers who believe that France's social democratic economic model has yielded a dramatically more egalitarian and less divided society than the Anglo-Saxon liberal economies like the UK, USA, Australia, etc. I am sick of these bourgeois fools who go on holiday to the centre of Paris, never venture into "Les Quartier Difficiles", and then come back and tell everyone that France is some kind of social paradise where multi-coloured citizenry hold hands and skip around maypoles singing that "I'd like to teach the world to sing" song from that old Coca Cola advert. And then, if you say anything in praise of the American economic model, they'll snort smugly and accuse you of naively believing that everyone in America lives like a Boston lawyer. Hypocrites. I wanna punch these muppetts. :x

 

[reggiepaul]

Actually apart from Parisian ghettos (ghettos all over the world man) most of Paris - and France is pretty damn - nice.

It's true - Europe is better than most of the UK and US social systems. It's the culture and lack of materialistic and capitalistic dominance. It is the People after all. You have to expect them to give their journalists massive creative licence.

 

[Alexone234]

I was at a dinner party in France last year, talking about London and I moved on to Brick Lane. I said some of the street names have Uru translations and this French couple were appauled. We inevitably moved onto race etc etc and I asked them if the cheer for Zidane during WC98 or Trez and Wiltor during Euro 2000.

In the UK, moderates are usually who are unhappy about certain elements of ethnic culture whereas moderates in France are slightly happy about certain things non-whites do. Large difference.

Also, while most of France is pretty nice, it is careering down hill at a startling rate.

 

[reggiepaul]

That is a massive subject altogether. Personal views on politics and race. Personally I feel the greatest thing is gaining all members of a country as members and letting them play. There is that narrow mindedness where people indulge in politics and differences and personal grudges to the way the economy is created, but that is just namby pampy childish narrow minded thinking.

The simplest thing being the truest - they are french, or they are english. That's the be all and end all of it all. It doesn't matter where you're from - we then enter areas of tunnel vision and narrow mindedness again - all that matters is you are of that country and you are capable of playing. The people who indulge in this political or social ideals regarding football miss the whole point of football and really do need to get a life (apart from the dull status stratified self gratified one) - simply - they play football.

 

[Exiled In Newcastle]

Having spent time working in Paris in the 80's, I've got to say that so long as the CRS (French Riot Police) weren't around, it wasn't half as bad as some people now make out. In fact, compared to Brixton where I was living at the time, it was quite 'soft' over there.

Any ghetto anywhere is bound to be a ****hole, but once people have 'made it' they always tend to overplay their childhood traumas, which makes me sick. It's just dramatisation for effect. I'm not saying they were nice areas (Paris itself is an absolute dump unless you've got money and nothing at all like the rest of France) but...

 

[JGooner]

It's true - Europe is better than most of the UK and US social systems. It's the culture and lack of materialistic and capitalistic dominance. It is the People after all. You have to expect them to give their journalists massive creative licence.

This is so wrong. I don't want to turn this into a comparative economics seminar but the European social market model is finished. The big continental social democracies are embarking on programs of economic liberalisation - tax cuts, benefit cuts, regulation cuts, pension reform, etc. Agenda 2006 has already been published in France and Agenda 2010 has been published in Germany. The public sector pension reform was passed a few months ago in France. Italy and Spain are both planning identical programs of what is essential Thatcherisation.

European social democracy worked well when industry was still important and when there weren't any truly liberal models to compete with but it is now woefully uncompetitive. Growth has been lower in Europe than in the Anglo Saxon economies for over a decade now. Unemployment in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, etc, has been double (and in some cases triple!) the level in Britain, America, Australia, Canada, etc for more than a decade. This isn't a cyclical problem, it is a structural one. It has taken years to realise it, but the realisation has been made and the reforms have begun. This isn't my opinion, this is fact. By the time the liberal reforms have been completed (it will take roughly a decade), the European economies will have become only marginally more statist than ours.

The smaller European countries have already liberalised - Ireland, Holland, Czech Republic,etc. But the bigger ones have only just started.

 

[reggiepaul]

It's the same with most supposed rough spots around the world. Yes they have a way of living that is extremely hard and difficult but they are generally nice people. Once you're there you think, what the fuss all about? Having treaded into some of the worst places around and being told to take a vest (bullet proof) before I go - I have had no problem. The reporter talks about a laptop and camera, well that's me basically and I never have any problem.

A lot of people blow most social situations way out of proportion and most people are extremely friendly and the culture in the less tread areas is far better than the tourist districts. Of course the people would like to escape from such surroundings to make life a little easier for themselves but they do make use of whatever they can and lead the best lives they are capable of. Simple lives really.

 

[Exiled In Newcastle]

Very true. I mean where I live in Newcastle is supposed to be one of the roughest parts of the city, but in the 4 years I've lived in this part of town the only trouble of any kind I've had was when a drunk in a stolen car being chased by the old bill crashed into my (parked and empty) car in the middle of the night!

The trouble is people always assume poor areas are rough, which is not true at all.

 

[reggiepaul]

It's true - Europe is better than most of the UK and US social systems. It's the culture and lack of materialistic and capitalistic dominance. It is the People after all. You have to expect them to give their journalists massive creative licence.

This is so wrong. I don't want to turn this into a comparative economics seminar but the European social market model is finished. The big continental social democracies are embarking on programs of economic liberalisation - tax cuts, benefit cuts, regulation cuts, pension reform, etc. Agenda 2006 has already been published in France and Agenda 2010 has been published in Germany. The public sector pension reform was passed a few months ago in France. Italy and Spain are both planning identical programs .... smaller European countries have already liberalised - Ireland, Holland, Czech Republic,etc. But the bigger ones have only just started.

yeah J but that's all economic change and political change - not changes in the culture (although I don't agree with most of it but I won't go into that because it's unrelated). The people aren't going to adapt their culture and their past because the politics of europe is evolving. They have a different way of going about things and the culture is part of that. So, back to the point, because the culture always exists from family and what not and also part of your surroudnings the situations a country has will always be of a certain type. This is going to enter into a non-football thing now... so I'll pass.

 

[reggiepaul]

Very true. I mean where I live in Newcastle is supposed to be one of the roughest parts of the city, but in the 4 years I've lived in this part of town the only trouble of any kind I've had was when a drunk in a stolen car being chased by the old bill crashed into my (parked and empty) car in the middle of the night!

The trouble is people always assume poor areas are rough, which is not true at all.

It's so bizarre but my interests take me to these places and I want to see it for myself. Liverpool and scousers for instance - the most hospitable football fans and people I have ever come across but the news has given them a massive bad vibe. I can understand there are some massively rough places in the world but the people I know who have to go there for work have the time of their life mixing it with the people and getting involved. If you're interested in them, they're more than welcome.

Belfast is another place as well , you have to see these places for yourself really.

 

[lewdikris]

J - Sorry, I need to add my two cents to that.

The intensive programme of financial liberalisation achieved under Thatcher and Reagan now (sadly, and unrealistically) being adopted by the rest of Europe - basically comes with an ever-increasing burden of debt. America's debt burden is out of control, and has led to a militaristic facade being put on an economic power that is seriously slipping behind Japan - and will be unable to remotely deal with the increase of Chinese power in the next three decades.

Europe is trying to out-gun America simply by copying it's mistakes. Japan and China can just get on with their own, more specialised and sensitive ways of approaching the markets - and come out on top.

 

[Jasper]

There's a story while he was first here in England, during his first season.
He was wearing an Arsenal jersey riding on the underground. Many of the people didn't know who he was and though he was just a fan wearing a jersey. Little did they know that a couple years later....

 

[Sammer]

J - Sorry, I need to add my two cents to that.

The intensive programme of financial liberalisation achieved under Thatcher and Reagan now (sadly, and unrealistically) being adopted by the rest of Europe - basically comes with an ever-increasing burden of debt. America's debt burden is out of control, and has led to a militaristic facade being put on an economic power that is seriously slipping behind Japan - and will be unable to remotely deal with the increase of Chinese power in the next three decades.

Europe is trying to out-gun America simply by copying it's mistakes. Japan and China can just get on with their own, more specialised and sensitive ways of approaching the markets - and come out on top.

Very true, Lewdikris. I am sick and tired of these so called great growth-figures of the US ....at the expense of what? a gigantic deficit, unemployment up by over 2 million etc etc etc.
Bigger growth - maybe. But at the expense of the lower-class and the slow elimination of the middle class.

Yes, many european countries like Germany and France need to reform their social system. But I am proud to live in a country where ordinary workers don´t need 2 or 3 jobs to pay rent (health care seems to be a privilege for the better off in the US these days).