0 comment Sunday, November 9, 2014 | admin
Europe's tolerance finds its limit
Peter Goodspeed, National Post (Canada)
Peter Goodspeed asserts that Europe may finally be at the end of its tolerance, and he traces this change to the killing of Theo Van Gogh in 2004 by a Moslem fanatic.
The savagery of the killing triggered revulsion across Europe. Today, the continent is attempting to cope with increasingly bitter racial and religious squabbles and is riven with doubts about its future.
Decades of open-door immigration policies have transformed Europe through the arrival of several million immigrants, mostly Muslims, from North Africa, Turkey and Southwest Asia.
But as the region became one of the most multicultural regions on Earth, its people have gradually turned against the policies that made it this way.''
As the ultraliberal Netherlands considers changes that would insist on assimilation for the many Moslems who live there, so-called 'far right' parties like the Freedom Party in the Netherlands are even calling for a stop to immigration, and bans on building new Moslem religious schools and mosques.
As other countries like France and the UK consider some measures to encourage assimilation, the usual suspects in the multicultural establishment begin to squeal like stuck pigs:
The mounting campaign against multiculturalism by politicians, pundits and the press, in Britain and across Europe, is neither innocent nor innocuous," said Ambalavaner Sivanandan, director of Britain's Institute of Race Relations.
"It is a prelude to a policy that deems there is one dominant culture, one unique set of values, one nativist loyalty -- a policy of assimilation."'
Obviously someone named Ambalavaner Sivanandan can hardly be thought to be an unbiased voice in this debate; of course, not being of British origin, he predictably sees 'nativism' as threatening. But such is the multiculti establishment in the UK and in our country; we in America have Hispanic officials in high places whose objectivity on our immigration issues is in some doubt. It's an easy guess that these people are in such positions for the express purpose of promoting 'diversity' and multiculturalism at the expense of the majority. This is true in Europe as it is here in America.
Overall, the article isn't entirely unsympathetic to the 'nativist' perspective, although the writer typically resorts to condemnatory language as he alludes to 'anger and fear.'
And the emphasis seems to be on the idea of assimilation as the answer to the clashes between the old-stock Europeans and the Third-World transplants. However this seems to presuppose that the immigrants are both capable of and willing to assimilate. I see little evidence that either of those suppositions are true.
Islam, by its nature, seeks to dominate and subjugate. We hear that Orwellian phrase 'Islam is a religion of peace' often, even now that the phrase has become a laughingstock. But the fact is Islam does not 'mean peace,' it means submission, as many of us are now aware.
And you can bet that it is not the Moslems who intend to do the submitting.
And could a society made up of somewhat assimilated Moslems and the descendants of Christendom ever be a harmonious society? More importantly, would such a society bear much resemblance to the original European society? Islam, by its very intolerance and intransigence tends to suppress competing cultures.
Goodspeed's article, whatever its shortcomings in discussing this issue, is infinitely more sensible than the related rant
from our old 'friend' Ralph Peters, over at the New York Post.
Peters, who has bounced back and forth from being a fire-breathing proponent of an all-out war in Iraq to being a PC prig denouncing 'Islamophobia and hate' on the part of Americans, is now back in his anti-Western mode in this piece. Peters sees the same phenomenon that Goodspeed describes: the reawakening of populism and nativism in Europe, but he sees it with a jaundiced eye.
Like most neocons, Peters has a rabid hatred of Europe, particularly France. (I am still nonplussed by this out-of-control Francophobia on the part of many 'conservatives.' Look, our forefathers may not have loved the French but they never expressed anything like the raging hate-the-Frogs nonsense that Peters and his ilk spew.)
At any rate, Peters, oddly decrying the predictions of a coming 'Eurabia', insists in his usual dogmatic fashion that it won't happen. But he is not pleased about that fact; instead he seems downright angry that a Eurabia is not in the cards. He said in previous articles that he would be on the sidelines cheering the burning of France by Moslem 'youths. So now, to his great displeasure, it seems that the Europeans are showing some resistance to their subjugation, as the article I linked above indicates. Peters, were he a true conservative of any stripe whatsoever, ought to be cheering the stirrings of national self-assertion in Europe. But no; he reacts like so:
' The endangered species isn't the "peace loving" European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent's Muslims immigrants - and their multi-generation descendents - who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.
In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds.
Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.
THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.
And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.'
So Ralphie is positively frothing at the prospect of a European reaction against the Moslem onslaught. Apparently he is ticked that he can't sit in his easy chair on this side of the Pond and enjoy the spectacle of Paris burning, and the sight of a Crescent flag flying over Eurabia.
Ralphie even brings up the expulsion of the Huguenots in his diatribes against France. Well, as a descendant of some of those Huguenots, including the Coligny family, I don't feel an ounce of animosity against the present-day French for what was done hundreds of years ago. What gives Peters the right to be outraged on my behalf? He also seems to think the Huguenots were some kind of foreigners in France. There is no analogy to Moslems, none, whatsoever.
Peters is one confusing guy; one day, he is exhorting all-out war, no holds barred, against the Iraqi insurgents, and inveighing against the PC-footing around that our military is required to do there. Now, he seems to think the Europeans are far worse villains and 'racists' than the Moslems, with their constant acts of terror.
Hey Ralph, if the Europeans are so 'racist' and so intolerant, why are there millions of Moslems and assorted non-Europeans all over Europe, and why do they wield such power there? In my book, if Europe had been so 'bigoted' and hateful they would surely never have let millions of people from a foreign and hostile culture into their countries, and handed them so many privileges and advantages.
Ralph Peters, it seems to me, is the one who is bigoted, but against Europeans; he apparently has some kind of love/hate fixation on Moslems. But make no mistake: his real animus is directed at Europe.
And he obviously shares the left-liberal view that any expression of nativism is evil and hateful, and deserving of opprobrium.
His article also seems to be a kind of swipe against Mark Steyn and his happy-face doomsaying about Europe. Steyn seems to be fatalistically predicting an Islamic Europe,and he is blase and almost smug about it. Peters, while not naming Steyn, seems to be saying that the reports of Europe's death are greatly exaggerated -- and he's mad as hell about it. He wants to see Europe go under.
Frighteningly, he is not alone; there are a lot of 'neocons' who glory in vilifying Europe, and who would gladly raise a glass of champagne if Europe went Islamic tomorrow.
I don't get this. Regardless of our differences with Europe, how can any conservative, especially a Christian, revel in the idea of an Islamic Europe? Such a world would be a much darker, more ominous, more threatening world than we have now.
It is very much in our interest to want Europe preserved.
And the fact is, as Europe goes, so go we. Our nemesis might prove to be Mexico first, but Islam is a secondary threat. We are in the same boat as our European cousins, and we do have common interests.
We might one day hope that a reawakened Europe would make common cause with us, but it's a foolish and vain hope that we can reform Islam or befriend them. They are our enemies, and they know it, even if we refuse to recognize it.
We need to start recognizing that those who wish ill fortune on Europe, like Peters and the other neocons, are not real conservatives, and we should stop characterizing them as such.
They are simply right-liberals, who are willing to spread their liberal ideas by military means.
Or it may be that they are simply Gramscians in 'conservative' guise. But if so, they are not fooling as many people these days.
Peter Goodspeed, National Post (Canada)
Peter Goodspeed asserts that Europe may finally be at the end of its tolerance, and he traces this change to the killing of Theo Van Gogh in 2004 by a Moslem fanatic.
The savagery of the killing triggered revulsion across Europe. Today, the continent is attempting to cope with increasingly bitter racial and religious squabbles and is riven with doubts about its future.
Decades of open-door immigration policies have transformed Europe through the arrival of several million immigrants, mostly Muslims, from North Africa, Turkey and Southwest Asia.
But as the region became one of the most multicultural regions on Earth, its people have gradually turned against the policies that made it this way.''
As the ultraliberal Netherlands considers changes that would insist on assimilation for the many Moslems who live there, so-called 'far right' parties like the Freedom Party in the Netherlands are even calling for a stop to immigration, and bans on building new Moslem religious schools and mosques.
As other countries like France and the UK consider some measures to encourage assimilation, the usual suspects in the multicultural establishment begin to squeal like stuck pigs:
The mounting campaign against multiculturalism by politicians, pundits and the press, in Britain and across Europe, is neither innocent nor innocuous," said Ambalavaner Sivanandan, director of Britain's Institute of Race Relations.
"It is a prelude to a policy that deems there is one dominant culture, one unique set of values, one nativist loyalty -- a policy of assimilation."'
Obviously someone named Ambalavaner Sivanandan can hardly be thought to be an unbiased voice in this debate; of course, not being of British origin, he predictably sees 'nativism' as threatening. But such is the multiculti establishment in the UK and in our country; we in America have Hispanic officials in high places whose objectivity on our immigration issues is in some doubt. It's an easy guess that these people are in such positions for the express purpose of promoting 'diversity' and multiculturalism at the expense of the majority. This is true in Europe as it is here in America.
Overall, the article isn't entirely unsympathetic to the 'nativist' perspective, although the writer typically resorts to condemnatory language as he alludes to 'anger and fear.'
And the emphasis seems to be on the idea of assimilation as the answer to the clashes between the old-stock Europeans and the Third-World transplants. However this seems to presuppose that the immigrants are both capable of and willing to assimilate. I see little evidence that either of those suppositions are true.
Islam, by its nature, seeks to dominate and subjugate. We hear that Orwellian phrase 'Islam is a religion of peace' often, even now that the phrase has become a laughingstock. But the fact is Islam does not 'mean peace,' it means submission, as many of us are now aware.
And you can bet that it is not the Moslems who intend to do the submitting.
And could a society made up of somewhat assimilated Moslems and the descendants of Christendom ever be a harmonious society? More importantly, would such a society bear much resemblance to the original European society? Islam, by its very intolerance and intransigence tends to suppress competing cultures.
Goodspeed's article, whatever its shortcomings in discussing this issue, is infinitely more sensible than the related rant
from our old 'friend' Ralph Peters, over at the New York Post.
Peters, who has bounced back and forth from being a fire-breathing proponent of an all-out war in Iraq to being a PC prig denouncing 'Islamophobia and hate' on the part of Americans, is now back in his anti-Western mode in this piece. Peters sees the same phenomenon that Goodspeed describes: the reawakening of populism and nativism in Europe, but he sees it with a jaundiced eye.
Like most neocons, Peters has a rabid hatred of Europe, particularly France. (I am still nonplussed by this out-of-control Francophobia on the part of many 'conservatives.' Look, our forefathers may not have loved the French but they never expressed anything like the raging hate-the-Frogs nonsense that Peters and his ilk spew.)
At any rate, Peters, oddly decrying the predictions of a coming 'Eurabia', insists in his usual dogmatic fashion that it won't happen. But he is not pleased about that fact; instead he seems downright angry that a Eurabia is not in the cards. He said in previous articles that he would be on the sidelines cheering the burning of France by Moslem 'youths. So now, to his great displeasure, it seems that the Europeans are showing some resistance to their subjugation, as the article I linked above indicates. Peters, were he a true conservative of any stripe whatsoever, ought to be cheering the stirrings of national self-assertion in Europe. But no; he reacts like so:
' The endangered species isn't the "peace loving" European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent's Muslims immigrants - and their multi-generation descendents - who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.
In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds.
Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.
THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.
And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.'
So Ralphie is positively frothing at the prospect of a European reaction against the Moslem onslaught. Apparently he is ticked that he can't sit in his easy chair on this side of the Pond and enjoy the spectacle of Paris burning, and the sight of a Crescent flag flying over Eurabia.
Ralphie even brings up the expulsion of the Huguenots in his diatribes against France. Well, as a descendant of some of those Huguenots, including the Coligny family, I don't feel an ounce of animosity against the present-day French for what was done hundreds of years ago. What gives Peters the right to be outraged on my behalf? He also seems to think the Huguenots were some kind of foreigners in France. There is no analogy to Moslems, none, whatsoever.
Peters is one confusing guy; one day, he is exhorting all-out war, no holds barred, against the Iraqi insurgents, and inveighing against the PC-footing around that our military is required to do there. Now, he seems to think the Europeans are far worse villains and 'racists' than the Moslems, with their constant acts of terror.
Hey Ralph, if the Europeans are so 'racist' and so intolerant, why are there millions of Moslems and assorted non-Europeans all over Europe, and why do they wield such power there? In my book, if Europe had been so 'bigoted' and hateful they would surely never have let millions of people from a foreign and hostile culture into their countries, and handed them so many privileges and advantages.
Ralph Peters, it seems to me, is the one who is bigoted, but against Europeans; he apparently has some kind of love/hate fixation on Moslems. But make no mistake: his real animus is directed at Europe.
And he obviously shares the left-liberal view that any expression of nativism is evil and hateful, and deserving of opprobrium.
His article also seems to be a kind of swipe against Mark Steyn and his happy-face doomsaying about Europe. Steyn seems to be fatalistically predicting an Islamic Europe,and he is blase and almost smug about it. Peters, while not naming Steyn, seems to be saying that the reports of Europe's death are greatly exaggerated -- and he's mad as hell about it. He wants to see Europe go under.
Frighteningly, he is not alone; there are a lot of 'neocons' who glory in vilifying Europe, and who would gladly raise a glass of champagne if Europe went Islamic tomorrow.
I don't get this. Regardless of our differences with Europe, how can any conservative, especially a Christian, revel in the idea of an Islamic Europe? Such a world would be a much darker, more ominous, more threatening world than we have now.
It is very much in our interest to want Europe preserved.
And the fact is, as Europe goes, so go we. Our nemesis might prove to be Mexico first, but Islam is a secondary threat. We are in the same boat as our European cousins, and we do have common interests.
We might one day hope that a reawakened Europe would make common cause with us, but it's a foolish and vain hope that we can reform Islam or befriend them. They are our enemies, and they know it, even if we refuse to recognize it.
We need to start recognizing that those who wish ill fortune on Europe, like Peters and the other neocons, are not real conservatives, and we should stop characterizing them as such.
They are simply right-liberals, who are willing to spread their liberal ideas by military means.
Or it may be that they are simply Gramscians in 'conservative' guise. But if so, they are not fooling as many people these days.
Labels: Multiculturalism