Mohandas Gandhi was once asked: “What do you think of Western civilization?” “I think it would be a good idea,” he replied.
Like a babe in the woods, I waded into the thicket of political correctness surrounding ongoing mass migrations and Islam. Statements that I thought unexceptional, like “if you have uncontrolled massive immigration from north-to-west African nations, known for their poor health care systems and widespread tropical diseases, new (and old eradicated) diseases will spread into Europe” (here I was told that Mr Trump is spreading these same bogus claims about South American immigrants) or that “if you have uncontrolled massive immigration to Sweden from nations where women’s rights are nearly non-existent and violence against women pervasive, you will those same problems coming in” where I was attacked on multiple fronts, apparently because to claim such a connection is plainly racist or islamophobic unless it’s “proven beyond the shadow of the doubt” — while it turns out that Swedish authorities stopped collecting pertinent data because to do so would be, yes, racist, and such proof is therefore unavailable. Don’t you just love Catch 22?
Not long after that heated exchange, Denmark announced that indeed, diphtheria, which had been eradicated decades ago, has staged a comeback, along with several other diseases. And a wave of women-targeted crimes has swept Europe, disclosing not only the issues touching on women vis-a-vis the newcomers, but also the extent of imposed censorship regarding such crimes. Coupled with the intransigence of European elites regarding massive immigration over the last year, and their painfully obvious lack of any preparations or plans for handling the refugees, much less for trying to integrate them, it all added up to a concerted effort, to my mind, to stubbornly NOT face any of the realities on the ground while hiding behind slogans — for example Ms Merkel’s “We can do it, we will do it” blithely asserted in her New Year’s Eve speech while the migrants were already out wilding. (Oh wait, it turns out the Cologne police did have a plan after all: to stand by doing nothing, erasing public camera recordings, and lying.)
Now, none of these actual happenings should surprise anyone. Migrating peoples from areas rife with poorly treated diseases will spread them. What’s to argue about?! The wall of denial, however, has an uncomfortable likeness to the wall of denial we crunchy greens have so rightly criticized regarding issues like resource limits, the destruction of planetary ecosystems, rapidly deepening inequality, and others. For a number of years now, I have been participating in the green/doomish community with the assumption that I am flanked by people who have both the courage and the intellectual acumen to face reality. So participating in the exchanges around Europe’s refugees, and by extension Islam, has been a rude awakening for me. My trusted allies, always somewhat prone to collapse porn and popular panics, seem to have wandered off on a tangent I find hard to understand, and harder to excuse. There is no blindness like politically correct blindness, it seems. Because I lived all my formative years in a communist system where serious problems were swept under the rug and empty slogans ruled the day, I have a nose for this bullshit even when it hides under other labels. If we (former or current) eastern Europeans don’t yell out a warning, who will? If not now, when?
I will begin by reporting what I have seen while out in the bush, exploring. You may have noticed some of these things before, but to me, having been busy looking in other directions, they were surprising or new. The shocking transformation of Sweden from perhaps-a-bit-boring but exemplary “spread the wealth” country to a state teetering on the brink of failure as profound problems connected with the “welcoming culture” have accumulated, and citizens have been silenced by a heavy blanket of aggressive anti-racist, pro-tolerance rhetoric. The impending breakdown of Germany, likewise a well-run, prosperous country where more than a million of refugees were taken in without any border controls whatsoever, in defiance of current laws, and where the authorities have been forced to admit that many of them (hundreds of thousands!) are completely unaccounted for. The transparent vilification of those who wish to peacefully protest the current state of affairs as racists, neo-nazis, extremists, and islamophobes lumped with the fascist fringe, while all right-thinking people should ignore their vile propaganda, or at least allow themselves to be intimidated into looking the other way. (I have watched videos of protests staged by the German anti-islamization group Pegida where the demonstrators had to be protected by the police from the physical threats by young people yelling “Heart over hate.” Irony? Nah. Shortly thereafter, a report came out showing that one of the political parties was paying a good wage for folks willing to go out and disrupt the demos.)
While hanging in the online anti-islamization underground, I witnessed the weirdness of disturbed men who used the sex attacks in Europe as pretext for putting women in their place, peevish as hell over the nagging they have gotten from us over the years for being male chauvinist pigs. Now, we feminazis need them to defend us from third world gropers and they are damned if they’ll lift a finger on our behalf! Never mind that men have abused women for millennia, quite notably in the ‘western civilization’ parts of the world, while we women have made a public fuss about it for a few generations at most. Bring out the violins!
Censorship in Europe is proceeding at a frightening pace now that the “real news” about refugees is out of the bag, thanks to the internet. And this narrowing noose of “allowable speech” – Facebook has begun eliminating disagreement with refugee policies from its medium in response to Merkel’s request, and a Saudi prince has just bought up a big share of Twitter — makes peaceful solutions less and less likely. Anecdotal reports are beginning to appear in the alternative media that folks in Holland are being visited by the police to warn them about their internet statements critical of certain government policies. And only yesterday the Guardian announced that when it comes to immigrants and immigration policies, comment is no longer free. No wonder; Guardian’s politically correct “welcoming culture” articles have lately been met with a solid wall of critical comments from readers. Monty Python’s John Cleese shares a few thoughts on the clampdown here.
And then there is the bizarre behavior of both American and European elites who have goose-stepped into a box that says, no matter what happens, repeat after me, “It Has Nothing To Do With Islam.” They seem to be emulating the memorable scene in Animal House where the marching band, led astray by pranksters, keeps on marching into a wall. As a cherry on top, there is the grisly freak show of the “Stolen oil-R-Us” Islamic State, accompanied by the war frenzy of all who have a vampiric stake (may it pierce them through the heart) in the weapons trade, and the utter destruction of Syria which knowledgeable people, ah irony, describe as one of the truly multicultural societies of the world — until recently, that is — and the descent of Turkey into tinpot dictatorship while it tries to impose blatant extortion on EU, Ottoman empire style. Well, those are just a few highlights to report, to give you the flavor of my travels, so to speak. Sleep? Who needs sleep when the Spectacle turns up its horror show?
Sorry about the run-on sentences. Lack of sleep will do that to ya, and I badly need to vent. I will say just one more thing, and leave analysis for next time. I have no loyalty toward “western civilization” as such. Western civilization went astray long time ago I my book, and its ugly underbelly should have become head-banging-against-the-wall obvious to anyone by the time Assyria rolled along. My loyalty is to civil culture where ever it may be found. Like Gandhi may have once said, western civilization would be nice. It would be nice if we stopped obsessing over our bogus, absurdly bloated standards of living, stopped pretending that we can be rescued by a pack of shills who in turn pretend to be statesmen, put a brake on the runaway train of consumption, filthification, and waste, stopped defending our indefensible and destructive “way of life” that’s really a “way of death” for the planet, and focused instead on civil, “civilized” behavior toward each other. And that includes dispensing with politically correct bullshit where ever it stinks up the body politic, and willingness to go out on a limb if necessary to stand against behavior that does not cut it. Earth to Europe: sane people defend their boundaries, personal, local, political. Those who don’t, get steamrolled.
February 2, 2016 at 2:23 pm
It’s tempting to say that, in the current PC climate, you sorta walked into the controversy naïve and unprepared. However, that’s a little too blame-the-victim. How about this as an alternative: never underestimate the stupidity of the public (American, general, or otherwise?). Or this: you are insufficiently misanthropic to fit the needs of the current state of agenda-driven misinformation and ideological rigidity.
Regarding being “flanked by people who have both the courage and the intellectual acumen to face reality,” I have found it’s highly situational. There are self-congratulatory and self-reinforcing aspects to both seeing through the BS and having adopted RightThink. In the case of hate bait, irresolvable tensions prevent normally clear thinkers from avoiding mental traps. I won’t say that you have it completely right, nor do I. That’s just more RightThink. But to investigate diligently and appraise things honestly, as you’ve done, is worthwhile.
February 3, 2016 at 7:15 pm
Hi Vera,
Yes, I wondered what kind of response you’d get when first I read this series of posts. It seems like you might have poked a sore spot. So far, I am choosing to regard it as laudable independent thinking.
I am not going to argue with your logic or interpretation of the news reports, I think you are intelligent and sensible, and I don’t know anything about Sweden. And the only people I know from Islamic or middle eastern/north African countries are grad students. So I’m ignorant.
Still, I can’t escape the sensation that there is more to the story than a straightforward clash of cultures and flood tide of immigrants overwhelming a cohesive existing culture. I don’t have an answer to what that more may be, but I will make a little list of what thoughts come out at me.
The only clashes of cultures via immigration that I know anything about happened in North America. The Anglo-European invasion, mostly that portion starting in New England – which I have benefitted from directly. And the back and forth Hispano – Anglo invasion of Southern California. Though to be fair, the more recent hispanic migrants there have very little in common with the earlier conquistadors. Neither of these histories match the current scenario very well. Most of the cultural invasions that I am aware of involve powerful military forces subjugating their neighbors. I can’t think of a case similar to the current situation in Europe where poor & middle class refugees travel en masse. Irish to the northeast US? European Jews to New York? If those are the kinds of cultural change we can expect to see, I am not so worried.
The other thought that keeps coming back relates to your comment about the people near you who you thought were like minded and tough independent thinkers. My thought goes something like this: much of the talk of cultural invasion requires a cohesive, well run society that then gets overrun. I live in a small city in the middle of the continent. A college town surrounded by rural conservatives. Demographically, I am right on the mean.
This should feel like home to me, and it does, but I don’t have a sense that my neighbors share my values, and that we have a common culture to defend. Maybe we are all just American individualists, but I am just not feeling the cultural cohesion. Not to speak of being well run. Well run for whom? This does not even mention my close friends, and the divisiveness that happens whenever the group dynamic gets too much money or politics. What is it about the Left anyway, that makes it want to eat itself? The only other thought I want to mention is that I don’t believe that as a religion, Islam is inherently more misogynist than Christianity. I believe the differences we see have more to do with local culture, history and wealth/poverty. Islam is certainly different from what we nominally christian European descendants are accustomed to, and that differentness is a lot of what is at issue in my opinion.
I am not sure what that adds up to, but I wanted to make contact.
Thanks,
Eric
February 4, 2016 at 9:23 am
Brutus, thank you for my daily chuckle!
Are there irresolvable tensions? Where would you say they are? All I see is stonewalling, cowardly, lying politicians and journalists in alliance with the hard left who seems to be in love, at the moment, with those who play victim well, and with knee-jerk outrage.
February 4, 2016 at 9:37 am
Eric, welcome! You raise a lot of interesting points, and I hope that my future posts will lead you to comment here further .
I think there is the uncomfortable parallel with the invasion of the N. American continent by the English. They too were refugees of one sort or another, they too were welcomed and helped to survive (Squanto, first thanksgiving etc.) and they too behaved themselves while their numbers were small. Once the numbers grew to some sufficient mass, the gloves came off and the Indian genocide ramped up.
They happened to be Protestants, but their religion did not seem to make that much of a difference. What was notable is that they came with a vast sense of entitlement, and took and took until the natives were either wiped out, marginalized, or vanished into assimilation.
Yes, it may well be that Islam, as a religion, is no more misogynistic than Christianity. Anyone else care to comment on that one?
February 4, 2016 at 12:15 pm
The irresolvable tensions to which I refer include all of us being trapped inside a culture of destruction and death, participating in it with some degree of acquiescence because there are no real alternatives, yet often keenly aware of inequities, failings, and frailties that are structural but nonetheless exacerbated by whose mandate is to do quite the opposite. You mentioned your peers and associates in your post but then levy blame on politicians and journalists. Certainly, many are carrying water for others (not so) behind the scenes, such as the Koch Bros. or Rupert Murdoch, who will let nothing stop them from building their empires higher and higher. But we’re all stuck trying to resolve the difficulty of living honorable, respectable lives within a patently insane, self-defeating culture.
Regarding Islam and misogyny, the question is a little chicken-and-egg or cart-and-horse, but in either case, considering how (surviving) Middle Eastern states are based on religious doctrine or monarchy (unlike “enlightened” Western democracies), I think it’s impossible to separate culture from style of political organization. Even the putative separation of church and state in the West doesn’t function very well, as the U.S. in particular is normatively Christian and thus brings a whole lot of religious baggage to the political and cultural table. Indeed, many fundies want to redefine the U.S. as a Christian nation. What I understand of Islam is that it’s far, far more patriarchal (thus, misogynist) than the West, which has been moving (slowly) toward gender equality (e.g., suffrage and property rights) but isn’t fully there yet.
February 21, 2016 at 1:46 pm
Hi, just going to pitch in another Vltchek quote I read the other day and thought belonged here. Nothing more to add personally, I’m afraid. Hope folks are well 🙂 I
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/europe-is-built-on-corpses-and-plunder/
cheers,
I
February 22, 2016 at 7:51 pm
You said it, Brutus. Part of my freakout about this whole issue is that I have watched the definite but fairly slow progress regarding women, over the course of my life, and now… I see insanely patriarchal people pouring in, and our public figures do appeasement. Did ya hear about the Danish imam that’s been lecturing to the Danes about how it’s time to accept child marriages? You gotta be tolerant, right? Yikes.
February 22, 2016 at 7:54 pm
Ian, I really appreciate you are sticking with the discussion. I don’t disagree with you, and if the picture was quite as you paint it, then all of Europe would continue to bend over backwards to help. Problem is… those ladies are in a small minority. How about these folks? You want them as your neighbors? (Current situation on the border of Greece and Macedonia.)
February 24, 2016 at 2:54 pm
No probs, you have a point too 🙂
I
March 14, 2016 at 1:56 pm
To wrap up our former discussion. Here is what Phyllis Chesler, a known feminist of the second wave, says about the black bag issue:
“The streets (of England) are filled with women in heavy hijab, in niqab, (face masks), and in black, burqa-like body bags. As I have written many times before: I have no quarrel with head coverings but suggest that the West must draw the line at face masks and sensory deprivation isolation chambers which burqas truly are. These “covered” women are flying the flag of Jihad, of a barbaric version of patriarchy–which is now increasingly ensconced within Britain’s gates.”
I agree with her. At the same time, I saw an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim who comes from Somalia. She is against banning burqas, and argues that Europe made a grave mistake focusing on what is a peripheral issue while not having the conversation that needed to happen. The overall issues with Islam and Islamic immigration. What she said made a lot of sense too. It does not feel right to hound women about how they dress, even if their dress is an advertisement for something I oppose.
Ayaan recently published a book called Heretic, I just read it, and recommend it. Before that, her book Infidel described her life and how she escaped an arranged marriage, and became a Dutch politician. Now she lives in the States and needs to have body guards. An amazing lady.
Meanwhile, back to tribalism. Post coming.
June 7, 2016 at 10:04 am
come back
August 5, 2016 at 3:48 pm
Thank you. I will soon.