'What happens in the Middle East doesn’t stay in the Middle East.' WSJ
George Rebane
[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary aired on 2 September 2015.]
Here’s a 50,000 foot view of the great cultural divides that will focus our attention in America and also in the European Union. The EU’s promise of a unified Europe free of wars is under great strain both economically and culturally. It turns out that Angela Merkel’s conclusion that “Multi-kulti does not work” is true, not only in Germany, but all over the continent. And nothing has caused the Europeans to raise their ire more than the increasing flood of Muslims into their cities and countries.
The diaspora from the failed Islamic states that ring Europe on its south is turning into a life altering invasion of people who share few values with the Europeans beyond the desire to escape death and destruction. These illegal aliens who are daily scampering onto the shores of southern Europe are called ‘migrants’ which is their word for our politically correct ‘undocumented immigrants’. The European countries of entry don’t want the Muslims to stay, so the ‘immigrant’ word is out. But they do want them to migrate north to the richer regions of the continent, so ‘migrant’ is an accepted politically neutral label for the desperate aliens who are quickly ushered northward by countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain.
Muslims have been emigrating to Europe for decades, and have made themselves conspicuous to the indigenous Europeans by their refusal to assimilate and their understandable desire to live in their own culturally cohesive communities. In many countries these enclaves are now functionally sovereign in that they follow their own laws, maintain their own traditions, and forcefully reject any encroachment by the institutions of their targeted host nations.
We in America were once taught to abide all cultures which in our public forums subsumed themselves into the overarching ‘American culture’ – practice your own cultures when you are among yourselves, but become an obvious American when you gather in the town square with fellow Americans. This is no longer taught to our young. Today our schools celebrate America’s constituent cultures to the point where a common American culture has been banished and replaced by reference to a yet nebulous global culture.
The world is and has always been a dangerous and uncertain place. Cultures arose millennia ago as people of like mind joined together to defend themselves and contend with groups who sought what they had. Most people understand that a culture is defined by commonly held attributes of language, ethnicity, religion, governance, economics, traditions, mores, and values. The stronger cultures hold more of these attributes in common. For security and economic purposes the main benefit of a common culture is the people’s ability to know and reliably predict each other’s behavior. Living in a culturally cohesive community you don’t have to constantly watch your back, you know the behavioral norms practiced by your neighbor as well as the man-on-the-street. As an unmistakable member of that culture, you can devote more of your attention and energies to better your and your family’s life.
Strangers in strange lands have always sought out people like themselves to band together and establish a familiar and secure place in which to live and work. The trouble usually starts when widely variant cultures must share the same space and resources. Sharing is hard, and sharing with people who are not like you is almost impossible. This truth gave rise to kingdoms and countries which have survived the rise and fall of empires. Today we see cultures clashing once more on a prosperous continent that has attempted to organize itself into an economically unified landmass of already culturally distinct countries into which hundreds of thousands of very different and uninvited people arrive yearly. This has always spelled trouble, and promises to do so again.
In the United States we are dismantling the great cultural assimilation engine. We are again told by political elites to view ourselves first as members of culturally neutral classes rather than as Americans with an overarching culture. Instead we are divided into the rich, the poor, the privileged, the persecuted, the Anglos, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the whatever as long as such lines of separation and growing contention can be maintained for later reassembly under a new world order. And this new world order will then be sought at any cost as relief in the time of troubles that lie ahead.
My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively. However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Thank you for listening.
[Addendum] Collectivists of all stripes, and especially global collectivists, seek the triumph of their ideology through class warfare. As recounted above, class attributes reach across all cultural boundaries. All cultures have their rich and poor and privileged and underprivileged. Even ethnically labeled yet culturally distinct groups such as Hispanics can be relegated to a class for purposes of political cohesion and marshalling. The main weapon of collectivists is a class-based view of society wherein the disaffected from all cultures can join to fight for ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’.
When such people can be convinced that their greater benefit will come from a successful class struggle rather than hewing to their cultural assets, then they can be convinced to join in the fight for forms of governance that are ‘democratic’ and redistributive. This strategy was implemented as early as the waning days of the monarchy in 18th century France, and formalized within a global perspective by Marx and Engels in the mid-19th century. And even after some massive failures during the 20th century, some of which are ongoing, the collectivist dream in the west is alive and well, seeking once and for all to put the Westphalian world order behind us and achieve a global governance – a just and sustainable social order of true equality, peace, and plenty for all who submit their individuality to the correct and approved Homogeneous Man. (see also Agenda 21)
In this American election season we have strong voices from the Left now unabashedly calling for a more direct route to such a future. They range from socialist candidates like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to national voices like that of Amy Goodman calling for people to see themselves first as members of the underdog class from whom the rich and privileged have stolen their means to obtain both succor and security. No matter their cultures of origin, they are exhorted to join the proudly gruberized who need know only that their salvation lies in the collective able to put in place a government willing and strong enough to claw back from the rich everything that was meant to be theirs.
In 1951 socialist and social activist Upton Sinclair wrote “The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label.” While that has been true in the intervening years, it is no longer true as the proud pronouncements of today’s Democrat candidates attest. America’s programs of wealth redistribution have gone beyond the tipping point in their breadth and depth, and that means that the Peter-Paul Principle is now fully in force across the land. ‘Whenever you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on the full support of Paul.’ Our Founders (and early foreign visitors) warned us about what will happen when the Pauls gain majority. For confirmation, just look around you (and in your own mailbox).
[7sep15 update] Germany is now beseeching other EU countries to help her welcome mid-east migrants. Merkel is currently allowing about 800,000 new Muslims annually into Germany, and she knows this is a life-changing policy for Germans and unsustainable. Many other EU leaders are way ahead of her and already have concluded that they don't want their countries fundamentally transformed by Islam's most successful foray into Europe to date. The Europeans will now have their Muslims to deal with in a manner similar to our having to deal with 11M+ illegal Hispanics.
However, there appears to be a mitigating solution for Europe. I first posted on it in the comment stream below where it seems to have garnered a big yawn from the RR readership. I believe it deserves better, so I have elevated it into this update in order to have it more prominently displayed when someone searches RR for topics dealing with culture or the Muslims' northward migration.
Has anyone wondered why no one in the media – including Fox News – points out that the Muslim 'migrants' now flooding into Europe overwhelmingly come from Turkey where there is no threat to their life and limb? Upon arrival in Europe, their claim to be escaping death and destruction is clearly risible, since they are then simply looking for a better economic environment in which to set up shop.
Why has no one suggested that the EU countries, and even the US, provide Turkey the aid needed to care for the Syrian refugees where they already are – in short, replicate what we are doing to help Jordan care for the Syrian refugees lodged on their soil? The added benefit there is that the distance back home is short when the hostilities end and it is safe to return. Whatever the policy outcome affecting this mass migration, how come our vaunted journalists are too dense to even bring up this (to me) obvious solution? (I don't ask the same of the politicians, for they really do have the required density.)
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