The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe: “An old specter is again haunting Europe — neo-fascist and neo-Nazi movements and political parties are returning to prominence.
“This feature in Britain’s The Guardian notes an increase in attacks on Jews in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Further east and south Nazi-like parties are surging in the polls in countries like Hungary and Greece, as this New York Times piece reports, accompanied by their supporters’ many verbal assaults and physical beatings on immigrants from Asia and Africa.
“It is all disgusting and disheartening. But there are serious forces at work that those of us who advocate freedom, individualism, and tolerance must grasp in order to be able to respond accurately and decisively. … ” [Read more here.]
Last week’s column: Is Life Unfair? My Challenge to the Best Tennis Player in the World.
If you have been to Europe, you will see that this “resurgence of Nazism” is a bit of yellow journalism. As a traveller, I think people are going more “to the right” because of ridiculous immigration and subsidy policies. Also, Europeans don’t wish to abandon their superior culture to “immigrants” whose idea of music is often beating a hollow log. The infusion of Moslem immigrants into a “Christian” climate is some more mixing of oil and water. Aristotle pointed out that man is a social animal. Societies, like galaxies, always collide unpredictably.
Here’s one example. When I visited Geneva, Switzerland care of a college classmate, I was accosted by a very attractive and well-perfumed black woman whom I took to be American (everyone wears blue jeans in Europe, that abomination of style we have ‘sold’ them). But she did not speak English and I tried French. It turned out that she, like many other Africans, book a flight to Switzerland and then tear up their passports. They then claim to be political refugees and qualify for total welfare. Ironically, the Swiss won’t get them jobs because they aren’t legitimate immigrants. So they are subsidized in their new careers in prostitution, and thievery.
In Europe particularly, where there is smoke, there is fire. The flames of Marxism burn brightly all around the globe. This godless and greatest political lie wants to denigrate every person save the new ruling class. There is no proletariat, really, let’s create one. Infiltrate the system and use egalitarianism to turn humankind into a meaty soup from which we may eat.
So this right wing resurgence is understandable, if one sees fascism as the de facto response to Marxism. Christopher Hitchens pointed out that true fascism depends on help from the Roman Catholic Church, a valid point. But many people will point out that Franco ran Spain quite well for many years, a kind of enlightened despot. Were the Hapsburgs any different?
But hopefully, Stephen, the choice isn’t only between primitivism, Marxism, or authoritarian fascism. Especially in Europe.
Mr. Dahl! I missed you! I cried about you every night!
OK, mebbe I’m exaggerating just a bit.
Europe’s calamitous “Muslim problem” is its social democratic and multicultural policies come home to roost. One of the best books I’ve read on the matter is ‘While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within’ by Bruce Bawer. Bawer’s American and gay, and related encounters with thugs of Moroccan origin who disapproved. He spotlights the same causes as I do and the book contains a trenchant analysis and indictment of the philosophy of official multiculturalism, which he argues is profoundly condescending, racist and exclusionary. It treats Muslim (and other) immigrants as exotic aliens who must remain that way rather than Europeans in the making.
Says the European establishment and elites would rather pay out huge welfare expenditures to immigrants and keep them ghettoized, exotic and “them” rather than enable them to acquire decent jobs, full equality, and become “us.” Prefers the American way which Europeans sneer at so cavalierly: no matter where you’re from, if you can cut it, learn the language, get a job, offer something of value, you’re in, you’re American.
Says such policies are breeding a populist Fascistic right-wing backlash that “won’t be pretty” which, considering Europe’s recent dark past, is not something to be lightly dismissed.
Here’s something on official multiculturalism I wrote awhile back. While I love the gifts and challenges of cultural diversity multiculturalism as government policy has no place in a free society. It is no more the function of the state to promote cultures than to oppress them. Such a policy renders a disservice to the individuals of that culture and to society at large. Cultures are survival mechanisms, hence must adapt. Progressive and reactionary elements within immigrant cultural subgroups must be left free to grapple with the issues without the state taking sides, unless the law is violated. It’s part of the natural, albeit at times painful process of immigration and assimilation into a free society. In this matter the state’s role must be limited to securing the rights of its citizens including immigrants and minorities to freedom of expression. Multiculturalism is cultural and moral relativism that often enables the most reactionary elements of cultural subgroups. In Ontario, Canada, a proposal to subject Muslims to Shariah Law in resolving domestic disputes was endorsed by the government of Dalton McGuinty; it was only derailed by fierce advocacy by Muslim women themselves, eventually supported by non-Muslim feminists (who, according to one, had initially remained in the sidelines for fear of being perceived as anti-Muslim). Many immigrants fled to the West precisely to escape their cultures; hence it must be up to them, not the state, to decide what they wish to keep and let go. They will sift out the best of the old culture to enrich the new, and discard the worst. It is individuals, not cultures, that are sacrosanct.
Mr. Dahl I agree Europeans are going more “to the right” because of ridiculous immigration and subsidy policies. I heard, but can’t source it, that radical mosques have been subsidized by the state there. But the culprit is the interventionist, social democratic, welfare statist philosophy.
It can hardly be said that the raw sea of humanity that entered America through portals like Ellis Island from faraway lands were typically animated by Enlightenment ideals or sophisticated cultures, though some undoubtedly were. Most came with their old world habits, customs, superstitions, gods, rivalries and hatreds. Many were illiterate, and incredibly backward and brutal. But slowly, painfully, they assimilated – because they had to. Their new country demanded much of them but took little cognizance of their ethnicity, race or creed (at least officially).
Here’s an interview with Bruce Bawer on the difference between this and Europe:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22563
Excerpt:
“For decades, Western Europe has been admitting huge numbers of immigrants for decades, most of them Muslims. But the way they’ve handled them has been disastrous. The European elite hates America so much that instead of recognizing the U.S. as a model of how to integrate newcomers, they rejected the American approach entirely. They chose to view immigrants as members of groups rather than as individuals, as dependent children rather than adults who are potentially self-sufficient and responsible, and as exotic alien creatures who should remain exotic rather than as Europeans in the making. When I was first living in Norway, politicians and journalists were in the habit of congratulating Muslims for having turned Norway into a “colorful society” – a “fargerik felleskap.” Nobody seemed to realize how condescending this was, or how at odds it was with Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind society. I was also shocked to hear people refer to immigrants’ European-born children as “second-generation immigrants.” And their children were “third-generation immigrants.” This summed up an incredibly dramatic difference in the ways Americans and Europeans thought about immigrants. My father’s parents were Polish, but never in my life had it occurred to me to think of myself as a third-generation immigrant or of my father as a second-generation immigrant. The idea was ludicrous. We were Americans, period.”
Remember an Iranian friend, a young woman, saying when she and her family arrived in Canada they were all working within a month – yet bureaucrats and officials kept pressing them to take more money and handouts (which bureaucracies do: if they have budget surpluses next year’s may be trimmed: as Mises noted, in business failure can mean bankruptcy; in government it’s an excuse to demand more money and greater power). The woman and her family told the officials they were doing fine, didn’t need anymore, didn’t want anymore – but had difficultly making them accept it. But what mitigates the situation here is that Canadians still believe in authentic integration.
But as Western economies succumb more and more to the ravages of the welfare state scapegoats will become increasingly necessary.
My comment was intended to address the issue of whether swastika-flashing fascism was on the rise. Don’t think so. The nature of Europe is post-war and ad posterior — sit on your fanny and just be glad there ISN’T some flag waving fuhrer or Red guard in the public square. I cannot respond to Mr. Fox’s voluminous testimony. I agree with Stephen that there are many choices, but my conclusion about most politics is there is only one true political force in the world, Marxism. Marxists want to destroy all culture and institute a purely political (state everything) godless regime. Otherwise politics is petty, most people just want to eat, prosper, have children, and die in a bed, not on a battlefield. Most of life is apolitical. We must have laws that conform to human nature. Marxism does not. When asked why Marxists are so vehement, Ayn Rand said, “They are wanting to be the state.” Politics involves power, and little power is needed to sustain the normal momentum of human affairs. Laissez faire, pay your bills, mind your own business, don’t force others to do your will. European life, in general, is better than North American. You don’t need a car, they don’t put junk in the beer or the food, you can go to wonderful museums, take a train most places, and enjoy women who don’t need to be told that two plus two is four.
Pax vobiscum!
It is an ideal from religious concepts, polititical mis conceptions and refusal to accept realitity that with cultures that are totally different that are adhered to by those of that culture, will impose on others, where people are obliged to mix and live next/ with these peoples. The difference in the number of family numbers, the excuse of not fitting because of foreign culture adherence. The consequence with ever growing imbalance is entirely foreseeable . It is extremely naive for academics make supposedly learned edicts which are so far from reality in the belief that things of human nature have changed, perhaps they could take a degree in history. The world does transform very very slowly in good and bad and sometimes aspirations are greater than the reality. It is sad to see the predictable outcomes and a great pity we don’t have United Nations committee solely on consequences which has ultimate power.