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Why the Left Needs an Underclass
International news reports that the Muslim immigrant population in Europe has clearly become the continent’s outcasts. I believe this development is due in part to the violence and isolation of certain Muslims; it is also due to the left’s need for an underclass. As I thought about the nature of an underclass, however, I realized that many on the left demand an underclass in our own country.
Before the Civil War and to some degree afterward, the African-American population was America’s underclass. Once slavery was abolished, and even before in many cases, blacks as a group began to find their way, becoming literate, educated, and finding work. By the 1950s the group was emerging out of their role as an underclass and joining the middle class. But the political class of the left was not happy about their success.
The left decided it needed to “help” our black population. Without going into the details of welfare, US policy essentially created an underclass. Rather than celebrate and publicize the accomplishments of our black citizens, the left was committed to create the illusion of a helpless, hopeless class of people: we were losing our underclass with the progress of blacks, and a new underclass needed to be created.
Unfortunately, this effort to “lift up” African Americans has hurt them overall. Today, most black families are one-parent families without a father present. Many blacks have been convinced by leftist propaganda (with the help of the media) that they deserve to be helped, that they are entitled to assistance from the “white man,” and they continue to embrace this lie. Fortunately, many other black Americans have seen through this propaganda and have become successful citizens who have families, are church-going, and who have realized personal and financial freedom. Yet the left, which is determined to maintain an underclass, continues to promote the lie of their inferiority.
Why would they do such a thing? It’s hard to be certain, but I propose a few reasons. First, the political left needs to recruit more people to support their agenda; the black population had a history of deep oppression, the left leadership knew it, and capitalized on that history. But they also needed to convince the citizen population that portraying the country’s blacks as victims who need to be helped by the left is an admirable pursuit. Today, the leadership plays on the emotions of the population, calling for sympathetic action toward blacks. It suggests that accomplished, compassionate people should feel guilty for their own success and feel they owe it to others who are not so successful to “do something.” The leadership convinces them that feeling guilt is the same as doing something, that they can show their generosity by shaking their heads sadly at the very people whom they have hobbled, instead of simply freeing them from their contrived restraints. They choose to feel bad for folks who have less than they do and treat them as if they are less.
By creating an underclass and “trying to help them,” the left can feel much better about themselves: they are the benefactors, the heroes for those who are suffering. It never occurs to the person on the left that he or she is perpetuating the illusion of the underclass, and in fact works to reinforce it.
Another reason to maintain an underclass arises from the arrogance of the left: they have the solution for those who suffer from the illusion the Left has created. Only their solutions can work; they assume that black Americans cannot find their way forward with their own determination and hard work. And the left is ready to help them. But their “help” further cripples their recipients and erodes their faith in themselves.
Finally, someone or something must be blamed for this atrocious situation. An “other” must be conjured up, an entity that is wholly responsible for the injustices that the blacks are subject to. If it’s not the left that is hurting them, it must be the United States, particular the political right. In a bizarre way, the left has accused the US culture and government of harming blacks, yet ironically the Left has manipulated US law to debilitate blacks further. One only needs to look at entitlement programs: the very programs that are supposed to help blacks have further injured them. Even though the left has demanded those programs, the government takes the rap for hurting black Americans.
To the chagrin of the left, blacks are slowly beginning to find their way in society. The black unemployment rate at the end of February was 6.8%; before this month, the lowest was 7.4% in 2000. There are many examples of their progress. But the left may be nervous about whether blacks will continue to embrace their role as the underclass and continue to support the left leadership by voting for them; I suggest the Left is planning for the future.
As a result, the left is fighting for increased immigration, for illegal and legal immigrants. For now, they are championing illegal immigrants, those who are covered by DACA and even those who are not, including criminals. Since I believe the majority blacks in our country will eventually see through the lies of the left, it would make sense for the left to identify a new underclass, one that will see the left leadership as its saviors, and that will allow itself to be pitied by their fellow citizens on the left. Since the voters on the left have already been indoctrinated to the black underclass, including a new group should be easy.
Don’t you agree?
Published in Culture
That Sweden has no culture, or that the guy said it?
It doesn’t actually matter—-Murray’s point is that if you don’t believe you have a culture worth being part of, you don’t have any realistic way of persuading newcomers to become like you. Instead, you become more like them.
OR…somebody comes along who tells Swedes they do have a culture. Christian culture. Maybe Viking culture. Something more attractive and muscular than “blond guys who let immigrants rape their women.”
Because immigrants, whenever they can, assimilate to the dominant group (initially economically and then socially). For years and years and years most Indian immigrants to the US have been “functionally White” in most of the ways that matter, regardless of the colour of their skin – or more accurately, “functionally not African American”. That’s true of most migrant groups.
The dominant group was in fact welcoming and open to immigrants – which is why America has such a good record of assimilating migrants (and adopting the bits of their culture [usually music and food] that it likes). My feeling is that the dominant culture was so open to migrants because there was already an existing “internal out group” in America.
Human societies seem to need an internal outgroup for dominant groups to project their cultural anxieties onto – or at least most human societies end up defining a subgroup which serves this purpose. The migrant path in America was smoother because the “out group”position was already filled. Less smooth in post-War Europe because their internal out groups had either (if defined by ethnicity) been decimated, or were more ambiguously defined (if by class).
And that conflict about how to define the internal outgroup – by ethnicity, by religion, by class, by political beliefs – is ongoing in Europe (and maybe spreading to the “post racial” US). Because who’s out and why is a way of deciding who’s in and why.
That Douglas Murray is very well spoken, but of course there are always critics.
Zafar, I agree—the U.S. is much better at this. We have a culture that is both inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive, because if you’re willing to sign off on the civic religion (“we hold these truths to be self-evident”, etc.) you’ll be included. If you won’t, we can exclude you. Even so, it is difficult to look at the history of the US (or, for that matter, anywhere else) and conclude that immigration is a naturally painless process that only insufficient imagination and “tolerance” makes complex.
Immigrants don’t only adapt to the dominant culture; the dominant culture adapts to them. Jews, to name just one group, have had a huge affect on American culture. So have African Americans, Mexican Americans and (in border states) French Canadians. That last group strongly affected the culture of Northern Maine, but in part because the French Canadians arrived in large, uneducated and impoverished groups, they formed an identifiable Not-Us, with stigma and prejudice that lasted for generations. (Even as late as 1986, when Drew and I moved to Maine, jokes about “French” stupidity were as common as jokes about “Pollacks” in other parts of the country.) And let us remind ourselves, here, that the French Canadians were white, Christian, and had previously dwelled in a nearly identical climate offering identical resources (lumber, fish, ice, ships). And still, they were disdained and marginalized.
Oh, but that was then and this is now; modern Swedes, say, are much more educated and sophisticated than those old-timey Maine bumpkins. So sure, let’s imagine that Somali muslims, say, can easily and swiftly become “meh” Lutherans, enthusiastic about feminism, tolerant of Jews, apostate Muslims and homosexuals, and ready to loll about naked on the beach, make dreary existential films, get excited about midsummer and eat pickled herring?
Or shall the new immigrants make Swedes be more like them? Not just gastronomically—goat meat and cous cous instead of black bread and fiskeboller, but women who are fearful, modest in dress and behavior? Will the new and improved Swedes be disinclined to criticize Allah… since Sweden has imported not just immigrants who don’t “get” Sweden, but immigrants who loathe each other, shall the vibrant new Sweden feature gangs of young men from different branches of Islam fighting each other, burning cars, rioting and setting off the occasional hand-grenade?
These things are happening now in Sweden. Well, not all of them: there is no evidence I’ve seen that the new wave of immigrants are swiftly developing an enthusiasm for Dala horses and Abba, let alone homosexuals, liberated women and Jews.
But I’m willing to entertain the idea that somehow, Europeans will be able to do what no people before them has ever managed, and successfully and swiftly integrate a huge number of newcomers from a variety of radically different cultures speaking dozens of different languages, some high percentage of whom have been subjected to serious trauma, with no applicable job skills and no apparent affinity for anything Europe has to offer—not the music, not the food, not the religion and not the social or political mores.
Native Europeans will have to make enormous sacrifices in order to pull this off—working and paying those famously high taxes not to provide themselves with the lifestyle they were promised but to maintain a vast number of impoverished and resentful people indefinitely. This would be tough enough if the recipients of their largesse were merely idle. But add not just crime, but terrorism to the mix…and this doesn’t begin to seem untenable to you?
I recommend Douglas Murray’s book very highly. He writes very well. He is not at all unsympathetic to the plight of the refugees, or even the “refugees” who are—oh, here’s another ominous stat—substantially young, unattached males.
What could possibly go wrong?
By the way, that’s a lousy review of the book. Sloppy reading and writing; read the actual book. It’s good—a page turner that’s difficult to put down.
In any case, the problem isn’t whether Murray is right, or Merkel is right. The real problem is that mass immigration has never been popular with the original inhabitants of Europe. They never wanted it. They want it even less now. They don’t like the hordes of men camping on the streets of Paris. They don’t like the scary encampment at Calais, the images of lorries being swarmed by young men intent on cadging (or forcing or stealing) a lift to England’s Green and Pleasant. One can argue—Murray does—that there is no inherent reason why, say, English people shouldn’t have the right to decide how they want their country to be, feel, function.
But whether they have the right to feel antagonistic toward immigrants or not, the fact of the matter is that antagonism is already present.
One possibility is that, for whatever reason, it decreases. The other is that it increases, possibly to the level where the majority turns, violently, against the minority.
I haven’t actually seen any serious person in a position of power specifically claim this. Have you seen this?
When critics argue that accepting refugees is a failure because it isn’t effortless it’s a straw man argument.
Extreme arguments on either side (it’s effortless/it’s impossibly hard) tell me something significant about the arguer’s political (and cultural) agenda and biases, but I’m not sure they are particularly informative about much else. imho.
Well who’s saying that they don’t?
These are democracies – and their Governments reflect the expressed will of all the voters. Not just the noisy ones.
Edit: and in fairness, I’ve gotten his book since you think it’s pretty good and I’ll read it to see for myself.
I don’t need people in positions of power to justify my beliefs. Do you? Most of them are knuckleheads anyway. Nancy Pelosi is in a position of power, and I wouldn’t let her walk my dog.
If nobody with any real life influence is saying something why is that something a disposative point to argue against?
How is it relevant? Why? To whom?
But the frustration I have with this whole discussion is that no one is talking about the numbers of people who are potential immigrants. At various gatherings, I hear people saying, “Well my great great grand parents came from Ireland, and the English and Germans here before them made things difficult so I don’t want anyone to treat people from south of the border that way.” Fair enough – who wants anyone to be mean and nasty to other people? But 1.1 billion people live south of the border. Without any restraints, which is how the liberals are now approaching the situation, the USA could be finding itself with 80 million new people here over the next ten of fifteen years. If you want your city and locale to be in a state of constant grid lock, as most of the mega metropolis that is the San Francisco Bay area from Stockton to San Jose and down to Napa, then agree with the liberals. And consider these days the best days of your life.
Zafar, that is even more of a logical fallacy than an “appeal to authority.” You are saying that one must have an authority to appeal to.
No I don’t. I don’t need one. I don’t want one. I rarely listen to them when they insist on sharing.
I was responding to what looked like an implied argument.
If I was wrong Kate can tell me there wasn’t one :-)
I was being gentle. At the moment, those who argue that there is too much immigration, or that immigration into Europe (or the US) needs to slow or stop, are accused of racism and xenophobia by people in and out of power. Hillary Clinton providing only the most recent example.
In any case, my point isn’t whether they are right or wrong. It that the conditions in, say, Germany (not here, thankfully, and by the sounds of it not in Australia) are sufficient now for substantial numbers to feel (again, rightly or wrongly) that an existential threat looms. Such people are naturally prone to gravitate to leaders who declare themselves willing to do something about it. This is hardly a big reveal: it explains Trump, it explains Brexit and it certainly explains the ascent of the AfD in Germany and Macron in France, etc. At the moment, all of these are relatively mild remedies. But new immigrants are arriving by the thousand every day.
Europeans have—obviously— been known to defend their national identity with violence. Germans are the extreme example, but heck: the “Happiness Index” nation of Bhutan ethnically cleansed the tiny Nepalese minority who had been dwelling harmlessly there for decades, making refugees of persons with the same culture, same religion, same “race”…and by the way, there were no Nepali terrorists shooting up theaters filled with schoolchildren.
What will protect Europe’s Muslims from, say, mass expulsion? Deportation? Worse? Cries of “racism!” won’t carry much weight when Indian and Pakistani Hindus, Asian Buddhists and Jamaican Christians reject the bonds of brown brotherhood in favor of defending the place they have assimilated to far more successfully and seamlessly (as they have—you point this out Zafar—in the US).
Ironically, we are relying heavily on western culture with its wealth, social support systems, friendly interest in other ways of life, tolerance and commitment to non-violence, to support and protect these non-Europeans. The cultures the migrants have come from do not share these values—clearly, or the migrants wouldn’t have fled. Most cultures across time and space do not share them; the values are, by historical standards, novel and rare and have demonstrated themselves (Nazis!) to be far more fragile than we who have grown up with them would assume. Xenophobia and the fine parsing of human difference is the norm. Vigorous and often violent defense of “Us” is the norm.
Openness and self-sacrificing acceptance of the Other are the exception, even when the Other isn’t all that “other” (again, Bhutanese/Nepalese, French Canadians/American Mainers) let alone when the Other threatens violence and disruption.
Someone (might have been Murray?) suggested that the migrants are less like refugees or immigrants and more like settlers. European settlers in the Americas would not have seemed like a major problem to Indians at first. The whites doubtless looked pretty pathetic, starving to death in the middle of what, for the Indians, wasn’t a wilderness but more like a gigantic, well-stocked Costco. Their numbers were relatively small, and the Indians had no way of knowing how many potential migrants—some counting themselves persecuted refugees even then— there actually were.
How’d that open borders thing work out for the American Indians?
As CarolJoy points out, there are billions of people outside of Europe who would like to come in. What precedent would you point to for the successful integration of millions of strangers into a strange land over the course of a mere decade?
When “native” Brooklynites are angrily denouncing the settlement of “their” neighborhoods by mere hipsters, because the coffee shops and 120$-ripped-jeans-boutiques replace the bodega and the barber shop, and life gets more expensive, do we really imagine that Europeans are yielding their neighborhood pastry shops to halal groceries and men-only hookah bars without resentment? That they are happy to pay high taxes to support schools where their own children may be the only actual European kids in the class?
The resentment is there, and everyone knows it.The endless and generally unwarranted cries of “racist!” confirms that even the most enthusiastic multiculturalist, deep down, knows; why else would there be increasingly draconian enforcement of “hate speech” laws that essentially serve to silence complaints and create open secrets—for instance, the existence of No Go zones, to which Merkel has at long-last admitted.
Europe has managed to present itself with an extraordinary, unprecedented test: “We can do this!” said Merkel, as if by sheer willpower (oh dear!) Germany and Europe could do what has never been done before. And they are doing this at a time when those values I mentioned aren’t especially strong. According to Freedom House (hardly a bastion of right wingers):
“Perhaps worst of all, and most worrisome for the future, young people, who have little memory of the long struggles against fascism and communism, may be losing faith and interest in the democratic project. The very idea of democracy and its promotion has been tarnished among many, contributing to a dangerous apathy.”
“Dangerous” to whom?
Sorry, Susan—we’ve hijacked your thread!
Thank you!
I basically find a lot to agree with in your response, as far as it goes, but I would add: most people in Europe don’t find this issue an existential threat (because really, it isn’t).
Take Germany for example.
AfD won almost 13% of the votes in the last federal elections. That’s quite a lot, but it isn’t a majority – it’s nowhere near a majority.
Here’s a 2017 map of election results:
Here’s a (crazy mirror) map of refugees in Germany (2014):
The AfD got the highest vote share in exactly that part of Germany with the lowest per capita number of refugees: Saxony. That’s the only part of Germany that they actually won a majority.
This is consistent with the highest anxiety about refugees (and Muslims) impacting European culture being expressed – politically, through the ballot box – in countries with the lowest number of actual refugees (and Muslims): places like Poland and Hungary. (This is how attitudes to migrants [so slightly different from refugees but close] breaks down in Britain, if you’re wondering.)
The fact is, all these places have a lot to be anxious about – economically, how that impacts society, and possibly culturally in terms of how they perceive themselves to be viewed (that’s circular but you follow?) – but the one thing they really don’t have to worry about is a refugee fuelled crime wave on their streets because there just are not that many refugees there. Their issue about refugees and migrants is projected anxiety.
And that’s where I think it does connect to Susan’s OP – because it’s about defining who is the outgroup (the “underclass” is only one of many candidates) and thereby who is the in group (and why).
(I’m going through Douglas Murray’s book – and I have to admit I’m finding it frustrating. It’s beautifully written, but I keep thinking “but what about….” or ” he’s leaving out….” or “why does he assume that ‘surely it would be better to’ doesn’t need to be proved”. I find his curating of information incomplete.)
No problem! I’m just now back from Shabbat. I just glanced through –looks like a thoughtful discussion !
Perhaps, but the migrants don’t spread themselves out evenly. Places with high concentrations—Malmo in Sweden, for example— have experienced serious increases in precisely those crimes that tend to breed intense anxiety and rage, namely sexual assaults and street violence. The levels may not be much compared to, say, the South Side of Chicago, but if you are Swedish, you have a reasonable expectation that your country —including your neighborhood—is supposed to be safer than that. Women are supposed to be able to walk around freely, anytime of day or night, dressed however…
Non-Immigrants will move out of immigrant-intensive areas because they don’t actually want to live in higher crime, lower-Swedish-ness places, and this “white flight” will concentrate the problems further.
I would argue that—contra the reviewer of Murray’s book—the rape rate in Sweden is probably much, much higher than reported, because the primary victims of both rape and domestic violence are Muslim women, who are far less likely or able to go to the police. Already, domestic violence shelters are seeing a big increase in clients, all of whom are genuinely desperate muslim women.
All of this will, as I say, contribute to the perception that immigration and immigrants are an existential problem. And in this, I would say it doesn’t actually matter if immigration actually is an existential threat. Again, the European Jews were obviously, clearly not an existential threat, and yet it proved astonishingly easy to target them as such. When the changes wrought by immigration are accompanied by terrorist attacks…does that make it harder or easier, over time, to keep Europeans doggedly committed to open borders and multi-culti?
And it doesn’t actually matter if most of, say, England continues to be “meh-” C of E; if London becomes majority-minority (it already is) and if this or that city becomes majority Muslim, with women in burkhas and minarets rising above the skyline and halal butchers and hideous punishment awaiting those who dis the Prophet (PBOH)… England will no longer feel like England to the originally-English. The culture, government, religious expression, holidays, language…you name it, it will be different. Freedom of speech, to name just one value, may be gone. Women’s equality…gone. LGBTQ rights gone. Jewish safety and security…gone. That may or may not seem like a tragedy to you—hey, Change Happens!— but it will certainly seem like a tragedy to at least some English people and to Anglophiles the world over.
I’m not sure we should jump to conclusions about what the “anxiety” expressed in polls actually means. Poland and Hungary may answer “yes, yes, a thousand times yes” to questions like “do you want to keep refugees out of Poland” not because they are ignorant of or “bigoted” toward immigrants, but because they want to make very sure that what has happened in Germany will not happen to them. Again—Hungary and Poland have had a total of zero Islamist terrorist attacks. Maybe they really really really want to keep it that way?
Completely beside the point but…Zafar, I was mentioned in the Sydney paper!
Anyway, it’s really not necessary to get into a discussion of whether immigration is a good thing in general, or in Europe in particular (I would argue that there is a BIG difference between a migrant and a refugee, but anyhow…) what I wanted to suggest is that there are a number of strands in the warp of the present European zeitgeist that are a little…disquieting when considered together.
Cool! It’s nice to know that people have read and appreciated what you’ve written.
Fair call. But the inverse relationship holds:
And also if you just limit it to Muslims in Germany as a proxy for Turks/Syrians:
Under 1% in Saxony.
Well this looks kind of familiar, right?
And if it looks familiar to you and me, you can bet the people who lived through its last iteration, or its immediate aftermath, first hand are going to recognise it as well.
Why wouldn’t this have an influence on how they vote? Surely it would. Surely it should. Ditto with their experience of lived diversity (or lack thereof) since WWII.
The question is: will Germany deal with it this time round by signing up, placating it or confronting it directly?
My guess is a combination of placating and confronting, but in the end the choice has to be made by Germans (of all colours : – ) – because they are the ones that have to live with the outcome. Imho the most accurate measure of their choice (because it somewhat compensates for quiet vs shouty) is the ballot box.
And of course the same holds true of places like Poland, Hungary and Sweden. You and I have opinions (on what they should do, on whether the data they seem to be reacting to is true or false, all sorts of stuff) but we don’t have a vote – because they’re the ones with skin in the game at this point.
Those are crimes that breed intense anxiety – and the image of swarthy strangers ‘raping our women’ certainly pushes some cultural anxiety buttons on both sides of the Atlantic – hence the politics of reporting them whether they occurred or not. (Or not reporting them, also, when they do occur, to be fair.) And where one goes for information, of course.
In this instance the BBC kindly reality checks the rapes in Malmo claims for us:
Of course it’s possible that more crimes are being committed while fewer are being reported, but there’s no proof for that (also very anxiety inducing) claim. It also seems unlikely, if you think about it, right?
Again – it’s possible, but why do you believe this to be the case? Let’s say you meet a sceptic (me) – what data (as opposed to opinion) sources would you cite to convince me?
Here are some more stats on domestic violence in Sweden, here’s a vox pop thing in response to ‘how dangerous is Malmo?’ (fwiw), and two articles about Malmo’s no go zones, from one of which (emph added):
This kind of “us/them they’re attacking/raping our women” politics regularly occur in most human societies.
I guess it’s a matter of how societies choose to respond?
Parts of England – especially London – have had been multicultural for two or three generations already. For good or for ill (and parts have been for ill), that is the actual result of the aftermath of Empire (political and cultural) interacting with the aftermath of WWII (the labor shortage colliding with the need to rebuild).
I do sympathise with people who find that different and challenging, if not always with all their reasons or responses.
But you are writing as if
It’s possible to go back to pre-war all white times (how?);
Most White British people want to live in a monoculture again (mixed);
What non-white British people/British Muslims want doesn’t matter – although their votes count too; and
“British Muslims” don’t actually want things like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and personal freedoms like gay marriage. If any of them are like me they want all those things.
.
Have I misunderstood?
Okay, so count me in for rights, equality and safety and security – which are things worth defending – but an anecdote for you: My parents went to London immediately after the War to study, and lived in England for about ten years. Like most students they rented accommodation – and a common sign that greeted them when looking was ‘no Jews or Coloureds’. It was that blunt.
England has changed, and changed for the better imho, from those days. I’m not nostalgic for that part of history, and I am not sure that most British people today (or even Anglophiles around the world) really are either. But the good changes that came about didn’t happen in a vacuum. They occurred because all the old cultural norms were challenged and reconsidered. Partly in response to multicultural migration and the assumptions that it ran up against.
This can be a big problem where they aren’t assimilating and have social problems.
Everyone always says “blah blah blah the Irish”. Well back then capital wasn’t being favored over labor and basically everyone lived hand to mouth.
My point exactly.
I agree with you—so would Murray, by the way, who is not against immigration per se—-that the racism of the 1950s is not something one would want to revive. I don’t want Europe to go back to being all white or whatever, and as you point out, it’s not up to me.
I am not making a case for what Europe should do. I am making the case that what I see happening has some pretty ominous possibilities depending on how societies choose to respond. There is a big difference between relatively slow, controlled immigration and people flooding over the borders. The images are unnerving to an American; they would be terrifying to a European.
As for crime stats—yes, it definitely depends on whom you ask. There are very plausible accounts of deliberate efforts to conceal the increase in crime and what is responsible for it; why don’t they record the ethnicity of perpetrators?
Let’s just consider this as a hypothetical: a country brings in an unprecedent number of migrants who are:
1.) disproportionately men between the ages of 15 and 35
2.)born and raised in demonstrably dysfunctional, violent environments
3.) uneducated and without job skills
and we are supposed to imagine that the crime rate wouldn’t go up? When the number one predictor of violence in a culture is the number of young men in it, we are supposed to presume that thousands of frustrated young men sitting around Malmo bored out of their skulls aren’t going to cause trouble? Really? What planet are these people from?
No, I’m not. I’m writing as if Europe is facing an unprecedented change that may resolve itself relatively bloodlessly (it is already not bloodless) but could end up in a horrible mess.
The alternatives are not “all-white, 50’s style monoculture” and “multi-ethnic, multi-cultural people dwelling side-by-side in peace.” There are a whole lot of other alternatives—happy and unhappy—and most British people express a desire for something other than what is being handed to them.
Of course. But if you import a whole lot of new people in a very short time, their votes may not be for the Britain that British people (black or white or whatever) want.
Well, apparently not. But I think your statement in bold is precisely the mistake that too many people make; indeed, it’s the mistake starry-eyed multiculturalists make.
Why would they be like you?
This isn’t a race question, it is a culture question. If by “British Muslim” we are talking about a person born in an illiberal culture with a strong distaste for homosexuality, raised to adulthood in that place and only then imported into Britain, there to be surrounded not by Zafars and Kates but by other people like himself, what is it that would magically transform him?
I don’t think it’s coincidental, by the way, that many of those who have been pointing out the problems with European immigration are gay men.
After years in which many were scornfully excoriated for naming the reality; after governments in Europe could no longer conceal the problem by, for example, not recording the ethnicities of perpetrators (why wouldn’t they? Hmmmnnnn….) Angela Merkel has finally admitted that there are NoGo zones in Germany. Well, what is a NoGo zone if not an area of increased criminal activity?
“If you go for a walk, you won’t get shot in the head” is not an acceptable standard of public safety. I have lived in big cities during crime waves, and I didn’t expect to get shot in the head when I took the dog to the park to pee. I did, however, expect and experience being intimidated, harassed, shoved and groped, and I feared being mugged, assaulted or raped. It was very unpleasant.
The difference between a migrant and a refugee is very important. A refugee—someone fleeing bona fide violence—needs a refuge. And by-and-large, true refugees aren’t all that picky; you know all those “refugees’ and “asylum seekers’ piling up at Calais and trying to force their way onto lorries so as to get to the UK? They’ve already walked through country after country that would have given them safety if safety was their priority.
A migrant is looking for a better life. We can sympathize with him (it is nearly always a “him”) but Sweden has no moral obligation to permit everyone in the world who wishes to enjoy a Swedish standard of living to come live in Sweden.
I notice no one does jack for those literally stateless muslims in Myanmar.
Two quick notes—most people who experienced it firsthand are dead and gone. Indeed, Murray suggests that the Eastern Europeans have a more vivid recent memory of what life without Western culture is really like. Hence their strong resistance to mass immigration.
And…I think Europeans do recognize “it,” if by “it” you mean the potential for genuine, violent xenophobia to arise. Shame over the Holocaust and Colonialism was explicitly invoked by Merkel when she exhorted Europeans to, in effect, demonstrate how un-racist, tolerant and open-minded they are by opening their hearts, borders and wallets to millions of people who, as it turns out, are kind of…racist, intolerant and closed-minded. And, of course, anti-Semitic. Oops.
One of the weird features of this whole episode is that Europeans and Americans are the ones who are expected to look after people, and not because we are seen as compassionate but because we somehow “owe” it to the rest of the world. So why aren’t “we’ doing something about the muslims in Myanmar is not a question that, say, Japanese people are expected to ask themselves. Or even Jordanians or Saudis, whose contribution to the refugees has been to fund enormous mosques in Europe for them.
Again—how’d that Open Borders thing work out for the American Indians?