Conclusion

If there is one thing that can be said in faint praise of Barrack Obama, it is his unerring capability to escape the consequences of gaffes that would have destroyed a lesser politician. Most recently, his comparison of Syrian refugees to the pilgrims on the Mayflower provoked derision and disbelief in equal measure. By welcoming the Europeans to their shores and helping them to survive the first hellish winter, the Native Americans signed their own death warrants. There was no mass resistance to the immigration/invasion until it was far too late.

Seriously, if you happened to be a Native American with access to a time machine, what advice would you give the Indians? Help the settlers or kill every last one of the white devils?

And that is the problem facing Europe now.

The lesson we have failed to learn, time and time again, is that introducing large numbers of people who THINK differently from us to our nations is asking for trouble. These people are not blank slates. Young men raised in a society where women are regarded as chattel, as little more than property, are unlikely to adjust well to Western society. Nor do they understand the concept of the ‘iron fist in the velvet glove,’ coming as they do from a society which functions on the concept of ‘iron fist in the iron glove.’ Such people regard such concepts as a sign of weakness, a sign that they can (and should) go further. Arab society, in many ways, is based on bullying. One is either the bully or the bullied.

Getting through to these people requires - demands - stern measures. Gentle rebukes are meaningless because they don’t use gentle rebukes themselves. Forbearance and tolerance is nothing more than a sign of weakness.

There is an old saying that insists that fish have no word for water, because they swim in it. That is certainly true of European Culture. It is all around Europeans such as myself, yet it goes unnoticed because we are too used to it. But because we are unaware of our culture, we fail to comprehend that others might have a different culture - or that defending our culture means not submitting to their culture. Tolerance of what one may do in private, among consenting adults, is one thing; tolerating the intolerable is quite another.

For all its flaws, and it has many, I LIKE Western Civilization. Life is good here. We do not oppress women in any systematic manner. Homosexuals can be homosexual without anyone giving a damn; they are certainly not hunted down and thrown off tall buildings. People can change their religion without being brutally murdered. There is a great deal of freedom of choice, from everything like movies to online porn! None of this is true of Arab counties. Women are slaves, homosexuals are thrown off buildings, converts are killed ...

The West has forgotten that it needs to draw lines. There is a strong difference between anything done by consenting adults in private and anything forced on an individual who does not consent. The West has lost its ability to see that these lines exist, instead making excuses for people who are ‘different.’ Pre-1945 Europe was a harsh and intolerant place in a great many ways, but post-Cold War Europe is far too permissive. And, in not standing up for its values, it has displayed a weakness that merely attracts bullies. It has become far too permissive for its own good.

Above all, perhaps, the West has forgotten that the world is a cold and brutal place. The years of peace enjoyed by Western Europe, held in place by the nuclear deterrent and the American security guarantee, was not a natural condition. If one happens to truly desire peace, then prepare for war.

There are many arguments put forward by people who don’t see the situation the way I do.

One chain of thought suggests that Germany needs younger immigrants; the German population is growing older and the replacement babies are not there. This argument hangs on the assumption that Mohammad will be willing to work his ass off to keep Fritz in the retirement home, a very dangerous assumption. Why should he? And even if Mohammad is willing to work, can he? The vast majority of migrants have very little in the way of useful skills.

Seriously, if Germany had wanted migrants, it would have been better to pick and chose from people who could actually work.

Another suggests that the birth-rate among migrants is falling too, that the nightmare of being overwhelmed by hordes of barbarians is never going to materialise. I do not have any data, but I suspect this isn't particularly accurate. Arabs take pride in large families. It will take at least two generations of assimilation, assuming that it happens at all, before birth-rates start to fall significantly. That will be more than long enough to tip the demographic balance squarely in their favor.

Indeed, given what tends to happen if there are large numbers of migrants, I would be very surprised if the birth-rates fell at all.

A third argument suggests that we - Europe - have a duty, in line with international law, to take refugees.

I am not an expert on international law, but it is, quite simply, unenforceable. No one can do more than wag their fingers at Merkel if she decided to refuse sanctuary to any further migrants, then start deporting the ones already in Germany. International agreements were designed to prevent another Holocaust, the destruction of a largely-inoffensive minority, not force states to commit suicide by accepting large numbers of people from a very offensive culture. There are times when keeping one’s agreements is a good thing - a reputation for breaking them makes it harder to make agreements in future - but this is not one of them. If Merkel is unwilling or unable to recognise this, the next government certainly will.

It is perhaps the greatest irony of the whole affair that agreements made in the recognition that we - the West - failed to prevent a genocide on a truly staggering scale may lead directly to another genocide.

I am not sanguine about the future. Europe is facing a major crisis at precisely the moment when it is psychologically, and perhaps physically, unfit to handle it. Governments are increasingly under siege by their own populations, who are demanding change, and facing the threat of the EU coming apart once and for all. Fringe parties that may want a more final solution to the migrant crisis ate gaining in power as people lose faith in the elites. The rule of law is crumbling. Violence is rising on the streets as people strive to defend themselves against the migrant threat. Britain leaving the EU in 2016 might merely be the first nail in its coffin.

Winter is coming.

Labels: EU, immigration