“In an age of mass migration and the Internet, cheap air fares and mobile phones everywhere, cultural pluralism is an irreversible fact, like it or not.”

But there’s no reason this needs to continue to be an era of mass immigration. Cultural exchange can continue through the phones and planes. Just stop letting them in and deport them if they get through illegally. Importing more strife and just vowing to do a better job of assimilating it is insane. Deal with the strife you’ve already foolishly imported before you think about importing any more.

“A nostalgic longing for cultural purity — racial purity, religious purity — easily descends into ethnic cleansing.”

What does this mean? “Purity” is a very scary-sounding word, but a common culture is crucial to political stability, to a functioning civilization. And if that culture involves Western traditions, than damn right it’s the one we should want. Is that cultural “purity”?

He wants them to conform to classical liberal culture, right? Freedom of speech, no more honor killings, all that? So that’s not longing for “cultural purity”? This means nothing.

As for “racial purity”, race carries culture. Forming a common culture between two races means forming a common culture across two cultures.

Where’s his example of successful multiracial nation-states? U.S.? We were 10-1 white to black for centuries and there are **still** cultural differences that cause serious political tension–crime, test scores. We’ve been increasingly multiracial for a few decades, nowhere near enough time to make a call on its success, though so far what we’ve got is yet another large minority with academic disparities we don’t know how to close, to say nothing of a racist irredentist movement within it.

“There I wrote a story about the burgeoning, bustling, altogether vibrant Russian immigrant community that had arisen [in New York] — a perfect example of people retaining some of their old cultural identity (drinking samovars of tea, playing hours of chess and attending church) while quickly taking advantage of America’s free and open capitalism to establish an economic foothold. I marveled at America’s ability to absorb newcomers.”

How’s that working out with Mexicans? The numbers of Russian immigrants are comparatively small. The significant difference between the Russian immigrants and Europe’s Muslim conquerors is numbers, not the sizes in welfare state. Latino immigrants are mostly working, but they sure as hell aren’t assimilating. And how many jobs does Europe’s sclerotic economy have for them anyway? Hard to get jobs when more labor keeps getting imported to compete for them.

It’s one thing to do your best with who’s already here. But if you’ve got a big challenge you don’t go making it bigger before you know how to solve it.

The situation is so bad with Muslims in Europe that the idea that assimilative measures alone will eventually get the Muslims to crack and turn into classical liberals is terribly reckless. When in history has immigration on this scale been managed just by haranguing the new arrivals on how to behave? Well, there’s never been immigration on this scale, unless it was called ‘conquest‘. What’s in it for the Muslims to change? Aside from practicing their obvious right to restrict immigration, Europeans should start paying the unassimilated to leave.

Is that “ethnic cleansing” too? The alternative is to write many brave op-eds until the Muslims eventually cry, “No more! your eloquent evocation of your Enlightenment has made us see the error of our ways! God will simply have to learn to share a bench with John Stuart Mill in our esteem! Why have I been practicing polygamy when I can simply assimilate to European standards of adultery!” A hint: don’t tell them the part about Europe’s faith in religion having collapsed until they’re deep into the assimilation process; it might put them off if they find out early on.

Equating the ancient, obvious practice of immigration control (still practiced in some pre-Enlightenment parts of the world!) with Nazism will in the end lead to one of two outcomes:

1) Sharia, because everyone was too afraid to do anything Nazi-esque.

2) Actual Nazis, because they’re the only ones not afraid to be called Nazis.

Alex K on May 31, 2006 at 7:55 PM

Like it or not we’re still all human. There are some values that are absolute.

Freedom, Democracy… all that crap in our Constitution… (gosh those notions seem so quaint to the Europeans and the Liberals)

That’s not racism. That’s plain f*cking horse sense. And I’ll be dead before they’re taken away from me.

venmax on May 31, 2006 at 8:38 PM

“What to do? Obviously, we can never return to the comfortable monocultures of old. A demographic revolution is changing the face, and look, of Europe. In an age of mass migration and the Internet, cheap air fares and mobile phones everywhere, cultural pluralism is an irreversible fact, like it or not. A nostalgic longing for cultural purity — racial purity, religious purity — easily descends into ethnic cleansing.”

This is the usual multiculturalist claptrap. People in Europe don’t buy in anymore. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to preserve European culture and race. We don’t *have* to give in to the multi-culti utopian dreams.

Nordish on June 2, 2006 at 2:09 AM