America going down 129
This was written by a VERY STUPID huwoman being.
Her name is Mina Shah.
She is a student at Stanford University. She actually expects to teach English Literature. Be paid to do it.
The article is titled Enough of Shakespeare.
Here’s her picture so if you see her you can point at her and laugh.
Contrary to what the title of this article might lead you to believe, this column isn’t going to be about Shakespeare. Well, not exactly. I was reading an introduction to a volume of Shakespeare last week for one of my classes, so he has become my scapegoat. Also, there are apparently a bunch of novelists who are lately excited about going through and modernizing Shakespeare’s works. Again. But this is much bigger than just him.
Why do we read Shakespeare? Because we’re told he’s great, sure. Because he speaks to universal themes, whatever those are. But is he that great? Does he really speak to an all-encompassing audience? Can anyone?
I believe that no human experiences are unrecognizable, which is just to say that if a person tries to understand someone else’s experiences, and truly listens to their stories, it is always possible to get (at least partially) into their shoes. We can sympathize (not always empathize, but certainly sympathize) with any experiences that we make a true effort to understand. But there aren’t any universal themes of human experience. Thus, it’s impossible for Shakespeare (or any other “classical, great” white writer) to write masterfully and comprehensively about the human experience. Those writers simply don’t exist.
Why is this? Oppression. Oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and any other demographic categorization.
So when we say, “Shakespeare writes to universal themes,” what we really mean is that “Shakespeare writes to themes that reflect the experiences of white people of Anglophone descent who are either comparatively well off socioeconomically or have opportunities to gain such a status through upwards social mobility.” That’s not universal. It’s not even neutral.
Don’t confuse whiteness and socioeconomic privilege with neutrality or universality. They’re not the same thing. The incorrect equation of the two contributes to reinforcing terrifyingly omnipresent white supremacy, both in our own country and internationally. The eventual breakdown of white supremacy depends on our rejection of equating whiteness and socioeconomic privilege with “universality” and “neutrality”.
The destruction of white supremacy depends on ordinary people refusing to take on ideas of “universality” in experiences. It depends on parents discussing the subject at home. It depends on social studies teachers saying, “Fuck McGraw Hill and fuck textbooks. We’re going to work with a diverse array of primary sources, a collection of which will actually reflect history from the perspectives of all the people who lived it.”
The destruction of white supremacy depends on math and science teachers demanding more diversity in their own classrooms and more equity across analogous classrooms all across the nation. It depends on English teachers getting tired of Shakespeare and Austen and Bronte and Joyce, and electing to teach authors who write books with themes that are “less universal”, like Chimamanda Adichie, Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Kofi Awoonor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ama Ata Aidoo, Aimé Cesaire and countless other brilliantly talented authors of color. (If you’re curious what I plan to teach in my classroom in several years when I get there, well, I’ve left a couple of clues …)
If we want a better world, one in which a dream for equal opportunity can be realized, white supremacy must be destroyed. And it must be destroyed actively by us, by ordinary individuals who desire a better world. It’s a big project, but one that can begin in small ways that include realizing the fallacy of the term “universal art”, and teaching and learning specific cultures outside of an idea of “universal” that doesn’t really exist.
*
Here, to restore you after that, is a touch of the profound genius of Shakespeare.
He is writing about oppression.
It is from The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 1.
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
*
And here, in stark contrast, is Toni Morrison.
Also on oppression.
Not bad, not wrong, but flat, undistinguished, dull. She is tone deaf to the music of language.
I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.
*
Students – do not let people like Mina Shah rob you of your incalculably valuable cultural inheritance!
The advance of the million footed beast 16
This is from Right Scoop. The picture must be seen. It records a critical moment in History – the March of the Third World into the First World.
Ever growing numbers pour across borders.
Thousand of people, almost all of them men. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions ….
Marching across continents. Pouring out of the chaotic, miserable lands of Islam into the prosperous First World – to destroy it.
And the First World world lets them in. Welcomes them. Shelters them. Feeds them. Sends its children to clean up after them. Because Europeans are “good”.
This is the fate Christianity prepared Europe for! To be trampled down by the million-footed beast of Islam.
Go here to see more pictures.
The text:
The Muslim invasion of Europe continues after Germany threw open its arms and welcomed in whatever “Syrian refugees” could illegally make their way up there.
The video above is “from the tiny country of Slovenia, where the migrants are being pushed through after Hungary closed its borders”.
More from Reuters:
Between 1,500 and 2,500 migrants will spend Tuesday night at the Berkasovo-Bapska border crossing between Serbia and Croatia, some of them sleeping on the ground covered with blankets …
Slovenia meanwhile is to ask the European Union to send additional police forces to its border with Croatia to help it deal with thousands of migrants streaming into the tiny country on their way to Austria and beyond.
Attempts by Slovenia to stem the flow of migrants since Hungary sealed its border with Croatia on Friday have triggered a knock-on effect through the Balkans, with thousands held up at border crossings.
About 19,500 migrants have entered Slovenia since Friday, the Interior Ministry said, creating bottlenecks as migrants attempted to find new routes through the region.
Slovenian authorities said some 6,000 migrants will stay in Slovenia but all of them will be sheltered in refugee camps.
At least 12,100 migrants were currently in Serbia, the prime minister said on Tuesday.
About 6,000 migrants had entered Austria from Slovenia on Tuesday, a police spokesman in Styria province said. About 3,000 had arrived on Monday.
“We need fast assistance of the European Union,” Slovenian President Borut Pahor told a news conference in Brussels after meeting European Council President Donald Tusk and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker.
“Slovenia will formally ask for additional police forces to guard the border between Slovenia and Croatia and for financial help,” he said.
In the last two days, the former Yugoslav republic has deployed 140 soldiers to the border to assist the police, Interior Secretary of State Bostjan Sefic told reporters.
Theyll need more blankets. Millions more.
More police. Very many more.
More money. More money than even Germany can provide. More than any country can afford.
Denmark going down 87
Bernie Sanders’s and Hilary Clinton’s model socialist society is feeling the pinch:
From Online Post – a Danish site, in English.
A new analysis by Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd (AE), an economic policy institute and think-tank working to promote social justice, indicates that an increasing number of Danes can be considered poor.
Our emphasis – to draw attention to it’s being a leftist organization.
The analysis, which looked at poverty numbers from 2002-2010, conveys that nearly a quarter of a million Danes live below the poverty line, as per the definition used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
According to Berlingske newspaper, that definition translates to a monthly income of 8,788 kroner [$1,338] a month for a single person or 5,047 kroner [$768] per person for a family with four children.
And it is especially the areas around the capital of Copenhagen that things look dire. Brøndby, Albertslund, Ishøj, Copenhagen and Høje-Taastrup Councils experienced the greatest increase in poverty.
From 2002 to 2010, the number of poor in Brøndby Council rose by 3.7 percent, while it rose by 3.4 and 3.3 in Albertslund and Ishøj, respectively.
In Brøndby, the challenge comes from many residents being poorly educated. According to the council’s mayor, Ib Terp (Socialdemokraterne), the council is meeting that problems by urging youths to get an education. …
But it’s not only blue-collar areas that have experienced a rise in the number of people living under the poverty line. Traditional wealthy areas such as Frederiksberg Council and Holbæk Council have also been struggling. In fact, there is no single council in Denmark that has experienced a decrease of the number of people living in poverty. Struer Council in central Jutland performed the best, with the number of poor increasing by only 0.4 percent over the eight year period.
Overall, Copenhagen has the most cases of poverty in the nation by far. There were 41,419 in 2010, up from 25,170 in 2002. Aarhus Council has 14,166, Odense Council has 9,428 and Aalborg council has 7,696. …
OECD’s definition of poverty has been criticised for being too rigid, but AE has used the definition for a number of years because it is an internationally-approved definition used throughout the EU. …
Karen Hækkerup, the integration and social minister, is awaiting the new Danish definition of poverty, which is expected in the spring of 2013, but indicated that the government has already initiated a number of schemes that are designed to tackle the issue.
The issue of poverty? Or of re-defining the word?
Plain fact: Socialism makes people poor. The fatter the government, the thinner the people.
Capitalism makes ever more people rich. A billion people have been made richer by markets over the last 20 years. The evidence is writ so large over the whole world that it is simply amazing how it can be missed.
As for Denmark – now it must somehow extend its welfare to tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants. Good luck, Denmark, with that!
(Hat-tip to our Facebook commenter, Jeff Leeper)
A Canadian writes … 78
The elections in Canada have brought in young Justin Trudeau, an Islam-sympathizing lefty, as Prime Minister. He replaces Stephen Harper, one of the very few statesmen in our darkening world.
A Canadian reader, Marnee, wrote this to us:
I feel like I don’t know my own country. I’m nervous for the future of our grandchildren. We’ve taken a sharp left turn and we’re now heading down a very dark road – a road that had so many signs warning us not to take this path. Danger! read the signs. Yet the vehicle called Canada has veered left. Veered away from Israel and toward Islam; veered away from open trusting faces and toward suspicious faces hidden behind niqabs; veered away from illicit drugs that were under control and toward young people out of control; veered away from grounded climate scientists and toward “the sky is falling” hysterical scientists; veered away from balanced budgets and toward “We won’t balance the budget” thinking; veered away from the man who guided us safely through the economic crisis and toward the foolish young man that says “…and the budget will balance itself”; veered us toward and has now left us at the very door of the boy with nice hair with not much under it. I look back on the USA before Obama took over and I shudder as I study where it is today – a very tumultuous, deeply divided and different place. A lot of changes can happen in 4 years. Today’s world is filled with dangerous people who have bloody agendas that we only wish were hidden. Sounds like we’ll be making friends with these pre-historic peoples. We’re more vulnerable now with reckless young Justin at the wheel. We’ve taken the Ferrari keys away from “Dad” and tossed them to the “little brother”. We have every reason to fear for our safety and our very good name. Hope time proves me wrong.
Now Canada slides left and down 3
Canada veers leftward. One major result of the elections is perfectly summed up in this cartoon:
(Hat-tip to a Canadian reader, Stephen)
The Westphalian question 150
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse, Henry Kissinger wrote:
ISIS’s claim has given the millennium-old split between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam an apocalyptic dimension. The remaining Sunni states feel threatened by both the religious fervor of ISIS as well as by Shiite Iran, potentially the most powerful state in the region. Iran compounds its menace by presenting itself in a dual capacity. On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy, even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas in Gaza; the Houthis in Yemen. Thus the Sunni Middle East risks engulfment by four concurrent sources: Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies … The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as a Westphalian state within its established borders.
What was Kissinger talking about? What did he mean by “a legitimate Westphalian state”? What does “Westphalian” mean?
Commander J. E. Dyer views what is happening in the Middle East – and so in the world – very much as we do (though she approaches it from a different angle). She discusses Kissinger’s article and explains what is meant by “Westphalian”.
She writes:
Reading Henry Kissinger’s typically well-considered and intelligent article for the Wall Street Journal this weekend (“A Path out of the Middle East Collapse”), I had a growing sense that it isn’t so much a prescription for the future as a description of the past.
We wholly agree. Dr. Kissinger is not seeing the world as it is. He has not grasped – or been hit by – the import of the events that are unfolding: millions of Sunni Muslims, terrified of the power America has put in the hands of Shia Iran, flowing in a great tidal wave out of the Middle East to break on Europe’s shores and swamp the continent.
The sense began with the first paragraph, in which Kissinger defines the scope of what’s collapsing, and dates it only to 1973, when the U.S. moved to stabilize the Middle East during the Yom Kippur War.
But far more than recent U.S. policy on the Middle East is collapsing today. What we’re seeing is more like the collapse of “Rome” itself: the organization of Western power as a Europe-centric territorial phenomenon, setting unbreachable boundaries north, south, and west of a restless and perennially “unorganizable” Middle East.
Last year, we might have said that it was “Sykes-Picot” that was collapsing: a popular shorthand reference to the European colonial disposition of Middle Eastern boundaries at the end of World War I. But that was last year. Now it’s 2015, and with the utter paralysis of Western nations in the face of massive and unforeseen, unarmed migration, it’s clear that Roman Europe itself is no longer a meaningful reality.
Consider: the Roman Empire in its heyday would not have tolerated this migration. Neither would the Europe of muscular Christendom, or the Europe of trading monarchies, of the Westphalian nation-state era, of the “concert of Europe” era, or of the Cold War. As long as Europe had a civilizational idea of defending and preserving itself, the legacy of Rome was alive. Altered, perhaps, with the passage of time and the emergence of new ideas, but still kicking.
Today, the legacy of Rome looks to be an empty shell. There is territory left, of course – but there is no idea. In fact, the West has spent much of the last 50 years apologizing for ever having had its signature idea, and vowing to no longer have it.
Without that idea, the West has no motive to organize itself against destruction, either internal or from an external source. The idea of the West is ultimately what has collapsed, at least as an organizing principle that preserved for many centuries, and for multiple purposes, the security boundaries of “Rome.”
And with that collapse goes the whole structure of expectations that made Dr. Kissinger’s prescription for American policy possible.
This point crystallized for me at the end of his article, when he wrote these words (emphasis added):
The U.S. role in such a Middle East [i.e., with a stability structure supported by U.S. policy] would be to implement the military assurances in the traditional Sunni states that the administration promised during the debate on the Iranian nuclear agreement, and which its critics have demanded.
In this context, Iran’s role can be critical. The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as a Westphalian state within its established borders.
But that’s just the problem. Without a dominant European idea – the civilizationally confident Europe of “Rome” – there is no such thing as a Westphalian state. There is no form of power or authority that can enforce Westphalian rules. Nor is there any great nation with a motive to enforce them.
This is too big a subject to bite off all of in a single blog post.
We found that too. This is a vast, deep, and overwhelmingly important subject. It will take much thinking about, beyond the bewilderment of the present moment.
So let me just look at two aspects of the proposition here. One is Westphalianism itself, and why we should recognize that it must be under assault from today’s events.
Ultimately, what we call Westphalianism, after the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, is an attempt to enable nation-states to coexist pragmatically – a good in itself, enshrined as the “advantage of the other,” or the “common good” – without settling theological questions. …
The nations of 1648 had no intention of ceasing to see themselves as Christian organizations on the earth. What they intended to do was cease making theological disputes (i.e., Protestant versus Catholic disputes, which were the main ones among the belligerents at the time) a casus belli between them.
Westphalia was a watershed statement … that the armed might of the state should not be used, implicitly against the common good, to vindicate or enforce specific theological interpretations of God. The genius of Westphalianism is that the scope of national sovereignty is held to be not limitless, but limited. … Westphalianism leaves the things of God to God, and attends to the things of Caesar. Westphalianism is based on a moral assumption, but is essentially an idea of pragmatism.
This is why the resurgence of apocalyptic Islam is antithetical to Westphalianism. … Predatory Shia Iran and the rise of Sunni state-Islamism – not only in the form of ISIS, but in the form of the longer-organized Muslim Brotherhood – are real and meaningful evidence that the bloody, thrashing Islamism of today is not Westphalian, and cannot be. …
Which is to say, “is not tolerant, and cannot be”.
The premise of Westphalianism is that all the nations are trying to get along, and need a modus vivendi to regularize things.
The premise of Islamism is that nationhood itself doesn’t matter – indeed, is there to thwart Islamic unity, and must be overset.
These two premises can’t coexist. The Treaty of Westphalia was signed by a group of nations that all agreed on nationhood. Even internationalist Communism, the horseman of apocalypse in the 20th century, had uses for nationhood that could keep it pragmatically satisfied for decades. Communism was willing to accept that the state would eventually wither away, but still act like a state in the meantime.
Islamism sees the nation-state as a rampart of evil, blocking the path of the caliphate. Islamism has the excuse of belief for not respecting the rules of state sovereignty under Westphalianism.
We can’t assume away the strength or pervasiveness of the Islamist challenge to Westphalianism. Maybe as recently as 2014, it was possible to be complacent about that. But the earthquake of migration into Europe has reached a level that is proving against Europe, on a daily basis, that Westphalianism is not even in operation anymore. This is the second aspect of the problem that we have to consider.
The current migration crisis means Westphalianism is dead.
If Westphalianism were still in operation, the migrant crisis wouldn’t have reached its current proportions. Westphalian states would see it, properly, as something to defend themselves against, and would take pragmatic measures to stem the tide. Those measures would include intervention abroad, to stabilize foreign conditions, and paying other nations to take the migrants, as well as setting strict limits on immigration and advertising clearly that the doors were closed. Deportation and physical barriers would be seen as regrettable, perhaps, but hardly as moral evils.
The Westphalian view is clear that humaneness doesn’t demand sacrificing the benefits of national sovereignty for hundreds of millions of people. Yet that self-abnegating idea is the default proposition governing the response of Europe – and even of the United States – to the current migration crisis.
If the West won’t enforce Westphalianism in defense of its own territory and communities, there’s no reason to think Westphalianism will be enforced on Iran. The unenforceability of the JCPOA on Iran’s nuclear program arises from the same deficit of Western confidence in the use of state power.
And because the fundamental clash going on is between Islamism and a collapsing idea of Western civilization, this dynamic is too big to be put in balance by a mere restoration to the framework of 1973 or 1919. That’s not actually possible, in any case – and even 1818 and 1648 don’t go far enough back. Those dates were about Christian states proving things to themselves.
It’s Islamism to which the evolutionary Western idea of multilateralism, limited sovereignty, and freedom of conscience for peoples has now to be proven. This is a real geopolitical crisis point, not an abstraction. If necessary, the Western idea has to prove itself over Islamism.
In the process of doing that, “Westphalianism” will inevitably evolve, to some extent. We will end up rewriting it. I think we’ll preserve most of it, but it will have to find a way to stand, and not give way, before a religious concept that negates Westphalianism’s very foundation; i.e., the limited-sovereignty nation-state. I’m not sure we can foresee at the moment what it will all look like when we’re done.
One thing we can say as we part here, however, is that this tremendous crisis in world affairs represents an opportunity, for people who love limited government, freedom, and hope.
Only with that last sentence we disagree. Commander Dyer’s website is called the Optimistic Conservative. Ours, at this point, though similarly conservative, is pessimistic.
We see the world changing for the worse. We see the idea of liberty slipping away, because the liberal democracies of the West no longer want it.
We do not understand why they don’t want it, but it seems plain enough that they don’t.
The end of the liberal democratic nation state 103
So this man, Barack Hussein Obama, the son of an American hippie and a Communist member of the Luo tribe of East Africa …
educated for a few years in an Indonesian madrassa …
then in America promoted through affirmative action to position after position beyond his abilities …
all the way to being elected to the presidency of the United States of America, and so nominally to the leadership of the free world ….
has had, as a result of his inadequacy of understanding, his pusillanimity of character, his political puerility …
an enormous effect on the direction history is taking.
He has not just voluntarily but insistently surrendered the West to the mullahs of Shia Iran, empowering and enriching them to such an extent that millions of Sunnis are fleeing their homes and making for Europe in fear of them.
And the Europeans have no idea what to do about it. They dither about being humane, welcoming refugees, sharing what they have with their Muslim brothers and sisters. Christian-style. Self abnegation. Self-sacrifice. Not resisting evil. Forgiving. Not being racist. Caring. It makes them feel good. They probably even expect gratitude …
… And, as nations, they are dying.
Already ISIS, who seized territory from the erstwhile and short-lived states of Iraq and Syria, has announced that Sweden will be the first European country to come under its caliphate.
This drift of populations, this overwhelming of the liberal democracies, is no longer hypothetical. It is WHAT IS HAPPENING.
And it is not only changing geopolitical conditions, but also the very ideas on which Western political order and civilization are built.
The European leaders who are letting it happen, are all at sea. They don’t know what they’ve done or what the consequences will be.
Nothing anyone says will change their minds. But reality will. Reality has a nasty way of continuing to accrue consequences regardless of whether it is reckoned with or not. The result is the end of the liberal democratic nation-state.
Who are the people who have let this happen?
They are the bien pensants, the Great and the Good; climate alarmists plotting world government; and the people who meet at Bilderberg get-togethers (like Peter Sutherland, the man we wrote about and quoted yesterday), who believe that they are the natural movers and shakers, the best qualified to steer the good ship Mankind.
They have steered it to shipwreck.
A demographic salad 3
… to be tossed in the bowl of the world.
The Marxist Left has always – since the time of Karl Marx himself – wanted Communism to be international and universal. Through the greater part of the twentieth century, the Left hoped and expected that a Communist World would be ruled from Moscow. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United Nations became the favored HQ of universal tyranny.
Communism is gaining popularity now in the West. And Communist Internationalism is being promoted with enormous pressure by the most powerful of powers – the United States government under the Alinskyite (ie. Marxist) community organizer, Barack Obama. The method in use is not violent – but terrorizing all the same. The scare being propagated is that if we do not allow the self-annointed elite who know better than we ourselves what’s good for us, to rule absolutely and globally, redistributing wealth as they choose, in order to save the earth from destruction by heat (or cold, or floods, or drought), humankind is doomed.
The nation state stands in the way of their dream. So the nation state must go. National borders must go.
And it is not only Marxists who desire that end.
Among those who bring intellectual weight to the Plan is Peter Sutherland, Chairman of the London School of Economics, and the brains behind UN migration policy.
He is very keen on migration. Getting populations on the move, shifting about, settling where they will, and taking their laws and customs with them. His contention is not that it will save the world from bad weather, but that it will make for greater economic prosperity, especially for Europe.
He thinks that multiculturalism is working so well it ought to be the pattern for the whole world.
He does not declare that nation states must go, though that will be the outcome of his policy.
Meanwhile the old countries of Europe must be in turmoil?
Yes.
The BBC reports:
EU should “undermine national homogeneity” says UN migration chief.
The EU should “do its best to undermine” the “homogeneity” of its member states, the UN’s special representative for migration has said.
Peter Sutherland told peers the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural.
He also suggested the UK government’s immigration policy had no basis in international law.
He was being quizzed by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration.
Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas.
So he would almost certainly characterize himself as a capitalist. One of those many capitalists who serve so well the ends of International Communism.
He told the House of Lords committee migration was a “crucial dynamic for economic growth” in some EU nations “however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states”.
An ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the “key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states“, he added.
“It’s impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.”
At the most basic level individuals should have a freedom of choice.
Sure. But – individual freedom under sharia law, which he would have prevailing in Islamic culture everywhere Muslims settle?
The UN special representative on migration was also quizzed about what the EU should do about evidence from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that employment rates among migrants were higher in the US and Australia than EU countries.
He told the committee: “The United States, or Australia and New Zealand, are migrant societies and therefore they accommodate more readily those from other backgrounds than we do ourselves, who still nurse a sense of our homogeneity and difference from others.
He apparently sees no difference between a “melting pot” and multiculturalism.
“And that’s precisely what the European Union, in my view, should be doing its best to undermine.”
Mr Sutherland recently argued, in a lecture to the London School of Economics, of which he is chairman, that there was a “shift from states selecting migrants to migrants selecting states” and the EU’s ability to compete at a “global level” was at risk.
In evidence to the Lords committee, he urged EU member states to work together more closely on migration policy and advocated a global approach to the issue – criticising the UK government’s attempt to cut net migration from its current level to “tens of thousands” a year through visa restrictions. …
He said the policy risked Britain’s traditional status as a “tolerant, open society” …
Mr Sutherland also briefed the peers on plans for the Global Migration and Development Forum’s next annual conference in Mauritius in November, adding: “The UK has been very constructively engaged in this whole process from the beginning and very supportive of me personally.”
Asked afterwards how much the UK had contributed to the forum’s running costs in the six years it had been in existence, he said it was a relatively small sum in the region of “tens of thousands”.
The EU has taken his advice. Third World – mostly Muslim – immigrants are pouring into Europe. No restrictions are applied.
It is hard to visualize how a plurality of legal systems will work with contradictory laws enshrining contradictory values. Will there be many police forces, enforcing different and clashing laws? Will individuals be allowed to declare under which law they would rather live? Under this one, murder is not allowed; under that one it is – as “honor killing”. Under this law homosexuals must be killed; under that law they must be treated with respect. Under this law women may be educated, drive cars, go bareheaded, move about without a male escort; under that law they may not. And so on. All within the same, nominally still existing, state.
“O brave new world that has such people in it!”
(Hat-tip to our Facebook commenter, John Menary)
Why? 63
An Arab-Israeli reporter, Lucy Aharish, powerfully deplores the outbreak of murderous violence by Arabs against Jews in Jerusalem.
Sweden sinks 288
Do European governments know what they are doing, letting millions of aliens into their countries? Do European leaders have a clear understanding of what the policy entails, and a purpose they judge to be good for their countries, even if they do not explain to the people what the policy is and why it will be good for them?
No.
There could not be better proof that the “thinking” behind this immense historical change is totally irrational, than this incoherent speech by the Prime Minister of Sweden when pressed to explain just why he is letting his country be swamped by Muslim immigrants:
Yes, well first of all we, we are in the middle of what I mean seriously when I’m saying, when I express a, a big thank you to all the people doing such a great job, because it is a humanitarian effort, it’s just as the Minister for Justice and Migration just said. What we are actually doing is that we are saving lives when people who come from bombs, from, from killing, from oppression, their lives are shattered. We, we help them and that is a, that is a great humanitarian effort, and of course now that we can see the number of people who need it, that are seeking protection, then it is one of the greatest humanitarian efforts. And that we are facing a crisis situation, that is in part why I, we are outlining today that we are also preparing for a situation where we may need to house people in tents, because we stand up with the humanitarian refugee policy, right of asylum, but we can now also see that we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are more coming than ever in such a short time, and we need to provide a roof over their heads. Then it is – other things may be required.
This is from Gatestone, by Ingrid Carlquvist:
Sweden is fast approaching a complete collapse. More and more municipalities are raising the alarm that if the migrants keep coming at this pace, the government can no longer guarantee normal service to its citizens.
In addition, ominous statements from government officials have left Swedes in fear of what tomorrow may bring. If the migrant wave keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country.
And even if no more come than are there now, Sweden is set to be lost to the Swedes.
At a press conference October 9, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said that Sweden is in a state of crisis. However, when asked to clarify what he meant by this, Löfven was unable to produce a single coherent sentence.
Three ministers appeared by the Prime Minister’s side at the hastily summoned press conference, which came on the heels of an extraordinary government meeting. The purpose of the press conference seems to have been to convey two messages:
- To explain to the world and the Swedish people that Sweden is facing “one of the largest humanitarian efforts in Swedish history”.
- That there is no more housing available, and migrants should be prepared to live in tents.
During the question period after the ministers’ speeches, journalist Tomas Ramberg of Ekot Public Radio asked: “You say that Sweden is preparing for a crisis situation, what do you mean by those dramatic words?”
Stefan Löfven’s reply was incomprehensible …
He gave the speech we’ve quoted above.
However, the fact that the government is now talking about housing migrants in tents, may be a signal that Sweden, despite everything, may not want to be on the front lines of the “humanitarian” battle anymore, after all. The prospect of spending an ice-cold Swedish winter in a tent may make migrants choose countries other than Sweden. If not, a complete collapse of the Swedish system is imminent.
In 2014, the Danish historian and social commentator Lars Hedegaard prophetically remarked in the book “Farliga ord“(Dangerous Words), that the economic breakdown of a nation always happens quickly and unexpectedly:
If there is any lesson to be drawn from history, it is that what you do not think will happen, does. Time and again. The final consequence of the West and, above all, Sweden’s immigration policy is that the economy will collapse – because who is going to pay for it all? And economic breakdowns, once they happen, always happen very fast.
Right now, the Swedish government is borrowing money abroad to pay for immigration. But that amount is not enough. …
The government is also raising (already high) taxes.
High-ranking politicians and officials are also saying the situation is extremely grim.
On October 1, Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said that the current wave of immigrants will lead to “huge economic strains“; and a few days later Immigration Service Director General Anders Danielsson explained that “within the framework of the system we all know, we are now approaching the end of the road”.
Statements such as these have never been heard before in Sweden, especially in connection with the “sacred” issue of migration. Until now, Swedes have perpetually been told that we live in a rich country that has no problem handling all asylum seekers who want to come here.
In the shadow the 1.5 million migrants expected to arrive this year in Germany, the EU’s largest country (population 81 million), migrants are also pouring into a rather smaller Sweden. Geographically Sweden is large, but consists mainly of forests and wilderness, and fewer than 10 million people live in the country. Until 2010, Sweden took in about 25,000 migrants a year. However, in 2010, then Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt made a deal with pro-immigration Green Party, (Miljöpartiet) — by his own admission to punish voters for allowing the anti-mass-immigration Sweden Democrats party (Sverigedemokraterna) into parliament.
Ah, so Swedish voters elected a party that was against mass immigration – and their will was frustrated by a coalition. A Green Party tilted the balance away from common sense and national self-preservation. No surprise there.
Reinfeldt’s deal opened the immigration floodgates. In 2014, 81,000 people sought asylum in Sweden; and 33,500 were granted asylum. However, as many of the immigrants subsequently brought over their relatives, that figure substantially increased. Last year, 110,000 people were granted residency status in Sweden. One should add to this figure an unknown number of illegal aliens.
There is now talk of 180,000 asylum seekers coming to Sweden in 2015. That number is more than twice as many as the year before. If half of them are granted asylum, and they each bring over three relatives, we are talking about 270,000 new immigrants to Sweden – within one year. Over 8000 people arrived just last week, 1,716 of whom were so-called “unaccompanied refugee children”.
Swedes who only follow the mainstream media get the impression that all the migrants arriving are war refugees from Syria, but the number of Syrians is actually less than half of the total: 2,864 people last week claimed to be from Syria. 1,861 claimed to be from Iraq, and 1,820 from Afghanistan. Clearly, many people from countries that are not at war are taking their chances and applying for asylum in Sweden; but this is something about which the mainstream media does not see fit to inform its followers.
… The Swedish economist Tino Sanandaji (of Iranian-Kurdish descent, and therefore tougher than most Swedes, who, if they criticize the immigration policy, are immediately accused of racism) writes on his blog that Swedes could soon be in the minority in their own country:
1,000-1,500 asylum seekers a day for 15 years equals 5.5 to 8.2 million asylum seekers. At the end of 2014, the Statistical Central Bureau, SCB, calculated that 21.5% of the Swedish population were of foreign descent: 2.1 million, out of 9.7 million. The number of people of Swedish descent – born in Sweden with two parents born in Sweden – has been stable at about 7.7 million and is expected to remain stable or increase slightly due to birth surplus. If those of foreign descent increase their number by about 5.6 million, they will become the majority.
One of the municipalities that has been flooded with migrants is Trelleborg (population 43,000), located on Sweden’s southernmost coast. Over 100 “unaccompanied refugee children” arrive from Germany via ferry on a typical day. During the last two weeks, more than 1000 such youths have been registered; more than half of them have now vanished and are listed as missing. No one knows why, or where they have gone. Add to this 13,000 adult asylum seekers.
Impromptu temporary lodgings have been created in sports centers, ice rinks, and at the Sturup airport hotel, to name a few.
Trelleborg has written a desperate letter of appeal for help to the government, just as, a few weeks ago, the Örkelljunga municipality did in vain. The mayor and the Municipal Director of Trelleborg, who signed the letter on October 1, wrote:
In the past, many asylum seekers have taken the route through Denmark to Malmö, but this changed about two weeks ago. From September 10 until the morning of October 1, 14,100 asylum seekers arrived in Trelleborg by ferry. There is no indication that the pace is slowing; if anything it is continuously increasing. On Tuesday, September 22, Trelleborg received word from the Immigration Service that the municipality where children and young people arrive is by law the authority that is required to provide housing, care and living expenses, until such time as the Immigration Service decides upon a designated municipality. … Trelleborg has quickly ended up in a situation where the regular services to the community are at great risk of being affected. … By writing this letter, we would like to bring to your attention the enormous strain we now find ourselves under.
Apparently, the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, has since been in contact with Trelleborg’s mayor via telephone to discuss possible solutions. On October 9, the Immigration Service decided that Trelleborg should be exempt as a designated municipality for unaccompanied children. However, it is unclear how this will alleviate Trelleborg’s plight as far as the new arrivals go. The only concrete help so far has come from some of the neighboring municipalities, who have opened up facilities to house some of the Trelleborg migrants.
Malmö, about 18 miles from Trelleborg, is also in dire straits. For the last few weeks, the central train station in Sweden’s third largest city has been overrun with migrants, and the volunteers that showed up for the first few days with food, water and clothes now seem to have lost interest. The daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet summed up the desperate situation in Malmö, where even the city’s empty jail was considered (and rejected) as possible housing for refugee children. It now looks more like a possibility for adult refugees.
The Social Democratic mayor of Filipstad, Per Gruvberger, also recently raised the alarm that his municipality of 6,000 people will not be able to provide schooling and childcare for the 1,100 asylum seekers now assigned to his municipality.
The reply of the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, to this cry for help was: “If need be, Filipstad will just have to expand its operations.”
This insensitive statement from Johansson caused the Mayor of neighboring Årjäng, Daniel Schützer, to go ballistic. He wrote about his fellow party member on Facebook:
“Pardon my French, but Morgan Johansson is totally f—ing stupid. ‘Expand,’ he says. It is not f—ing bricks and planks that we are lacking, it is teachers!!!!”
The Immigration Service, which is tasked with reviewing the asylum seekers’ reasons for immigrating, is understandably swamped with work. Even before the latest “refugee crisis” – and despite 1,200 new employees being hired last year – its staff is struggling. The employees’ union is now raising the alarm, concerning more and more incidents of violence, vandalism and suicide attempts – this year (up to August), 1,021 such incidents were reported. …
While all this plays out, large portions of the Swedish people watch in horror from the sidelines and wonder when the unavoidable collapse will occur. At the same time, a surprisingly large portion of the citizenry still overconfidently believe that “Daddy State” will make everything all right. This a very Swedish view, like the wishes of children, that Peter Santesson, head of polling institute Demoskop, wrote about on the website Dagens Opinion. Santesson states that the Swedes have an unusually high level of trust in the social order, and that they are convinced that “somewhere higher up, there is always someone smarter and more informed, taking responsibility and making sure everything works.” If the government officials turn out to be incapable of handling the refugee chaos they themselves have created, it could be disastrous.
Santesson continues,
Responsible decision makers need to ponder the trust the people have now bestowed on them, and they need to handle this trust with care in this difficult crisis. If the people’s confidence is betrayed by them turning out not to be able to handle the situation – if “Sweden” turns out to be insufficient as a miracle cure and the crisis becomes too much to handle – the outcome could be political and social consequences reaching far beyond the issue of immigration.
What consequences might those be? Insurrection? Armed rebellion?
If so, they could find themselves clashing not only with Swedish governent forces – who are probably a pushover – but with trained terrorists:
The blogger Johan Westerholm, a Social Democrat who is critical of the government … writes that the situation in Malmö is “out of control,” and states that we do not have any idea who those arriving in Sweden are:
A very large group of administrators [at the Immigration Service] do not even know the designated terror organizations, and then there are the sympathizers – people who, on principal, would never file a report to the Immigration Service security department, for ideological reasons. A large group consists of those who are scared into silence. In an organization characterized by fear and stress, to do nothing is a surefire way to keep your job. If a report of suspicion is filed anyway, typically nothing happens. If the life and health of the terrorist is threatened, as is often the situation, the person gets to stay. Initially he is given a temporary residence permit, but in practice, this turns out to be permanent.
The 152 asylum seekers reported to the Security Service so far this year as possible threats to national security, are thus most likely just the tip of the iceberg.
The Swedes who have already lost faith in the authorities and the politicians are now preparing for the unthinkable – that their once so secure society is about to collapse.
On the website 72timmar.se, the Civil Contingencies Agency informs the public on “our five most basic needs: Water, food, heat, sleep and security.” The readers are told to keep water and canned goods at home, and make sure they can stay warm.
So not insurrection. But laying in emergency supplies. Hunking down for a miserable, fear-ridden winter – that will last not for the usual six months of biting cold, but forever? Emergency supplies will run out soon – and then? Starvation? Freezing to death? Or will the Muslim guests finish off their hosts quickly with rape, pillage and mass murder?
Let socialists the world over (including, we hope forlornly, the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the US, Bernie Sanders, who holds Sweden up as a model for America), imagine all those thin shivering native Swedes expiring in their ideal socialist state!
But even the need for “prepping” in the face of the coming emergency does not seem to penetrate the heads of most of them:
“Prepping” is becoming more common in Sweden. Last summer, the daily Svenska Dagbladetran a story on the first Swedish online store for preppers, and that interest was huge. According to the polling institute Sifo, until recently, seven out of ten Swedes have been completely unprepared for a crisis that knocks out the power supply and thereby the infrastructure. The owner of the online store, Fredrik Qvarnström, told the paper that, in his estimation, the Swedes are the worlds most poorly prepared for a crisis:
… People seem to be aware that there are problems, but I do not think they know how vulnerable we really are. We rely on the state to take care of us, as it has in the past.
It will not be long until the Swedes realize that the state will not look after them. The country that just 20 years ago was considered one of the safest and most affluent in the world, is now in danger of becoming a failed state.
And not just failed. Finished. Extinct.