I have before me dozens of newspaper articles lamenting the vile cancer of “far right extremism” that is apparently metastasizing throughout the Western World. The victory of Geert Wilder’s “Party for Freedom” in the Netherlands’ recent parliamentary election, as well as England’s “Brexit” and developments in various other European nations, have predictably led to the hypothesis that a Nazi-like racism is alive and well throughout the continent. Wilder’s, however, says his focus is Cultural rather than racial, his chief concern being the threat to Western European Values posed by the massive influx of Muslim “asylum seekers” since the E.U. opened its borders in 1985. It has been suggested that the Netherlands will follow England in seceding from the Union in a move whimsically identified as “Nexit.”
According to the Pew Research Center, the 19 million Muslims inhabiting Europe in 2010 swelled to almost 26 million by 2016! As Muslim women on average have one more child each than their European peers, it is estimated the relative percentage of Muslims throughout the continent will continue to increase as the century goes on. As I have pointed put repeatedly, Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan was quite unabashed in urging Muslims everywhere to move to Europe with the aim of Islamizing the the entire continent.
Our question, of course, is whether the growing desire among Europeans to take control of their borders is rooted in abject Racism or a legitimate concern to preserve a Culture that is unequivocally worth preserving. It would be absurd to suggest there were not some racists amongst the Brits who voted in favor of Brexit. But it would be equally absurd to suggest that the many Europeans questioning the cultural impact of the massive influx of Muslims into their midst, are not perfectly entitled to do so. The contemporary Left, however, recognizes no such distinctions, indeed insists on denouncing as “far right” anyone who does not share its commitment to the mindless value of Inclusiveness! Its knee-jerk demonization of leaders such as Geert Wilders in fact says more about its own ideological inanity than theirs.
“Progressives” purport to be passionately committed to Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, and the defense of all those oppressed by so-called Ruling Elites. Islam, however, as is still evident in many of the 23 nations in which it is the Official Religion, has traditionally treated Women as mere second class citizens while persecuting Gays as moral abominations and often executing infidels who dared reject Islamic orthodoxy. Traditional Islamic Culture, in other words, is utterly incompatible with what used to be considered the fundamental Liberal Values of the West. [I say “used to be” because today’s liberals are no longer liberal!]
Am I suggesting all the world’s Muslims continue to share the same narrow-minded, authoritarian impulses evident in Islam from its very beginning? Of course not. No doubt many of the millions presently living in Europe fled their homelands precisely to free themselves from such oppression. But as polls have shown, hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world do still see Women as little more than the possessions of Men, do still see Homosexuality as a moral cancer, do still hold all “infidels” in utter contempt. Is the European Union’s policy, therefore, of opening its borders to all asylum seekers while knowing next to nothing of their political and ideological beliefs, not inherently flawed? Does it not in fact entail granting citizenship to millions whose views are utterly hostile to everything those on the Left pretend to believe in?
Rebuttals of the above will no doubt include the fact that the history of the West is hardly flawless. But the Inquisition was hundreds of years ago while Saudi Arabia only granted Women the right to drive a car in 2018! The crass dishonesty of the Left’s attempts to discredit Western Civilization by ignoring its relentless evolution over the centuries, however, pales before the hypocritical double standard that pervades its socio-political critique.
Do I really need to give evidence of the absurd level of sensitivity that has come to dominate political discourse here in the West? Fail to use the proper pronoun in addressing a person who identifies as non-binary, and you will be fired, expelled, cancelled or, at the very least, harshly criticized. The same fate awaits all who dare “hurt the feelings” of anyone within the Left’s many victimized categories, however insignificant the slight, however valid the criticisms levelled at them. Yet how muted is the Left’s “moral outrage” where Islam is concerned! Indeed when politicians of common sense such as Geert Wilders express the desire to take charge of their borders so as to restrict the influx of migrants who may be rife with the very biases the Left purports to loathe, it sides with the migrants, denouncing the urge to exclude them as just more “far right” extremism.
The point is not to deny all asylum seekers entry to the West, but to return to the more cautionary immigration protocols which preceded the ludicrously open borders of the E.U. and Joe Biden’s America. In the aftermath of the Hamas assault on Israel, hordes of mostly African/Muslim immigrants staged massive demonstrations in Britain condemning the Israeli response and seemingly calling for the eradication of Israel and death to all Jews. Many Brits were appalled. Was not an abject racism clearly in evidence here? Were not the shocking numbers of those so infected clearly the result of Britain’s pre-Brexit open borders?
Ambiguous responses from the Left to these facts, indeed the reluctance of many there to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization, are a result of the basic moral/intellectual absurdity of its informing narrative. As it is a narrative which sees power and achievement as inherently evil, and as Israel is the most accomplished state in the Middle East, the Israelis apparently deserved the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. Indeed it is the Left’s irrational Neo-Marxist loathing for Success that informs its fairly obvious attempt to destroy Western Civilization itself. Hence its denunciation of Geert Wilders as a far-right monster for daring to defend the cultural integrity of the Netherlands. Hence the truly disturbing statement made by Canada’s P.M. which I shall cite in my next blog.