Struggle for A Continent

Dalrymple tackles Islamic immigration to Europe in National Review:


…if you were to ask a believer in multiculturalism for the tangible cultural or other benefits brought to Europe by hundreds of thousands of Somalis, not as individuals but as bearers of Somali culture, he would almost certainly be reduced to silence; for the truth is that believers in multiculturalism are not really very interested in other cultures (for such interest is very hard work): They are, rather, moral exhibitionists, out to prove the largeness of their minds and the breadth of their sympathies to others of like disposition.
Read the whole thing (subscription required).

UPDATE: The article is available

8 thoughts on “Struggle for A Continent

  1. kate

    Maybe so, but when an effort is made to understand other cultures there can be a lot of complaints about it. For example I read that after 9/11 the NYPD had sensitivity training. To day the British newspaper the mail on line reports British police women dressing in burqas ‘in a controversial in your shoes exercise’. The issue of children role playing Islam in schools. All of these attempts at ‘understanding’ other cultures are controversial.

    I know that many British people think that British culture should dominate in Britain, and that it is the responsibility of others to join in that culture, and the Brits rant against changes to their culture in order to accomodate others. So when the Somalis in question, or Africans etc want an Africa day for example, it’s looked on with surprise and distain in many quarters.

    For example Islam which is not simply a religion, or ideology, its a way of life too. So many people dressed in traditional Islamic garb, with the spectre of sharia courts on a par with civil courts, or at least being used by non muslims to solve disputes is something that frightens me. This attempt at understanding can be taken to far when we are so laid back that free speech and freedoms are threatened.

    Moral exibhitionists? I think this has gone beyond exhibitionism. One podcast I heard on line (from Bruce Bawer I think) noted that Rotterdam has a muslim population of 40% and one Dutch commentator has said, that if muslims become a majority in that city and vote for sharia law, it would be a shame to deny it. Isn’t that taking understanding of other cultures a little too far?

    If anyone has read Mark Steyn’s book America alone, the demographics are surprising to say the least. Western culture I’ve read is on the defensive, and doesn’t that point to the fact that other cultures are understood, and the threat that some of them may pose?

    Of course there are ordinary believers in multiculturalism, individuals who do not understand the full debate nor recognise any threat, it’s the same with those who disagree with multiculturalism, but their position is helped because they feel it. If someone feels like a stanger in his own city because that city has demographically and culturally changed then he doesn’t need to understnd the cultural debate, he feels it.

    Since the doctor’s article is unaccessible to many, I’m not sure what his overall point is. Is he advocating limiting immigration? I haven’t read him do that before.

    I’m not sure if we can describe multiculturalists as moral exhibitionists. There isn’t a lot of morality about in post – Christian Europe.

    Bawer argues that the west is committing cultural jihad, and that Islam has embarked upon this ‘soft jihad’ because it is more successful that physical jihad at bring about the aims of Islam – a global caliphate.

    Perhaps you could give us an outline of the general thrust of what the doctor is saying in his article

    Reply
  2. Tayles

    The default liberal stance on British culture is to consider it dominant and therefore wrong. Any dominance is a mark of oppression, so those things that sit below it in the hierarchy must be supported at every possible opportunity. Equally, those things that are at an advantage must be criticised and undermined until the two things meet in the middle and equality is brought about.

    And yet, the liberal tendency is to maintain the fiction of inequality and oppression even where it doesn’t exist or where some disparity is perfectly legimate. So you find that the oppressed continue to be championed long after they are at an advantage to the formerly dominant force, or where there is a cogent argument in favour of the previous state of affairs. The liberal’s sense of righteousness feeds on the existence of victims, so the illusion of never-ending oppression must be maintained at all costs.

    For instance, racism is not a patch on what it was 30 years ago, but the witch-hunt against racism is far more hysterical now than it was back then. In other words, the liberal anti-racist cannot allow the problem of racism to go away because he has too much capital tied up in its continuance.

    Racism has not melted away because of liberal campaigning but because most immigrants have been absorbed into British culture and accepted our values and interests. Modern anti-racist tactics, however, emphasise the importance of understanding different cultures and allowing them to exist alongside our own as equally viable ways of life. This insistence on maintaining division and difference in the name of equality is actually help fuel racism. To act otherwise, would rob the liberal of his pool of victims and would force him to accept that the Western culture he despises has something going for it.

    I’m sure that the average liberal would not want to be subjected to the whims of Sharia law and would rather not dwell on the contradictions between their views on other supposedly oppressed social groups (women and homosexuals, for instance) and the views of Islam. But then this is not about practical solutions, it is about holding a simplistic, non-judgmental position that enables them to appear morally superior to the racist, sexist, homophobic rabble.

    Reply
  3. Jonathan Levy

    Dalrymple says:
    “This book is the best on its subject I have read”

    This is certainly high praise! Has anyone read the book in question? (Reflections on the Revolution In Europe by Christopher Caldwell)

    Reply
  4. Rachel

    Tayles wrote:
    “The default liberal stance on British culture is to consider it dominant and therefore wrong. Any dominance is a mark of oppression, so those things that sit below it in the hierarchy must be supported at every possible opportunity. Equally, those things that are at an advantage must be criticised and undermined until the two things meet in the middle and equality is brought about.

    And yet, the liberal tendency is to maintain the fiction of inequality and oppression even where it doesn’t exist or where some disparity is perfectly legimate. So you find that the oppressed continue to be championed long after they are at an advantage…”

    That’s the best description of multiculturalism and the present day atmophere I have read in ages.

    I’m hoping that articles like this will be collected into a book eventually. It’s much more convinient and nicer to just buy a good book and read it in bed then to suscribe to all sorts of websites for bits and pieces.
    I’m also interested if someone who’s read this can say what’s in it.

    Reply
  5. Leopold

    If someone wished to take pity on this poor, penniless soul (I am still but a lowly student) and email him the article – and perhaps even a selection of the good Doctor’s other NR pieces – he would be greatly appreciative and superbly secretive (I am also willing to trade some BMJ articles! QPQ). I have already spent a fortune on acquiring his out of print books, and, well, to be quite frank, my parents’ finances can’t quite take it anymore.

    And, of course, let us be discrete.

    Reply

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