Thursday, August 02, 2007

The EU and the Globalist Alliance

The Fjordman Report

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.



Here is an interesting comment about Multiculturalism posted at a website in, of all places, Bangladesh: “Multiculturalism is an unnatural and unhealthy condition that can only afflict countries in national decline. (…) Greed and corruption will characterise the government coupled with oppressive measures directed against its citizens. Lies and deceit will be the stock and trade of media, politicians, and educational institutions.” Multiculturalism “is used to prevent a national consensus among the electorate. It erodes values, cultures, beliefs, religions, ethnic habits, etc. ensuring a swirling river of discontent upon which the multiculturalists rides. It is a perfect method of ensuring that there can never be accord, unity, or a commonly shared destiny among those ruled.”

Free Muslim immigration into EuropeIn other words: Multiculturalism is simply a tool for divide and conquer. Is there then any point in trying to comprehend its logic at all? Maybe it was just a convenient excuse used for disrupting the established order of nation states by flooding them with mass immigration under the cover of “cultural diversity” or historical inevitability. If that is the case, there never was any coherent logic behind it, so we shouldn’t waste our time looking for one. Many of those promulgating it never believed a word of it themselves. Multiculturalism is the new Allah: Don’t understand, just obey.

This was undertaken by a coalition of different groups with a shared goal of undermining Western nation states. I heard supporters of mass immigration a generation ago state that all this talk about how it would change our societies into the unrecognizable was scare-mongering and racism. Now, the same groups are saying that yes, our societies have been changed forever. It’s good, and it’s anyway too late to do anything about it, so get used to it! Their propaganda was used to deceive the public and keep it off balance in order to implement potentially irreversible changes with little real debate. They knew they would never get the permission to destroy their own countries, so they simply didn’t ask.

By dismantling national borders, the EU has facilitated the largest migration waves in European history. When Poland became a member, many Poles moved to Britain, Germany etc. This left Poland with a labor shortage. They are now considering importing workers from the Ukraine and Russia to compensate for the Poles that left. At the same time, native Brits are fleeing to Spain because they don’t feel at home in Britain anymore. By such moves, you unleash a chain migration that will eventually smash nation states that have existed for ages. Yet this intra-European migration pales in comparison to the immigration from developing nations. The end result will — supposedly — be an entire continent of people without any national loyalties who will be divided, disoriented and thus presumably easier to control.

Stalin and the EUStalin did the same thing, moving large population groups around to unsettle the state and keep it disunited. The EU has learned a lot from Stalin.

It is indeed highly plausible that some groups used Multiculturalism as a cover for implementing sweeping changes that could not be openly debated, and were frequently the exact opposite of the officially stated goals. Mass immigration was presented as “enriching the local culture.” In fact, it diluted it, and that was probably the point.

With all ideologies there are both True Believers and cynics who use it to achieve ulterior motives. Although the number of Believers in Multiculturalism is diminishing, there is no doubt that many people really believed in it, at least for a while, which is why I think it’s justified to spend some time analyzing its ideological roots. As I’ve demonstrated before, there is no one-to-one relationship between Multiculturalism and Marxism. Multiculturalism is a complex and sometimes incoherent mix of many different impulses, some dating back to the Enlightenment and some possibly even related to Protestantism. Elements of it may be inspired by or at least compatible with Marxism, but we get a stronger correspondence to Marxism if we integrate Multiculturalism into a wider package deal of ideologies.

Thomas Hylland EriksenThomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, heads a multi-million project sponsored by the Norwegian state trying to envision how the new Multicultural society will work. He lives, according to himself, in a boring, monocultural part of the city, insulated from the effects of cultural diversity. A Serbian doctor from the former Yugoslavia, where a Multicultural society recently collapsed in a horrific civil war, warned against the effects of unchecked mass immigration.. Mr. Eriksen, a career Multiculturalist and intellectual celebrity in his country, responded by chastising her for her “lack of visions .”

Apparently, your worth as an intellectual is measured in how grandiose your ideas are. The greater your visions, the more dazzling your intellect is and thus the greater prestige should be awarded to you. Whether those visions actually correspond to reality and human nature is of secondary importance. In fact, many a self-proclaimed intellectual will be downright offended by the petty considerations of his more pedestrian fellow citizens, concerned with what effects his ideas will have in real life. The fact that some people could get hurt from his ideas doesn’t discourage him. Truly great advances for mankind can only be accomplished though sacrifices, preferably made by others than himself.
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The Norwegian author Torgrim Eggen warns against “race wars” brought about by mass immigration yet continues to support it. Questioned about what we can do to avoid this scenario he states: “That’s a very stupid question to ask to an author. This presupposes that I want everybody to be happy, have a good time and don’t have any problems. If so, what do they want me to write about?”

I will give him credit for his honesty: This is the most frank admission I have seen of the fact that some people don’t WANT society to be harmonious; they think it’s boring. There is no worse fate for a self-professed intellectual than to live in a nation that is by and large prosperous, peaceful and well-functioning because nobody will care about his advice or follow his guidance, as if befitting a person of his intelligence.

Even if you manage to create a society that it prosperous, this isn’t always a stable situation. People will gradually forget the qualities that made them successful in the first place, and because they enjoy their material wealth they will be reluctant to defend themselves against those who threaten them, a condition we call “decadence.” Human beings also appear to have a deep-seated need for something to struggle with and for, and the Western welfare states seem to lack this. Some citizens react to this by drug abuse to make their lives more colorful, others turn to Utopian ideas. Bad things can be said about Islamic terrorists, but at least they are not boring, which could explain why some Westerners are attracted to their cause.

If the ideal is a society that creates the minimum amount of suffering and the maximum amount of liberty and prosperity, the West, at least until a few years ago, was about as close to this ideal as humanity has ever been. The problem is, the closer you come to perfection, the more glaring, annoying and unacceptable the few remaining imperfections appear. If you are of the disposition which desires a Perfect Society, incremental steps are not enough to remedy them; the whole structure needs to be brought down and recreated from scratch.

The Great WarThe First World War laid the foundations for the Second World War because it sowed the seeds of resentment in Germany; seeds which bloomed after the Great Depression started in 1929 and led to the rise of the Nazis. It also led to the Russian Revolution and thus to the establishment of Soviet Communism and the Cold War. The combined legacy of the anti-nationalism born out of WW1, the principle of total non-discrimination established after WW2, and the model of an artificial, post-Christian, authoritarian superstate inherited from the Soviet Union are all embodied in the European Union.

Less than a generation after the Cold War ended we are entering a new world war, caused by Western weakness and the resurgent Jihad. The connection between the Cold War and the current world war is not as strong as between WW1 and WW2, but it exists. The West in the 1990s was relieved that the prospect of a global nuclear war was over. We let our guard down because we were reluctant to engage immediately in another ideological confrontation, and this allowed Muslims the opportunity to quietly infiltrate our countries. Hard-Leftists groups within the West, some of which had been actively encouraged by the Soviet Union and the KGB during the Cold War, also regrouped after the latter’s collapse. Moreover, Arabs had been supported by the Soviet Union in the 1970s against Israel and the USA, and Muslims had in return been supported by the Americans against the Soviets in the 1980s in Afghanistan, where Jihadists such as Osama bin Laden learned their trade. Jihad was thus for a while pandered to by both superpowers.

The EUSSRAt the American Thinker, James Lewis writes that “Europe has given up on electoral democracy” at the highest and most powerful levels. “For the elites, the emerging EU-SSR is great, because rather than being a minor bureaucrat in London you get the chance to rule all of Europe, with bigger salaries, better food, and richer lobbyists, right across the Channel in the trendy new Euro-capital of Brussels. All you need is to make your regulations so complicated that nobody can understand them.” He believes Europeans are in a state of quiet mourning because of the planned euthanasia of their nation states: “Wall-to-wall elite propaganda has accomplished what a thousand years of European wars and treaties never did. Europe is being hammered and melded into an artificial unity.” This sense of doomed national identity puts a different light on the anti-American neurosis that runs through much of European media.

Lewis dubs the EU “government by hyper-complexity.” Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, one of the chief architects behind the EU Constitution, admits that the “amending treaty” that is supposed to replace the rejected Constitution (yet is 95% identical to it) was deliberately drafted to make it too complicated for the average citizen to understand: “They [EU leaders] decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception.”

Western Europeans had already accepted steadily increasing powers to the national nanny states for decades. All the EU had to do was to connect these established bureaucratic machineries on a supranational level into a complicated web virtually impenetrable to the average person. Only the skilled specialists and bureaucrats can maneuver within this maze, leaving great, and largely unrecognized and thus formally and informally unrestrained power, in the hands of the few on top pulling the strings.

The Emperor’s New ClothesAccording to José Manuel Barroso, the Portuguese President of the European Commission, the EU is “the first non-imperial empire” the world has ever seen, which makes me wonder whether he has ever read the tale of “ The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. If the EU is an “empire” of anything, it is above all an empire of bureaucrats, made possible because it was established in a culture where bureaucrats already ruled.

Another person with grandiose ideas about the EU (and himself) is former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who has compared his role in drafting the EU Constitution to that of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Unfortunately, Mr. Giscard is no Thomas Jefferson or James Madison and has apparently understood very little of the American Constitution. Precisely because some Americans were concerned that too much power was granted to the federal government, the Bill of Rights was instituted to ensure the rights of individual citizens. On balance, the US Constitution does create a powerful federal government, but it also has decentralized rule and leaves large room for individual liberty. Simply put, the citizens grant the state the right to perform certain tasks on their behalf.

Contrast this with the massive EU Constitution where the state “grants you” certain rights, not including the right to genuine free speech. The Americans and the British have their flaws but I admit I am in favor of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American model of limitations on state power, not the French one. I don’t like the idea of an all-powerful state that “grants” you rights. If the state “grants” you rights, it can presumable also revoke them at a later point. It tells you something about the perceived relationship between citizens and the state.

The Canadian newspaper columnist David Warren writes about the “charter of fundamental rights” included in the proposed EU Constitution: “It is time people realized that ‘human rights codes’ are a weapon employed by the state to suppress disapproved behaviour by the individual. They cannot be wielded by the individual against the state, as independent civil and criminal courts could be. They are star chambers used, and designed to be used, to mount show trials, in which persons who fail to snap to attention when commissar issues the latest political corrections may be publicly demonized. By removing all of their victims’ established legal protections — presumption of innocence, the right to know one’s accuser, to be tried by a jury of one’s peers, et cetera — they put a jackboot directly in the teeth of the tradition of human liberty descending from Magna Carta. The tribunals are created, always, by bureaucratic fiat. Democracy is not quite dead in Europe, but getting that way. The cumbersome, incompetent, ridiculously corrupt, incredibly arrogant, and unelected Euro-bureaucracy is already in a position to dictate trans-European policies that by-pass all national legislatures.”

Walter Laqueur, The Last Days of EuropeStanley Kurtz of the National Review Online reviews historian Walter Laqueur’s book The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent: “Laqueur returns several times to the failure of Europe’s authorities to consult with the public on immigration. Instead of putting the matter up for debate, government and corporations quietly and unilaterally set policy. Europe’s elite had a bad conscience, given memories of refugees from Nazi Germany who’d been turned away decades earlier. There was also the omnipresent ‘fear of being accused of racism.’ This bizarre combination of multiculturalism and complete disregard for the significance of culture opened up a huge gulf between Europe’s elite and the public — a gulf that emerged openly when France and The Netherlands rejected the proposed EU constitution (in part over concerns about Muslim immigration and the accession of Turkey to the EU). There was, says Laqueur, ‘a backlash against the elites who wanted to impose their policies on a population who had not been consulted.’”

Kurtz wonders what the European elites were thinking when they implemented these policies: “To the question ‘Did they imagine that uncontrolled immigration would not involve major problems?’ Laqueur responds that it is unanswerable. (My guess is that, like today’s market-based immigration advocates in America, European leaders were focused on the immediate need for labor and gave little if any thought to long-term social consequences.)”

Initially in the 1960s, the first trickle of Muslim immigration probably wasn’t planned by anybody, but was rather an accidental result of de-colonization and the desire for short-term labor in booming economies. As I have demonstrated before, this turned into a far more organized cooperation between European and Muslim countries a few years later.

Why do ordinary Europeans put up with this? Is the historical tradition of elitist rule still alive here? Are we perfectly content with allowing others to run our lives as long as we have food on our table and can still go for a weekend holiday to some exotic resort every now and then?

The primary weapon of the EU has always been deceit and manipulation of language, hiding behind labels such as peace project and expanded free trade zone. This has worked rather well. I know from personal experience that most Europeans honestly don’t have any idea just how elaborate the Eurabian networks are, or how much EU authorities are selling them out. Many believe it is a crazy conspiracy theory if you point it out to them, just like it was dismissed as scare-mongering a generation ago if you claimed that this “free trade zone with a few added extras” would eventually morph into a superstate that is subverting the democratic system and unsettling the stability of the entire continent.

Still, the EU-federalists must rely on something else in those cases when their primary weapon of deceit proves insufficient. Their secondary weapon is first of all the common Western respect for law. The reluctance to stage rebellions could be counted upon to prevent serious opposition, especially if combined with a high degree of bureaucracy-induced apathy. Parallel with the growth of EU and mass immigration, Western Europeans have been subject to an explosion of regulations of every kind. This matters little to Muslims, who come from cultures where laws are only abided by if backed up by brute force by the state, but to Westerners, restrained by their cultural sense of fair play, and to Western Europeans emasculated by propaganda and bureaucracy, this has had a damaging effect.

The system in Western Europe is based on a minimal use of force. In fact, the armed forces are so weak that in a different age these countries would have been conquered long ago. The situation has only remained stable because of the American military umbrella in Europe.

The EU is frequently described as toothless and impotent, but this is inaccurate. It is both unwilling and unable to defend Europeans against external aggressors, but the system is quite capable of subverting the freedom of Europeans. The problem, thus, isn’t that the system is powerless, but that it rewards those who use violence while punishing those who don’t. Native Europeans will be ignored or silenced if they try through peaceful means to protest against mass immigration of the expanding pan-European superstate. Muslims, at home and abroad, will get immediate concessions and respect while Europeans are treated with increasing contempt and hostility from those who are supposed to be their leaders

If left unchanged, this could sooner or later lead to an outbreak of violence among native Europeans because the system itself rewards violence, and a system that does so invites more violence. If this results in a popular explosion, I don’t think future generations will wonder why it happened, they will wonder why it didn’t happen sooner. Sooner or later, people are going to turn to somebody, anybody, promising to protect their lives, property and culture.

An online document from 2005 written by Traugott Schoefthaler, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, one of the EU’s most important instruments for Eurabian cultural cooperation, states the following:

Theodor W. Adorno and Alfred Horkheimer, in their studies on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ published shortly after 1945 as a first analysis of the cult of power and violence in Nazi Germany, went deep into psychological terminology of ego- and ethnocentrism. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar and Amin Maalouf come to similar conclusions: Cultural policies need to avoid schematic concepts such as the popular distinction between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. They even warn against further using the term of ‘The Other’ which is standard in almost all intercultural education concepts, since it opens the gate for imposing collective identities on the individual. There is no viable alternative to their proposal of adopting a rights-based approach in dealing with cultural diversity.

The document further states that the objective of learning to live together (one of the Eurabian slogans) “was outlined by the World Commission on Education for the 21st Century chaired by the former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors. Formal education systems are to be geared towards learning environments, teachers from instructors to organisers of learning, schools to centres for daily practice of tolerance by giving way to others’ points of view.”

Moreover, in line with the report by Mr. Delors, the influential French President of the EU Commission from 1985 to 95, “values... cannot be taught in the strict sense: the desire to impose from the outside predetermined values comes down in the end to negating them.”

In plain words: European schoolchildren should be taught to “give up” their cultural identity. Since it is unlikely that it will be required, or accepted, by Muslims to do the same thing, this amounts to unilaterally stripping the cultural identity away from Europeans, thus leaving them defenseless when confronted with a demographically expanding Islamic community.

According to this logic, “identity” in the widest possible sense is the root cause of all conflicts. Consequently, one must assume that if you erase all racial, religious, national and cultural differences, you will end wars. This is strikingly similar to the view of Communists, who envisioned that by erasing economic differences you would end wars. All peoples should gradually be merged into one, if necessary against their will, starting with white majority nations, of course.

Richard N. Gardner, globalist thinker, former US ambassador and currently a professor of law, in Foreign Affairs in 1974 outlined a strategy for gradually eroding national sovereignty through creating “institutions of limited jurisdiction and selected membership.” Gardner thought that such “an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece” would “accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” He was a member of the Trilateral Commission, which consists of hundreds of powerful individuals from Europe, Asia and North America devoted to promoting closer ties between states, from 1974 to 2005.

In an essay entitled “Put away the flags,” Howard Zinn, author of the best-selling book “A People’s History of the United States,” writes that “On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?” He laments that “our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others,” and concludes that “We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.”

The problem is, all these people proclaiming that they are “citizens of the world” fail to acknowledge that rights can only be protected by sovereign states upholding their territorial and legal integrity. How is “the global community” or “the human race” going to protect Mr. Zinn’s liberties? For a free society to function, the state has to pass laws in the best interest of its citizenry, but also have the capacity to enforce these within its territory. Otherwise, self-government is impossible. And in order to defend this territory from outside aggression, people need to identify with it as something more than just a random space on a map. By removing sovereign states, you thus remove the very foundation of a free society.

I keep bashing Marxists in my writings, and they usually deserve it.. I honestly believe it is impossible to write anything meaningful about what ails Europe without taking the prolonged and highly destructive influences of Marxism into account. Still, Marxists are simply not powerful enough by themselves to generate all the problems we are now facing. You would have to be pretty blind not to see the importance of business ties in relations between the West and the Islamic world, certainly in the case of Europe and the Middle East, but also with the United States and Saudi Arabia. Money makes the world go around, after all.

One does not have to be a Socialist to see that the short-term interests of Big Business are not always identical to the long-term interests of the nation as a whole, especially not when it comes to immigration. Multinational corporations, who by their very definition have loyalty towards no nation, should not be allowed to direct national immigration policies.

Mass immigration of unskilled people from developing countries is not beneficial for the country as a whole in the long run. The borderless world benefits the super-rich, who can exploit cheap labor and gain access to greater markets. They can spend some of the money they earn from this to retreat, at least for a while, into gated communities to escape the rising insecurity and ethnic tensions brought about by mass immigration. Being mobile, they can move their fortunes formally to nations with low tax levels and let average citizens, the vast majority of the population, foot the bill in the form of rising tensions and rising taxes to pay for health care and education for unskilled immigrants.

This is similar to left-wing parties importing voters and undermining Western nations in favor of whatever version of Utopia is fashionable at the time. It is more than a little ironic that Socialists and the super-rich are thus allies, not adversaries, in undermining nation states. In general, it is useful to think of an alliance between global capitalism, global Marxism as well as what could be termed global authoritarianism in the sense of unelected individuals working towards a world federal government. It is not just a conspiracy theory; I have read several EU adherents who stated that if we can create a government on a pan-European level, we can create a government on a global level.

The UNSSRMany members of the Western political elites don’t identify with their nations. Left-wingers tend to believe that society should be similar to an NGO and run by a world government, a strengthened version of the United Nations. Some business-oriented right-wingers consider the ideal to be a multinational corporation and think that a country should be run the same way. Just as you in a corporation should be allowed to hire whoever you want, you should be allowed to import whoever you want in this ex-nation-state-turned-corporation.

It is as if the entire political, economic and cultural establishment throughout the Western world, left, centre and right, woke up one day and decided that we now live in the global age, that all cultural and religious differences are irrelevant and that the age of nation states is over. Consequently, we shouldn’t even try to uphold our borders. Those suggesting otherwise are racists and bigots. As reader Dimitri K. writes at Lawrence Auster’s blog:

It seems to me that I understand why liberals don’t oppose immigration: their goal is not less than controlling the whole world. Who cares about some small country like Britain, when the whole world is at stake? Our countries are nothing but instruments for winning over the hearts and minds of other peoples, like infantry brigades for General Staff.

To say that the USA currently has a border resembling a Swiss cheese is an insult to Swiss cheese. The “conservative” President George W. Bush doesn’t care one whit about the United States as an actual nation, only as an abstract idea, which puts him squarely in the mainstream of Western leaders. Was he bribed by business interests to keep the border open? Do his family and members of his administration have too close business ties to the Saudis to do anything substantial about Islam? Mr. Bush appears to get positively offended when people suggest that he should do more to uphold the country’s borders against illegal immigration.

This is one scenario that the US Founding Fathers did not foresee: They were scared of the short-sightedness of the average and presumably unenlightened citizen, which is sometimes justified. However, the mass immigration that is now destabilizing the West has been pushed more by the political and cultural elites than by average citizens. Those in favor of the 1965 Immigration Act assured the public that it wouldn’t change the demographic make-up of the USA, but it did, and some of them were probably fully aware of this. They just lied.

Thomas JeffersonWhen I criticize democracy, this should not be taken as an indication that I believe in elitist rule. I criticize it because it clearly doesn’t automatically ensure freedom of speech and security for life and property, which is the hallmark of true liberty. Another problem is that it isn’t always the best system for long-term decisions because people tend to prefer short-term gains. I still believe, however, that there should be a powerful element of real public influence, to curtail the potential for absolute rulers and abuse of power. We have clearly veered too far in the direction of the latter with the EU, where the ruling elites have skillfully eliminated any constraints on their power.

The democratic system has significant flaws, but it worked to some extent as long as there was sense of being a demos, a people with a shared identity and common interests. What we are witnessing now is the gradual breakdown of this demos, starting from the top down. Powerful groups frequently have more in common with the elites in other countries than they have with the average citizen in their own. If you no longer believe in your nation as a real entity with a specific culture, it simply becomes a tool for obtaining power, a stepping stone for your global career. Without a pre-political loyalty, emotional ties or even a pragmatic interest in supporting nation states, the democratic system becomes a vehicle for distributing favors to your friends at home and abroad, for fleecing the voters while in power and hopefully ensuring a lucrative international career along the way. You will have few moral inhibitions against importing voters from abroad for maintaining power or because your business buddies who give you financial support desire it. This process is related to technological globalization, but it has gone further in the self-loathing West than in any other civilization.

Average citizens who still identify with their nation states thus keep electing people who betray their trust. Since the elites identify little with the nations they are supposed to serve, more power to them will only make matters worse, as it already has in Europe. Corrupt and incompetent individuals will always exist. If you get a corrupt leader every now and then you are dealing with a flawed individual. If you constantly, again and again, get corrupt leaders you are dealing with a flawed system. Our political system is now deeply flawed. The problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it.

20 comments:

OMMAG said...

The lefties do love their social engineering!

Unknown said...

We must all go to brussels on 9/11.
Bring your flags to show theses asses european nations are not dead.

David M said...

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 08/02/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

xlbrl said...

One may make the case that the new multicultural nation-states will be so weak as to be easy to control; but I would have the expectaion they would be to dysfunctional to govern. We have good examples, do we not?

Ypp said...

Fjordman, you are looking in a wrong place. Philosophers always look for prestige, and in fact they are right. The problem is not that some people have grandiose projects; the problem is that those projects are aimed at ruining their own countries. It is possible that Western countries really lost something that makes them alive and active. Theodore Herzl, the theoretician of Zionism, predicted that Israel would need thieves and prostitutes to be a normal country. Thw West lost its agressive spirit and soul, it IS boring. It is like doctor Faustus - a lot of power and no desires. Interesting to understand, when the treaty was signed? And what was that treaty? I believe, we should rather blame those who told us that from now on we do not need to bother any more, technology would do all the work for us while we would need only to enjoy life. Progressives, science fiction writers. And there are many who still believe in that. And untill we lose that believe (which is coming slowly) we won't cure.

Vol-in-Law said...

"The problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it."

*sigh*

I can't see things continuing as they have been going for more than a couple more decades, tops - more likely less.

But the future seems likely to be highly dystopian, possibly an explicitly totalitarian EU engaged in ethnic cleansing against any remaining pockets of native resistance. In the name of 'tolerance and diversity', of course. The EU is the death of nations. But it is also the death of civilisation in Europe.

One glimmer of hope concerns the revised EU constitution. If it can be brought to referenda and defeated again, that could be a great blow. Also, if some of the countries most clearly incompatible with the EU - Poland, maybe UK, just possibly Denmark - have the courage to up sticks and leave, that could create a shattering crisis. The EU is built on a teleology of expansion; contraction could have a devastating effect.

Finally, the Somalia-isation of EU nations is proceeding at different rates, it's possible that the collapse of a weak state such as Sweden could set off a major counter-reaction across the continent; but it's likely that EU nations will see the retreat of the remaining indigenous populations into the countryside, and though the cities may become no-go areas (some already are close) it will be a long time before there is nowhere for the rich and middle class to retreat to - and there's always emigration - so complete collapse may be decades away. Even then, I expect EU & UN peacekeepers would be deployed to contain the collapse and make ex-Sweden (or wherever) a Kosovo-style Protectorate.

I don't know. These are strange times we live in. I think the current trajectory could suddenly change within the next few years; to a large extent it depends on France, the EU's cultural hegemon. The French don't have the same death wish that afflicts the EU's Anglo-Germanic nations, nor the extreme baby-dearth of the Mediterranean nations. A decisive change of direction in France could yet change the whole EU around. And France has less time than other EU nations; for one thing her youth will be majority-Muslim within 15-20 years. The Sarkozy presidency may be the key, one way or another.

Swank Chambers said...

I suggest the rise of multiculturalism and the weakened state of the European militaries are both born of the desire to avoid another continental war, and that we as a civilization are having a grand debate on how best to organize disparate groups of people.

As Fjordman notes, WW2 completely discredited the idea of the European nation-state, which was seen to breed nationalism, racism, and xenophobia. In an age of total warfare, industrial genocide, and nuclear bombs, this is a Bad Idea.

Enter multiculturalism, the opposite of nationalism, to address these ills by erasing the differnces between German, Frenchman, and Briton. While it may or may not be successful in this regard, in so doing it destroys the only mechanism we have to secure our individual liberty. Since people will always protect their own if pressed hard enough, it is easy to see how anarchy, revolution, and civil war follow. We are seeing it now.

We have what seems to be a two-choice dilemma: We can organize ourselves along ethnic, religious and linguistic lines and have world wars, or dilute those distinctions and have civil wars. May I say I find neither of these acceptable options.

In reality, there is always a third way. I believe what we are witnessing is nothing less than the painful synthesis of these two paradigms. Or at least I hope so. A future in which humanity remains divided is not one I care to contemplate.

spackle said...

I cant help but think that 1,500 years ago there were a select group of people (much like the readers of blogs such as this) who saw Rome falling around their ears, but much like us seemed helpless to do anything about it. I think Lord Kenneth Clark said it best in his excellent series "Civilization". While there were many reasons for Rome's fall, one could say it simply became "exauhsted" and fell under its own weight. History does repeat itself.

Unknown said...

It's interesting that Fjordman closes by juxtaposing his statement, "The problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it" with a picture of Thomas Jefferson. There are few figures in western history who were more willing to speak out forcefully and risk it all on behalf of nation and freedom.


Maybe those of us who lament the destruction of western culture should try to emulate effective leaders like Mr. Jefferson by dropping the pseudonyms and becoming more public and explicit with our grave and legitimate concerns.


I have recently begun doing this, to the best of my limited ability, by simply speaking out honestly and unambiguously to family, friends, and work associates whenever the subject of mass non-western immigration into the United States comes up ( and sometimes I bring it up myself ).

But I think what is really needed is for exceptionally intelligent and erudite thinkers like Fjordman to step out of this anonymous blogosphere and provide a brave public example for the rest of us more ordinary sorts.

We desperately need this. We're just waiting.

Baron Bodissey said...

dlshelton1 --

Actually, Fjordman has nothing to do with choosing the images. He leaves that to me, since he knows it's my favorite part of the job. :)

He mentioned Jefferson further up in the article, but there was no room to put the image there, so I saved it for near the end.

Not that this invalidates your point or anything.

Tapline said...

This is an outstanding essay. It put into words what I have been feeling about my country for quite a few years. Not being aa well versed as this writer, i still knew something was terribly wrong with my country. It wasn't the same place I grew up. Everything was changing, individual freedoms were being eroded and no one was saying things are getting out of hand. Big Brother is certainly here, in the name of multicultural activities and global concerns. recently in Merrimac New Hampshire people have taken a stand and said,basically, English language only on our signs, no spanish or any other language. If there were to be another language it would be French, because there are more french speaking Americans around here that any other nationality. It's about time. I'm sorry I dont what to press 1 for English anymore.
We cannot stop this insanity unless mass commuications start reporting what is actually happening and not what they wish to happen. Our Educational system is stacked with liberals. We no longer teach History and if it's taught its slanted. My grandaughter a soon to be teacher, was given a list of books that she shouldn't have in her classroom, because they could be misconstrewed. Rubbish!!! The courts condone frivelous law suits and issue orders not allowing for the punishment to fit the crime. and it goes on.....I ramble.....

Anonymous said...

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, heads a multi-million project sponsored by the Norwegian state trying to envision how the new Multicultural society will work. He lives, according to himself, in a boring, monocultural part of the city, insulated from the effects of cultural diversity.

Maybe he should try living in a more multi-cultural area of Oslo for a while (Grønland, perhaps?) to see how he likes it before he goes pushing multi-culturism on the rest of his country. Aargh! These people make me so angry. :-|

Whiskey said...

Fjordman -- excellent essay but I think there is a huge issue that was left out:

The Roman Empire.

Europe's history from say 400 BC to the present can be characterized as either tribal-based resistance to a great Empire or (mostly) futile attempts to push together a great Imperial Dynasty ruling all of Europe.

Europe's great strength has been to mostly resist the Imperial schemes. Whether it's been Hapsburg, or Bourbon, or Marxist (just another dynast) or say, Napoleon or Hitler.

You mentioned the tribal movements of people, oddly reminiscent of the displacing of the Romans, Iberians, and Gauls by tribes pressed by the Huns in Central Europe.

I expect the same dynamic. Sweden may collapse, or be conquered, by young men from Germany with no other prospects. Spain and Portugal are tempting targets for first raids, and then annexation by Morocco. Italy by Albania and Libya. France by Algeria.

What are the people in these areas to do?

1. Look for a protector, as Serbia has always looked to Russia. Since America for a variety of reasons is out, and no other State in Europe has either means or will to act as protector, there seems no help there.

2. Look to themselves, and a new captain, brushing aside the tottering remnants of the Old Roman Imperial order to fight on their own terms for their land, culture, and property.

3. Temporize with the invaders, bargain, delay, negotiate. This will of course happen but the impatience of the invaders and the ability to simply take makes this only a matter of days not years when a crisis hits.

4. Flee. Some can and will flee, but most don't have mobile capital, language skills, relatives, or the ability to flee. If a life's work is sunk into a shop, or a vineyard, or a brewery, or what have you, even a small house or flat, most people won't flee.

Power abhors a vacuum. Even the Imperial Order cannot maintain legitimacy when foreign thugs move with impunity in the streets simply taking what they will.

I don't see much future for the EU, simply because poor nations on it's borders will simply take rather than remain supplicants. All that wealth undefended is a war waiting to happen. Europe probably has enough rough and river/valley terrain that a stand can be made somewhere and then the slow push-back ala the Reconquista begun.

Rome held as the "destroyer of nations" and acid-bath of nationalism as long as the legions could kill enemies foreign as well as domestic. As soon as the Visigoths sacked Rome the jig was up.

Kleinverzet said...

Excellent piece, Fjordman. One of the highlights in your oeuvre, if I may say so.

With regard to the question of how to remedy the flaws in the political systems in Europe: The solution is, in principle at least.

You argue that a functioning democracy consists of a well defined, identifiable demos and a ruling class that is loyal to this demos.

Thus the solution should be centered around restauration of the demos and forging a class of rulers that are loyal to it.

Present developments notwithstanding, I think that a sense of national, or ethnic, identity is still present in much of Europe. Latently in many, existant nonetheless.

The ruling classes of today, the ones that are kneedeep into the Euopean political project, are in trouble. ANd they know it. Around Europe (and it is quite surprising to see this trend so massively) parties that are not considered 'mainstream politics' are gaining popularity. In the usual MSM commentary this is blamed on the increasingly fickle, short attention spanned voters. But I think it might be an indication that more and more people are recognizing that 'traditional' political parties do not represent the people anymore.

Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Wilder's PVV and the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, the Kascinski twins in Poland, Front National and MPF in France. For better or for worse, people are more and more turning to parties that still project a sense of interest in preserving the nation state.

I say 'projecting', because I am not sure whether there is a truly democratic heart to the principles of for instance the FN in France or the SP in the Netherlands.

If the potential is there (as it seems to be), it can be mobilized. First and foremost that would mean telling the population that a measure of nationalism (or patriotism, maybe that's a less loaded term) is nothing to be ashamed of. Educate the people that to ensure freedom a nation state is indispensible, as is some national identity. What we need (back) is national self-esteem. Knowing what we are worth, not just because of personal merits, but also because of the values and mores we have internalized in being brought up in a country(*).

If that notion of national self-esteem is back, the voters will inevitably vote for rulers that represent that new-found self-esteem.

It is a notion I am trying to spread via my own blog. And I think that Fjordmans pieces are superior to anything I've ever written in expressing those ideas. But they could do with a wider distribution. A book, perhaps?

(*) Of course, as the apostle said: "Examine all things; hold fast that which is good"

turn said...

I can find no fault with fjordman's reasoning.

w_199-

"Europe probably has enough rough and river/valley terrain that a stand can be made somewhere and then the slow push-back ala the Reconquista begun."

Whatever comes, it's not going to resemble pushing Muslims to the sea. No physical impediment exists (like the Pyrenees) for they're spread throughout.

This will not be army against army. It will be urban, amateur and very bloody.

First will come pushback reprisals, then disorganized gang violence followed by more organized gang violence.

Initially police will follow orders rounding up natives and protecting threatened immigrants, but as the reality sets in the 'keepers of the peace' will find their loyalty is to their roots.

The elites will find their directives ignored and will be very fortunate indeed to not find themselves facing justice a la 1889 France when the strongmen arise.

dlshelton1-

fjordman should reveal himself and not 'hide' behind a pseudonym? Do you not understand that writers such as he are being hounded by authorities and subjected to charges of hate speech subject to cruel fines and worse?

The eurabian elites have dialogued this sufficiently, thank you very much.

wank chambers-

I have to remind myself from time to time that the only upward limit on stupidity is at the 'darwin award' level.

Your stunning naivete is revealed in your lack of understanding re multiculturalism and 20th century history.

Unknown said...

Hey guys! You are dreaming? Or in a nightmare?

There is plenty of time before this happens, or not.

First: GO TO BRUSSELS DEMO!
The more we are the best.
For two reasons.
The elites being aware of us.
I dont believe the godness of belgium politician and police and we will face the enemy. We will outnumber them and they will be served to us on a silver tray.

On next elecções I will vote on any party that is again this mess leftist are doing.
I dont care if they are fascistics, monarchists, chauvinists, anything, etc

DP111 said...

Fjordman posted: The problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it.

No, you cant fix it on your own.

I too am depressed when I look at the array of forces against one poor old me.

This is too big and powerful an enemy that we face. It is a monster, that is a combination of many evils, and mixed with it, is a monster that is ordained as a religion.

So what do we do when we are faced with huge peril, and we see no way? What do we do when we have no one turn to? What gave strength and boundless courage to those people in the past, who faced similar danger, and defeated the enemy, though on some occasions, they perished while doing so.

Shortly before they suffered at the stake, Hugh Latimer spoke to Nicholas Ridley, "Be of good comfort Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust will never be put out".

The candle is flickering, but we must not and never give up hope.

Unknown said...

Baron Bodissey...

Thanks for pointing out my error. I hope that my comments did not seem harsh and critical. I certainly did not mean them to be. Fjordman's brilliant essays are a light in our present darkness and I would not presume to criticize.

Turn...

You are, of course, quite right about the dangers of standing up to the powerful forces arrayed against us. I suppose it is easy for one in the U.S. to forget how bad things are in Europe when it comes to free speech. But I think if you look again at my comments you'll see that I suggested that ALL of us speak out a little more forcefully and publicly. This might be more powerful than you would imagine; I suspect that even its proponents know that "multiculturalism" is a house of cards that would quickly collapse under the weight of a sufficient number of voices self-confidentally speaking the truth.

I would not want Fjordman silenced, we need him too much, but as for the rest of us, I respectfully submit that endlessly critiquing each other's remarks will accomplish nothing, and anyway what will the future be if we forever sit down and shut up every time they tell us to sit down and shut up?

Tiki Music said...

It's probably not multiculturalism or leftism that should be considered but declining birth rates, aging European populations, and young people from developing nations taking care of them.

ninaKay said...

I acknowledge the massive scope of this essay, however I would've preferred to see more overt connections drawn between post-[inadvertently] Nietzschean moral relativism and its now deeply rooted here-and-now mentality and the E-USSR status quo.

[Brilliantly witty way to express the notion that's been on my own mind for quite some time, by the way.]

Sincerely,

Soviet-born Russian ex-pat