Saturday, December 26, 2015

Arab Migrants, Jews, and the "Radical-Right" in Europe

Michael L.

{Also published at Elder of ZionVocal EuropeJews Down Under, and The Jewish Press.}

german righIn a recent piece for Vocal Europe, Associate Professor of Political Science from DePaul University, Erik Tillman, worries about the possible rise of the "radical-right" due to the immigration crisis. But he does not worry overly much and for very good reason. He writes:
Their message does not appeal to the majority of European voters, even when broader political and social conditions are favorable. Thus, fearful predictions about the ‘specter’ of the radical right hanging over Europe are wide of the mark.
If there is one place on the planet least likely to enamor themselves of nativist, radical-right political trends it is western Europe which, given its bloody and racist history, has no desire for conflict or war and, despite the immigration crisis, remains committed to the principles of social justice and universal human rights. In fact, the Swedish Greens' deputy prime minister, Åsa Romson, literally cried before the cameras upon announcing a tightening up of the Swedish borders although, as it turns out, it is questionable the degree to which such actual tightening-up was undertaken.

I would like, however, to challenge this statement by Professor Tillman:
the refugee crisis is helping to push those voters attracted to the radical right—individuals who value security and social cohesion over individual autonomy and universal rights—to vote for those parties.
While it is true that right-leaning European voters favor security and social cohesion over human rights, it is not the least bit clear that they favor - or the degree to which they favor - such values over individual autonomy.

As for social justice and universal human rights, it might be wise for Europeans to consider the political leanings of the people streaming onto the continent and how those people will effect European politics going forward.

What Europe will look like in the future, from a social-political perspective, will depend upon the political values of its citizenry. To the extent that those values represent liberal values then the continent will be liberal. To the extent that those values do not represent liberal values then the continent will be other than liberal.

One thing that we know with certainty is that the great majority of Middle Eastern immigrants into Europe do not hold liberal values, i.e., the values of minority rights, gender equality, free speech, freedom of religion, and Gay rights. On the contrary, the young men streaming into Europe come from places notorious for holding the most reactionary right-wing, racist politics imaginable.

The tendencies within Arab and North African cultures are to oppress women and free thinkers, while seeking to murder Jewish people, Gay people, apostates, and anyone who says anything unpleasant about Muhammad.

Jews, in particular, are getting nervous on the European continent and for very good reason.

On December 22, the Times of Israel posted an article by Josefin Dolsten, Facing death chants and hate crimes, Sweden’s Jews live in a climate of fear:
On a chilly fall day, passersby on a central street in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö, were greeted with chants in Arabic urging the killing of Jews...

These types of incidents, where anti-Israel rhetoric turns violently anti-Semitic, have created a climate of fear for Sweden’s small Jewish community, which numbers 15,000. Hate crimes against Jews are on the rise, with 2014 seeing a 38 percent increase in reported anti-Semitic incidents from the previous year, according to a report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. 
“Right now, a lot of Jews in Sweden are scared. Parents are scared to drop off their kids at the Jewish preschool,” says Johanna Schreiber, a prominent Jewish journalist who lives in the country’s capital, Stockholm. “People of all ages are scared of going to synagogue, there are many people who are taking off their Stars of David because they are too scared to wear it.”
The inclination among many western Europeans to welcome refugees into their countries is commendable, but it needs to be done on a well moderated basis.

Given the sheer numbers of young, religiously-conservative, Arab-Muslim men flowing onto the continent, one must wonder how this will change the face of Europe in years to come. What I have argued is that introducing millions of religiously-inclined, conservative Arab-Muslim men into Europe will change the political and ideological nature of the continent and will drive out what little remains of its Jewish population.

It will also erode the liberal democratic nature of European societies... the very sensibility that opened the doors of Europe to begin with.

6 comments:

  1. Everyone gets the worst society they demanded the most. Just as the left in the US whined for decades that they wanted the US to mimic 'all the other countries in the world' - while what they demanded was Denmark, what they got was Panama. Similarly Europe is watching the fruition of its dreams - a fully 'multiculti' continent. And while, for no clear reason they were hoping for Socialist Star Trek Disneyworld what they're getting is part Bosnia part Nigeria part The Dark Ages.

    Oh well, these things happen. The way forward for them is to of course blame and attack the Jews and keep on keeping on. It's clear that not only there's not much intersection between the governed and the rulers but that the governed no longer care. Politically it's return of the pre democratic aristocracy. Right, left, no longer capture any useful meaning. The elites will continue to whine Islamophobia and try to maintain the failed policy of throwing more Jews on the fire and hope the boogey man eats them last.

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  2. Have to side with the professor. When dissent is suppressed it must find an outlet. When people believe, as they increasingly do, that the state does not seek to protect them, they will act to protect themselves. Across Europe there is a democracy deficit. Militancy of immigrants contributes. Depletion of resources at the expense of the people who created the resources. The hole the Europeans have thoughtlessly dug for themselves could again cause everyone else to be worse off.

    Recognizing what is taking place does not mean condoning it. There are many Americans who believe their voices are equally shut out. Thankfully, there is less to fear from the militants among us than in the European context, where their numbers are far greater, and we are more tolerant.

    It's amazing the problems that arise when the focus is based on the untested what ought to be, rather than what is.

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  3. Certainly, they are not "real men" willing to stand up and be counted, the way you are willing to do, Anonymous! :0)

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  4. David Goldman (Spengler - Asia Times) and Mark Steyn like to pick at birthrates and demographics which to me always has a whiff of racism but it's partially accurate. Europe is, for lack of a better term, fat dumb and happy. They have sufficient comfort so that the state has supplanted the roles and responsibilities of the nuclear family. In exchange the state has imposed very high tax costs to effect that role and so made the birth of children economically unattractive. If you're on the side of the table that represents the economic producers in your society, having children is a bad deal. Otherwise, more children is a good deal if you're a net taker of benefits out of the society. That's just econ basics.

    So going back 50 years the Great Experiment posited that in order to make up the gap, and a gap there is, for without mass immigration Europe has an inverted demographic pyramid and shrinks 1-2%/year in raw headcount, you meed to get millions of people into Europe and hope or pray they sort of assimilate at least to the extent that they're able to contribute economically and not merely fill the role of nursemaid to an increasingly helpless drooling aged white European population. The bargain they thought they struck was a weird mutation of gospels - Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, which roughly correlated to multicultural 'you go ahead and be whatever it is you are forever as long as you work'. But of course that didn't work, the program was hijacked and now no one is supposed to be 'French" or 'German' or 'British'. Which makes 'work' a non sequitur. You can't generally work in a society where you're functionally illiterate, walled off in a self imposed ghetto.

    So now for example there's nearly a half million households in the UK, with THREE generations of people there who none of them has EVER held a job. You do the math.

    This is not a partisan issue. It's issue between those who are ideologically blinkered because they are indifferent to the collapse of their own society, and those who actively want to topple it. The so called 'transformational figures' of their society. In this sense 'dissent' is merely another tool to foment either of those two forces. The 'right' or the 'far right' is staking out a position to stop all that but the right suffers from what the right always suffers, some way to disabuse itself of its own lunatics. UKIP, National Front and others are struggling to convince people they're not just as racist as everyone else, and additionally that they're not white supremacist Jew hating crazies. Because let's be honest, a lot of them are. Jobbik and Golden Dawn really ARE Nazi organizations. And anytime you see a logo with red whit and black that vaguely looks swastika-ish, it probably is.

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    Replies
    1. Mike,
      It's a more complex issue in terms of what is drawing people to vote for anti-immigration parties, as you say. However, some of these parties are more than that, and definitely do have unpleasant ideological views. Also, they are often anti-Semitic. Very. Although, as Trudy says, some parties are trying to sanitize their public personae - like the Front National and the Swedish Democrats. It's complicated and really very depressing. The conversation has been shut down for so long that it has provided the opportunity for what we are seeing now.
      Although you - and I - may be worried about the fusion of European anti-Semitism with the anti-Semitism from newer arrivals from the Arab/Muslim world, very few other people are. That is a reality. Sadly. The difficulties it is making to Jewish life is way down on the bottom of anyone's list of problems. It can't be anything else, the numbers will have to favour larger groups. Of course.

      I do not think concerns over mass immigration and changes to culture are things that automatically make anyone "racist." Or anything else that is considered to be beyond the pale. More than that, I know they don't.
      There are actual racists, and then there are ordinary people who have really quite reasonable concerns and feelings. And it is wrong to smear everybody with the same labels.

      Again, I would refer anyone to Ed West's book "The Diversity Illusion." Sorry to bang on about it. And Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone", too.

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    2. I saw this article linked on Ben Judah's Twitter.
      It's from Vox. Yes, I know, Vox.
      But its really interesting. And terribly sad. Shocking, even.

      http://www.vox.com/2015/11/7/9684928/angus-deaton-white-mortality

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