The Massacre at Chios (Eugène Delacroix, 1824)
posted by Lars Møller at American Thinker
A fundamental problem in the West is accelerated deculturation. It is as if we have lost touch with our own history and given up our very identity. Afraid of our own shadow, we insist on being open-minded and gullible. At least for the sake of appearances, the constant focus of modern-age leaders. However, we become all the more vulnerable to hostile claims about our sinfulness as Westerners and alleged debt to the rest of the world.
For years, the same progressives, who accuse the West of sins such as “racism, colonialism, and slavery”, have been praising “diversity” and “multiculturalism”.
In Western Europe, it was after the world wars, which nearly wiped out every trace of our common past, that democratic parties succeeded in building welfare societies with an unprecedented degree of prosperity and social security. What many overlook, however, is that the welfare society presupposes a culturally homogenous population to function. In any case, society loses its cohesion through the presence of conflicting population groups that actively work to dominate each other (cf. Lebanon).
Insofar as he is expected to make sacrifices, sharing his wealth with them, the average taxpayer must be able to identify with his fellow citizens. Another requirement is trust in the rule of law. Redistribution of wealth on a larger scale only meets with something like general approval in a high-trust society. In clan societies such as those, from which Europe’s immigrants originate, nobody expects impartiality and fairness from state institutions. On the contrary, man is taught from childhood to look after his own, whatever his position in society.
Whereas Western European countries originally represented rather homogeneous populations characterized by shared religious traditions (or moral principles rooted in those traditions), millions of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia have introduced cultures whose values are in conflict with Christian and humanist ones.
Nostalgics may fantasize about the multicultural empires of the past (e.g. Roman, Habsburg, and Russian). On a smaller scale, Yugoslavia embodied the multiethnic society. What the empires — and Yugoslavia — had in common was the unhesitant suppression of tensions between ethnic groups by a strong central power. As soon as this power crumbled, furious conflicts broke out, tearing communities apart.
The history of the Old World is essentially the story of the rise and fall of cultures. Typical of “millennial kingdoms”, whose records we study, is the belief that they cannot pass away but will endure forever. The same illusion exists today.
Superseding primeval urban societies (e.g. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Phoenician), the polytheistic Greco-Roman culture, fertilized by Judaism, became the birthplace of Christianity. In reversal of widespread persecution of Christians, their heresy became the official religion of the Roman Empire. At its peak, Christianity spread to the most distant provinces of the empire, displacing pagan customs.All of this came to an abrupt and bloody end with the Islamic invasion from the Arabian Peninsula. To begin with, the enemy advance cost Christendom its lands in North Africa and the Levant, besides leading to the breakdown of the Sasanian Empire in the east. When Anatolia eventually fell to advancing Turks, Christendom had lost three-quarters of its original territory.
In past centuries, Christians have been brutally oppressed in countries where Muslims initially formed a dominant minority, following military conquest, but later became a majority. This transformation is due to various constellations of forced conversions, massacres, and expulsions of Christians — in addition to the high fertility of the conquerors.
Multiculturalism is not practiced in any civilized way in former Christian countries or, for that matter, in any other countries with a dominant Muslim population (majority or minority, as it may be). On the contrary, the “victim-oppressor” trend is the same everywhere. Christians are reduced to “second-class citizens”, legally disadvantaged and virtually defenseless in conflicts with Muslim “first-class citizens”. In the middle of the twentieth century, Christians were still subject to a special tax in “secular” Turkey.
It remains the case that Christians in Egypt and Pakistan must stay low so as not to provoke conflict with first-class citizens and risk kidnapping of daughters, murdering of sons, and looting or burning of property. In none of the Muslim-majority countries, there are freely elected assemblies with independent courts, incorruptible law enforcement officers, and a free press.
Showing the weight of change in Western Europe, Muslim immigrants are now in a position to exploit the rules of democracy to take over governance of urban areas. As their numbers increase, their self-confidence and demands on the surrounding society are growing. Thus, special consideration is expected for Islamic customs and religious prohibitions. A disturbing sign of where things are heading is the bold assumption that not only Muslims, but also Christians (or atheists), must comply with Sharia rules. It is like a foretaste of what will irrevocably await Westerners in a few decades.
Our Christian ancestors in the southern provinces of the Roman Empire never surrendered without a fight to the invading tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, but tried to adapt after the conquest.
The truly remarkable thing about Islamic expansion in our time is that the original citizens of Western Europe have long resigned themselves to the transformation of their society without offering any unequivocal resistance.
It appears as if Westerners have first been de-Christianized and then robbed of their history by the progressive elite. Left to fate without “faith” and “place in history”, they lack the concepts to articulate their longing for the pride of the past and their unwillingness to submit.
Consumerism has truly numbed our senses. As long as there is sports on TV and a car in the garage, we put our trust in the hope that everything will fix itself. Of course, it will not. However, it takes historical insight to know this.
The “democratic window” is closing. In Britain, once the pinnacle of Western civilization, freedom of expression for those who fear Islamic supremacy has been severely restricted. At the same time, authorities allow anti-Semitic demonstrations glorifying terrorism and death threats against Jews on the streets of the cities.
The transition from post-Christian to Islamic society is already underway.
Contrary to utopian fantasies, multiculturalism is in fact a purely transitional phenomenon. In the end, given the current migration rate, Islam becomes the only remaining faith, totally dominant and intolerant. And the rest of society will have to bow in the dust before the new masters. Those cursed by the imams will have to flee: pious Christians, Jews, homosexuals, etc.
Truth be told, we have behaved like happy idiots in the West. As if we have forgotten everything about who we ourselves are and who the Muslims are, we have invited our historical oppressors and tormentors into the remnants of the Christian Roman Empire and encouraged them to multiply and dominate us.
Should we really think that the “rules of the game” have changed in modern times, we are wrong. Oppression of non-Muslims is justified in the holy scriptures. And they are not subject to revision.
The progressives imagine that they may pass as “tolerant” role models, though fundamentally hypocritical and vain. By the same token, they consider themselves superior to those who doubt the benefits of mass immigration and are condescendingly labeled as “right-wing bigots”.
Unlike revolutionaries with a flair for tactical thinking, forming alliances with Islamists to destroy Western civilization, temporarily united by a common enemy, those with historical and cultural self-awareness are outraged by the tendency towards surrender. The profound changes sweeping our society resemble cultural suicide. Symbols of the familiar (e.g. churches and celebration of Christian holidays in schools) are being mocked and disappear one by one.
In Christianity, we stand for love towards our neighbor, whether he is a believer or a sinner. However, nothing in our faith obliges us to betray ourselves and submit to evil, whatever its form of manifestation. On the contrary, we must imitate our Savior, who died for us on the cross, and be courageous in the hour of danger — speak the truth and act justly.
Multiculturalism is a utopian illusion cultivated exclusively by the “ignorant”, the “stupid”, and the “evil” in the West.
