European Xenophobia

I think there's a misunderstanding about Europe and the Muslim immigrants, some of whom are currently burning cars in the Netherlands after a Moroccan youth got shot for knifing two police officers. Europe doesn't claim to or even hope to integrate "the other". They condescend to and separate "the other". Europe is closer in ideals to India's treatment of the untouchables than to America's notion of a melting pot.

Multiculturalism is a means of keeping separation rather than some high-minded way to inclusion.

Over twenty years ago, while touring Paris in a stretch Mercedes with a multi-lingual interpretor who was under the mistaken notion that my dad was some GM dignitary, I was shocked to hear this learned man spout vile epithets about the Moroccan residents of the slums. My idealistic 16 year old years had never heard such a thing--though racism no doubt existed where I grew up and everywhere else in America. The man ranted on Gypsies and Muslims and on and on. And as we drove by the gorgeous architecture and beautiful city planning, we passed the slums. Whitish-gray buildings devoid of personality and stuffed full with a mass of underprivileged humanity. That experience and the archaic indoor plumbing and pornographic images decorating the train station darkened my view of Paris--an otherwise fascinating and thrilling city.

Today, Gateway Pundit's post about the riots in the Netherlands where one out of sixteen residents is Muslim and where the country has had unprecedented emigration--by the bourgeois. Commenter Daniel says this to the Americans engaging in a bit of schadenfreude at the Netherland's expense:

The Dutch are far from perfect, but a bunch of pansy appeasers they are not. They have a trend towards neutrality (because they're a small country), they are more left-winged then we are (political discussion are... fun), they have a crazy fetish for gun control (TASERS are illegal here @.@ ), and they have a knee-jerk hatred of Bush, but this particular case? Isn't because they've been bowing to muslim power recently, no sir.

The Dutch in particular don't have a history of appeasing totalitarians. They paid a steep price for fighting the Germans, a fight the Germans didn't expect.

Europe in general and Germany specifically, don't do well with "the other". While Americans might view Europe as "Europe", Europe is an artificial economic construct put together to compete with America. There is much mutual animosity between European countries and even hatred for neighbors not to mention immigrants. Xenophobia is not the exception. It's the rule. For all the angst Americans feel about the Mexican Illegal Immigration debate, it's nothing like the European fear and loathing.

As Daniel says:

I don't think you guys are being fair to the Dutch. I live here, and I'm as red as they come. One of my friends is a prosecutor of illegal immigrants (yeah, they actually prosecute them up here), and in my experience, actual attitudes towards Morrocan boys is unfriendly: Morrocans are often involved in crimes, and the Dutch know it. Remember, Pym Fortyn pushed for "integration" of immigrants, making sure they know and understand the language and values of the dutch (before he was assassinated by a left winger), and his party had overwhelming support after his death before it collapsed due to lack of leadership. Even so, today integration is a big deal (I went through a course myself). Geert Wilders (a slighty nutty right-winger who wants to ban the Koran and thinks Turkey is the enemy) has considerable (and growing) support in the country as well, and believe me, he and his party are no friends to muslim immigrants.

Mark Steyn worries about the waning of Europe. I worry about the waxing of Europe. As Claire Berlinski noted in her excellent book Menace in Europe, there is a totalitarian impulse under the veneer of civility. Multi-culturism is just a civilized term for class-ism and separation.

The question, who will European's blame for their situation? The logical answer would be the people burning their cars, but maybe not. Berlinski notes:

In a poll conducted by researchers at the University of Bielefeld, it was found that 51 percent of Germans believed Israel's present-day treatment of the Palestinians to be equivalent to the Nazi atrocities against European Jews during the Second World War; 68 percent believed that Israel was waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinians; 82 percent were angered by Israel's policies toward the Palestinians; 62 percent were sick of "all this harping on" about German crimes against Jews, and 68 percent found it "annoying" that Germans today were still held to blame for Nazi crimes. In a triumph of understatement, the German pollsters remarked that the findings "may be worrying.

Faced with extinction, a species can either submit or fight. Who will Europe fight should Europe decide to fight? I believe that Europe will wake up and fight, and that's what worries me.