[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Europe is also making the disenchanting journey from social democracy, but via a different route. Its elites had not foreseen that a virtually unchecked Muslim immigration might hijack the welfare state and poison the postwar culture of relative tolerance that supported its politics. To the contrary, Europe’s leftist elites lulled the electorates into a false feeling of security that the new arrivals were simply doing the work that unprecedented low European birth rates were leaving undone. No social or cultural costs were to be incurred. Transaction closed. Well, it was not quite so simple. And, while the workforce still needs more workers, the economies of Europe have been dragged down by social guarantees to large families who do not always have a wage-earner in the house. So, even in the morally self-satisfied Scandinavian and Low Countries, the assuring left-wing bromides are no longer believed.
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I’m going to focus on the above part, because it is possibly the one that most blatantly shows the ignorance and bias of the author (the rest is more cleverly hidden behind biased views).
The “virtually unchecked Muslim immigration” happened not only in the more left-wing countries in Europe, while they had left-wing countries, but also during the watch of conservative parties. For example, Germany had a conservative government (CDU, which are Christian Conservatives) for several decades before the current (center-left) one. Remember Helmut Kohl? Large guy, big friend of Ronald Reagan? Not only literally millions of muslims immigrated into Germany on his watch, he was also very much responsible for the dramatic blunder that was the reunification process with East Germany.
I am a liberal, and I know perfectly the impact that the 10% of muslim population in Central and Northern Europe has – I lived there, and I saw with my own eyes the dramatic cultural clashes it causes. Only somebody completely ignorant of European History can blame the “invasion of muslims” on liberals, or in the fact that liberals were the only ones saying it would be of no consequence. There were plenty of conservative governments in Europe for the last 50 years that did nothing to stop it.
On the contrary: in many countries right-wingers were the ones that avidly supported the whole inflow of cheap labor. It was NOT the “leftist elites” that said there would be no problem. It was the capitalist right, who thought the cheap labor would allow them to have a leverage against the unions.
The proof is not only in Germany: a couple of years ago, when the Netherlands shifted right, things did not improve. The new right-wing government did NOTHING to improve the situation, or to stop the inflow of muslims. The inflow has, in fact, increased.
It has actually been the liberals that have been more vocal against the attitudes of the muslims. Theo van Gogh, a liberal, anti-religious Dutch filmaker, great-great-grandson of Theo van Gogh, brother of the famous painter Vincent van Gogh, made last year a movie (called “Submission”) that clearly attacked the muslim culture and specifically the way it treats women (Submission: Part I (TV Short 2004) - IMDb). Shortly after the film was shown on Dutch TV, he was stabbed by a fundamentalist muslim for it, in Amsterdam. Under the watch of a right-wing government.
The funny thing is that the US has the exact same immigration “problem” – in the very near future, the biggest ethnic group in this country will be latinos – it’s just that we get a different mix… Having a couple of Oceans between the US and the Middle East does present some “advantages”. Europe doesn’t have that geographical advantage – as proven over 1300 years ago when it was invaded by the Moors (http://www.sonhex.dk/under.htm).
So, until conservatives are able to present an actual solution to the immigration issue, and have some results, I’d suggest they stop blaming it on the liberals. It just makes conservatives look ignorant.
Oh, and talking about ignorant: if Europe is “making the disenchanting journey from social democracy”, why did the left have dramatic wins in the last two large elections in Western European countries (which were in Portugal – where a mind-boggling-never-before-seen 70% of the mandates went to the left – and Spain, which put a leftist new government in place to replace the US-friendly center-right Aznar)?
The only countries in Europe, in fact, that are voting right these days are the old “Eastern Block” countries, that are still very much enchanted by the great promises that were given by the new right. Let’s see how long that lasts…
