“The world is coming into Europe at precisely the moment that Europe has lost sight of what it is. And while the movement of millions of people from other cultures into a strong and assertive culture might have worked, the movement of millions of people into a guilty, jaded, and dying culture cannot.” – The Strange Death of Europe
Is European culture being targeted for replacement, as too white, too rich, and too capitalist? All mass immigration over the past several decades only seems to go in one direction, towards the West. Often, the more conveniently suited Gulf states repeatedly refuse to accept asylum seekers, amid the belief that their esteemed countries are not conducive to such low-skilled rubes. Preferring to fund migrant sanctuaries elsewhere, gulf states have taken in nary a few dozen of the millions that stream continuously across European borders. With fears that foreigners and their values are replacing natives in their home countries, the question has to be: are immigrants seeking higher standards of living, as our ancestors did in the US, or is this simply a plot to undermine the West?
The Great Replacement conspiracy, also known as “genocide by substitution” claims that a global liberal elite group of world leaders is trying to alter the West, through mass immigration. To not only demographically change a nation, but to culturally reshape it, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the nation-state and its cultural and ethnic traditions. Using third-world immigrants, elites look to destroy Western civilization, their values, their wealth, and their nonconforming resistance to such change.
Immigrants were originally welcomed into the West following the end of WWII. Today, those seeking asylum from wars in their countries, including millions of Muslims, continue to leave their countries of origin to enter Europe. Under the guise of asylum, many more come for economic benefits, free handouts, and presumably, better opportunities. Since 2010, more than a million immigrants have entered the European Union yearly, climbing to nearly 2 million by 2015, the highest since WWII. Today, for example, foreign-born citizens represent 25 percent of Sweden’s population, with a third of the population with one parent born abroad.
In Douglas Murray’s 2018 book, “The Strange Death of Europe”, Murray recounts the devastating effects of mass immigration to European countries that intensified following the Arab Spring of 2011. However, it was not just the cultural clashes of new arrivals into Europe, but the fading faith that many countries had for their traditions and values, including Christianity, that has left an absence of shared vision and common purpose. Instead, a new set of values is competing and winning, with immigrants often given preferential treatment over natives. Most concerning are the medieval views of some immigrants about women, gays, and freedom. Having come from theocratic nations, these immigrants are arriving with vastly different ideas, and with little interest in integrating into European society. Instead, they often settle in separate enclaves, shunning national identity, and ignoring human rights.
While global leaders cleared the way for mass immigration, the nativists had little to say. Having bought into the narrative that Europe’s colonizing past required a need for atonement, many initially welcomed them with open arms. The same respect for the diversity of new arrivals, however, has not been reciprocated to its natives. Thus, the high social trust, so critical for a thriving society, has been irreparably damaged.
Murray, in another book, “Islamophilia”, discusses the odd virtue signaling of love for Islam that many elites profess to avoid being called Islamophobic. Yet, even as immigrants reveal their disdain for the liberal policies of the West, left-wing leaders have made it a hate crime to criticize these antiquated views or other aspects of their religion. When a French cartoonist famously drew an unflattering cartoon of Mohammad, twelve people were killed. Yet, when an artist in the US submerged a crucifixed Jesus in his urine for a New York exhibition, he was cheered by the same people. Thus, it is hypocrisy when Muslims, who largely disapprove of abortion, outlaw same-sex marriage, and believe misogynistic Sharia law should be used to adjudicate personal matters, are defended, while Christians in the West are roundly derided for simply existing in pagan space.
As defenders of multiculturalism, Europeans themselves are mostly at fault. From their overreliance on government to their growing anti-nationalism, and rejection of religion, the void that was left was sure to be filled someway. Having bought into the environmentalist global warming fears, they also rejected the family and children. Now with their national healthcare system and schools bursting at the seam, they have no one to blame but themselves.
But actions are the best proof of intentions, as one nation after another is experiencing increases in jihadist terror attacks, assaults on natives, and a surge in rapes and assaults, only to have them covered up by police and politicians who choose to protect migrants over natives. Whether Europe can find a happy medium and assimilate Islamic values is yet to happen. Until then, Murray suggests migrants should reside nearer to their home country, where common language and religions already exist, with the expectation they will return once the crisis is averted, with all asylum seekers deemed temporary.
Western civilization was borne of Judeo-Christian values, the Enlightenment, and English law. Viewed as colonizers and slaveholders, the West has long been labeled with these original sins. Perhaps, to atone for these past evils, Western nations must be reshaped into a new image. Mass immigration may be its greatest opportunity.
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