Yesterday, we explored the issue of immigration – the elephant in the room that is Europe.
What bothers me about immigration is not really the first or second order effects. Because I’m naïve.
I grew up going to international schools. I presume any forms of racism are a perfectly acceptable joke between friends. I believe religion is only a problem when it’s combined with nationalism and the latter is the real problem. And I think immigrants don’t ruin culture, they improve food choices and enhance the local vocabulary with words like Schadenfreude.
Admittedly, a few months in anti-immigration Japan has me questioning my open border position. I’d like to keep this place to myself and the Gaijin tourists can go back home.
So I can’t blame people for reacting badly to immigration. And that’s not what today’s Capital & Conflict is about. Nor racism or anything similar.
The real problem with immigration is the presumption at the political level that there will be no backlash against it. Policy makers believe people will just merrily go about their way and ignore the real consequences of allowing mass migration into Europe.
The idea that “wir schaffen das”, as Germany’s Chancellor told her people – “we’ll manage,” is destroying Europe.
Because it’s wrong. Obviously wrong. And ignoring this is dangerous. Because it leads to the very backlash it tries to prevent.
More and more examples of this are popping up in Europe.
Mainstream commentators are shocked that certain Muslim clothing has been banned in liberal countries like Denmark, Austria and France. Shocked.
Politicians were furious when the Swedish police’s no-go-zones were exposed by henceforth right-wing activists.
Social media went bananas comparing the hypocritical amount of sympathy expressed for the Thai football team stuck in a cave compared to the refugees drowning in the Mediterranean.
Eastern European leaders are branded with all sorts of labels when they refuse to accept the EU’s open migration policies.
Europe’s internal freedom of movement ended when refugees managed to get in, causing consternation at the EU. Now the Visegrad group is openly meeting to continue the policy of protecting their borders.
Europe’s freedoms and values are failing because its advocates and leaders pretend those values don’t come at a cost. They herald the good news and shoot the messenger when it’s bad.
See no evil
Unfortunately, seeing no evil doesn’t change whether it’s there or not. You can’t wish away a problem.
Here’s my point: Regardless of how you feel about immigration, pretending that it isn’t an issue is almost as ignorant as kicking up a nationalistic or racist fuss.
To be clear, whether you think it’s an issue or not doesn’t matter. If enough others think there’s a problem, it will quickly become one for you too. In all sorts of surprising ways.
In Austria, a man wearing a shark suit as part of a marketing campaign was arrested for violating the law against wearing face coverings in public places…
There obviously is a problem with immigration given the recent spate of democratic protest votes in Europe. Despite being happy to see such protests, it’s depressing for me to acknowledge they were about immigration, not the various reasons I supported some of them.
But now the question is how politicians deal with the outburst. They’ve denied the initial problem by pretending it doesn’t exist. But it does exist. Now they’re having to deal with the backlash.
Yesterday, we covered their policy of “see no evil”. The policy of pretending there aren’t problems, no matter how bad they get.
Today, we add…
Speak no evil
Political correctness about immigration is becoming dangerous by preventing countries from pursuing decent (moral) policy. Or even talking about it.
The idea that, for example, most Muslims are moderate and anti-terror, therefore we shouldn’t associate terrorism with the religion, is causing us to miss things we need to realise about Islamic terrorism.
The same goes for the refugees – few are terrorists, but the refugee crisis is clearly enabling terrorism in Europe.
While trying to persuade the future in-laws that their daughter would not be stabbed while living in London, I pulled up a list of the knife crime victims. The violence is obviously focused amongst certain groups. And Japanese women are not one of them.
This analysis is spectacularly racist every which way according to modern sensibilities. But it’s also accurate. And important for decision making. If London were violently racist towards Japanese people, we wouldn’t be planning to move there.
Do you see how decision-making has to be based on reality, not politically correct reality?
Denying obvious truths also gives the most radical anti-Muslim campaigners a leg to stand on. By having the mainstream deny a problem that is obviously there, people will begin to listen to those who point out the truth, but hold otherwise wacky views. It lends their crazy ideas credibility.
If being offensive or not is the distinction between good and bad commentators, instead of whether they tell the truth or not, you assign credibility to the wrong people.
Centrist politicians are mystified how people like Trump, Orban and Farage can be so popular. Why did people vote for Brexit and La Lega?
Former leaders and their journalists don’t realise it has little to do with those individuals people voted for, and plenty to do with their own delusions about what’s going on around them. The denial of something real, and thereby the failure to try and do something about it.
If it isn’t acceptable to discuss and deal with this issue, it will be discussed and dealt with in unacceptable ways in the future.
Given a choice between liars and racists, some people vote to the right.
The coming evil
If you refuse to see, hear and speak about evil, you shouldn’t be surprised when it sneaks up behind you. Or makes you look like the problem.
In the UK, denial about what the Brexit vote really meant is making leading politicians fear a return of Farage and UKIP. At least they’re aware of the problem this time around.
The EU could split on the issue of immigration as Italy’s leaders makes it the centre of their disagreement with the EU, and Austria joins the Visegrad Group of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
Of course, history is written by the victors. And evil is a matter of personal preference. Remember when Brexit was evil and impossible? Today it’s government policy… sort of.
In coming years, the immigration challenge will only grow. Policy makers in Europe have to decide whether they continue to pretend it isn’t a problem, or they’ll deal with it. Either way, Europe’s view of immigration is going to take a turn for the nasty.
Until next time,
Nick Hubble
Capital & Conflict
Category: The End of Europe