American liberals have always looked longingly to Europe and want the US to be more like them. Whether it be the open borders of the EU, the health care schemes, the shorter work week with better benefits or the "free" college in places like Denmark. American liberals and their champion President Obama did everything they could to push us in that direction with some successful but mostly unsuccessful results.
By far the biggest dream for American leftists is the dream of open borders and multiculturalism. Hillary even
said those words to a group of bankers in a private setting, the text of which was discovered among the Wikileaks trove. Literally dissolving the southern border was the goal thus establishing a dominant Democratic party for decades to come. That dream died on November 8, 2016 (and several times thereafter).
But the aforementioned Europe is a different story. They jumped head first into multiculturalism decades ago and are seeing the results of that experiment in real time. While multiculturalism in concept works, it will only be successful when the incoming immigrants assimilate. A great example of this working is the Indian population within the UK. They've settled and become part of the fabric of British life. There are some other successful stories and they should be appreciated.
However, that's not been the case for all immigrants. Adherents of Islam have not assimilated in many cases and have actively worked to turn the nations where they reside into enclaves of the nations they left. While every city has a charming China Town or Italian Market area the citizens in those areas follow the laws of the host country and thus blend in nicely. Not so with many Muslims.
The late, great writer
Christopher Hitchens wrote of the city he grew up in and the changes that occurred. He was mournful that the city of his youth had morphed into "Londonistan" in a just a generation:
Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.
I implore you to read the entire piece as Hitchens was on his game toward the end of his life. Note: I ask you to go back and read all of Hitchens works.
This is just one example of what has occurred throughout Europe. Denmark, Holland, Sweden and Belgium have all had their share of misery from their policies. But no where have these policies been as damaging as France and Germany. The French have welcomed Algerians, Moroccans and others that had an historic connection from colonial days. Hundreds of thousands have been offered asylum from the horrors of their home countries. But they did not assimilate as hoped and become French, they've instead retained the hard core Islamic mindset of their religion. And all during the subsequent upheavals the media has called them "youths" instead of saying exactly who they are and what they believe. To label an entire religion as worrisome would be gauche. They are paying deeply for their failure to take action a decade ago with attacks such as those in Nice tearing the country apart at its seams.
Yet no country has preached at the multicultural altar more than Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the longest-tenured and most powerful European leader by far. When Muslim immigrants fleeing the Syrian civil war or Libyan migrants crossed the Mediterranean seeking asylum, she lead the effort to bring them in thus increasing the influx as desperate people saw a means to enter a more secure part of the world. And many came to Europe with good intentions and the hope of a new life in a new land. But a smaller portion did not. When those of us paying attention pointed out that ISIS said publicly that they were using the migrant crisis to get supporters into Europe we were branded racists or xenophobes. When we mentioned that Saudi Arabia is not taking refugees in sufficient amounts to matter and in fact said they did not want them because of security concerns we were scoffed at and the tide of people kept coming.
Germany's actions have led to a mass migration throughout Europe with the refugees moving through the Baltic states and landing in areas not fully capable of absorbing them. Instead of Merkel negotiating with the Gulf states to address the issues, she opened the doors wide. The backlash was impressive. The European Union has grown to behemoth size and its many unelected leaders saw themselves as the heads of one Europe versus individual sovereign nations. They were the vanguard of multiculturalism and would be remembered as the ones who molded the future of the continent.
But underneath and unseen by these zealots were the toll that the unassimilated were taking on the individual countries. Adding tens of thousands onto the already stretched government dole had wide-ranging effects that hit people on an individual level. The concept of multiculturalism requires that people not only assimilate but become productive citizens. That did not happen. The jobs weren't available or those whom migrated did not wish to work. Meanwhile a generation of educated and uneducated people were stuck with nothing to do. That's turned out to be a bad mix as those without hope turned to the local mosque. Some of these mosques turned out to have a decidedly anti-west, pro-Wahhabist bent to them. The most famous is the Finsbury Mosque in London:
In a few short years, Finsbury Park had gone from London's most famous mosque – opened by Prince Charles himself in 1994 – to its most infamous, at one point hosting convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted in 2006 of planning a terrorist attack and being linked to Al Qaeda. But to most Britons the mosque was synonymous with convicted hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri, the hook-handed cleric who was Imam at Finsbury Park in the early 2000s before his suspension, arrest and subsequent conviction for inciting murder and race hate in 2006. Abu Hamza began giving sermons in the street in 2003 when the mosque was raided by police.
The mosque was "freed" later but was not the only one in Europe. Some of the 9/11hijackers including the leader Mohammed Atta were educated and based in Germany. They attended sermons at mosques in Hamburg before coming to the United States.
Soon the attacks started coming. Al-Qaeda attacked in London and Madrid and, in fact, changed the course of an election in the former nation. The London attacks were
perpetrated by those who came to the country as immigrants. Still no action was taken.
During the recent refugee crisis, large groups of unveiled immigrants have been taken in and in some cases forced into town and cities that had no desire to take them or lacked the means to support them.
The media didn't help the situation either. They actively worked to downplay any incidents in which the refugees were involved. Among the most infamous were the sexual assaults committed in
Cologne that were hidden from the populace.
The fact that organized gangs of men attacked women in the most civilized nation on Earth was intentionally downplayed by the media set off a fire storm in Germany. To me, that was the last straw for many who considered themselves extremely inclusive. That single event on New Years Eve set the tone for what was to come in 2016.
The refugees kept on coming but the welcome they encountered was not the warm one offered previously. Nations built walls to keep them out and riots occurred in places that accepted them. While there was a strong impetus for the UK to leave the EU previous to this, the crisis contributed considerably ultimately leading to Brexit. Leader after leader in Europe was forced to step down due to the events of this year. Liberal hero Hillary Clinton felt the effect on this side of the Atlantic.
Except Angela Merkel. She became the focus of the entire issue as she was the strongest proponent for allowing refugees in. With events this week in Berlin, she just may end up the
latest casualty to die at the altar of multicultarism.
This is by no means a call to stop the immigration of all Muslims but is a warning that the current path we are on is the one that will lead to doom. In America, Many Muslims have assimilated well and have contributed to American society. But letting waves of unvetted or under-vetted refugees into the nation is not a good policy. Europe has already shown that to be the case.
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