The process of altering the fabric of a community against the will of its members will often result in a mass exodus of the original membership, with the resulting destruction of that community and a backlash against those who altered it. We've seen it before, we're seeing it now, and we'll be seeing it again in the future.
From the New York Times (via Drudge), a story about the increased emigration from the Netherlands:
There is more than the concern about the rising complications of absorbing newcomers, now one-tenth of the population, many of them from largely Muslim countries. Many Dutch also seem bewildered that their country, run for decades on a cozy, political consensus, now seems so tense and prickly and bent on confrontation.
Some have decided to move, but not too far:
Sandy Sangen has applied to move to Norway with her husband and two school-age children. They want to buy a farm in what she calls "a safer, more peaceful place."
Other have decided to chuck the whole Euro-socialist dream altogether:
Those leaving have been mostly lured by large English-speaking nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where they say they hope to feel less constricted.
Ruud Konings, an accountant, has just sold his comfortable home in the small town of Hilvarenbeek. In March, after a year's worth of paperwork, the family will leave for Australia. The couple said the main reason was their fear for the welfare and security of their two teenage children.
"When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Mr. Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids."
Who do they blame for this? Refreshingly, they realize that there is blame to go around:
Like the Sangens and Koningses, others who are moving speak of their yearning for the open spaces, the clean air, the easygoing civility they feel they have lost. Complaints include overcrowding, endless traffic jams, overregulation. Some cite a rise in antisocial behavior and a worrying new toughness and aggression both in political debates and on the streets.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - DrPat
Useful parallels, Steve, although I can almost guarantee you'll get some sniping for making them!
The Dutch have a history of leaving the country in search of more congenial places to celebrate their chosen beliefs, after all.
2 - Dave Nalle
My sources in Europe tell me that unchecked moslem immigration has created similar problems in other countries as well, particularly Germany and France. In those countries people aren't leaving in droves yet, but they're inherently more willing to take adversity than the somewhat spoiled Dutch. But crime and unemployment are out of control, taxes are being drained to pay for all the additional welfare support, and people are getting pretty fed-up with it all.
Dave
3 - Eric Olsen
the problem isn't immigration per se, it's assimilation
4 - RJ
I agree with Eric.
But the problem is, "assimilation" is viewed by the Left as "cultural imperialism" or even outright "racism"...
Therefore, it is politically difficult to achieve on a societal level.
Therefore, those with means simply leave.
5 - Thad
This is off topic, and I don't mean to label the Dutch as racists, because this is a complex issue . . . but did you know that in the Netherlands, Santa Claus is a slave trader who sails into port with a crew of elves in blackface? I'm not kidding. His main helper is a black elf named Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).
Here's a link on Wikipedia with some info and photos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelzebock
6 - Greg Griffith
No one wants to exclude homosexuals just because they're homosexual, but when they keep insisting it's their way or the highway, then the highway it may have to be...
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/mt/archives/000595.html
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
there is much yacking and debating around The Duke's area at the minute about "ooh, immigrants coming over and we're having to support them, oooh, not on my watch, no sir, sieg heil, keep britain british etc" What never fails to amaze me is how the immigrants are working in factorys for a fucking pittance, living together in cramped flats, while the ones making these claims are on the dole. But it says in The Sun that they're all over here just to reach in our windows and steal our carpets for to sell on the gypsie market, and the governments gonna support them, so of course, up in arms is what we are, up in arms.
If you're gonna come here you're gonna follow my religion and such, that's another one i hear quite often, spouted by people who last saw the inside of a church when they were being christened.
and there's also the fact that the only reason there has been any crime increase here since this "tide of uncontrolalble immigration" is because far-right fuckwits have been baiting folks and going on "justified" campaigns like breaking the windows in shops owned by elderly asians, like beating the fuck out of an islamic fella in a car-park. The increase in crime has been an increase in hate-crime.
We fought the nazi's so we could remain white and british and christian. seig heil, fuck those nazis.
sigh.
8 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
i should note the previous comments applies to the duke's land of the northern ireland, and stuff in quotations wasn't intended as being a quote from the post.
9 - Adam Lawson
The problem is that Islam is not compatible with Western Civilization. You just have to look at the "honor killings" taking place in Berlin to see the truth in that.
10 - Aaman
Western Civilization has done enough killing in the name of religion to make that claim demonstrably false
11 - Aaman
Western Civilization would be a good idea
12 - Aaman
FYI, that last was a reference to the reply by Mahatma Gandhi, when asked by a journalist what he thought of Western Civilization.
13 - Eric Olsen
Islam as a religion seems to be perfectly compatible with Western Civ, democracy, etc. - it's Islam as a political system that is the problem: no culture of separation of church and state, using state power to enforce religious dictates, etc.
14 - Adam Lawson
Western Civilization has done enough killing in the name of religion to make that claim demonstrably false
Typical liberal inability to deal with the real world.
15 - Dave Nalle
Based on the number of moslems who are living just fine around where I live and aren't engaging in honor killings and are interracting with Christian neighbors without declaring a Jihad I'd say that Islam isn't the problem. The problem is the repressive form it takes in some isolated, theocratic societies and among people who come from that background.
Dave
16 - Adam Lawson
The problem is the repressive form it takes in some isolated, theocratic societies and among people who come from that background.
So I guess Germany must be an isolated, theocratic society since several "honor killings" among Muslims have taken place there in recent months.
17 - Dave Nalle
So those Muslims were born and raised in Germany? Bet not.
Dave
18 - Adam Lawson
So those Muslims were born and raised in Germany? Bet not.
They were probably born in a country where the Islamic concept of "honor killing" is considered noble and just. Of course, thanks to immigration, "honor killings" are going to become a regular part of European life as the continent slips into an Islamic dark age.
19 - Dave Nalle
There are plenty of Islamic countries where honor killings would be looked on as barbaric. But the irony is that those are the countries where people aren't all that eager to leave. The people who move to Europe do it mostly for economic reasons and they tend to come from the more backwards Islamic countries both economically and culturally.
Dave
20 - SFC SKI
Steve's whole premise in this article is one of reading the news but not looking at the events behind them.
To the point of the latest comments, Adam, you are woefully inaccurate in your assessment of the situation as a whole. Making such broad brush statements shows that you are not willing to look at facts instead of headlines and two minute soundbites.
The point is not whether they are first generation immigreants or not, because many of the ones carrying out the killings, or aiding them, were in fact born in Europe. The problem is when you have a group of people carrying the negative aspects of their home culture to a new land, and refusing to abide by its laws. Even though the killers know they will be taken to prison, their home culture demands they do these thinbgs, and theey arer not willing to throw off the shackles of the old tribal customs. Too many years of PC accomodation have also allowed these practices to continue, instead of nipping them in the bud at first apearance. A Muslim immigrant should have the write to pray 5 times a day or wear a headscarf, but immigrants that threaten murder or injury should have only the option of cjanging their ways or deportation.
21 - Adam Lawson
The people who move to Europe do it mostly for economic reasons and they tend to come from the more backwards Islamic countries both economically and culturally.
So you agree that Islamic immigrants have been bad for Europe?
22 - Adam Lawson
A Muslim immigrant should have the write to pray 5 times a day or wear a headscarf, but immigrants that threaten murder or injury should have only the option of cjanging their ways or deportation.
The problem is that Muslims can't be assimilated into European society. Whether you want to accept it or not, the ever growing migration of Muslims to Europe will see an erosion of European civilization and will see the continent become as primitive and savage as the rest of the Islamic world.
23 - Ortho_Stice
The conclusions implied by that article, and the examples used at the end to bulwark them, are ridiculous. Basically the author is saying prospering society + liberal mores =immigration = harsh societal backlash. The only common thread between his examples? That liberal activism - somehow such a virulent agent that it trumps the ridiculous disparities between a fictional show, a socioeconomic national schism, and a religious schism- breeds exactly what it seeks to erase, namely bigotry and isolationism.
Nevermind that no one has pointed out that the vast majority of examples given in the following posts involve Europe, a region that has been wrestling with this very problem for decades. The geographic, national, and ethnic breakdown of Europe makes it far more vulnerable to such problems -problems exacerbated by social/nationalist tendencies on both sides (the immigrants in not assimilating and the host demographic in refusing -even in the case of the uber-liberal Dutch- to adapt.) It's been a problem in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and now Ireland, from the few I can remember. And yes, the problem has arisen in states bordering or near Mexico, but the level of vitriol and panic is nowhere approaching that of the European nations. And yes it is a problem with "white flight", but in many areas the reverse problem of gentrification is just as prevalent. Is cultural rigidity, especially in the face of immigration, a problem? Certainly. Is it a problem made to seem far worse by cherry-picking certain regions particularly susceptible then making the problem to seem far more universal by making ridiculous comparisons? Judging by the article above I'd say yes. Is it a problem that can be solved by reducing it to a facile, cliched partisan framework? No, but a fine job taking an interesting topic and injecting it with wholly unnecessary petty politics.
24 - SFC SKI
I know that you directed this last to someone else, but let me chime in, becasue I don't agree at all. You make the mistake of treating all Muslim immigrants as one big group, which they are not. Uzbeks, Turks, Croats, and Moroccans immigrants are almost entirely Muslim, but they are not a homogenous entity.
Most native Europeans, at least in Germany, France, and the Benelux, sought out immigrants in the post WWII rebuilding of Europe and its economic boom. The immigrants were a necessary and benficial component of the postqar rebuilding.
It was only in the last 2 decades of the 20th that rising extremist influence among the immigrant communities became cause for notice, and only lately has it become a cause for alarm in Europe, a bit of "too little, too late" in my opinion, but it can stil be addressed and corrected through legal means, left unchecked it would eventually lead to much worse violence in those countries.
But I digress, more to the point, even Muslims in the countries these immigrants emigrate from wrestle with the problems of growing extremism. Tunisians and Moroccans are much more aware of the dangers of fundamentalist Islam than France or Germany is, which is why they are a bit more vigilant and much more disect in their dealings with extremists in their own countries.
While Europe should not be as injustly brutal as some of these countires are, but they do need to recognize and deal with the problems they are facing, and take appropriate actions.
25 - Ortho_Stice
"Erosion of European Civilzation"? Who will protect our white women from the horde of ignorant Islamic savages?
So you'd suggest what? Closing the borders and letting the primitive savages in the Middle East? Somehow I don't think our Prez would agree. Your words remind me of the sage words of another, " In my city, we'd keep the traffic in the Dark People, the Coloreds - they're animals anyway; so let them lose their souls."