“The negative side to globalization is that it wipes out entire economic systems and in doing so wipes out the accompanying culture.”
Peter L. Berger
Socrates was the first to speak of cosmopolitanism about 2,400 years ago. For Immanuel Kant, the world history is determined by a “cosmopolitan aim” understood as the gradual realization of the perfect civil union of humankind. Vladimir Lenin suggested uniting the world through fighting disunity of nations. Karl Marx said the States are artificial unions to enslave masses. Voltaire dreamed of united Europe. People always dream of a kind of ideal universe. Yet, dreamers do not think of the consequences. Any ideology creates a model of the world where its goals will be achievable, but at the same time ignores the undesirable reality. Globalism is growing more and more aggressive in promoting its agenda and more and more blinder when it comes to its consequences.
Multiculturalism is one of the key ideological instruments of globalism uniting populations and transcending borders. Dismantling national identities through mixture of nations, cultural relativism, breaking social norms and calling any opposition to that process as “ultra-right” and “fascist” is the everyday life of Europe and the United States. Meantime, having a German passport does not make you a German. In 2010, Thilo Sarrazin published a book Germany Abolishes Itself which cost him his seat at Bundesbank Board of Directors, but along with this, the book has triggered wide public discussions on multiculturalism. In the book, Sarrazin brought in figures the deplorable result of Germany’s migration policy. Then even Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron admitted the failure of multiculturalism. They in Europe say the “pendulum will swing back.” Yet, the analogy with pendulum is very dangerous, as it gives wrong idea of history as a process that regulates itself when something goes wrong. It is a kind of attempt to dull the vigilance of the people. The pendulum swung dramatically and we may face a new reality – unmanageable chaos.
Understanding that most people are conservative and afraid of changes, globalist elites camouflage their ideological steps with economic benefits. Everything started with a simple desire to live a more comfortable life for less money, through cheap labor force. For secular humanists, it was an important step towards the “world without borders”. Anyway, short-term economic benefits were determinant.
It may seem that there were just benefits: business gets additional profits, consumers get more affordable prices. Additional burden on infrastructures (schools, hospitals and other social institutions) is compensated from the budget. Interest-based groups such as various committees and commissions to manage migration, public organizations to protect the rights of migrants and others have emerged. However, besides financial benefits, the cheap labor force affects the civilization. The country’s culture is transforming and the social atmosphere is changing, and residents are not always happy with these changes.
The next step is to explain the need for large-scale immigration of foreigners with the shortage of labor force, ageing population and problems with paying pensions. Yet, these are quite disputable arguments, as the percentage of the qualified labor force among immigrants from the third world countries is very low and many of them are little educated even in their native language. Besides, immigrants too age and demand pensions. As Europe’s experience shows neither their children nor their grandchildren can be compared with the local population by the level of education and professional skills. In the meantime, they are usually much more ambitious than their parents were, though few of them are qualified enough for their ambitions.
Then the migration supporters point at U.S. – a country of immigrants that has become one of the world’s most developed countries. Consequently, immigration has a generally positive impact on the country, though not immediate. Multinational societies become stronger eventually. This is true, but only partly. One should understand the nature of this immigration. Historically, immigrants in U.S. had no social benefits and had to rely on their own forces. About one-third of the immigrants returned to their countries. They had to assimilate into single American culture. Most of those immigrants were from European countries and their values and culture were similar to those of the United States.
Today, immigration is quite different. Immigrants are overwhelmingly from Africa and Middle East. These are mostly people with extremely low level of education, people unable to integrate into the society and start business activity independently. They seek benefits, free housing and treatment. They are not going to assimilate and many openly deny the values of the country they immigrate into. As a rule, such people live in ethnic districts and even police avoid dealing with them.
The local population have to pay higher taxes to keep public infrastructures and social benefits, and are more concerned over their own security. The rape rate in Sweden has increased 15-fold during the last 40 years. Half of the defendants in jails are immigrants, though the percentage of immigrants in the total population is not that large. Instead, birth rate among immigrants is much higher, as most Europeans are reluctant to have children. London and Paris are experiencing baby boom, but most of the newborns will be English and French by passports only. They did not learn lessons from Lebanon and Kosovo.
The problem is that living in their culture people often do not realize its depth and see just the externals of their culture: cuisine, folk costumes, dances, music, holidays and the language. The people simply do not realize such things as personal area, mimic, gestures, voice ton, visual contact, expression of emotions, rituals of courtship, relations between men and women, traditions of bringing up children, idea of friendship, social norms, attitude towards elderly people, attitude to strangers and to various types of activity etc.
They often mix the terms “multinational” and “multicultural.” A society can be multinational and successful, at least, as long as people observe general behavior rules, speak the same language and have common identity. In other words, as long as they live within the dominating culture. Meantime, two or more contradictory and sometimes even colliding cultures cannot live in one place. It is like driving in a country with different traffic rules. This complicates life. People turn unconfident in their actions, as they do not know how to behave themselves and how to respond to behavior of others. Social nervousness is growing into intolerance, affects social contacts and public life. People even prefer not to walk outside. The confidence in each other and even in representatives of one’s own culture and nationality is falling dramatically. They scent danger in everything. All this was revealed after surveys of the multicultural communities in U.S.
All this greatly affect the political discourse too. National minorities do not vote for any political platform, they just vote for their own interests. The overwhelming majority of Latin Americans and Afro-Americans support the Democratic Party of U.S. not because it supports same-sax marriages and protects the rights of transgender persons and not because it supports feminism and inflow refugees. They support Democrats only because they promise them more benefits and preferences, along with easy terms of naturalization. A similar situation is with migrants and socialists in Europe. This is a tactical union and when minorities grow stronger, they will be able to change the political agenda fundamentally, for instance, to California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and New-Mexico Mexican again (it is the goal of La Raza (“race”) influential organization in U.S.). In Europe, they will introduce Sharia rules. Before that, the most conservative part of the public will be supporting the most progressive parties.
At the same time, the ideology of multiculturalism polarizes and reformates the society. For instance, in Sweden, children at schools sing the song “This is my country. This is your country - I am so happy to share it with you.” The prime minister of Canada says there is no Canadian culture. Thanks to the efforts of the academic society, in U.S., a generation of people thinks that there is no American culture. German left-wing politicians are happy with the low birthrate and replacement of the German population in their own country, because “there are fewer descendants of the Nazis” (Gregor Gysi). French politicians say it is necessary to encourage interracial marriages and refuse from own identity. Everyone who disagrees with this are called as Fascist, racists, and become political outcasts, face dismissals and persecutions, and even physical attacks.
Yet, the public discontent is still growing. Then come refugees that fled the war-torn Syria and Assad’s regime. Europeans will extend a helping hand to them, won’t they? The photo of the drowned toddler has triggered empathy in Europe. No one has inquired into that incident to learn that the family of the boy has been living in Turkey for three years already and they did not flee war. It is noteworthy that less than one-fourth of the refugees are from Syria. Most are from Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. What is even more interesting is that 70% of refugees are men of military age. Technically, they are not refugees, as they do not ask refuge in the first country they arrive in. They pass through Europe to reach Germany or Sweden. That is why, if they flee military actions in the countries, they are not refugees, they are military absentees.
Brexit has become a response to this all. Despite mass media efforts the supporters of Britain exiting EU won by a slender majority. Now, voters in U.S. have faced a similar dilemma, as they have to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In Europe, many predict a rise of far right. Time goes quickly and the number of immigrants in Europe keeps growing with every year amid falling number of the indigenous European population. What we see is inherently a replacement of the population and culture. Globalist elites use the Divide et Impera tactics that proved to be efficient in previous centuries, when colonizers used minorities to control the population of the invaded territories.
The growing statistics of rapes and other sexual assaults did not spark anger of Western feminists who are so busy fighting the “culture of sexual violence.” This is about a man and a woman having sex after two glasses of wine. Feminists claim that a woman can accuse a man of raping her, if she regrets about the sexual intercourse later, as she was drunk and could not control herself. However, when Norway published statistics saying that 100% of the rapes in the country were committed by immigrants unknown to the victims of the rape, feminists ignored that fact for some unknown reason. When thousands of women were sexually assaulted in Cologne and other European cities on New Year’s Eve, Joanne Rowling and other movers and shakers suddenly started speaking about “men in general.” When it turned out that at least 1,400 children had been sexually abused in Rotherham by the local Pakistani community, feminists remained silent again. The latest incident in Sweden, the country where feminism has won, was shocking. In particular, several migrants raped a wheelchair-bound woman. Then Swedish women took the streets to support…migrants from sexual assault allegations.
As I wrote earlier, feminism is not just women’s struggle for equality. Modern feminism goes far beyond this definition and has the agenda to demolish patriarchy, the imaginary system of enslaving women by men. Dismantlement of their own culture is a transitional goal for them, and if they need to use immigrants as a “ram,” they will do it. Here their interests coincide with those of secular humanists. After all, if all wars were for cultural and ethnic difference, the recipe for general peace is mixture of cultures and nations to get certain single global nationality and culture. At first, it will not be easy, indeed. But things will work out eventually and there will be general welfare and prosperity. Besides, all wars were unleashed and waged by men and if women seize power from men, no one will unleash wars any more. Yet, I am afraid they will be replacing one male leader with another.
The statistics of votes in support of the Right in Europe shows that these are mostly men. Women, especially unmarried ones, vote for liberal politicians. Public opinion polls in U.S. show that Trump would sweep elections if only men participated in voting. Such is the natural function of the stronger sex – to protect his land and culture, so they see danger in today’s policy of U.S.
Western inhabitants consider their culture something persistent, real. That is why they think that all these immigrants will turn into Europeans, forget about their religion, value education and hard work, personal freedoms and equality before the law, as well as accept European mentality and educate their children as Europeans. In fact, the Western culture is no longer considered as an objective it was 40-50 years ago. Then Westernization of the world: fashion, films, and music have expanded even in the Islamic countries. At present, the Islamic world is moving in the opposite direction. Asian countries do not hurry to adopt Western values. They adopt what is efficient: economic freedoms, technological progress, organization of cities and infrastructures, and not the fight for equality and social justice, refusal from own culture and identity, liquidation of social norms and superiority of personal freedom.
There are other examples too. Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe said at the UN General Assembly Japan will not accept refugees due to domestic problems. This happened despite the pressure U.S. and West-European countries exert on Japan to make it accept the idea of multiculturalism. Japan does not receive migrants despite falling birthrate, population ageing and economic problems.
When it comes to settlement of economic problems with the help of labor migrants, it is necessary to understand that “economy” is a relatively short planning horizon. Looking at the world from the perspective of financial indicators, long-term consequences for the country may appear to be much more valuable. According to UN projections, Sweden will join the list of the third world countries by 2030.
Well, to resume, at first they told us about cheap labor force that is favorable to everyone, then about ageing population. Then they told us about the world without borders and then about the assistance to refugees. However, they do not tell us about the major goal - dismantlement of the national identities and states, replacement of separate ethnicities and culture with homogenous global population.
It is a natural selection of cultures and civilizations. Our task is not to appear among those who won a Darwin Award.
Yevgeny Rublev for EADaily