REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION
Extensive media coverage has been given recently to Christopher Caldwell’s new book ‘Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West’.
The Economist, a very pro-immigration journal, concluded "this is an important book as well as a provocative one: the best statement to date of the pessimist’s position on Islamic immigration in Europe".
Indeed, the importance of Caldwell’s book is reflected in many ways. One is that such a clear, candid book is written by an American mainstream journalist, who writes for The Financial Times, the New York Times and the Weekly Standard. The book is subtitled quite clearly ‘Can Europe be the same with different people in it?’ and in his text Caldwell says, ‘the answer is no’.
Of course, there have been books by such distinguished academics as Bernard Lewis and Walter Lacquer warning of the grim future effects of immigration in Europe while George Walden (the former Tory Minister and journalist), has written ‘Time to Emigrate’ - a more speculative account of the same phenomenon.
Christopher Caldwell’s title of course echoes Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ and, just like Burke, Caldwell looks to the long-term consequence of the phenomenon he describes as "Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind". He views immigration, just as Edmund Burke viewed the French republican revolution, as aggressive, dangerous and, ultimately, leading to violence. Much of his book centres specifically on the importation of Muslims as he regards Islam as an anti-European culture. Like Burke, he regards the current population of a nation and its rulers as trustees, with duties both to their past and to generations yet unborn.
Caldwell starts by facing up to the fact that importing mass Third World labour was a disaster. “Europeans … overestimated their need for immigrant labour. The economic benefits immigration brought were marginal and temporary. They now belong to the past. The social changes immigration brought, however, were massive and enduring.”
He shoots down the economic arguments that are constantly advanced that somehow the arrival of low skilled capital-less immigrants is of benefit to European countries. He recites again the obvious facts that welfare state’s transfer benefits to low earners and demolishes again the idea that immigration can support the ageing of Europe, by quoting the well-known estimate of the United Nations that to maintain the ratio of labour to dependants, Europe will have to import 701 million people by 2050
Caldwell is clear that the peoples of Europe never wanted mass immigration. Why should they? Immigrant labour without capital increases the supply of labour and reduces wages.
He excoriates the political class from the 1950s to the present. In the beginning, in the 1950s and 1960s, “Those elites, to the extent that they thought about the long-term consequences at all, made certain assumptions; immigrants would be few in number. Since they were coming t fill short-term gaps in the labour force, most would stay in Europe only temporarily. Some might stay longer. No-one assumed they would be eligible for welfare. That they would retain the habits and culture of southern villages, clans, market places, and mosques, was a thought too bizarre to entertain.”
It is worth noting, however, that at least one politician was fully aware of the long-term consequences. Ian Gilmour, then editor of The Spectator, recorded an interview with Winston Churchill in 1955 where Churchill told him ‘I think it is the most important subject facing this country, but I cannot get any of my ministers to take any notice.’
Once the elites realized how unpopular mass immigration was, this did not change what became a rigid almost sacred view. All that happened was the arrival of a panoply of suppressive efforts, including diversity training, ethnic quotas, muzzling of opponents and vilification of immigration opponents by media allies, etc.
The reality was that “for all the lip service paid to diversity, people tend to flee it” and “in no country in Europe does the bulk of the population aspire to lure in a bazaar of cultures”. Despite inflicting these pressures on the poorest natives, the political class was conspicuous for its absence in residing in ‘diverse’ residential areas or for sending its children to ‘enriched’ schools.
Its collective nervous breakdown meant that it could entertain two diametrically opposite views simultaneously that, as Caldwell says, immigration “would make their countries different through diversity … and leave them the same through integration.”
What of the future? Caldwell estimates that most European countries will have an immigrant (plus descendant) population of between 25 per cent and 33 per cent by 2050. He points out that only one group is more favourable to immigration than the national political elites and that is the EU institutions. This regards is reciprocated by immigrants among whom the EU remains very popular.
As for the Turkish entry to the EU, so ardently desired by the EU institutions and by the big three British political parties, big pluralities of French and Dutch ‘No’ voters (in the constitution referendums) cited Turkey among their primary worries about the EU. Caldwell states, ‘This wholesale public opposition seems to have given no-one in the upper reaches of the EU bureaucracy a moment’s pause’. Nor, one could add, among the British political establishment.
Immigration is the canary in the coalmine. Caldwell says “If Europe is getting more immigrants than its voters want, this is a good indicator that its democracy is not functioning”. Indeed, the whole EU process is designed to put some policies beyond democracy via the acquis communitaire and the EU Court of Justice. “European leaders have chosen to believe something different; that its immigration and asylum policies involve the sort of non-negotiable moral qualities that you don’t vote on.”
While approved political debate remains in a narrow range of opinion, nothing will change the political class until it loses (a lot of) votes. This is slowly happening and Caldwell’s book, as The Economist reports, is a sign that “Today Powell’s arguments, if not his classical allusions are becoming dangerously mainstream”.
FUTURUS/7 September 2009
The Economist, a very pro-immigration journal, concluded "this is an important book as well as a provocative one: the best statement to date of the pessimist’s position on Islamic immigration in Europe".
Indeed, the importance of Caldwell’s book is reflected in many ways. One is that such a clear, candid book is written by an American mainstream journalist, who writes for The Financial Times, the New York Times and the Weekly Standard. The book is subtitled quite clearly ‘Can Europe be the same with different people in it?’ and in his text Caldwell says, ‘the answer is no’.
Of course, there have been books by such distinguished academics as Bernard Lewis and Walter Lacquer warning of the grim future effects of immigration in Europe while George Walden (the former Tory Minister and journalist), has written ‘Time to Emigrate’ - a more speculative account of the same phenomenon.
Christopher Caldwell’s title of course echoes Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ and, just like Burke, Caldwell looks to the long-term consequence of the phenomenon he describes as "Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind". He views immigration, just as Edmund Burke viewed the French republican revolution, as aggressive, dangerous and, ultimately, leading to violence. Much of his book centres specifically on the importation of Muslims as he regards Islam as an anti-European culture. Like Burke, he regards the current population of a nation and its rulers as trustees, with duties both to their past and to generations yet unborn.
Caldwell starts by facing up to the fact that importing mass Third World labour was a disaster. “Europeans … overestimated their need for immigrant labour. The economic benefits immigration brought were marginal and temporary. They now belong to the past. The social changes immigration brought, however, were massive and enduring.”
He shoots down the economic arguments that are constantly advanced that somehow the arrival of low skilled capital-less immigrants is of benefit to European countries. He recites again the obvious facts that welfare state’s transfer benefits to low earners and demolishes again the idea that immigration can support the ageing of Europe, by quoting the well-known estimate of the United Nations that to maintain the ratio of labour to dependants, Europe will have to import 701 million people by 2050
Caldwell is clear that the peoples of Europe never wanted mass immigration. Why should they? Immigrant labour without capital increases the supply of labour and reduces wages.
He excoriates the political class from the 1950s to the present. In the beginning, in the 1950s and 1960s, “Those elites, to the extent that they thought about the long-term consequences at all, made certain assumptions; immigrants would be few in number. Since they were coming t fill short-term gaps in the labour force, most would stay in Europe only temporarily. Some might stay longer. No-one assumed they would be eligible for welfare. That they would retain the habits and culture of southern villages, clans, market places, and mosques, was a thought too bizarre to entertain.”
It is worth noting, however, that at least one politician was fully aware of the long-term consequences. Ian Gilmour, then editor of The Spectator, recorded an interview with Winston Churchill in 1955 where Churchill told him ‘I think it is the most important subject facing this country, but I cannot get any of my ministers to take any notice.’
Once the elites realized how unpopular mass immigration was, this did not change what became a rigid almost sacred view. All that happened was the arrival of a panoply of suppressive efforts, including diversity training, ethnic quotas, muzzling of opponents and vilification of immigration opponents by media allies, etc.
The reality was that “for all the lip service paid to diversity, people tend to flee it” and “in no country in Europe does the bulk of the population aspire to lure in a bazaar of cultures”. Despite inflicting these pressures on the poorest natives, the political class was conspicuous for its absence in residing in ‘diverse’ residential areas or for sending its children to ‘enriched’ schools.
Its collective nervous breakdown meant that it could entertain two diametrically opposite views simultaneously that, as Caldwell says, immigration “would make their countries different through diversity … and leave them the same through integration.”
What of the future? Caldwell estimates that most European countries will have an immigrant (plus descendant) population of between 25 per cent and 33 per cent by 2050. He points out that only one group is more favourable to immigration than the national political elites and that is the EU institutions. This regards is reciprocated by immigrants among whom the EU remains very popular.
As for the Turkish entry to the EU, so ardently desired by the EU institutions and by the big three British political parties, big pluralities of French and Dutch ‘No’ voters (in the constitution referendums) cited Turkey among their primary worries about the EU. Caldwell states, ‘This wholesale public opposition seems to have given no-one in the upper reaches of the EU bureaucracy a moment’s pause’. Nor, one could add, among the British political establishment.
Immigration is the canary in the coalmine. Caldwell says “If Europe is getting more immigrants than its voters want, this is a good indicator that its democracy is not functioning”. Indeed, the whole EU process is designed to put some policies beyond democracy via the acquis communitaire and the EU Court of Justice. “European leaders have chosen to believe something different; that its immigration and asylum policies involve the sort of non-negotiable moral qualities that you don’t vote on.”
While approved political debate remains in a narrow range of opinion, nothing will change the political class until it loses (a lot of) votes. This is slowly happening and Caldwell’s book, as The Economist reports, is a sign that “Today Powell’s arguments, if not his classical allusions are becoming dangerously mainstream”.
FUTURUS/7 September 2009