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May 18, 2013
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 Norway Attacks and Europe’s Failed Immigration PoliciesPosted on Jul 26, 2011PARIS—Forty-three years ago the British politician and classicist Enoch Powell made an over-clever and overwrought speech to a Conservative Party gathering in Birmingham, England. In it he attacked the postwar policy of Britain, under both Labour and Conservative governments, of giving easy admission for British residence and citizenship to Commonwealth citizens. His speech said such a policy would eventually provide Britain (and by extension, the other European countries) with unassimilable and racially or religiously separatist minorities that would eventually prove a source of social division and popular conflict, and, according to Powell, violence. A scholarship boy, son of a primary school teacher, Powell at 25 was a full professor of Ancient Greek, and, at 35, the youngest brigadier in the wartime British army. His classical formation inspired a disastrous penultimate flourish to his Birmingham speech. He quoted a sibylline prophecy from Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the spirit foresaw wars, “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” This attack on the immigration of non-Europeans into Britain caused newspaper hysteria and political sensation of the kind of which only Britain is (still) capable. It ended Powell’s membership in the Conservative shadow cabinet of Edward Heath, grievously injuring Powell’s own until-then promising political career, leaving him an ostracized backbench figure despised by all “right-thinking” public figures. Following the “foaming with blood” speech, Powell epitomized political incorrectness in Britain for the high-minded, racism for most of the rest, and, for the ignorant or ideologically crazed, Fascism. His “river” of blood arrived last Saturday, spilled in the saltwater separating the Norwegian island of Utoya from the mainland. A young man, one considering himself a modern Crusader Knight Templar, initiated the “terrible” war that he expects will save European Christian civilization from Marxism and the ultimate threat of Muslim conquest. Advertisement But irony can take us only so far. Enoch Powell was, of course, on to something. You cannot invite or entice a people who are, culturally, radically different from a host population, and make little or no serious effort to discriminate among those who come, or to educate them in the majority culture, and through such means to assimilate them into the society they have joined, without courting disaster. Americans have always taken immigration for granted, since we are all immigrants come for urgent purposes with the knowledge that we would have to change our lives, norms and cultures in order to have what we thought we wanted. American immigration commonly is seen in terms of Emma Lazarus’s “wretched refuse” of foreign lands and “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” That may have been true in the late 19th century, as a result of pogroms and persecution in Eastern Europe, but until then immigration was mostly a matter of colonial development, commercial investment, the search for open lands, government homesteads and free railroad land developments. America was opportunity, not refuge. My own ancestors were free farmers, business investors, religious dissidents or adventurous romantics (my grandfather had to pursue his fiancee to America because her parents had decided that he could not bring a suitable dower to their marriage in the old country). The modern European policy on immigration was first a search for industrial and agricultural labor, expected to be overwhelmingly male “guest workers” who would go home when there was no more need for them. In most European countries, they were informally segregated or ghettoized, offered poor housing and irrelevant education, discriminated against in employment, and victimized by the police when they predictably reacted. The British behaved toward them as colonial overlords, dealing only with the “chiefs” of tribes and ignoring the rest. The Germans believed they would all go home to their families in Turkey. The French and Italians were the only people who tried to assimilate them, demanding that they learn the language, behave as patriots, renounce ostentatious foreign religious practices, and unveil and liberate their women, who were expected to take up divorce (as they did). American liberals and feminists were outraged that the French census banned reference to race, religion or original nationality, and the government banned veils in schools and public places. Didn’t the French believe in freedom? Equally important in European immigration policy was the idealism that permeated postwar Britain and Western Europe as a whole, after the terrible experience of genocidal racism during the Second World War, and the recent renunciation of colonialism and imperialism, resisted at the time only by France’s Fourth Republic, in Indochina until 1954, and Algeria until 1962. (The United States took over the Vietnam War, making the catastrophic mistake of redefining it as part of the Cold War, and beginning a series of non-Western wars yet to end.) There is nothing to be done about Europe’s immigrant population. They are arrived, settled, bred and will stay. They have to be assimilated as middle class or better citizens, not treated to apartheid—as has been too often the case. The events in Norway were in a twisted way the product of Western ideas about the rivalry and clashes of civilizations, which persist. Will China be number one? Or will America? Why is the “Arab awakening” a threat, as it is so widely regarded in the U.S.? It may be a threat to Israel, but that is Israel’s choice. Why are relations between the great societies, and the immigrant and host societies of the West, so often phrased in language of war and domination? Why are Americans so terrified of Muslims? Enoch Powell was no fool. The blood has run. It will run again unless Western governments can defuse the present dangers. Visit William Pfaff’s Web site for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy” (Walker & Co., $25), at www.williampfaff.com. © 2011 Tribune Media Services Inc.  TAGS:
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By stan van houcke, August 1, 2011 at 12:38 am Link to this comment
I quote lafayette:
‘You are indulging in polemic, yet again. The distribution shown in the link
cited is Highly Debatable.’
well Lafayette, everything is debatable, but in this case refute the arguments
they give here about ‘the government deception.’
http://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2012piechart-bw.pdf
the 20 percent of the federal budget you come up with, is not all, it is the
budget of the ‘defence department,’ which is only part of the money which
flows to your ‘national security.’ indeed, ‘be careful of your information
sources.’ and finally, what is wrong with a polemic? the public in the usa should
have started a polemic long ago about their country’s expansionism. they have
been too long too silent, and that’s one of the reasons the middle class is
suffering now.
I quote: lew ciefer:
‘A European who doesn’t like Jews—that’s original! Do you realize Stan that if it
weren’t for you Europeans there would probably not be a State of Israel today?’
well lew, I wrote a book about that fact. that is to say: I tried to state this in a
more sophisticated way. but remember, not every jew is a zionist, and not every
zionist is a jew. there is quite a substantial number of jews who even dislike
zionism. anyway, most jews still prefer to live in their own countries instead of
in the ‘jewish state.’
to give only one example of a jew who dislikes zionism: Avraham Burg was
speaker of Israel’s Knesset in 1999-2003 and is a former chairman of the
Jewish Agency for Israel. he wrote a fascinating book about in which he warned
for ‘the end of Zionism. Israel must shed its illusions and choose between racist
oppression and democracy.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/15/comment
the book is named: ‘The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes.’
http://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Over-Must-Rise-
Ashes/dp/0230618979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312181619&sr=8-1
now lew, if you can’t stand the facts don’t ask for them. the holocaust is indeed
over, and don’t use the jews to project your hatred on arabs, and other
muslims. you know that also arabs are a semitic people. as a European with
jewish in-laws I am highly aware of the fact that many modern philosemites use
the muslims to get rid of their age old christian antisemitism. this is not only a
european phenomenon. antisemitism was and still is widespread in the
christian world, also in the usa. for instance, even after the second world war
yale university knew mandatory quotas on jewish students, and ‘antisemitism in
America is not only the preserve of extremists. It is alive and well among the
seemingly civilised middle class’
http://www.newstatesman.com/199908230006
so do your homework before you start a discusion. In the meantime we are
confronted with the fact that the zionist extremists in Israel keep going on
stealing palestinian land, although international law forbids this, while the
united nations wants it to be stopped immediately, and even the american
president now. but because of the american congress the zionists can go on
with their terror. you see, the american foreign politics, the american violence
and its expansionism, and its use of mercenary states is seen by many people
on earth as a total disaster. they would prefer to be left alone,to see the
americans spend their money on education, health care, housing, they would
like the americans to stop making war, and stop destroying their life.
This is the message I am trying to convey.
Report thisBy stan van houcke, July 30, 2011 at 9:47 am Link to this comment
right you are ciefer,
we have on one side the extremism of american expansionism which leads time
Report thisand again to genocide and repression on a huge scale and on the other side a
group of people who are not going to accept this terror anymore by committing
terrorism themselves. if you seriously want to solve this conflict than you have to
change your own politics first. that speak for itself. so, my suggestion is that the
american empire stops its expansionism, and stops its terror.
By Lew Ciefer, July 30, 2011 at 9:15 am Link to this comment
Thank you Stan, you’ve just confirmed that it is a subversive movement to destroy Western liberal civilization. Thus there cannot be any Islamophobia becasue the threat is real. We are, like the indigenous tribes, in a war for survival.
Report thisBy grumpygramma, July 29, 2011 at 11:07 pm Link to this comment
The actions described in this article come to no surprise to me. I am a 3rd generation Irish , whose great grandparents immigrated to Ontario and then to Iowa where my mother was born.
Report thisI was born in 1949 and experienced plenty of racism and prejudice against the Irish up until Kennedy was elected…and it ceased almost completely.
Going back to my grandparents time - we must all surely remember the animosity different nationalities that immigrated had for each other. It was only because the country was so new and so wide that the animosity finally ceased (for the most part)
with separate parts of cities taken by each group as their own Eventually the young dissipated out into the rest of society and mixed it up- leading the diversity we see today.
The one thing they all had in common was a love of the United States, and that seems to have been enough.
I almost hate calling it racism I think the animosity should be recognized as a normal response to feeling afraid and unsettled by a new element in the mix. It requires education and time as it always did.
Calling people racist for naming their fears does no one any good and does not solve the issue.
If we devoted half the energy we do to screaming racism to coming up with plans and people’s input for assimilation, we would go a lot further.
By Lew Ciefer, July 29, 2011 at 4:41 pm Link to this comment
Why do Muslims leave their Islamic paradises to live in Great Satan nations whose culture and cutoms they find so offensive?
And why do Western nations continue to allow them to enter?
Report thisBy MeHere, July 27, 2011 at 5:57 pm Link to this comment
gerard:
W. Pfaff is not sowing seeds of despair and fear. On the contrary, he is precisely
addressing the consequences which result from a culture of wars, domination, and
fear mongering that exists in many Western countries. And he is forecasting more
of the same unless we can stop it.
We can’t expect writers who report and analyze important issues to give us precise recipes for solving problems. Their contribution to finding solutions lies in the awareness they provide, which is something I’m grateful for. But it’s up to us, as you say.
Report thisBy MeHere, July 27, 2011 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment
W. Pfaff’s last paragraph sums it all up. It begins with “There’s nothing to be done
about Europe’s immigrant population. They’re arrived, settled, bred and will stay.”
It is a historical fact that people will flow from impoverished or
uninhabitable areas to places that offer a chance for survival. What Pfaff is saying is: deal with it in an intelligent manner—the issue is not going to disappear.
It is not uncommon for some psychotic individuals to give violent expression to the deep conflicts in their culture. If relations among societies were not often phrased in language of wars and domination (as this writer says,) this kind of antisocial behavior might not surface.
Report thisBy stan van houcke, July 27, 2011 at 2:14 pm Link to this comment
I admire mr. pfaff’s ability to be able time and again to formulate the right
questions in his illuminating writings. This time he poses the following
question:
‘Why are relations between the great societies, and the immigrant and host
societies of the West, so often phrased in language of war and domination? Why
are Americans so terrified of Muslims?’
mr. pfaff, concerning the question of hatred the nigerian author chinua achebe
wrote in an essay about the racism in conrad’s ‘heart of darkness’:
‘For reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry the West seems
to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have
a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. If Europe,
advancing in civilization, could cast a backward glance periodically at Africa
trapped in primordial barbarity it could say with faith and feeling: There go I
but for the grace of God. Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray—
a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so
that he may go forward, erect and immaculate. Consequently Africa is
something to be avoided just as the picture has to be hidden away to safeguard
the man’s jeopardous integrity.’
it is of course not only the african, it is the other, the black man, the jew, the arab,
the outsider, the one who seems not to fit in, the one who talks differently, looks
differently, even smells differently, or so it seems. the european christian
culture, and its wasp offspring in the usa, has always needed the other, the
outsider, as an negative image of himself. only through him, the outsider, the
insider can feel himself a man of at least some accomplishment.
after the holocaust, which in itself was the fatal endproduct of this psychological
Report thisneed for the outsider, it is no longer politically correct for the european, the
wasp, to be openly antisemitic. but of course that did not stop the urge of the
white civilized citizen to project his fears and frustrations on the outsider, so
therefore the arab, the muslim now plays the role of the jew/african in western
societies. the more the philosemite pretends to love israel the more he can
publicly hate the arab/muslim.
By whitedog, July 27, 2011 at 1:49 pm Link to this comment
This a wierd article. I’m not sure really where this author stands.
For me the targets in Norway and Arizona were pro immigration reform, but more importantly, liberals. I consider the shooters the new suicide bombers to take down the liberal movement as a whole, like so much in the way of pressure to go right, which is to say go to hell.
Report thisBy gerard, July 27, 2011 at 1:23 pm Link to this comment
According to Pfaff: ....“unless Western governments can defuse the present dangers.”
And once more, no answers? No suggestions? No indications of ingredients necessary for solutions?
Who are “Western governments” anyway? Could it possibly be you and me and all citizens?
Instead of sowing more seeds of fear and despair.
Report thisshall we try some home-grown immigration reform here that proposes fair solutions for all, arrived at by democratic means, broadly inclusive of democratic
principles? Shall we take our own responsibility for human decency and help to set a good example for other countries? Or shall we continue to withdraw
into animosity, fear and violence, and continue to read about our problems in blogs, pander to our cowardice, and hope to escape from our negligence?
It’s up to us, you and me, and there are organizations already working on solutions. (Google “Immigration Reform Organizations”—and bear in mind that they differ—some are fair, some not so fair, and some downright unfair.) Democracy presumes that fairness will win out over injustice. The future depends on our judgment, yours and mine.
By Matthew Tysoe, July 27, 2011 at 10:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
the fact that the UK is such a small country in terms of landmass makes things alot worse. We are in danger of overcrowding ourselves into oblivion.
Report thisBy balkas, July 27, 2011 at 9:35 am Link to this comment
let’s, please, see one fact: it had been personal supremacists [assortment of fascists, ‘job
givers’, clergy, ‘educators’, generals, et al] who favored immigration.
in canada, an overwhelming number of canadians resented immigration of even some
europeans let alone chinese et al.
quebecois, who dreamt of establishing an independent or interdependent quebec, were
even more aggrieved because of immigration than the rest of canadians.
of course, u.s ‘job givers’ also knew that more ethnic groups u.s absorbs, the easier it is
to rule such a disparate and at-odds-with-one-another ethnics.
locus clasicus for divisiveness and separateness of u.s [or canadian] ‘nations’, is the fact
that no ethnic group had, as far as i know, come to defense of the japanese people when
they had been interned.
in fact, neither canada nor u.s shld be deemed nations and/or countries—they shld be
viewed as regions with hundreds of ethnic groups; with one or two in charge of all the
others.
in canada and u.s, in charge of their respective most important affairs, are mostly
anglosaxons and ‘jews’ [probably just ashkenazim]; all others have a subjagating role to
play.
and if one wld compare situation of arabs with situation of ‘jews’ in the u.s, one sees
only chasmic difference in their respective statii.
for saying such things, i had been banned even from some leftist sites. this shows u how
much power the anglosaxon-jewish group has.
true, true! all but arabs welcome just such a status. tnx
Report thisBy Anarcissie, July 27, 2011 at 9:12 am Link to this comment
I can see how riots in Paris or terrorism in London might be attributed to the defects of immigration policy, but I can’t see how a native, ancestral Norwegian shooting other similar Norwegians can be so attributed. Breivik might just as well have been on about the Communists—or the Saturnian ant men.
Report thisBy balkas, July 27, 2011 at 8:51 am Link to this comment
i do not think that world jewry and/or israelis need to fear arab spring. nor do i think
that world jewry [via use of their money] and/or world supremacists-jewry wld ever
allow arabs or any other peoples or peoples on this planet to thwart their
longstanding goals: utter destruction of all remnants of socialism and, thus, justice,
equality, healthcare/education for all.
the world supremacists may allow all that only after they reduce the world pop; via
Report thisstarvation, wars, and warming, to ab. 1bn or fewer people. tnx