The suicidal immigration policies of Western Europe and leftist U.S. administrations reminded me of “The Arsonists,” the widely discussed 1950s play by the Swiss author Max Frisch. In it, an otherwise decent citizen hosts arsonists in his attic, due to his naivete and misguided sense of propriety, and ends up assisting them in setting his own house on fire.
The play has been interpreted as an allusion to the surreptitious takeover of normal citizens and democratic societies by totalitarian socialism—be it Nazism or Communism. However, art has a life of its own. The play has been recently performed in Europe as a cautionary tale regarding the record numbers of immigrants welcomed by the West despite their criminal behavior and antagonistic values to their host countries.
A shocking example of Western countries’ suicidal policies, and a warning regarding our own “sanctuary cities,” is provided by the Swedish “no-go” zones—parallel societies in suburban areas where crime runs rampant, and the police are afraid to intervene. The Swedish Police Authority has euphemistically referred to these zones as “vulnerable areas,” and leftist media and politicians have tried extremely hard to deny their shocking reality. Stefan Hedlund writes:
The Scandinavian nation of 10.6 million people is facing a national crisis because of its failure to successfully integrate record numbers of immigrants….After staying out of World War II, Sweden had evolved into a high-performing export-oriented economy, based on a stable parliamentary democracy and social consensus. The country had top-notch health care and education. It enjoyed social and gender equality, had low crime rates and little ethnic conflict. While grounds remain for optimism about some of these indicators, especially in the industrial sector, most have been transformed beyond recognition.Present-day Sweden carries the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of gangland killings in Europe. It boasts the lowest average age of serious offenders, with children in their low teens being arrested for murder. Increasing segments of suburbs are officially classified as “especially vulnerable areas,” where it is “hard, bordering on impossible” for the police to operate. In layman’s terms, these are no-go zones, where local clans rule and where first responders will not enter without flak jackets and police escort….The heavy influx of migrants from countries with Muslim populations could lead to a situation in which Sweden elects a radical Islamist party to parliament, potentially as early as the 2026 election…. While virtually all Swedes were Christians from the 12th to the early 20th centuries, that share has fallen to less than 60 percent today. It is not inconceivable that Sweden will have a majority Muslim population sometime this century. The trend is bound to energize Islamist circles that are calling for a divided legal system, where Sharia law applies for Muslim citizens.
Similar trends have emerged in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Western and Central Europe. Yet, anyone who speaks about protecting national interests, culture, sovereignty, and citizen safety is immediately branded by the Left as a fascist, Nazi, bigot, and, overall, an intellectually and morally inferior person. The police in these countries, as well as other public officials, are terrified of being called “Islamophobic” and prefer to turn a blind eye to horrendous crimes that plague the very populations they are appointed to protect.
Leftist ideologues prey upon the decency and sincere desire to help those less fortunate, shared by numerous people who were raised with Judeo-Christian values. The Left has succeeded in blurring a crucial distinction between individual kindness and voluntary compassion, on the one hand, and government policies that favor non-citizens with hostile values over the well-being of a nation’s citizens, on the other. As a result, millions of Westerners feel guilty for their relative prosperity and believe that supporting out-of-control immigration policies is a sign of virtue.
Totalitarian socialists are masterful manipulators who misrepresent the Christian concept of charity as government-enforced sacrifice. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Giving one of two shirts to the poor is a recommended voluntary act of kindness—it does not mean that one should remain shirtless and abide by a government-enforced absurdity to deprive oneself and one’s family in order to benefit a stranger. Similarly, loving one’s neighbor like oneself presupposes self-love, not self-hatred and policy-mandated self-destruction.
No individual is expected to welcome strangers into one’s home—especially if they feel entitled to the fruits of the host’s labor and threaten the host family’s wellbeing, safety, and way of life. Similarly, no country has any obligation to accept immigrants. To the extent that this may happen—on an individual or national basis—it should be treated as an extraordinary act of goodwill that warrants appreciation and respect for the host country’s laws and cultural values. Thus, immigrants to the United States who fled Nazim or Communism, for example, embraced American values with profound gratitude and made valuable contributions to American society.
This is not the case with present-day Western Europe, which has voluntarily opened its doors to a massive influx of radical Islamic migrants, who refuse to abide by the host countries’ laws, disrespect their values, and threaten to become a political majority due to natural demographic tendencies.
Why should Western Europe provide them with a cornucopia of benefits at the expense of its citizens’ well-being? The governments of affluent Islamic countries feel no obligation to host, feed, and protect their indigent brethren. Additionally, accepting refugees en masse from countries with incompatible values hurts those countries by removing any serious incentive for their citizens to effect change and improve their societies from within.
Western civilization is based on the principle that all human beings are born with equal worth and rights. While we ought to treat our fellow humans with kindness and dignity, this need not mean that we should be forced to prioritize other people’s interests over our own. And it certainly does not mean that we should allow the enemies of our civilization to destroy it and remain impassive or, even worse, be complicit in the suicide of the West. As Melanie Phillips observed:
The West won’t accept that it’s facing an Islamic holy war because it believes it can’t win against the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims. So it’s giving up without even putting up a fight, sheltering instead behind the comforting fiction that if Israel behaved differently, everything would be absolutely fine.It needs instead to take off its blinders, join up the dots and fight like Israel to survive.
Western civilization in general, and the American paragon in particular, are the best examples of freedom, human governance, and prosperity. If we want this way of life to endure and thrive, we should stop burying our heads in the sand and firmly reject disastrous immigration and crime-related policies that are a surefire way to obliterate Western tradition.
Featured Image: Malmö, Sweden, 2017
Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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