The continent that gave us Beethoven, blue-water navies, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution is in existential crisis. Since early 2014, millions of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and northern Africa have streamed into Europe’s southern periphery, with more on the way. Western elites have criticized some nations for not doing enough to absorb the influx from war-torn countries. What they don’t realize is that refugees of war often drag the war along with them. From our point of view, in the context of the greater “war on terror” is a culture war.
One million asylum seekers have entered Greece via Turkey since last summer. While they are not the barbarian hordes of the fifteenth century Ottoman Empire, they have ignored fundamental cultural expectations of the host countries. During the Talking Points segment on Fox News on the night of the ISIS massacre in Brussels, Bill O’Reilly remarked that ISIS uses terrorism “in order to impose Islamic culture.” It is unknown at this point how many ISIS fighters have entered the European Union (EU) through Greece, but what is not in doubt is that Greece is overwhelmed by a group of people who do not speak Greek nor have any knowledge of Hellenic culture.
Separate and distinct cultures
Russia does not take migrants. China does not take migrants. Taiwan does not take migrants. Japan does not take migrants. South Korea does not take migrants. Israel does not take migrants. Poland does not take migrants. The people of these nations all have one thing in common: separate and distinct cultures that they wish to preserve.
They see what is happening in Europe. A migrant camp in Calais France had to be bulldozed because of a looming sanitation catastrophe. BBC News reported from a transit station in Budapest where the hallways and corridors were strewn with tents, rows of sleeping bags and trash. Hundreds of people were lined up on the concourse, waiting to use portable toilets on a dreary morning.
On SGT Report, economist and German resident F. William Engdahl gave a firsthand account of the migration crisis in Germany. “Pope Francis, last summer when this crisis hit Germany with one million refugees pouring in from everywhere, said, ‘if every German family would take just one refugee in their home, the problem would be solved.’ My God, can you imagine what kind of culture clashes? This is an attempt by very, very conscious networks to destroy not just borders, but to destroy stability and the foundations of European civilization going back more than a thousand years.” What he forgot to mention is that if thousands of foreigners showed up at the gates of the Vatican, they’d be turned away by the Swiss Guard.
Poland is a case-study in self-preservation. From the Slavic invasions of the fifth century, to Nazi rule, right up until the end of the Cold War, Poland was constantly under siege. Finally, after a millennium of being invaded, occupied, butchered, brutalized and carved up, there is now social cohesion. In all its tortured history, is it any surprise that Poland has said no to migrants? The European Union external border enforcement agency Frontex is headquartered in Warsaw, and word gets out fast about what’s happening on the ground in Greece and Italy.
Schengen Agreement
A common theme among western liberals is that freedom and wealth requires diversity in immigration. This is nonsense. A high standard of living begins with superior values and culture. Hong Kong and Singapore are arguably freer and more prosperous than the United States; neither has been attacked in the modern age of terror. The reason is because they are extremely restrictive in regards to who they let in. Canada has taken in over 25,000 Syrians since December, but there is one important point to remember with this statistic: Canada does a much better job assimilating immigrants than western-Europe. Canada does not have banlieues of isolated Muslims like there are in France, nor are there “no-go” zones like the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels where Salah Abdeslam was captured.
Doomsayers have fretted for years about a breakup of the EU, but this may be it. “The European Union can break apart. This can happen fast…we may only have a couple of months,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn in November 2015. Very fitting, considering the Schengen Agreement was signed in the Luxembourg town of Schengen.
The Schengen pact removed border checkpoints for travel within Europe. At the time, though, signatories didn’t think that millions of poor people from outside of Europe would wash up on its southern shores seeking asylum. The strains on infrastructure and social services have forced Hungary to reopen customs and inspection stations that were mothballed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This goes against the very essence of Europe’s grand experiment in free movement. “You’ve got basically the beginnings of a civil war,” says John Rubino of Dollarcollapse.com and CFA Institute magazine.
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At its core, Europe’s migration crisis boils down to one simple concept: national identity. These are not medieval times, where tribes of nomadic peoples wandered from place to place in search of sustenance. We live in a world of nation-states, with borders, passports, currency restrictions and militaries. “You either have a country or you don’t,” says Donald Trump in regards to America’s festering open border with Mexico. With Frontex personnel patrolling the Aegean islands, Greece has effectively lost its sovereignty.
Greece is both a member of the Eurozone and the European Union. EU rules state that if a member nation defaults on its debt, it is not only kicked out of the currency union, but ousted from the political union altogether. Greece is the first to be at risk for expulsion. Also for the first time, a European Union member is considering leaving, as Great Britain will hold an exit referendum in June. A “Brexit” could cause a chain-reaction of others wanting out, putting the intellectuals’ dream of a “United States of Europe” in jeopardy. Smart Greeks would be wise to fly to London Heathrow and apply for a UK visa, because by the end of the year, they might find themselves at London Heathrow begging for asylum.
Anthony J. Tarquinto is an independent financial adviser based in Aliso Viejo California. Anthony is the author of “The Real 40 Year-Old Virgin of Orange County.” (Xlibris 2010) which is available at Google Books.
The continent that gave us Beethoven, blue-water navies, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution is in existential crisis. Since early 2014, millions of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and northern Africa have streamed into Europe’s southern periphery, with more on the way. Western elites have criticized some nations for not doing enough to absorb the influx from war-torn countries. What they don’t realize is that refugees of war often drag the war along with them. From our point of view, in the context of the greater “war on terror” is a culture war.
One million asylum seekers have entered Greece via Turkey since last summer. While they are not the barbarian hordes of the fifteenth century Ottoman Empire, they have ignored fundamental cultural expectations of the host countries. During the Talking Points segment on Fox News on the night of the ISIS massacre in Brussels, Bill O’Reilly remarked that ISIS uses terrorism “in order to impose Islamic culture.” It is unknown at this point how many ISIS fighters have entered the European Union (EU) through Greece, but what is not in doubt is that Greece is overwhelmed by a group of people who do not speak Greek nor have any knowledge of Hellenic culture.
