By John Daniel Davidson
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
As the terrible news of the terrorist attacks in Brussels
continues to come in, we should understand a few important things in the days
and weeks ahead.
First, we should expect European leaders and the media to
double down on their pious exhortations not to conflate Syrian refugees with
terrorists and to resist “Islamophobia,” as if suspicion about unassimilated
Muslim enclaves in Europe is a greater threat than the terrorists hiding in
them. We heard this almost before the smoke cleared from the Paris attacks in
November, and we will continue to hear it.
Never mind that some of the Paris attackers slipped into
Europe posing as refugees. Never mind that the relevant data suggests a
majority of those entering Europe are not refugees at all but economic
migrants. Never mind that Salah Abdeslam, the mastermind of the November
attacks in Paris whose capture on Friday likely triggered Tuesday’s attacks,
was running a still-active terrorist cell likely made up of ISIS fighters from
Syria and European-born Muslims. European leaders, such as they are, understand
these things. They have simply chosen to bear the consequences. “We were
fearing terrorist attacks, and that has now happened,” Belgium Prime Minister
Charles Michel said at a news conference Tuesday.
Second, Europe must answer a question it has been
avoiding since the end of World War II: what is the purpose of immigration? If
it is to supply a laboring class, then Europe must insist on integration and
assimilation along the lines of the American model so the sons and daughters of
its immigrant class can rise and become fully participating members of the
social order. If not, then it must accept its future as a blood-and-soil
continent of natives on one side and permanent outsiders on the other, with all
the intermittent violence that comes with it.
It is more likely that in the near term, current European
leaders will say Europe should adopt the American model of integration, but we
should not expect them to push for significant reforms. Although German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party suffered significant losses
in state elections earlier this month almost entirely as a reaction to Merkel’s
migrant policy, she said the policy would not change.
If voting trends continue, Merkel and her ilk will
eventually be replaced by the likes of Frauke Petry of Germany’s nationalist
Alternative for Germany and Marine Le Pen of France’s right-wing National
Front. These leaders will take the blood-and-soil route. Because much of the
support for these right-wing parties comes from younger voters, as is the case
with the Sweden Democrats (now the most popular party in the country), they
represent the future of European politics, not just its troubled past.
Third and most disturbing is that America, against its
better instincts and traditions, could quite possibly do the same. Donald Trump’s
reaction to the San Bernardino attacks was to propose a temporary ban on all
Muslims entering the United States. Instead of sinking his candidacy, Trump’s
polls numbers increased, with six in 10 Republican voters saying they agreed
with the Muslim ban.
Trump’s entire campaign thus far has been an extended
appeal to nationalism and nativism, from his pledge to build a wall along the
southern border to his promise to deport some 11 million illegal immigrants.
That appeal has resonated with a surprising number of voters, who either don’t
notice or don’t care that it is also, implicitly, an appeal for a more active
and intrusive state.
Trump isn’t the only one sounding this note. After the
attacks in Belgium on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz released a statement saying, “We
need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods
before they become radicalized.” Cruz probably means that in a benign way, and
certainly, authorities in the United States should do what they can to ensure
Muslim communities don’t become radicalized.
But the task of integration and assimilation does not
begin with law enforcement, or even lawmakers. It is a function primarily of
culture, not politics. America has done a singular thing in the history of the
world: forged a multicultural society on the basis of specific ideas. As I
wrote recently about the EU migrant crisis, “The fragile thing the American
Founders built is based after all on a rigorous acceptance of a Christian view
of human nature: All men are created equal. But we know from hard experience
that this is not a ‘universal value.’ It is not indigenous to all the world’s
cultures.”
We Americans have managed to avoid the trap of European
blood-and-soil politics by insisting that newcomers accept our principles. That
insistence has enabled immigrants from all over the world to come here and
build a life as Americans. It is the great genius of our republic. Europe never
really tried to do this, but simply accepted immigrants as laborers after World
War II and hoped they would eventually go home. They never did, and now the
continent is confronting a civilizational crisis of its own making.
The good news for us is that we don’t have to go through
what Europe is going through as long as we protect and defend the promise of
America, which is this: anyone can be an American. You just have to choose it.
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