Suddenly, immigration is becoming a bigger issue throughout the Western
world. Governments around the globe are very concerned about potential
problems that massive immigration may bring.
The American state of Arizona, which borders Mexico, recently passed a
law authorizing police to inquire of people they've stopped for other
legitimate reasons if they are in the United States legally, should
there be sufficient reason to suspect otherwise, and to ask for proof of
their legal status in such case. Illegal immigrants have contributed to
mounting crime, increasing health and educational costs and other
problems in the state.
Most of Arizona's citizens support the law, though some organizations
outside the state have announced boycotts, which could cost it a great
deal. Even the federal government is considering filing lawsuits to
prevent the law from being implemented.
Immigration reshaping Western countries
A car bomb placed in New York City's Times Square on May 1, 2010, was
the 11th attempted terrorist act in the city of New York since the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The bomb—which, thankfully, failed to go off
as planned—raised some deeply troubling questions about even
legal immigration.
How could a young Pakistani immigrant who lived the American dream
possibly want to kill hundreds of his fellow citizens? The United States
and other Western democracies, still coming to terms with radical
Islam, are finding it hard to fathom. It just doesn't fit into the
multicultural ideal!
France, Belgium, Italy and other European countries are passing laws to
block Islamic women from wearing full veils in public. Germany's
Chancellor Angela Merkel is insisting the country's large Turkish
population should assimilate, while the Turkish prime minister insists
they should have their own separate schools to protect their
Islamic identity.
Meanwhile, a Danish cartoonist whose cartoon depicting the prophet
Muhammad led to riots in a number of countries was threatened by an
ax-wielding intruder, and a Swedish cartoonist was physically attacked
by protesters shouting “Allah is great!” as he gave a lecture on free
speech. Muslims insist that freedom of speech, long cherished in the
West, has its limits.
In Britain, the issue of immigration may have cost Prime Minister
Gordon Brown the recent election. When a 65-year-old supporter of his
own party approached him during the campaign and expressed concern about
all the immigrants from Eastern Europe flowing into her neighborhood,
Mr. Brown was overheard in his car describing her as a “bigoted woman.”
Leaders clearly don't like the sensitive issue of immigration being
brought up.
But it's not going to go away.
Majorities becoming minorities in their own land
People are feeling increasingly threatened by the changing demographics
in their own nations. The ethnic composition of Western countries is
rapidly altering due to massive immigration in the last few decades. The
United States alone took in 10 million more immigrants in the seven
years following Sept. 11, 2001—many of them from countries rife with
radical Islamists. To many citizens, this just doesn't make sense.
An increasing number of Americans are aware that these demographic
changes will lead to a majority nonwhite population in their own
lifetimes. How they handle this will determine the country's future. As
Time
magazine put it: “How the current majority reacts to its incipient
minority status is the most crucial socio-demographic issue facing the
country” (Gregory Rodriguez, “The White Anxiety Crisis,” March 22, 2010,
international edition).
In an amazing break from tradition, many Western nations changed their immigration policies after World War
II
and welcomed millions of people from the Third World. Even the United
States, often deemed a cultural “melting pot,” had an immigration policy
prior to 1965 that favored maintaining the racial status quo.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy's 1965 immigration bill deliberately
changed earlier policy, welcoming a big influx of immigrants from the
world's poorer nations. At the time, Americans were assured it would not
alter the ethnic mix and social fabric of their nation.
Now it's evident this assurance was false. One could easily make the
argument that the election of America's first African-American president
would not have happened without the reality of changing demographics.
Immigration leading to unrest
The issue of immigration was briefly discussed on
NBC's
Chris Matthews Show on May 9, 2010.
During the program, John Heilemann of
New York magazine
observed: “We're going through one of these once-in-a-century
transformations that cuts across a lot of different things—cultural
change, there's big demographic change, there's big economic change, and
technological change, and it makes people really nervous. It's been
going on for about 15 years in America—the sense of anxiety, the sense
we've lost control of our lives.”
Also on the show was Cynthia Tucker, a columnist with the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
who offered this perspective: “I've always thought that this great
melting pot or salad, however you want to describe this diverse nation,
works as long as the economy is good, as long as the pie is growing and
every American believes he or she has an opportunity to get a piece of
that pie, we're all pretty happy.”
However, now that the economy is not doing so well, the United States
could be in for a more stressful time when it comes to assimilating the
various ethnic groups that now live in the country.
The same applies elsewhere, of course. Some of the eurozone countries
are on the brink of financial collapse due to decades of overspending.
Severe government spending cuts are inevitable. The nations have already
seen unemployment rise. Without jobs, many are already blaming
immigrants for their situation.
In the latest election in Britain, the anti-immigrant British National
Party almost tripled the share of the vote it received in the 2005
election. In fact, anti-immigrant parties are seeing growing support in a
number of European countries.
The perceived threat applies on several different levels.
Security a growing concern
Besides feeling that their way of life is threatened, both culturally
and economically, people are also becoming more concerned about security
as radical terror movements increasingly recruit homegrown terrorists.
Commenting on the recent attempted bombing in Times Square, Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Fouad Ajami
wrote the following in the May 10, 2010,
Wall Street Journal:
“'A Muslim has no nationality except his belief,' the intellectual
godfather of the Islamists, Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, wrote decades ago.
Qutb's 'children' are everywhere now; they carry the nationalities of
foreign lands and plot against them. The Pakistani-born Faisal Shahzad
[who set up the car bomb] is a devotee of Sayyid Qutb's doctrine, and
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, was another.
“Qutb was executed by the secular dictatorship of [Egyptian President]
Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966. But his thoughts and legacy endure.
Globalization, the shaking up of continents, the ease of travel, and
the doors for immigration flung wide open by Western liberal societies
have given Qutb's worldview greater power and relevance. What can we
make of a young man like Shahzad working for [the cosmetics company]
Elizabeth Arden, receiving that all-American degree, the
MBA, jogging in the evening in Bridgeport, then plotting mass mayhem in Times Square?
“The Islamists are now within the gates. They fled the fires
and the failures of the Islamic world but brought the ruin with them.
They mock national borders and identities. A parliamentary report issued
by Britain's House of Commons on the London Underground bombings of
July 7, 2005, lays bare this menace and the challenge it poses to a
system of open borders and modern citizenship.
“The four men who pulled off those brutal attacks, the report noted,
'were apparently well integrated into British society.' Three of them
were second-generation Britons born in West Yorkshire. The oldest, a
30-year-old father of a 14-month-old infant, 'appeared to others as a
role model to young people.' One of the four, 22 years of age, was a boy
of some privilege; he owned a red Mercedes given to him by his father
and was given to fashionable hairstyles and designer clothing…Two of the
four, rather like Faisal Shahzad, had spent time in Pakistan before
they pulled off their deed.
“A year after the London terror, hitherto tranquil Canada had its own
encounter with the new Islamism. A ring of radical Islamists were
charged with plotting to attack targets in southern Ontario with
fertilizer bombs. A school-bus driver was one of the leaders of these
would-be jihadists.
“A report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service unintentionally
echoed the British House of Commons findings. 'These individuals are
part of Western society, and their “Canadianness” makes detection more
difficult. Increasingly, we are learning of more and more extremists
that are homegrown. The implications of this shift are profound'”
(“Islam's Nowhere Men: Millions Like Faisal Shahzad Are Unsettled by a
Modern World They Can Neither Master nor Reject,” emphasis added).
Prophecy warned of consequences for national sins
The modern descendants of the ancient Israelites include many of the
nations that make up today's Western world. In Leviticus 26 and
Deuteronomy 28, God promised tremendous physical blessings if they would
obey Him, but He also warned them of the dire consequences of
disobedience. The promised blessings for obedience are awe-inspiring;
the assurances of punishment for sins are deeply troubling.
These chapters make for sobering reading when we consider trends in
recent years. In Deuteronomy 32, verse 25 warns of “terror within”—a
prophecy clearly being fulfilled now, with an even greater increase in
the problem likely still to come.
The apostle Paul spoke of how God created “from one blood every nation
of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their
preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings” (
Acts 17:26).
Of course, this passage does
not mean that correctly
controlled immigration is inherently wrong, seeing that when the
Israelites left Egypt the door was opened for a certain number of
non-Israelites to dwell among them. However, they had to leave their
culture behind and abide by the same laws God gave the Israelites. We
are now learning the negative consequences of the multicultural society
that has been propagated for the last 50 years.
Mixing cultures, and especially religions, can be volatile! We should
have known that before the change in immigration laws just by looking at
history and at other societies where mixing religions has led to
serious tension and conflict.
The people of Europe feel particularly threatened. With higher
population densities than the United States and closer proximity to the
volatile Middle East, many West European nations have significantly high
Muslim populations. Add to this Europe's low birthrate in contrast to
the high Islamic birthrate, and the potential for violent conflict
only increases.
And as we've seen, it's not just security that is threatened. Economics
also play a major role. God Himself warned of serious consequences for
the native peoples as a result of immigration: “The alien who is among
you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down
lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he
shall be the head, and you shall be the tail” (
Deuteronomy 28:43-44).
In other words, the strangers—those of foreign cultures and
religions—will end up on top, in control and in time possibly dictating a
way of life foreign to the indigenous population.
This is, of course, exactly what happened when European settlers
started arriving in North America, Australia and elsewhere—they ended up
on top and in control, displacing the native populations. Now, two or
three centuries later, they are the ones losing control to
newer arrivals.
Immigration trends and birthrates show that sometime in this century
the peoples who currently dominate most of the Western nations will be
minorities in their own lands. Whatever you may think of the ethnic mix,
the reality is that significant change is underway, and it's
threatening no less than the future of Western civilization.
GN
