Private Virtue and Political Vice

In a West Wing episode a few years ago the (fictional) President of the United States had to resign his office temporarily when his daughter was taken hostage by terrorists.

This illustrates the important distinction between private and public duty. If my child were taken hostage, I would do whatever it took to secure his release — pay the ransom, publicly renounce my cherished beliefs, surrender my own life — but if I held political office, my duty would be first and foremost to ensure the general commonweal, and only secondly to consider the life of a single hostage.

It may well be morally and ethically correct to accept the death of one captive, and thus spare the lives and well-being of hundreds or thousands of future captives by discouraging the taking of hostages.

This kind of moral calculus is distasteful, but it is absolutely necessary in the conduct of public affairs. No one who is unprepared to engage in it should ever seek political office.

Unfortunately, in our modern feminized and media-driven culture this essential principle is often forgotten. The life of one child is worth anything — anything — if she can possibly be saved.

If the side-effects of a vaccine kill a single person, then that vaccine must be banned, no matter that hundreds of thousands of people may die as a result.

A tyrant must be allowed to remain in power, to invade his neighbors, to brutalize his people, to torture and kill as he pleases, if a war against him would cause even one civilian to be accidentally bombed.

Our modern tragedy is to have embraced the fallacy of the particular. For all practical purposes we have abandoned the venerable tradition of the common good, and replaced it with public posturing and emotional exploitation.

This topic arises because of a discussion here in recent comment threads. The conversation spanned more than one post, but I’ll quote a comment by Conservative Swede from “What is to be Done?” He was responding to Afonso Henriques concerning true ethnic diversity versus the false god of “Multiculturalism”:

Afonso,

I guess I’m something of a hippy too. I’m also thrilled by Chinatowns and Little Havanas. Whenever I meet a Jew when I’m travelling there is always this special connection. Jews are often exciting people and there is something like a brotherhood of the outcasts between us. I’m mentally prepared for my own people to live like Jews in the future.

I’m a hippy in many ways, and been called so by others. No TV, no car, alternative life-style. Extremely cosmopolitan. Always curious about other people and learning about their culture.

But politics is not about personal attitudes. To preserve a world of flourishing diversity, we cannot have hippies as politicians.

– – – – – – – –

Politicians must act as rulers. As Machiavelli pointed out: what is a virtue in private life is often a vice as a politician. For example, generosity: when a politician is generous he’s giving away other people’s money.

For me it’s simple. It’s about being able to keep two thoughts in your mind at the same time. Personal attitudes should not be mixed with politics. To govern a country is a profession, an art. I don’t have that job, but I can see how it needs to be done (a knowledge that is virtually gone among politicians today, but exists in our historical memory).

So no, I wouldn’t use the word multiculturalism (as Ioshka did) to describe my personal affection for diversity. Multiculturalism is a politicized concept. And as such must be discarded. What I am is a cosmopolitan, with an affection for the diversity of this planet. And multiculturalism is destroying this diversity and steamrolling conformism upon the nations.

Why do I call myself ‘Conservative Swede’? Because I’m conservative politically. Only (truly) conservative politics can save and defend the liberal life-style I prefer.

35 thoughts on “Private Virtue and Political Vice

  1. Answernig in my behalf, I can not see how can one be “politically” conservative and “socially” leftist. But it doesn’t scares me so…

    I do understand you. I do like Chinese and African food. I also like McDonald’s… I am trying to get the courage to taste some sushi, etc.

    Though I like to have one Chinese restaurant here, another African restaurant there, a Japonese restaurant near when I am starting to feel brave or a McDonald’s full of kids in every corner, I am strongly against invite a “not so small” group of Africans, Chinese or Japonese to live in my own city. And they aren’t even muslims, mind you!!!

    We don’t need a big Chinese community to have the healty taste of multiculturalism (cosmopolitism) in the form of a restaurant or else.
    When we get the big comunity, multiculturalism gets counterproductive.

    “multiculturalism is destroying this diversity and steamrolling conformism upon the nations.”
    (…)
    “I’m also thrilled by Chinatowns and Little Havanas.”

    Yes, multiculturalism destroys diversity. And that’s why I am not fond on Chinatowns and Havanas. If I want, I would like to see real China (no, not really…) or the real Havana (now we’re talking! I wish I could have gone there when Fidel was the Coma Andante/Walking Coma).

    It simply, and certainly, has nothing to do with a little Havana!

    I think you do agree with me Conservative Swede.

    I was forgeting Americans. Well, I will not adress my opinions over you people, I will just say that here you are not refered as Gringos as in Latin America, but as “Came on’s” “Cá-mónes”. But as your neighbours to the South, we like your money too…

    “Whenever I meet a Jew when I’m travelling…”

    Well, I’ve never actually met a Jew… so. Why can’t we just leave the Jews alone? I mentioned the Jews because Ioshka Futz said he was a “Jew-lover”. As if he had to pass a paper stating that he is not anti Jew. I will not adress if I like Jews or not because I don’t know any. Nonethelss, I have mentioned several times here that I admire the Jews as a people and that I don’t want to have a big Jewish comunity in my country.

    “I’m a hippy in many ways”

    I am also not a regular person but it’s nothing of hippy about it…

    “Extremely cosmopolitan. Always curious about other people and learning about their culture.”

    Yes, I like to know about other people’s cultures too but I prefer to know my own, and frankly, European culture (other but my own) before African, Aztec or Asian… And though, I think that Middle Eastern and East Asian culture have primacy over the others…

    I am not all that cosmopolitan, I think its nice to visit different lands and people but I think that even more important than that is to preserve the peoples. For instance, I was never planing going to Tibet and that does not make me a bit sad over that big loss Humanity is about to suffer: The distruction of Tibet. Also, I am a bloody racist because I think that Tibetan culture is “more” worth preserving than the culture of some lost tribe in Papua, Africa or the indigenous Argentines or something… I see some cultures as superior to anothers and, be ready: Islam is one of the superior ones, in my view.

  2. I wouldn’t use the word multiculturalism (as Ioshka did) to describe my personal affection for diversity. Multiculturalism is a politicized concept. And as such must be discarded.

    To use an example, early 20th century immigration to America produced a highly desirable form of diversity. The driving reason for this is because there was an underlying motivation to assimilate. To that extent, America continued its role for almost another century as the global “brain drain”. The results were breathtaking, as man set foot on the moon and American industry astonished the world with one technological triumph after another.

    Today, we are faced with an altogether different form of “diversity”. Cultural relativism has been insinuated into our national fabric in order to undermine the necessity of assimilation. Used as a lever to erode the Judeo-Christian roots of America’s legal and moral code, Multiculturalism has turned diversity into adversity. Instead of one people pursuing a common national good, America’s single greatest asset, its citizens, have been fragmented and scattered into disaaray amongst ethnic enclaves and special interest political groups whose agendas rarely share any productive common ground.

    This Gramscian vision is making America vulnerable to the most insidious of enemies. As Political Correctness chokes off any ability to clearly identify our foes, so do they continue to multiply in number. Be they academic communists with their socialist dystopias or barbaric Muslims seeking to impose brutal shari’a law, all of these disparate elements continue pulling America apart at the seams with separatism, racialism and bigotry of a sort that had almost died half a century ago. Witness the race-baiting hate mongering of Jeremiah Wright as he seeks to revive the most repugnant sort of anti-Americanism.

    Thus, Multiculturalism no longer symbolizes a truly useful source of diversity. It is now a political tool intended to create adversity among what was once a much more proudly united people.

  3. Baron and Conservative Swede have stated my disgust with the PC and multiculturalism crowds better than I can.

    PC has generated too many Political Cowards that are Philosophically Challenged. Meaningful conversations, effective communication, and effective conflict resolutions are inhibited because we must restrict our selves to Pablumcized Comments.

    I refused to restrict using the term illegal to conversations about sick birds of prey.

  4. Afonso Henriques: We don’t need a big Chinese community to have the healty taste of multiculturalism (cosmopolitism) in the form of a restaurant or else.

    If restaurants are your sole gauge of “multiculturalism” (in its now defunct constructive sense), I’m obliged to wonder just how bereft Portugal might be of constructive Chinese influences. No wing of jade carvings or brush paintings in your local museum? No dragon dance on the lunar New Year? Little access to classic martial arts instruction? A healthy Chinese community brings with it many more positive influences than just well-made fried rice.

    When we get the big comunity, multiculturalism gets counterproductive.

    That is only because Multiculturalism has been perverted by disconnecting it from any obligation to assimilate. In its current form, this mutated segregationist tool is nothing more than a way to divide and conquer. Multiculturalism no longer has any role in building healthily diverse societies.

  5. I’m not much of a watcher of West Wing, but re your distinction between private and public duty, I’m reminded of the story of the Spanish nationalist commandant’s son at the 1936 Siege of the Alcázar(of Toledo) in the Spanish Civil War. (Captured by the Leftists, who called up Dad and said they’d shoot Son unless Dad surrendered. Dad told son to die well). I don’t know if I could do that, whatever my duty was.

  6. The best way to look at this is to contrast the assimilation that was a part of early 20th-century American immigration to the modern politically correct idea of multiculturalism.

    The idea behind the assimilationist immigration in America was that people did not have to completely get rid of their identity from the “old country.” They could keep parts of that identity, but they had to assimilate and become a part of America. It did not stipulate that everyone had to have the same exact cultural identity, all it did was stipulate that these immigrants had to understand that they were part of America. As long as you are adapted the cultural identity you had from your old country to fit America, you are scot-free. It wasn’t perfect, nothing is. I think it works pretty well.

    The the politically correct idea of multiculturalism is just a synonym Balkanization. In this idea, new immigrants have no requirements of assimilation. In the United States, those who argue in multiculturalism don’t believe everyone in the US needs to speak English. In Europe, that would apply to the native languages such as French, Dutch, etc. It creates an environment that takes a different groups against each other.

    The assimilation inherent in the idea of American immigration does not work to increase conflict. It creates a common identity as an American, while allowing immigrants to keep parts of their original cultural identity. That flexibility is its strength.

  7. S actually outlined the solution to this diversity problem quite well, perhaps without even realising it.

    It’s the separation between the public and the private sphere. The public sphere is one culture, the private, where you live, is where you can be yourself, where you don’t have to necessarily conform to the prevailing culture.

    You can have multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-whatever but you can’t have a multi-culture in the public sphere because it destroys that public sphere by putting up cultural barriers. Which is ironic, in a way… there has to be a single dominant culture to which any otehr incoming cultures are subservient. Now that dominant culture can absorb elements on those incoming cultures, the very best of them perhaps. That’s how we get chinese restaurants and curry. BUT. It must remain the dominant culture, it must categorically reject anything that conflicts with it. Our culture is anglo-saxon in origin, christian in influence. It is about, first and foremost, the right to defend one’s own property. The assumption of that private space is what has made western, anglo-saxon culture so very powerful because it provides a safe-haven to which a man can retreat, and a secure foundation for him to reach out to his neighbour. In that, the dominant culture of the west, whilst it can absorb good elements of other cultures, must categorically reject anything that conflicts with it.

    It actually provides an almost perfect solution as well. The private property lets you have your own culture within, but outside that private property you must conform to the dominant culture. You can have that vibrant ethnic and cultural diversity, your china towns and little havanas, your special shops and foods and so on and so forth, as long as it doesn’t attempt to supplant or overwhelm that dominant culture.

    Simple really.

    Course Islam wouldn’t fit into this plan since it’s essentially designed to supplant and destroy anything that isn’t Islam. But that’s probably a discussion for another thread.

  8. el jefe maximo: “Captured by the Leftists, who called up Dad and said they’d shoot Son unless Dad surrendered. Dad told son to die well”

    Stalin did the same thing with his son during WWII.

  9. “Now that dominant culture can absorb elements on those incoming cultures, the very best of them perhaps. That’s how we get chinese restaurants and curry. “

    I’d rather not have Chinese restaurants. And especially not curry. My whole apartment – furniture, everything – smelled of curry when I lived in an apartment building that housed a Pakistani restaurant. Even my underwear smelled of curry, because the ventillation system went through the laundry room. I miss the days of cultural homogeneity. I long for them to come back. No strange smells to assault my nose. Paradise.

  10. In the first commentary I said:

    “For instance, I was never planing going to Tibet and that does not make me a bit sad over that big loss Humanity is about to suffer: The distruction of Tibet.”

    I wanted to say “less sad” instead of “a bit sad”. Sorry for my bad English:

    “For instance, I was never planing going to Tibet and that does not make me less sad over that big loss Humanity is about to suffer: The distruction of Tibet.

  11. Afonso,

    I’m for true diversity, so I’m also celebrating all the charming countries that don’t have any Chinatowns or Little Havanas.

    Any other stance would mean falling for the steamrolling conformism of multiculturalism, of course.

  12. Felice, thank you for understanding me. We really can live quiet well in our own, can’t we? Do we really need others to enrich us? And the “ethnic” friends one may have? Are they really so that better than our own people? If that was to be the case, I would call for Multiculturalism.

    Arxhonix,
    exactley… but I think we are not improoved by little Havanas and China Towns.

    Now seriously:

    Zenster,

    “If restaurants are your sole gauge of “multiculturalism””

    No they aren’t. Of course it was just an example. But I stand firm. We don’t need a big comunity to offer us that healty multiculturalism/cosmopolitanism/thing.

    ” I’m obliged to wonder just how bereft Portugal might be of constructive Chinese influences.”

    The biggest Chinese influences here are not cultural. It is those corner Chinese shops that have everything below production costs.
    I am sure there are some “Chinese culture stuff” but it is not bent to the comunity.

    I’ll talk about where I live. In the five blocks around my home there are some twenty shops (not cafes), four of them Chinese. In my opinion there are many Chinese shops and too much Chinese people (and they are not much, some 4%).

    The Chinese are a model minority though. But, do they “improove us”?
    I guess you know a little about economics and what those shops’s influence on the market.
    Also, quality is not the rule there.

    Chinese people don’t integrate. Their children are highly intelligent but te parents bareley speak Portuguese. They usually don’t get along with the people… but I can’t really criticise them, can’t I.

    The question gets ridiculous. A humurist group, quiet popular among the youth here, made a carachter where a black man makes part of the militant neo nazi far right. He is called “The Blackskin”.

    Blackskin goes around the streets doing what neo nazis are supposed to do, but without physical violence. One time he went “joking” with the Chinese comunity and it was hilarious.

    He was saying: “The Chinese are dwarfs who live in caves and want to conquer the world…”

    But then I thought. Where do the Chinese people live? Here they don’t have houses like regular people. Here many gypsies live in camps (like the boy scouts when they go travel and sleep in the forest…) and many backs live in degradated illegal houses made of poor materials, “bidon villes”. The Chinese? they do live in appartaments but the comunity buys the entire building and there are buildings for Chinese people only.

    The black skin continued, “You are here to destroy Portugal! And we gave you Macao, we should have kept Macao and invade China from there, exactly… we would clean all the scum… Where are you looking at China boy! I bet you have a smaller penis than the pedgeon in the streets…”

    And he sad: “DO you know how I know the Chinese want to controle the world? Because they never die? Have you already seen a death Chinese? If so, where the Chinese burried their death? There are any Chinese burial sites? They put their deaths in the kitchen and they give us to eat Chinese flsh when we go to their restaurant… And then they say it is soy… What I want is to expell all the scum… Brazilians, Blacks, Chinese, Portugal will be cleaned…”

    But now, really, where do the Chinese burry their loved ones? I don’t know…
    The Chinese are reserved and we know little about them…

    “Little access to classic martial arts instruction?”

    Here the most popular marcial arts are Japanese and Koran. And we have an even smaller Japonese and Korean population here…
    See, we don’t need a big comunity to have the healty parts of it.

    Sorry Zenster, its one thirty am and I am too sleepy now.

    As you can see I was divagating and divigating and did not went directly into the question.

    “That is only because Multiculturalism has been perverted by disconnecting it from any obligation to assimilate.”

    If they assimilate they stop being different and as so they start being like the rest of the population and will not “enrich” us. I think it is logical, isn’t it? So I guess you failed your point, or at least, I failed to get it.

    “Multiculturalism no longer has any role in building healthily diverse societies.”

    Yes, and it is divisive and as so evil because we can never get nothing good from it and if we can, the negative impacts are greater than the positive ones.

    So Zenster, I ask you, instead of refutating what I said (and as I am sleepy, I don’t remind quiet well what I said, I only know I mentioned Blackskin and so it must not have been good things…), I ask you to made yout point answering the following questions.

    Does a big comunity of ethnic minorities enrich us? If so, why and how?

    Isn’t it more advatagous to have a small amount of ethnic minorities that can provide us some share of exoticism (the restaurant thing) instead of the boring normality that arouses when one gets used to all the minorities and the erosion of local peculiar cultural forms that have developed for centuries, like what happens in London?

    Thank you

  13. The question is, Conservative Swede, do you favour little Havanas and Chinatowns in Sweden, or you think Sweden is better off?

    If you answered positively to the first question, what would the amout of all the ethnic minorities be aceptable in Sweden? 0,5%; 1%; 2%; 10%; 50%?

    Are little Casablancas or little Mekhas tolerable? If not, isn’t that hating one ethnic group/religion?

    Thank you.

  14. “Well, I’ve never actually met a Jew… so. Why can’t we just leave the Jews alone? I mentioned the Jews because Ioshka Futz said he was a “Jew-lover”. As if he had to pass a paper stating that he is not anti Jew. I will not adress if I like Jews or not because I don’t know any. Nonethelss, I have mentioned several times here that I admire the Jews as a people and that I don’t want to have a big Jewish comunity in my country.

    Oy…will this ever end?

  15. I’m most certainly with AH and felicie on this one. I grew up in New Delhi, so it’s not like I haven’t been exposed to cultural diversity. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say I was exposed to cultural homogeniety from the outside.

    Did I feel like an outsider? Of course, but I expected to, because I was an outsider after all in important ways. I got along great with Indians; Indians didn’t hate me nor I them. But that doesn’t mean they wanted hundreds of thousands more of me to arrive and set up camp, demanding cultural equality as “new” Indians. That was their country and I made no claim upon it.

    But this is my country, and my culture. It is my touchstone, my home. I have a right to be a part of it, and to preserve it the way I, and my fellow Canadians want it to be preserved. I have a right to ask for the same degree of homogeniety, both racial and cultural as they have in their own homelands.

    There is absolutely nothing inherently good about having multitudes of races and cultures overrunning the place, and there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to live among one’s own people. No matter how many times we are told otherwise.

  16. I lived in Manhattan for 15 years, so I have cosmopolitan cred, but I can do without diversity. Chinese restaurants and all are fun, but interesting food isn’t worth losing our culture. I’d kick most non-citizens out. We can cook their food ourselves, and we can trust it. Do you think the Chinese like you? Do you think the food you get in Chinatown is wholesome? Sorry to sound bitter, but I almost got killed in Chinatown, and the Chinese witnesses turned away, because to them, a white person isn’t human. Pay attention next time you’re in Chinatown. Do you really feel welcome? What are you doing there? What are they doing here?

  17. I think that a few points must be addressed concerning some of the remarks by both Afonso and Zenster.

    Afonso: “Well, I’ve never actually met a Jew… so. Why can’t we just leave the Jews alone? I mentioned the Jews because Ioshka Futz said he was a “Jew-lover”. As if he had to pass a paper stating that he is not anti Jew. I will not adress if I like Jews or not because I don’t know any. Nonethelss, I have mentioned several times here that I admire the Jews as a people and that I don’t want to have a big Jewish comunity in my country.”

    IMHO, one of the reasons why Ioshka Futz’s statements about Jews should be applauded, not criticized, as well as Conservative Swedes’s comments, is that they both understand the special circumstances surrounding Jewish history, in which, discrimination and being a Jew, have unfortunately gone hand in hand. If there is any “passing of a test” for not being a racist, which means being against bigotry and discrimination against people just because they are ethnically/racially different, being philo-Semitic is a proud badge of honor, and a test I’d be willing to pass any day of the week. It’s also the corner stone of the CVF and the Counter-Jihad movement.

    That said, the Counter-Jihad movement I belong to, is not anti-“any individual person”, which means based on who their parents were or where they came form, but do hold the culture represented, as well as the ideology that has helped shape that culture to be an accurate target for discrimination, if it goes against our western principles. So, if you’re philo-Semitic, then you are less likely to bigoted against other national/ethnic groups, it’s not a fail proof filter, but it’s an effective enough filter nonetheless. That is the reason why the importance of sticking up for this severely discriminated against and persecuted group, is of the utmost importance, and therefore a frequent subject of discussion here.

    Zenster: “That is only because Multiculturalism has been perverted by disconnecting it from any obligation to assimilate. In its current form, this mutated segregationist tool is nothing more than a way to divide and conquer. Multiculturalism no longer has any role in building healthily diverse societies.”

    Just a kind word of note, the word “assimilate/assimilation and assimilated” have been used in the wrong way once too many. I thank Zenster for the post he made, but I must take the time to correct his understanding and definition of the word “assimilation”. It means that the immigrant no longer holds on to his/her cultural past, so multiculturalism could never mean to assimilate or even been remotely connected to it. The word we are looking for here, is “integration” where the person holds onto the culture he/she left, but has fully accepted the culture of the host society in which he/she now lives. Like me.

  18. alfonso henriques:”If you answered positively to the first question, what would the amout of all the ethnic minorities be aceptable in Sweden? 0,5%; 1%; 2%; 10%; 50%? “

    I will answer this question because I’ve thought about it before. My gut feeling is that a country should not be 100% homogeneous. I feel that about 5% of immigrants from culturally compatible, neighboring socities is OK. As for immigrants from culturally and ethnically distant societies, about 0.5% is OK. On top of that, one could encourage an exchange program with foreign academics and technical specialists. This would be on a temporary basis. 2-3 year visas could be generously granted to scientists and technical consultants from foreign countries.

  19. latté island said:

    “I lived in Manhattan for 15 years, so I have cosmopolitan cred, but I can do without diversity. Chinese restaurants and all are fun, but interesting food isn’t worth losing our culture.”

    Yes, this is how I feel. I used to be hip, “with it,” and pro-multiculturalist, curious about other cultures, into foreign foods, you name it… (I was also secretly proud of my open-mindedness). Now I feel: no more curry for me. Thanks. Let Mona Sahlin eat kebab.

  20. First of all. I would like you to read the comment of Scott SA. I can’t say it better.

    Is he a racist? Are the Indians racist? Well, he doesn’t seem to be a racist but Indians, of course they are not racist, they aren’t white, are they?

    And the peoples North to the Mediterranean? Why not aplying equal standards? I can’t understand these people…

    KGS,

    “the special circumstances surrounding Jewish history, in which, discrimination and being a Jew, have unfortunately gone hand in hand.”

    I would like you to be more explicit. Can you please be more direct? What is it about the Jews that make them so especial? Is it the holocaust?

    In my country, according to official data, we have 500 Jews and 50.000 Gypsies. The Gypsies were big victims of the Holocaust too, they comprise 0,5% of the total population of my country but I don’t see Mayors and High Ranking Oficials going eagerly to adress the Gypsie’s (great) problems as they were eagerly showed support to the vandalised Jewish cimitery with swastikas. And the Jews comprize only 0,005% of the population.

    Actually, even when Catholic graves are vandalised, no high ranking oficials go there to show support to the comunity, being 90% of the people here “oficially” Catholic.

    So, aren’t the Jews treated as if they were somehwat more Humans than the rest of Humanity? I smell racism…
    That’s why I wanted to know what you’re refering to.

    “If there is any “passing of a test” for not being a racist being philo-Semitic is a proud badge of honor”

    I don’t know how is it where you live but here, Jews seem to be perfectly normal “white people”. They don’t stand out in the crowds. Especially the Ashkanazi ones, some Sephardics look indeed “Moroccan”.

    Anyway, how is it a proove of not being racist acept the ones who are “closer” to us?

    “So, if you’re philo-Semitic, then you are less likely to bigoted against other national/ethnic groups, it’s not a fail proof filter, but it’s an effective enough filter nonetheless. That is the reason why the importance of sticking up for this severely discriminated against and persecuted group, is of the utmost importance, and therefore a frequent subject of discussion here.”

    Sorry KGS but I failed to get your point?
    What are you saying???

    ————–

    Felice,
    first of all, it is AFonso Henriques, nor ALFonso Henriques. It is Portuguese, not Spanish, it is too diferent. I’ll leave here a link for you to know the MAN I am invoking. I doubt there are anyone who has conquered more land from the muslims than this one during the Rrconquista.

    You said:

    “I’ve thought about it before. My gut feeling is that a country should not be 100% homogeneous.”

    Well, what is the difference between 99,999%; 99% and 100%? Really, it is none.

    “I feel that about 5% of immigrants from culturally compatible, neighboring socities is OK.”

    Yes of course. I have also thought about it and I’ve noticed that whereas Spaniards here integrate in two generations, Italians, English and even Slavs here integrate in one generation. So I feel you’re right. I will just like to add that those compatible societies can not be “rival” societies. I’ve also noted how a Northwest Spaniard (Galician) or a “white Brazilan” automatically integrates if he/she wants and how a Eastern or Southern Spaniard has more dificulties. Definetley, people from “rival” societies are not benefical.

    But have you noticed how those 5% from compatible societies will automatically blend in rapidly so that the country will continue to be homogenious? So really, what we’re talking about is the total absence of multiculturalism, just the existance of some foreign individuals, and I am ok of that, I support it. It is the absence of multiculturalism. Don’t you agree?

    “As for immigrants from culturally and ethnically distant societies, about 0.5% is OK.”

    I would say 0,1% to none. Those should not be aloud to form long standing comunities. Of course, a cupple of families with foreign background will not harm the country and will even add some share of exoticism but then, if they blend in? Will we invite another 0,5% or 0,1%?
    If we do so, over some period of time we will be mutating the carachter of our people and we will be influenced by the “others”.

    So, if this is to lead to the absense of multiculturalism, I am ok with it, if it is to create different “demos” in the Nation, to divide people within the Nation, to create racism, to change the carachter of a people or to influence a people instead of giving “just the healty part of it” (the exotic contribution of these or those persons), I am against it.

    “On top of that, one could encourage an exchange program with foreign academics and technical specialists. This would be on a temporary basis. 2-3 year visas could be generously granted to scientists and technical consultants from foreign countries.”

    Exactly. Visas, not Citizenship or, well, citizenship may be, Nationality, NEVER!

    Because at least her in Europe we DO NOT consider “ethnics” of being of the same Nationality of our own. We even say: Yeah, he’s Portuguese in the ID card… (The French say “Français de sauche”; The Britts say English, Welsh, Scotish, whatever) so, what’s the point in giving the Nationality to a person that the others don’t acept (not even the leftists!) as an equal?
    It is simply to erode Nationality and the Nation…

  21. I would like you to be more explicit. Can you please be more direct? What is it about the Jews that make them so especial? Is it the holocaust?

    The Jewish people have found themselves to be under continious attack for at least 3,000 years.

    This isn’t exception to you?

    Can you name another people who have had an intact national identity while simultaneously being expelled from its homeland for most of that time and under assault in the lands where they settled, for so long?

    And the fact that the Bible predicted the predictament of the Jewish people is another reason for thier exceptionalism.

    [My notes in brackets]

    Deuteronomy 28:63 This is what will happen [as consequence for the Israel’s breaking with God]: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.

    The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next.

    In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see.

    Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt [a metaphor meaning the Jewish people will lose their soverignity and essentially live as slaves in other lands] by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

  22. Afonso, sorry I messed up your name. I misread it automatically.

    Yes, the point of having 5% immigrants from compatible societies is precisely that they are going to integrate. This is to me the meaning of the critical mass. If the number of immigrants is less than the critical mass, they are going to integrate.

    As for 0.5% of immigrants from distant cultures – it’s just that I don’t want to say 0%. There are all kinds of circumstances as to why people immigrate. Some of them are legitimate. Somebody could simply fall in love with another culture and ask to be “adopted” by it, just as a child can be adopted by non-biological parents. Someone could find a job abroad to fit his rare specialty, and later become acclimated to his new country and decide to stay. There are all sorts of reasonable exceptions to the general cultural homogeneity ideal. I am not an absolutist.

  23. Hi Afonso,

    You said: “I would like you to be more explicit. Can you please be more direct? What is it about the Jews that make them so especial? Is it the holocaust?”
    I suggest that you read Abba Eban’s book “Heritage: Civilization and the Jews” to get a more full rounded perspective on things. Jews are not special, I never said they were. What I am getting at here, is their (Jews) being singled out from time immemorial for being Jews. I doubt that you would be of a different opinion about that. The point I was making is that, when viewed under that rubric, viewing a person as to whether he/she is philo-semitic, is a good test to see if one harbors deep seated bigoted traits. Most people i’ve come across, if they’re anti-semitic, they most likely have similar deep seated views about anyone else “not like themsleves”.

    Yes the Romani ethnic group does deserve more attention, but why blame Jews because they get their complaints addressed (exm: tombstones desecrated), isn’t the responsibility of the Romani community to ensure they receive the same attention? The Finnish Romani are well organized, and fare better than all the rest of their groups scattered throughout Europe.

    You shouldn’t be upset (you appear to be, but I may be wrong about that) if someone looks out for their own best interests, especially since 6 million of their number were decimated during WWII. Being a minority in every land has led the Jew to live a very careful and cautious life, especially during times of famine, disease and turmoil. Being the easy scape-goat for the majority is one of the reasons why discrimination and the plight of Jewry are very connected. I’m sure that Jews everywhere wish that it weren’t so.

  24. I will start with KGS.

    Hi, so if I got it right, your theory is that, if a person is philo-semitic, it is, if they are sympathetic towards Jews, then the most probable is that person not to be a racist/xenophobic. Ok. I do not agree with you though I almost use the same rule. And maybe I do this because I have a small Jewish comunity here and I think Jews will never be seen as “normal” in Europe…

    My theory is, if one supports Israel, he/she is “more” ok. Usually, when one is anti-Israel normally that person is 1) missinformed or 2) a crazy lunatic. Very few intelligent good intentioned people I know are anti-Israel.

    I see this Israel rule as being somewhat different (and more acurate, sorry) from your’s Jew rule.

    Another question is. Is it right to divide the Jews in artificial(?) sub ethnic groups even further?
    So, a Canadian must be sympathetic towards Canadian Jews or all the Jews? What’s the difference between Jews from the U.S.A. and Canada?
    You see… I prefer to use the Israel rule.

    This being said I have to say that yes, I am of a somewhat different opinion about the Jews being so unique in their’s suposedly unique persecution and “discrimination”. I’ll have to say that they are unique, yes, but, in my view, because of the power they were able to get and because there desporportionate achievments in many disciplines, and (in a very European, post modern way) in that Jesus thing that, even if one does not believe, one has to credit Jesus for convincing many people in the Conservative Israel of old that “his mother was virgin” and for the unique acomplishment of a bunch of Jews Christianising Europe or laying the fundations to the Christianisation of Europe.

    And I think they are not unique (in what you said they are unique) because their diaspora tiggered all the rest. The same is true to the other groups such as the Gypsies. Isn’t it? But the Jews have this great lobby that mades them powerfull because they are the “choosen of God” even though they assassinated Christ and as so, every action towards the Jews is highlithed wheras the actions towards gypsies are ignored.

    Thanks for the link though.

    “You shouldn’t be upset (you appear to be, but I may be wrong about that) if someone looks out for their own best interests, especially since 6 million of their number were decimated during WWII.”

    No, I am not upset because of that. And, if you read all my comments you will get to the conclusion that I do not blame the muslims for what they are doing to Europe. As I see it, they are fighting for their interests (controling Europe). I may become upset (and that is not the most proper word) when all other people go and act as if we had the moral duty to help the Jews chasing their best interests, especially when they go against “our” interests.
    I was not critising the Jews as hard as I were criticising you, KGS, for, in my opinion (now prooven wrong) putting the Jews over all other ethnic groups.

    Thank you for the pacience and the explanation, KGS.

    ———————

    Now Felice,
    don’t worry for the name thing.
    For the rest, I am pleased we agree.

    “Somebody could simply fall in love with another culture and ask to be “adopted” by it”
    Yes, it may be true. But I instinctivly do not trust in these kind of people. I don’t know why… I can’t look at them in the eyes and see seriousness in them…
    But, it’s just me, some irational thing inside me that makes me wonder… it may not be such a great deal after all.

    ———————-

    Vincep1974

    I’ve noticed you have been commenting in Brussels Journal too.

    “Can you name another people who have had an intact national identity while simultaneously being expelled from its homeland for most of that time and under assault in the lands where they settled, for so long?”

    They weren’t exepelled. As far as I know, and I may be wrong, they emigrated, didn’t they? Anyway, their National Identity was almost just a religion, wasn’t it? I have made this paralel between the Jews and the Gypsies. It may fit.

    “And the fact that the Bible predicted the predictament of the Jewish people is another reason for thier exceptionalism.”

    Oh yes… I had forgot. As a good European of this days, I am an incult bastard who doesn’t know almost nothing of that big important part of European culture that is the Bible. Anyway, I was just baptized Catholic, nothing more. Well, I go to churches as a tourist, the are beautifull but to cerimonies, I may have gone to a church thirty times in my life, half of which, to protestant churches and half the times I went to a Catholic church to cerimonies it was a marriege or a baptism so… I am pretty ignorant on these religious Christian issues, Thank you for the Biblical quotes.

    But, isn’t this a way of our dear Christian churches to attack the Jews?

  25. Afonso,

    The question is, Conservative Swede, do you favour little Havanas and Chinatowns in Sweden, or you think Sweden is better off?

    If you answered positively to the first question, what would the amout of all the ethnic minorities be aceptable in Sweden? 0,5%; 1%; 2%; 10%; 50%?

    There are many ways to answer such questions, many angles to look at it from. And the answers will depend on the country and its history, and of course on what you expect and hope the country to be in the future. The only general rules I could think of would be that 50% is a disaster. And 10% with a doubling (or more) per generation is just a situation to get to the 50% very soon. But a stable 10% needn’t be a problem. Bulgaria has a little more than 10% of Muslim, but its a stable historical population, not at all problematic such as the 5% in Britain or Sweden.

    Regarding Sweden. I’m an alien here. I have denounced this country (the sinking ship). My relation to the indigenous people is the one of an anthropologist. I will stay a couple of years more for participant observations. The Sweden that existed when I was young is already gone. It hasn’t become manifest yet, but it has already happened. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. Assume that you killed someone. You are in shock and horror, and you dig down the corpse in your garden. It’s a highly tragic event, but the tragedy has not become manifest yet. Eventually things will come up to the surface — the corpse is bound to be found, you will go to jail, etc. But even though it has not become manifest yet, your life is already destroyed. Or compare it to a giant meteor heading for our planet, so big that even modern technology can’t stop it. It’s ten years away, hasn’t hit us yet, but the end is already programmed.

    This is why I search deeper in my roots for identification, e.g. Germanic and Roman roots. The history of Sweden is unique in the way it has been a cold corner of the world where nobody wanted to go. We have never been invaded, except for temporarily by fellow Scandinavians. Still 40 years ago the population was so astonishingly homogeneous that probably only Japan could be its match (if even that). This makes our culture fragile. The innocence of such a culture, that had been around a millennium and more, cannot survive a flood of mass immigration. For such a country 2% would have been a good roof figure. But this Sweden is already gone. For the “new” Sweden, I do not know. I leave the question for the indigenous people here. We have already passed 10%. Depending on how you are counting the figure could be 20%.

    In the Sweden of 40 years ago Southern Europeans and Middle Eastern people was seen as more or less equally strange. It was a culture of innocence created under a highly protected isolation. Dark and hairy people in general looked alien. Swedes were not used to it. Swedes can still have problems in seeing the difference between a Frenchman and an Iranian.

    The protection and innocence facilitated by the historical context created a uniquely egalitarian culture. Women were more equal and free then anywhere else. Farmers were more equal and free then anywhere else. Of course, this could be said of Scandinavia as a whole. But Denmark is closer to the continent, less isolated, less innocent. Which makes the Scandinavian features become more balanced there; and Danish culture more sustainable, less vulnerable than the Swedish.

    Do you remember the discussion about parents (mothers) having to wear light clothes–T-shirt and shorts–while attending their children during the swiw training. This is an expression of the traditional Swedish culture. You said to this:

    Concearning that episode about muslim woman and the pool.

    I do firmly believe that those women have the right to be dressed that way. You are asking them to undress, that can be pretty agressive to those kind of people.

    One centurie ago even European women would not feel confortable to “get the clothes off”.

    Here it is about female dignity, it is not about male conquest.

    It’s clear that with enough people here thinking like you, our traditional culture is already undermined. It doesn’t have to be Muslims.

    While I’m mourning that this culture had to disappear, it seems clear to me that Swedish culture was just as destined to disappear as the Inca culture. The Indians were weak for other reasons. Due to their long genetical isolation they were destined to die in masses by diseases, whoever found the way to their continent. It could have been the Chinese rather than the Europeans. it would have led to the same result. The demise, and how it would happen, was already encoded in their destiny. Likewise with Sweden. Of course there will always be traces of Swedish culture here, quite as there are traces of Inca culture in South America. But it won’t be quite the same. The highly ironic thing is how this uniquely egalitarian culture, this culture of such equality and freedom for women, is being destroyed in the name of egalitarianism, feminism, multiculturalism, etc. I see it as symbolic of how liberalism will ultimately always kill itself in its higher phases.

    In search for a new and more stable identity I first looked to Europe. I’ve also tried out America, Christianity and Catholicism. But eventually I found each of them full of weaknesses too, some of them really scary. I was looking also for a unified civilization, a unified front against Islam. But I found a civilization that is weak because it’s so divided. Christianity has always lead to a lot of infighting, especially over the interpretation of the trinity. Americans and Europeans distrust each other. People of different nationalities distrust each other. So I decided to lean towards localism instead (the only question was where?)

    I was right in looking backwards, because it made me learn about who we are. But I think the answer is actually found by looking forwards. Look at America. What is America? What does it mean? It’s the result of a mix of Europeans with a common experience. A common experience so thorough and defining that it abridged previous national identities, and something new was created. But this is also what we have ahead of us in Europe: a common experience so thorough and defining that it will change our identities. Of course, I’m not saying that Europe will become America, to many variables in this situation are different for that. Actually, some of the ideals used to create America will be reversed. But surely the concept of “we” will be morphed by the common experience we have ahead of us.

  26. Formal multicult is a Trojan horse that unwitting governments have brought in under left wing immigration policy which persists whatever the political stripe of the government in power. The caterwauling that goes up at the slightest wish to control immigration is unbearable even to conservative politicos.

    Only countries with European Christian heritage are being remade as patchworks and ironically homogenized across the globe this way, like malls with exactly the same stores in each one.

    Does the world really need “more China? or more India?” I think the over a billion population base pursuing these cultures and serious human rights questions such as free speech in one and caste in the other argue against this premise.

    Why is it Canada with its relatively tiny population of 30 million that must be diluted past all recognition?

    As for the original post, kudos to the single “hippie” who appears to have figured out that his personal freedom that he prizes is guaranteed to him by conservative principles and thinking while today’s “liberals” in nothing but name are the pushers of groupthink and politically correct groupthink at that.

  27. Conservative Swede,

    Yours are very interesting and thoughtful comments. I have not seen the problem of Swedish multiculturalism from this perspective before, and this is making me think along new tracks. I wish you could rework your musings as an essay and publish it.

  28. Felicie,

    Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it. When I write those long and worked-through pieces, I always think: it’s enough if one person reads the whole thing and gets it, to make it worthwhile writing it. So thanks to you I have already cashed in now 🙂

    Yes, it could become an essay. But these are hard things for me to write about. The parts about Sweden I’ve seen since seven years back, even before I understood the problem of Islam. But I never wrote about it in this way. It was now that the cogs fell into position to write this thing, precisely in this discoursive context. So I can’t know if I’m able to rewrite it.

    PS. It’s supposed to say “some of which really scary” above.

  29. “But a stable 10% needn’t be a problem. Bulgaria has a little more than 10% of Muslim, but its a stable historical population, not at all problematic such as the 5% in Britain or Sweden.”

    Ok, I simply do not agree. 10% is too multcultural. Also, Bulgaria would be better off those 10%. Is it an “historical population”? When one recalls what the Turks did to Bulgaria one will not think the same. South Africa has also a 10% white population.
    Both populations are there due to colonialism. Why one is considered an Historical population and others are considred as usurpers?

    But I got your example. I just think it would be a happier example if you were to talk about Hungarians in Transilvania or such…

    “Still 40 years ago the population was so astonishingly homogeneous that probably only Japan could be its match”

    40 years ago my country was also astonishingly homogeneous with ridiculously small minorities of Gypsies and almost no Jews (as today, regarding the Jews).

    “This makes our culture fragile.”
    I think quiet the opposite.

    “The innocence of such a culture, that had been around a millennium and more, cannot survive a flood of mass immigration.”

    Yes, you’re right. But even “multicultural” places for long (London, Paris) had maintained their particularly unique “National” and “local” carachter until, say, the 60s. Now, what is left from the particularities of London?

    Ex: I remind reading a book written in middle XIX century by Eça de Queiroz. A great book called “Os Maias”. In that book, the story is about a Noble Portguese family. Some members of this family go to exile in the “multicultural” London for some time.

    The author, Eça de Queiroz, describes XIX century multicultural London where one could find Poles, French, Portuguese, Italians, Scottish, Jews, German and Scandinavian peoples everywhere. As well as few Chinese and black people.

    This is in contrast with Lisbon where the multicultural society was only available to the elites (buisness people, ambassadors, african servants).

    But he too describes London as a particular English city with its own caracther. London was alive back then. Now it is a place that is still called London, but little of real London is to be found there, almost nothing of its particular and unique local and English carachter.

    ” For such a country 2% would have been a good roof figure.”

    Now we’re starting to agree…

    “It’s clear that with enough people here thinking like you, our traditional culture is already undermined. It doesn’t have to be Muslims.”

    Wow… wow… wow… I found this offensive! (no, I didn’t!)
    Now you are acusing me of destroying “Scandinavian” culture?

    Now seriously, I don’t want to see Sweden become in a new Portugal or a new Italy. Despite that I think I prefer Portugal or Italy to Sweden I think Swedish culture shall be preserved. The North is indeed different from the South as the East is different from the West.

    But regarding this?

    I tried to say what’s in my mind without offending someone but I couldn’t so I will adress this in another way.

    Here in Portugal, women see Brazilan women as whores. When the Portuguese were arriving from Africa, they had more freedom there, and the Portuguese women from Portugal looked to the “look at me wearing shirts and light chemises and not caring for what the neighbours think of me” Portuguese girls from the African colonies as whores.

    English Ladies see Spanish girls as whores. The whole “Passioned Latina” concept is the Nordic term for European savage non PC whores.

    So, I think that Sweden is a bit more “cold” and “self controled” than Latin Europe.
    And even here, the majority of the girls will not take their clothes off or do top less in the beach.

    So, here is a difference between Nordic Germanic cultures and Southern Latin cultures regarding women:

    Our Latin-Southern culture traditionally allows our women to be more “liberal” without being called a whore than your Nordic-Germanic culture, right? (Spanish girls vs English ladies)

    But…

    Our Latin-Southern culture do not allown our Wifes the same “freedom” that is allowed in you Nordic-Germanic culture.

    By protecting the women, I am being more “broadily Germanic” and “particularly Latin”.

    Also, we here (and I think I can speak for all the Latin South-West of Europe) feel that you Germanics do not really know how to protect your women because that “protection” you seem to apply “broadily” but not “particularly” looks somewhat false.

    But I am talking from a “culture” where half of the widows still do not marry again and wear only black. Especially the older ones. A culture in which old widows use little burkas too. But I think you have this in Scandinavia as well as I have seen even blonde young girls with similar little burkas. In Russia and Ukraine they use it a lot.

    So I can not really understand how saying what I said, I am destroying the Scandinavian culture. Imagine Swedish girls in Saudi Arabia. Don’t you think they should have the right not to be undressed by those desert retardeds?

    “One centurie ago even European women would not feel confortable to “get the clothes off”.”

    Isn’t this also right to Sweden? I mean, was your mother’s generation’s girls so comfortable to “get the clothes off” as this new generations?

    “this culture of such equality and freedom for women”

    Seriously, Conservative Swede. Aren’t you romanticising here? How are Swedish girls more free than say, girls in Traditional, Conservative and Catholic Italy?

    I think this North-South divide concerning freedom for women in Europe is non existant. The difference is that, whereas in late 50s, when the foundations of Multiculturalism were strongly been implemented in, say France and the 60s when English girls were using mini-skirts, Portugal and Spain were under Fascist Conservative Catholic dictatorships up until mid 70s. And Eastern Europeans were under Communism, even worst. I would really like you to answer at least this question:

    How are Swedish girls more free than say, girls in Traditional, Conservative and Catholic Italy?

    “In search for a new and more stable identity I first looked to Europe. I’ve also tried out America, Christianity and Catholicism. But eventually I found each of them full of weaknesses too, some of them really scary.”

    Fortunateley, I haven’t lost my hope in Europe. I do understand you but I think you should look closer to Europe, its base, foundation and similarities between its different peoples. You may also find interesting the “distant past” And that ancient “ethnically religiosity”. Go search for the ancirnts and then try to absorb the soul of Europe, real Europe, it’s base:
    Rome; Greece; The Celts; The Germanics and the Slavs.

    Celtic and Roman spirituality and philosophy has been truly inspiring for me. I would advise you to look for the German-Roman thing once you are a Swede.

    I have understand that, if Europe has a base, its base is Rome.

    Just read this two fantastic essays at Brussels Journal as an introduction. You will not regrtet it. I guarantee you that:

    Astarte and Amaterasu 1

    Astate and Amaterasu 2

    Then, I would advise you to follow what’s going on in true Europe, unconquered lands yet. Keep in your mind that, as Fjordman once said, one land is not conquered untill the hearts and minds of the peoples inhabiting those lands are conquered.

    The true Europe:
    Serbia and Russia. And in a lesser extant maybe Norway and Switzerland.

    “I was looking also for a unified civilization, a unified front against Islam.”

    It does not exist. We, Europeans are not the same. What we have to do is, respecting our differences, unite in what we have in common. That was true Europe back in its days.

    We, and places like GoV are here with the mission of uniting Europe. I mean European Civilisation, from Buenos Aires ro Sidney through New York, Rome and Moscow.

    “Americans and Europeans distrust each other. People of different nationalities distrust each other. So I decided to lean towards localism instead (the only question was where?)”

    Look at LGF! It is all American! How can we not distrust those guys? What I (we) like GoV is it being so European, isn’t it?
    Your decision is the right one. Where? in Sweden!

    Your last paragraph was frightening.
    America… I mean, the U.S.A., Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and I am not even going to speak about Mexico… it’s awfull!

    It’s a place where the legitimous owners of the land were conquered, where a true “demos” in non existant, where “old” has a one century or so, where tradition and History is few to none.
    America is mercenaries land! They are just a bunch of immigrants. I don’t want to see Europe became America because America (the Americas) was created as an alternative to Europe. We can create Americas everytime we want. Tomorrow we can create America in the Moon, then, who knows Mars. Europe? Europe you can not create. It is sacred like Jeresualem or Mecca, it was God’s creation. If it is destroyed, you can not create it again.

    America, let’s praise America for what it is. A place to Europeans who want to create a better place than Europe. I would be delighted if there was an America in which we could put all our leftist idealists.

    Who want to conquer Madagascar?

    P.S.- Sorry for my bad English. I just want you to answer my question and to go read those pieces at Brussels Journal.
    Concerning your “quest for Europe”, look at the distant past, study its History and look and do whatever you can for Serbia. Serbia and (I hope) Russia are what stands from ancient Europe in my view.

    But, seriously, go read that at Brussels Journal.

  30. Afonso,

    This is a very good discussion. But considering how long an answer that your previous shorter comment generated from me, you could imagine how long this answer will have to be, if I’m going to answer properly. And right now I just don’t have the time, I already spent too much of my time in the comments section here.

    What I will have to do is to open up my blog again and leave you a longer answer there some time later this month. Because when I have found the time again, this blog will have rolled way past this thread.

    I have understand that, if Europe has a base, its base is Rome.

    Yes, and this is how I see it too. I have written much about it before (try and google it). And if you didn’t like the example of America, the Roman empire was also an example of this:

    “It’s the result of a mix of Europeans with a common experience. A common experience so thorough and defining that it abridged previous national identities, and something new was created.”

    Different as they are, both the United States and the Roman empire have this in common. The future Europe will be something third and different from the previous two. What it will be I cannot know, but to me it’s clear that we are heading for something of this magnitude. The way the chess board is set, and the formidable clash with Islam that is coming up–where our home continent will be the main battlefield–this is bound to thoroughly transform who we are.

  31. Ok and agreed Conservative Swede.

    So I guess I will check out your blog more frequently. (It is in English isn’t it? Oh yes… I remember…)

  32. Afonso,

    We have a deal then. And you will be the guy who made me open up my blog again (with a little help from Felicie).

    One of the interesting things you bring up are about women, freedom etc. from Nordic or Latin perspectives. I can offer quite a number of views on that, so this going to be interesting.

    Let me just answer one of your questions now:

    Now you are acusing me of destroying “Scandinavian” culture?

    That would indeed be a conspiracy theory on chromosomes. The destruction of Swedish culture all being lead from Portugal, monitored by a teenager sitting behind the computer.

    If you had been a million people, and had come here some decades ago, you would indeed have had an impact. But we didn’t need any help, the decision to destroy our culture was all our own. And I’m speaking of the Swedish culture, not a general European one. European culture can take a lot of beating; it will survive. What we have to understand is how highly exotic Swedish culture is. Germany and Portugal are closer than Germany and Sweden. From a Swedish perspective countries as Germany, France and Great Britain have always been veritable balkanized mosaics of ethnicities compared to Sweden. The whole basis that made the age old Swedish culture unique is now going away. But this would have happened even without Islam, and possibly even without multiculturalism.

    Personally I had grown tired of Swedish culture anyway. It’s not my thing really. Too narrow-minded, too collectivistic and individualistic.

    Considering what has already happened, for Sweden to become a mix of Europeans (as Germany, France and Great Britain have always been), is not at all a bad scenario. Considering everything, it’s a dream scenario. But personally, I will probably move to Southern Europe anyway, where I think I belong.

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