There probably is some old saying, perhaps an Aesop’s Fable, that makes the same point as the phrase “Nixon-to-China,” but I can’t think of it off the top of my head. No question, it is a valuable figure of speech, uniquely conveying how certain public figures are immune from political pressure when promoting controversial causes because of their established bona fides in the area in question.
It came into use because Richard Nixon was able to make overtures to Red China because of his long record as an anti-Communist. I can remember hearing the phrase applied to Bill Clinton’s position on welfare reform. It was said that he was able to push to “end welfare as we know it” because no one would accuse him of being motivated by an animus against minorities. Similarly, it is said that only a conservative Republican will be able to get away with normalizing relations with Cuba, and that only a liberal Democrat will be able to make the changes necessary to save Social Security.
The Dutch are giving us another example of the phenomenon. Holland’s long-established identity as the center of “progressive thinking” in Europe appears to be giving its citizenry the confidence to apply some common sense to the question of immigration. The influx of Muslims has reached the point where the Dutch have to confront the question of whether Holland will survive in a recognizable form, and the Dutch don’t fear being called jingoists and xenophobes for talking about it.
The Dutch are asking themselves whether their nation will cease to exist. That is not paranoia; it is arithmetic. According to the Washington Times (November 15th), Muslims now number 6 percent of the population of the Netherlands. They are already a majority among children under 14 in Netherlands’ four largest cities. Approximately 30,000 Muslim immigrants enter the country every year. Europe’s largest mosque is in Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest port. Half of Rotterdam’s residents are foreign-born.
The phenomenon is not limited to Holland. Western Europe gets about half a million new Muslims each year. Europe’s Muslim population has doubled to 20 million in the last 10 years, as illegal Muslim immigrants smuggled by boat into Spain and Italy spread throughout the continent. The issue is no longer whether white Europeans will be appropriately welcoming to newly arrived minorities, but whether white Europeans will become a minority in the countries of their forebears.
All of this hit home with great impact for the Dutch in early November, when documentary film-maker Theo Van Gogh, a grandnephew of the painter, was killed by Muslim radicals in The Hague. Van Gogh had made a film critical of the way Muslims in Holland treat women. He was punished for this affront to Islam by being shot as he bicycled to work. He was able to get to his feet and stagger across the street, where he collapsed. His assailant followed him and slit his throat, and then pinned a five-page manifesto to his chest, calling on Muslims to rise against their “infidel enemies” in the West. This was just two years after Pim Fortuyn, a populist politician who called for a halt to immigration in Holland, saying that the country was “full,” was gunned down in a similar attack.
The reaction was dramatic. A Muslim school was attacked in the village of Uden. In turn, Muslims attacked a Dutch primary school, setting it afire and gutting it. A small bomb was set off in a Muslim school in Eindhoven. Over 20 mosques and churches were hit by arson attacks, in tit-for-tat reprisals in the week that followed.
The politicians responded. An Associated Press story reported that Gene Wilders, “one of the most popular politicians in the Netherlands, said the country’s democracy is under threat and called for a five-year halt to non-Western immigration in the wake of the killing” of Van Gogh. Wilders did not equivocate: “We are a Dutch democratic society. We have our norms and values… The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long. We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country. There is nothing to be ashamed of to say this.”
Wilders was not alone. European leaders meeting in Brussels in mid-November to plot the course for the European Union also felt there was nothing to be ashamed of in calling for limits on immigration. The EU’s justice and interior ministers made a public statement calling for more restrictive policies on the number of future immigrants and recommending that “new immigrants must learn the language of their adopted countries and adhere to European values to guide them toward better integration.”
What does all this mean for Catholics in the United States? The United States is a nation of immigrants. As Catholics, we must take seriously the Church’s call for us to be generous hosts for those seeking to escape poverty and oppression. All true. Even so, we cannot avoid the problem the Europeans are facing. There are over 6 billion people living on this planet. The numbers of illegal immigrants who endure great hardships and danger to come here indicate that a good number of the world’s population would come to the United States if they had the opportunity to do so. Even if we wanted to, we do not have the resources to permit that to happen.
But it is not just a question of raw materials and natural resources. There is nothing shameful about saying that we do not want them to come, even if our resources permitted it. Not all of them. Maybe not even as many as we currently allow. We are a nation; a people. We have a national culture, one more varied, it is true, than most other nations’, but one that is distinct nonetheless. We have a right to cherish it and to seek to preserve it for our descendants. Having it transformed against our will into something alien to us is tantamount to what occurs after a military conquest. It is not immoral to seek laws and public policies to stop that from taking place.
One has only to turn the tables a bit to make the point. We do not have to ask how the Saudis or the Pakistanis would react if a massive immigration of Americans were taking place into their countries; if Americans from California or New York were moving into their cities and demanding that the Muslim identify of their society be watered down to make the newcomers feel more at home; if American immigrants were gunning down Muslims who objected to the American threat to their values and way of life.
The fact that it is hard to imagine what would cause large numbers of Americans to immigrate to Muslim countries and make such demands is irrelevant. It is a question of principle. What is at issue is only whether the delegates to the United Nations from countries such as Syria and Iran would protest the Western world’s disregard for their distinct national cultures if such a scenario were to occur. You know that they would. And rightly so. There is nothing shameful about a country being determined to protect its borders and its national identity. For Third World countries, the Dutch or the United States.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
