We
all know what it’s like to be in a good or bad relationship.
We also know the difference between good and bad chemistry.
There are people with whom we easily and effortlessly share
a common space, and those with whom we cannot. And when we can’t,
it is not necessarily the fault of one or the other, but –
with all due respect to Shakespeare -- the fault may indeed
lie in the stars. So when common sense prevails and it’s
not going well, despite both parties willing that it does, one
or the other will take the initiative and vacate the shared
space, allowing each to regain his or her former peace of mind.
Without recrimination or self-accusation, each in his own manner
will face the hard -- often unflattering -- facts, acknowledge
the chemistry has broken bad, and that decoupling is the best
solution.
Based on
observation and the 6 o’clock news, we note that the
individual is significantly better constituted to make wiser
decisions as it concerns incompatibility than government.
This is so because in especially the West, at the institutional
level, it is not politically correct to speak the truth to
bad chemistry as it concerns immigrants, religion and ethnicity.
But in private, among family and friends, the individual,
despite his country’s official position, will speak
his mind regarding an imagined or perceived threat to his
country’s way of life, and predictably blame the immigrant
(usually Muslim), most of whom are predictably blameless other
than for being here instead of where they came from. The source
of the mistrust and negative chemistry arises from mutual
incompatibility. What gives one the last word over the other
--
and it’s non-negotiable -- is
home field advantage; the onus is on the guest to abide by
house rules.
Devout Muslims
believe in praying five times a day facing Mecca. It is only
natural they regard us, some of whom manage to attend Church
once a week, as heathens. And it is only natural that we regard
them as fanatics. Since none of us is privy to God’s
position on His worship, it is impossible to prove that one
religion or the other is doing God’s will. Which suggests
that bad chemistry is not so much the fault of one or the
other -- but a condition that requires a minimum of two unlike,
contiguous elements inhabiting the same space. And since lived
and reported experience offers overwhelming evidence that
mutual incompatibility is indeed a fact of life, we quite
naturally expect our elected officials to make decisions that,
without
distinction and prejudice,
will lessen the likelihood of bad chemistry arising in respect
to the mixing of demonstratively incompatible cultures and
religions. Tashfeen Malik, one of the San Bernardino terrorists,
wore a burqa in the house; she never showed her face to her
husband’s brothers. Every time she turned on the television,
walked the dog, went shopping, she was forced to confront
a value system diametrically opposed to her own. Eventually
her loathing and alienation indices went off the charts, something
died inside, and she went out (with a little help from her
friends) with a bang. How many consecutive, everyday negative
experiences did it take to radicalize her, convince her to
take up arms against the West? What was she doing in America?
Given the
easy trade between petrodollars and arms dealers, an unstable
or failed state is no longer an isolated problem that will
neatly take care of itself. Symptomatic of the failed state
is the chaos within its borders, and destabilizing effects
on its neighbours and beyond, as the weak and susceptible
take flight. So you would think it would be the height of
folly for a successful state to introduce policies that would
leave it vulnerable to becoming unstable, or outright dysfunctional.
This is precisely what happened in France, beginning in 1962
with Algerian Independence. At the encouragement of Jean-Paul
Sartre and others, France, in a fit of post colonial guilt,
decided to open its doors to massive immigration from Algeria.
Operating under a misguided compassion mandate, they turned
a blind eye to the incompatibility factor between Islam and
Judeo-Christian values, resulting in a France that has been
beset with problems of its own making ever since: from spiking
crime rates to homegrown terrorism.
There is
much to be learned from this example, but despite self-evident
truths that have brought France to its knees, and at a very
minimum destabilized most of Europe’s once rock solid
nations, western countries continue to open their saloon doors
to peoples and cultures with whom they have virtually zero
chemistry -- a sure formula for widespread malaise and every
other social ill you care to mention. It beggars belief that
the West would not only rather remain miserable and wretched
in relationships that are not working, but has convinced itself
that good will and best intentions are enough to turn water
into wine, a negative into a positive. Koestler observes that
a snob is someone who when reading Dostoyevsky is moved not
by what he reads but by himself reading Dostoyevsky. By that
measure, our policy makers must like what they have enacted
into law more than what they have "rot."
So how do
we account for this collective akrasia (from the Greek, kratos
= power; a = without,) weakness of will, or craziness,
which just happens to be embedded in the word? In our century,
democracy has evolved into a theater of seduction and promise
where speaking the truth to a voting public is never in the
interest of any party vying for power. The voter doesn’t
want to know that he is biologically inclined to be positively
disposed towards his own at the expense of the other, that
in respect to culture and religion he is merely a placeholder
in the relationship that predicts for every increase in difference
between two groups there will be a comparable increase in
mutual hostility. And no politician is foolish enough to hold
up a mirror to human nature tooth and claw. Instead he positions
himself to best reflect the voters favourite delusions: that
he is tolerant, colour blind, compassionate and benignly disposed
towards all peoples and cultures. So the West opens up its
heart to Muslims from around the world, some of whom refuse
or cannot adapt to their new home, resulting in the sad spectacle
of two largely incompatible cultures trying to negotiate insurmountable
differences; and billions of dollars that would otherwise
be used to address hunger, poverty and our sickening skies
are spent bolstering security and combating terrorism.
There
is no such foolery and flouting of reality (human nature)
in Muslim countries that have shown themselves to be incontestably
wiser than their western counterparts. Be as it may they are
mostly ruled by oligarchs, plutocrats and kleptocrats, there
is no pandering to the masses who are never allowed to forget
their place at the bottom rung of hierarchies that are set
in stone. And when it comes to receiving immigrants or temporary
workers, they don’t want to know about them –
aside from their expertise.
Bad chemistry
has a smell unlike any other; even the dullest nose can pick
it up. In the 1950s, in the Empty
Quarter, the presence of one Christian (Wilfred
Thesiger) was enough to upset a region the size of Portugal.
Islam has dispassionately observed what went wrong in France,
a nation beyond repair, and what is happening to other Western
nations, and unlike the West, and without apology, it has
prioritized social cohesion and stability without which no
nation can indefinitely survive. Islam grasps that there is
an innate (blameless) incompatibility factor between itself
and Christianity (the West) and et al, and in order
to keep its precious institutions and way of life intact,
it understands that it must rid itself of all potentially
seditious influences. If not in official policy but practice,
and mindful of the example of France, it takes the position
that “the other” is persona non grata
to the effect that Muslim countries are expelling at an alarming
rate the Christian, Copt, Jew and Buddhist. Islam is waging
a war not on one but two fronts: against “the other”
from within, and the influence of the West from without.
In respect
to minorities who refuse to read the writs on the wall, they
risk persecution and worse -- such is the fear and anxiety
spreading throughout all Muslim countries as western culture
(western stealth jihad) penetrates the East. It is beside
the point that there is no defense against the invasive presence
of the Internet. Islam rightfully feels that its entire belief
system is under siege, and like a mouse pinned in the corner,
it is fighting for its very existence. If from the 9th to
the 19th century minorities were tolerated in Muslim countries,
it was because they didn’t pose an existential threat.
With the advent of fiber optics and satellite communication,
those halcyon days are over.
That fundamentalist
Islam is guilty of gross intolerance is a red herring if it
is savvy enough not to allow itself to become dysfunctional
as a result of bad chemistry. Meanwhile the West, convinced
of its moral authority, continues to follow the example of
the blind leading the blind down a blind alley with a trip
wire at the end of the rainbow.
The hard
truth of the matter – and never has it mattered so much
– is that "like seeks like." It is demonstratively
easier to dwell in agreement than disagreement. The alcoholic
understands that it is smarter (more prudent) to seek out
his own kind, his fellow drinkers, because he recognizes in
himself the tendency to regard the other’s refusal to
join him as a criticism or rebuff, that he must invariably
come to resent the latter for being able to cope with life
without a crutch. Both the drinker and non-drinker understand
the necessity that underlies their decision to dwell in separate
universes -- cherishing the peace that arises from staying
apart.
In Saudi
Arabia, the powers-that-be wisely assign foreign workers to
special compounds where they are free to manifest their western
values without fear of insulting the host population or exciting
resentment. With an eye on Europe, they understand that allowing
western values to mix with their own is a recipe for disaster.
Western
nations, such as my country of Canada, can learn much from
the examples of France and other European countries, where
idealism trumps pragmatism and human nature is given the short
stick. Immigration should be a win-win affair, and in respect
to and respectful of peoples that are vastly different than
ourselves, our biologically determined low tolerance indices
should dictate a moderate (conservative) immigration policy.
However,
zero intolerance as policy is also unhealthy, as well as unnatural.
If in certain Muslim countries, it results from confusing
the mere presence of 'the other' with the more nefarious presence
of western culture seeping in through cyber technology, getting
rid of the former will not prevent the latter. Nature blesses
mixing (exogamy). We learn from genetics that diversity is
the best response to adversity. So the expulsion of all others
is also bad policy.
There is
a middle ground that the current Syrian refugee crisis is
testing. We will soon find out that if the nations at the
crux of this immigration challenge are confusing misplaced
sympathy, from which neither host nor guest benefit, for what
is practically possible. There is a balance to be had, and
finding it requires that human nature be given a seat at the
table, and that we pay it heed without capitulating to its
extremes.
Let us recall
that not so long ago, when immigration was a win-win affair,
it took only a couple of hundred years for 13 colonies to
become the greatest nation in the world. We refuse to engage
and learn from that example at our own peril.