The Somali Experiment
The revolutionis proceeding apace, at least south of the border. I was shocked recently tohear Matt Walsh call for the mass deportation of Somalis. Their culture, he says,is incompatible with American values.
I cannotimagine hearing this even two years ago. This goes sharply against the leftistdogma that all cultures are equal, and cannot be criticized, since good andevil are themselves culturally relative. And it goes against the leftist dogmathat culture is racially determined, so that any criticism of another cultureis racist.
If Walsh’sposition becomes the American mainstream, everything changes. At least, if thelogic is applied consistently—which rarely actually happens. Leftist “woke”thought has always been wildly inconsistent.
To beginwith, of course, this makes mass immigration look far more dubious as a policy.And this seems to be becoming the consensus across the developed world. Ther havebeen mass demonstrations in England and Ireland, not just the US, and thegovernments have at least begun giving lip service to the idea that massimmigration is a bad thing. And for reasons of cultural incompatibility.
But morethan this: if culture is not genetic, and cultures are not intrinsically equal,this kills multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is just holding people back and restrictingthem to ghettos. Obviously, everyone should gravitate to the best elements, thebest solutions, the best culture; instead of living as an exhibit in a humanzoo. Which is of course the idea the U.S.A. was based on: e pluribus unum, themelting pot. And, of course, this is whatMartin Luther King and the drive for desegregation was all about. We had lostour way.
This also killsaccusations that teaching “First Nations” practical skills in the residentialschools was “cultural genocide.” The reality is that “First Nations” cultureswere, as we actually used to call them, “primitive.” The French explorers usedto say, “sans loi, sans roi, sans foi”: without laws, without government, withoutreligion or philosophy. They were less developed, and produced a lesssatisfactory life. A daily struggle for survival left no time to develop thingslike permanent structures, wheeled vehicles, writing, settled agriculture, andthe like. Without writing, with the old usually dying of exposure orabandonment at a relatively young age, with epidemics wiping out most of thepopulation about every two generations, any innovations discovered by solitarygeniuses over the millennia were unlikely to be remembered and passed on.
This alsomakes the European enterprise of colonialism look less sinister. The argumentat the time was that the European powers were tutoring less developedsocieties, introducing peace and prosperity, orderly systems of government, commerce,and accounting, building schools and railroads and hospitals, and keeping thepeace. Was this altogether wrong? Was it really all about pushing other peoplearound and stealing their resources? If so, how account for the fact thatEuropean colonies usually cost the present country money, rather than makingthem money? How account for the fact that most former colonies took a financialhit post-independence, and many sank into conflict?
Somaliabeing a case in point. Independence has not worked well for the former ItalianSomalia and British Somaliland.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
