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«Our civilization is disappearing»

29.10.2013 (updated 05.11.2013). The current issue of the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles has an interview with Jean Raspail.

What do you feel about the current situation?

You know, I’ve no wish to join the big group of intellectuals who spend their time debating immigration… I have the impression that these talks serve no purpose. The people already know it all, intuitively: that France, as our ancestors fashioned it centuries ago, is disappearing. And that we keep the gallery amused by talking ceaselessly of immigration without ever saying the final truth. A truth that is moreover unsayable, as my friend Jean Cau noted, because whoever says it is immediately hounded, condemned then rejected. Richard Millet came close to it, look what happened to him!

Is the seriousness of the problem being kept from the French people?

Yes. Starting with the politicians in charge first of all! Publicly “everything’s going well, Madame Marquessa”. But behind closed doors, they acknowledge that “yes, you’re right: there is a real problem”. I have several edifying letters on this subject from prominent leftist politicians, from those on the right too, to whom I sent the Camp of the Saints.

“But you understand: we can’t say it …” These people have a double language, a double conscience. I don’t know how they do it! I think the distress comes from there: the people know that things are being hidden from them. Today, tens of millions of people don’t buy into the official discourse on immigration. Not one of them believes that it is an opportunity for France “une chance pour la France”. Because reality imposes itself on them, every day. All of these ideas boil in their heads and don’t come out.

You don’t believe it’s possible to assimilate the foreigners welcomed into France?

No. The model of integration isn’t working. Even if a few more illegals are escorted to the border and we succeed in integrating foreigners a bit more than today, their numbers will not stop growing and that will change nothing in the fundamental problem: the progressive invasion of France and Europe by a numberless third-world. I’m not a prophet, but you see clearly the fragility of these countries, where an unbearable poverty is established and grows ceaselessly alongside indecent wealth. Those people don’t turn to their governments to protest. They expect nothing of them.

They turn to us and arrive in Europe in boats, ever more numerous, today in Lampedusa, tomorrow elsewhere. Nothing discourages them. And thanks to the demography game, by the 2050s, there will be as many young indigenous French as there are young foreigners in France.

Many will be naturalised.

Which doesn’t mean they’ll have become French. I don’t say these are bad people, but “naturalisations on paper” aren’t naturalisations of the heart. I cannot consider them my compatriots. We need to drastically toughen the law, as a matter of urgency.

How can Europe deal with these migrations?

There are only two solutions. Either we accommodate them and France – its culture, its civilisation — will be erased without even a funeral. In my view, that’s what’s going to happen. Or we don’t accommodate them at all – that means stop sacralising the Other and rediscover your neighbour, that means those next to you. Which means that we stop giving a damn sometime about these “Christian ideas gone mad”, as Chesterton said, or these depraved human rights, and that we take the indispensable measures to distance ourselves, without appeal, to avoid the dissolution of our country into a general métissage [literally race-mixing but used as a sort of equivalent of the English diversity].

I don’t see any other solution. I travelled a lot in my youth. All peoples are fascinating but when you mix them too much, it is much more animosity that develops than sympathy. Métissage is never peaceful. It is a dangerous utopia. Look at South Africa!

At the point where we are now, the measures we would have to take would necessarily be very coercive. I don’t believe it will happen and I don’t see anyone who has the courage to do it. They would need to put their soul in the balance, but who is ready for that? That said, I don’t believe for an instant that the supporters of immigration are more charitable than me: there probably isn’t a single one of them who intends to welcome one of these unfortunates into his home… all of that’s just an emotional pretence, an irresponsible maelstrom that will engulf us.

Is there therefore no solution other than submission or coercion?

There could perhaps be one, but it will only have one chance: isolates where a population that is ethnically and culturally threatened by other communitarianisms could find refuge. Besides, it’s already happening: we can see already that the French “de souche” [indigenous] are fleeing the so-called “sensitive” districts. The demonstrations against homosexual marriage are also a form of communitarianism: they testify to the rejection by millions of French people to the “change of civilisations” promised by the Left and by Christiane Taubira. Today, everyone condemns communitarianism, but it could be a solution, at least temporarily. These opposed communitarianisms will reinforce themselves mutually by the animosity they will convey and that will end, finally, in extremely severe confrontations. Even if we don’t need to wish that adversity occurs.

You don’t believe in a sudden new beginning, as has occurred many times in the history of France?

No. It would require an epic spirit, an appreciation of an elevated destiny for a sudden new beginning to be possible in France. It would require people to still believe in their country. I don’t see many of them left. At least reforming from top to bottom the national education system and the audio-visual media, taking away the platform from the teachers and the journalists who are participating in the disinformation…

We have desacralised the idea of the nation, the exercise of power, the past of the country. We have put cracks in the statue of France, we have disfigured it (expecially the Left!) to the point where nothing inspires respect any more. The power of the false ideas disseminated by the national education system and the media is boundless. But as for me, I have lived in France for 1500 years, I’m OK with what is mine, and I’ve no desire for it to change ...

Hat tip: Snaphanen. See also interview with Raspail on French TV.

 


Their criminal capabilities are often underestimated

12.10.2013. The Dutch underestimate the danger of roaming gypsy gangs from eastern Europe. They are very professional, well-organized and trained criminals who steal to order, Utrecht criminologists say in weekly magazine Vrij Nederland, according to the article 'Gypsy Gangs Underestimated' at NIS News, which concludes as follows:

Retail interest group Detailhandel Nederland says the gypsy gangs involved caused 250 million euros of damage to the Dutch economy every year. Of this, 206 million euros is from shoplifting and between 40 million and 50 million euros for shop break-ins.

Police research reveals that 21 percent of the shop thefts were committed by mobile gangs from central and eastern Europe, led by Romanians. [Professor Dina] Siegel says almost all of them are gypsies.

[...]

Siegel said in the magazine that she may have broken a taboo. "It is not my own opinion, it is an observation: pickpockets, beggars and shoplifters are mostly gypsies."

Siegel added France and Spain have become more repressive which is a reason that many gypsy gangs head north. "It is an enormous problem and one which is growing."

Read the entire article at NIS News.

 


Compatible with faith in God

05.10.2013. In 2009 BBC released the award-winning documentary Did Darwin Kill God? (also available here), written and presented by philosopher Conor Cunningham.

HonestThinking comments: This documentary is definitely worth watching. Just as Newton's laws turned out not to be the final word in physics, it would be naïve to think that Darwinian evolution is the final word in biology. Claims that the Theory of Evolution has disproved God, are quite often indications of philosophical ignorance and/or incompetence.

Caveat 1: While I agree that it is a good idea to investigate evolutionary forces at levels other than that of the gene, I believe it is a very bad idea to abandon gene-centric evolution (the latter is apparently equated with 'ultradarwinism' in the documentary). My understanding is that Francis Collins expresses a similar view when, towards the end of the documentary, he makes a remark to the effect that selective pressures do not work only at the gene level.

Caveat 2: While I believe Susan Blackmore (interviewed by Cunningham) is utterly wrong in thinking (!) that the human mind can be reduced to a meme machine, I still believe the meme concept is helpful when it comes to understanding a number of interesting human phenomena.

 



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HonestThinking is dedicated and committed to the art of thinking honestly. Yet honest thinking is not the same as true thinking, for it is possible to think honestly, but be mistaken. For the same reason, honest thinking is not identical with objective thinking either. Honest thinking is striving to get things right. This involves being truthful about whatever one publishes, but just as importantly, it involves an uncompromising dedication never to suppress relevant data, even when data collides with dearly held prejudices. Such an approach may sometimes cause hurtful revisions in one’s belief system. That’s what HonestThinking is all about! Read the entire manifesto.



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The current European immigration and integration policy is profoundly disrespectful of both Muslims and Islam, because it is built on the tacit assumption that the Muslims will become like us. One claims to have respect for Islam and for Muslims, but one also expects Muslims to give up their orthodox faith when they come here. At the same time one is assuming that Islam will be reformed and modernized as soon as the Muslims become integrated and understand and appreciate how superior our Western culture is compared to their own. This is cultural shauvinism and arrogance indeed! The unspoken premise for this scenario is that Western socities are superior to Islam. Read more.

 


 

 

Human rights and democracy are under pressure. One threat comes from the Western world, in the form of lack of or dishonest thinking. There exists a peculiar Western "tolerance" which is so "tolerant" that it even tolerates totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies. A tacit assumption underlying such an attitude is that all cultures, world views, and religions are really equally good. As a consequence of this assumption one is cut off from the possibility of critically examining the above mentioned ideologies. Read more.