The enemy within
Wente thinks Muslims are the enemy within.
The ethnic enclaves have become a breeding ground for the enemy within. Wente is writing this about Germany, a country where such thinking can and has led to horrific results.
We could try to point out facts, like that less than half of foreign residents of Germany are Muslim, or that unemployment in Germany just hit a four-year low, or that Germany has recently tightened its social programs. But such trivialities would surely not faze Wente.
The enemy within comment exposes the ugliness that seldom strays far from the surface of Wente's writing. Ostensibly, she is talking about terrorists. In actuality, that is nonsense - Germany has not had an act of Islamic terrorism on its soil since the 1972 Olympics, and even that was not carried out by immigrants. Wente is really talking about all persons of colour, and the cultures they represent.
Muslims don't have to actually commit terror for Wente to regard them as an enemy within. They merely have to wear a headscarf, or any costume she doesn't like. They merely have to be different, to be someone raised in an upbringing different from Wente's. She regards her culture (American) as superior to all others, and other ethnicities are only deserving of equality if they abandon every sense of their identity, every fibre of who they are, everything they may believe in, to fit into her narrow American mold.
Immigrants in Canada and the United States do integrate better than those in Europe. That is because attitudes like Wente's - that immigrants are a sinister presence worthy only of distrust and contempt - are much more common in Europe than in North America. Europeans are much more likely to believe, as Wente does, that ethnicity determines nationality. Until recently, children born in Germany was not eligible for German citizenship unless they were ethnic Germans, a policy that would spark outrage in North America. And even now, Germany has trouble attracting the skilled, highly-educated immigrants who are enduring long waiting lists for the chance to get into North America. Why should they move to Germany, when citizenship and integration are doors deliberately slammed in their face?
Multiculturalism works. Europe's ethnic tensions are not the result of too much multiculturalism, but too little. And if North Americans listened to our own enemy within - ethnocentrics like Wente - we would share Europe's fate.
The ethnic enclaves have become a breeding ground for the enemy within. Wente is writing this about Germany, a country where such thinking can and has led to horrific results.
We could try to point out facts, like that less than half of foreign residents of Germany are Muslim, or that unemployment in Germany just hit a four-year low, or that Germany has recently tightened its social programs. But such trivialities would surely not faze Wente.
The enemy within comment exposes the ugliness that seldom strays far from the surface of Wente's writing. Ostensibly, she is talking about terrorists. In actuality, that is nonsense - Germany has not had an act of Islamic terrorism on its soil since the 1972 Olympics, and even that was not carried out by immigrants. Wente is really talking about all persons of colour, and the cultures they represent.
Muslims don't have to actually commit terror for Wente to regard them as an enemy within. They merely have to wear a headscarf, or any costume she doesn't like. They merely have to be different, to be someone raised in an upbringing different from Wente's. She regards her culture (American) as superior to all others, and other ethnicities are only deserving of equality if they abandon every sense of their identity, every fibre of who they are, everything they may believe in, to fit into her narrow American mold.
Immigrants in Canada and the United States do integrate better than those in Europe. That is because attitudes like Wente's - that immigrants are a sinister presence worthy only of distrust and contempt - are much more common in Europe than in North America. Europeans are much more likely to believe, as Wente does, that ethnicity determines nationality. Until recently, children born in Germany was not eligible for German citizenship unless they were ethnic Germans, a policy that would spark outrage in North America. And even now, Germany has trouble attracting the skilled, highly-educated immigrants who are enduring long waiting lists for the chance to get into North America. Why should they move to Germany, when citizenship and integration are doors deliberately slammed in their face?
Multiculturalism works. Europe's ethnic tensions are not the result of too much multiculturalism, but too little. And if North Americans listened to our own enemy within - ethnocentrics like Wente - we would share Europe's fate.
4 Comments:
Her column is really quite terrifyingly awful, isn't it?
Thanks for the deconstruction. I don't always read her voluntarily any more, but this one needs addressing. Well done.
By skdadl, at December 06, 2006 4:48 p.m.
Even if this weren't odious and disgusting, there's the simple matter that Germany is in HUGE economic trouble for not being more accepting of immigrants. Like every other country in the western world, their birthrate has gone down. But with no way of immigrating there and becoming full-fledged Germans, the immigrants who can bail them out will go to Canada, Australia, the U.S., even England. Germany is not a country that Canada wants to emulate on any front that has to do with immigration policy, that's for sure.
By Anonymous, at December 06, 2006 5:13 p.m.
OK. I'm gonna say it. Margaret Wente eats live babies for breakfast. I saw her. She's stupid to the point of hardly being ambulatory. It's all a classist, neo-con, white conspiracy. But what you need to know is that it runs deeper, MUCH deeper, than you can even imagine. I've said too much....find the white king and you'll find the key. There are clues everywhere, especially through the secret transmissions.
By Anonymous, at December 09, 2006 3:46 a.m.
Did we read the same column? I'm no fan of Ms. Wente, and she says one or two stupid thing in this article, but the way I read it was not that she blamed the Turkish immigrants, but that she blamed German society for taking these people in, but making sure they stayed seperate.
When describing a successful young second generation Turkish woman she says, "Passive prejudice is an enormous problem ... She is the poster child for successful integration -- brilliant, articulate and determined to succeed. But she has less chance of being embraced as a true German than I do."
Also, you took her "enemy within" comment out of context. When she uses that term, she is talking about Europe in general and not just Germany. While I think she is using the term to be purposely provocative and inflammatory, the point of her column, is that it is European society that makes these people the "enemy" by being so unwelcoming.
By Anonymous, at December 09, 2006 9:30 p.m.
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