British Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent warning to the Munich Security Conference was shocking, especially coming from a European. “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”
Four months earlier German Chancellor Angela Markel told a youth conference of her center-right Christian Democratic Union political party: “this multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed.” Something quite profound is going on in Old Europe. Much of it is concern for internal terrorism from alienated or irredentist Muslim populations. Some of it is political to shore up right-wing supporters. While the other shoe of presenting precise policies has not as yet dropped, the implications can be enormous.
The fact a German leader has spoken on a subject considered unmentionable ever since the horrors of the Nazi cultural hegemony, World War II and the Holocaust is especially momentous. Following the devastation of the war and the Soviet post-war camps, Germany’s acute labor shortage led to encouraging ethnic Germans from the east, then workers from Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia and then finally Turkey. The original assumption was that it was temporary labor and most did return home, especially after the oil shock and the “labor recruitment stop” in 1973. While improved conditions in the other nations lured them home, the Muslim Turks and Slavs stayed and brought their families, which Germany later limited. By the 1980s, the official policy became multiculturalism, defined as discouraging new immigration but allowing retention of one’s home culture and expecting loyalty to Germany.
As STRATFOR intelligence analyst George Friedman argues, this approach amounted to buying the loyalty of its 5 million Muslims since “the Germans did not want and did not know how to assimilate culturally, linguistically, religiously and morally diverse people” and as a “way to escape the question of what it meant to be German.” But the result was that multiculturalism resulted in the “permanent alienation of the immigrants” who still often identified with their home country’s religion and culture. For 65 years Germany was haunted by the Holocaust and avoided the matter. Now that has changed. As Friedman emphasizes, Germany sought solace in NATO and the European Union but now the first is populated by countries without armies and the latter by ones tottering on bankruptcy. Germany is being forced to reclaim its own nationalism and economic power and rely more on outsourcing rather than immigration.
Germany’s new moves toward husbanding its resources and emphasizing trade may move it closer to Russia but generally this will be positive for world and U.S. prosperity. But Germany still does not know how to assimilate Muslim or other foreign peoples. Neither does anyone else. Merkel suggested requiring immigrants learn the language and accept “German cultural norms.” But what norms? Mr. Cameron was more specific, calling for a “muscular liberalism,” distinguishing it from “a passively tolerant society” that “says to its citizens, as long as you obey the law we will just leave you alone. It stands neutral between different values. But I believe a genuinely liberal country does much more; it believes in certain values and actively promotes them. . . . It says to its citizens, this is what defines us as a society: To belong here is to believe in these things.” Those things to be believed included more common norms on marriage, on hate speech, on national service, and on “equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality.”
This is the problem. Any conservative would like to encourage love and loyalty to nation and its values but must an Englishman believe in equal rights to marriage regardless of sexuality to be British? Such a requirement – not equal rule of law, which Cameron mentioned as a separate value, or even civil unions, but to support homosexual marriage? This would not only be an obstacle to Muslim citizenship but to many Christians too. And what is “hate speech”? Friedman claimed the U.S. should be the model since it requires an oath of allegiance and some legal acceptance of values. But he failed to mention that the oath set by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does require rejecting other nations and supporting the U.S. but two of the three obligations may be waived if the applicant objects. More important, all of the values questions are factual not normative, the correct answers for all 100 questions are given beforehand, and one is only required to answer 6 of the 10 questions actually required for citizenship.
Of course, many enter the U.S. illegally and take no tests at all. But does anyone think the current process teaches American citizenship to those who do? Suppose that value questions were added. Who would design them? Undoubtedly, they would come from the same National Education Association leaders who devise the civics courses in today’s public schools. Local schools are staffed with teachers brainwashed in education colleges imbued with progressive educational philosophy. The John Dewey Project on Progressive Education at the University of Vermont explained his larger goal was to displace the whole U.S. culture by undermining its individualist and traditionalist social values and to instead “advance their ‘reconstructionist’ critique of laissez faire capitalism” and for “schools to build a new social order.” Is anyone satisfied with the values taught in schools today where a good argument can be made that patriotism declines the more a student is exposed to their critical analysis? Why would citizenship tests be any better?
Some values for proper citizenship are already defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. What “hate” does it fear will undermine U.S. citizenship? It is people with “antigovernment” attitudes, people who fear an “economic collapse” of the U.S. might be immanent, those who have adopted immigration as a “recruiting tool,” those who have perceived “recent gun control legislation” as a “threat” to their right to bear arms, people who have concerns that world governments could usurp the “sovereignty” of the U.S., those who have exploited “social issues such as abortion,” and someone who is a “disgruntled military veteran.” These are the threats to U.S. citizenship and security identified by one of the first anti-terrorism alerts issued by the new Obama Administration from the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis in a report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” It orders authorities to “deter, prevent, preempt or respond to” two types of rightwing terrorism, first, those who are “hate oriented” (such as those listed above) and second “those who are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state and local authority.”
In other words, the Federal Government answer to multiculturalism is to deter conservative political activity. Holding good values and loving one’s nation is important but the NEA, the Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Office of Intelligence Analysis cannot do it properly. As the great analyst of American society in the 19th Century Alexis de Tocqueville noted, the national government is best loved when its powers are devolved and its citizenship is devised and defined locally. Citizens love the nation best when its burden is light. Citizenship comes from local individualism and community responsibility that is developed as Americans care for family and neighbors, and help, work and pray locally to solve real problems. Even today, studies show that Americans get their love for country at home and their citizenship locally. But the Feds actually fear the local autonomy that has been the main support of U.S. patriotism.
As for the true anti-cultural groups that will form in any event, people would be more likely to report dangerous activity to more trusted local police who would be more likely to conduct proper surveillance. National intelligence sources should focus upon those threatening security, which is primarily reported by local sources. If the general climate allows free expression, the truly dangerous are more likely to reveal themselves. Citizenship developed in the family, locally and freely is less likely to be restricted by elite-generated multiculturalism or political correctness. Who is more likely to confront them without fear of political correctness, local or national officials? Who is more serious about illegal immigration?
America is so much safer than the rest of the world because it allows people to live different lives freely based upon their own and their community values. It would be nice to have all citizens support a list of things we all agree upon but America’s Founders knew better. Even single religious denominations differ within themselves on critical matters. Father of the Constitution James Madison told us such agreement was impossible without destroying freedom. Instead, support for U.S. culture comes from the fact the Constitution allows us all the free choice to love it as we work our own destiny locally and privately.
Donald Devine was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 under Ronald Reagan and is the editor of ConservativeBattleline Online.
