RETURN TO BABEL / CASEY RESEARCH ( RECOMMENDED READING )

Return to Babel

Having lived in Europe as a student for most of a year, and traveled there many times since, I have some small basis for identifying the changes that have occurred in recent decades.

Back in the day, the Switzerland, France, and Germany where I spent my time as a youth were generally homogenous and possessed of a distinct native charm. In the case of Switzerland and Germany, there was also an almost sterile tidiness.

Today, it seems to me that Europe’s tolerance for multiculturalism – a tolerance fostered by political correctness, proximity and the contagion of operating foreign empires – has allowed those cultures to blossom in the European garden. The politically correct might say that the new and more diverse garden possesses a beauty of its own. From my unedited perspective, however, the garden looks a mess.

Allow me to try and explain that perspective.

When visiting the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or other far-away places – most of which are notable for their homogeneity – the cultures encountered naturally appear exotic and often beautiful to the Western eye, largely because they are so distinctly foreign to our own native environs.

However, when transplanted in large patches into Europe, as these cultures have been, the effect can be far less pleasing. In some parts we passed through, it even seems that the long-standing European cultures were in full retreat, with the natives unsure of even where they fit in any more – but too polite to mention it.

In my old stomping grounds of Montreux, you can still find restaurants serving raclette, fondue, and other national dishes – but those are very much the exception to the new normal of pizza joints, kabob shops, and Chinese take-out. And the boulevards we strolled down were not dominated by Swiss, but rather by what might be termed “other” – Arabs and Africans especially. In our hotel, a landmark, virtually all of the help was Chinese or Filipino, their common language being English, not the traditional Swiss languages of French and German.

Of course, in the hinterland, the situation is obviously not so pronounced, as immigrants invariably head first to the cities – but all the same, to say that Montreux had changed since my days there would be a gross understatement.

And the situation in Paris was even more pronounced. Sure, there were throngs of tourists – of all nationalities – but what I’m referring to are what might be termed the man on the street; the taxi drivers, waiters, shop keepers, restaurant managers, etc., etc.

While my sampling was limited by the geography covered on my travels, based on what I saw and have heard and read, this tableau is being repeated across Europe.

In my view, this shift to multiculturalism in Europe is not only endemic, but inevitable. Like the kudzu, multiculturalism once well-rooted spreads and, in time, will overtake much of that which preceded it, no matter how old or sacrosanct. When I was in Switzerland those many years ago, the natives were as uptight and even xenophobic a culture as existed on the planet.

Immigration rules were tough, and if you were not Swiss and made even a small misstep, you were on the next plane, train, or bus home. Clearly, something changed along the way.

And it’s not just the influence of swarthy foreigners that’s apparent in Europe. On a long walk down a country lane outside of a mid-sized French town, I was surprised to find that the smattering of litter I came across almost all originated from American sources. (In one stretch, it was something like five McDonald’s cups and food wrappers, three Coke bottles, and two Marlboro packages.) In fact, ironically for the land of fine cuisine, McDonald’s has a huge presence in France… almost 1,000 restaurants according to one source I looked up.

Is this cultural transmutation bad?

Over the next few decades, I don’t see how strife will be avoided. The strife will come from existing national cultures trying to fight to retain those cultures – and from the encroaching cultures trying to hang on and spread, bumping into other competing cultures as they do. This spreading won’t be due to any any evil scheme, but rather will flow from the entirely human desire to surround oneself with friends, family, and the customs associated with respective cultures.

At no point in my travels did I see a Middle-Easterner mingling socially with anyone outside of their culture. Ditto, the North Africans traveled in groups, with no French or Swiss friends in evidence.

In the long-term, of course, this cultural mash-up will be of no more consequence than those derived from the pious Cathars having been wiped from the map, or the Incan empire crumbling into little pieces. Ultimately these changing societies will likely morph into new cultural identities, in much the same process that occurred in the creation of the current iteration of the United States – with the indigenous people being squeezed out by the English settlers, who in time were themselves overrun by immigrants from the rest of the world.

Alternatively, rather than meld, today’s culturally diverse nation states might continue to develop in such a way that they become the equivalent of a flat-lying tower of Babel – geographic containers for an assortment of smaller, distinct and even hostile collectives – each with their own language, religious dictates, fashions, and DNA. Or, the nation states themselves will simply disappear, to be replaced with whatever’s coming next.

While sitting here, I can’t pretend to know how things will work out over the long run, but I’m pretty sure that whatever happens, it will happen first in Europe. Thanks to a lack of any real geographical defense, the continent has always been a crossroads – a fluid place with new cultures regularly arriving at the gate, more often than not in the form of armies who don’t bother asking permission to enter.

In the current context, the next wave has already arrived… it’s not clear that they are enemies… and they have arrived not in a horde, but in a steady train of modern conveyances and, increasingly, in the hospital birthing ward.

Regardless as to how you feel about this issue, in the case of much of Europe, I think the die is cast and what is done cannot be undone – at least not without some real upheaval.

As a closing remark, the other thing that really stood out from my trip was that the European waistband has noticeably expanded since last I spent any real time there. McDonald’s big push into European markets is symptomatic of a much larger shift to fast foods, a shift that is especially apparent in a proliferation of pizza parlors that has made them ubiquitous.