What once was lost is now being found

And what is it about the Australian leaders’ statements to the radical Muslim clerics that is so unprecedented? It’s not just that they’re telling them they can leave; it’s the way they’re saying it, with an unabashed, instinctive attitude of “we” as distinct from “you”—that “we” are we, that we have a particular identity and way of life and set of governing principles, and that “you” are not a part of that and don’t belong here, so clear off. It was this palpable sense of our collective identity as Australians or Americans or Westerners or whites or members of Christendom that liberal modernity stripped away from us. In so doing, it made us incapable of standing up for ourselves as a people vis à vis other peoples, and thus, over the course of the past 60 years (and we observe this month the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II), it has led us to the abyss. Only by rediscovering and reclaiming that Western identity (however we may articulate it to ourselves) will we have any chance of recovering and surviving.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 24, 2005 10:27 PM | Send