Steyn talks about immigration. Whoopee.

Mark Steyn, who has written scores of articles and a book dealing with the Islamization of the West, without ever once discussing Islamic immigration as a cause of that problem, and without ever once proposing the reduction of such immigration (let alone its cessation or reversal) as a possible cure for the problem, has just published, in Canada’s Western Standard, his very first column dealing directly with immigration. He points out that recent immigrants into Canada are not assimilating into Canada’s culture but are changing it. That Steyn has said anything negative about immigration is a step forward for him; indeed, that he has said anything about immigration at all, that he even acknowledges its existence, is a step forward for him. But they are steps forward from such abysmal neocon denial that it is hard to see them as meaningful progress, especially when we consider what Steyn says ought to be done about the problem.

First, here’s the part of the article where he talks about how immigration is changing Canada:

The 2006 census numbers take as a given that the Canada of the 21st century will be a project built almost exclusively by foreigners.

Not only is the Canadian state insouciant about this ultimate outsourcing, it welcomes and celebrates it…. [W]e’re essentially accepting the principle of reverse assimilation, the obligation that Canadians assimilate with immigrants rather than the other way round.

And thereby lies great peril…. If our Liberal grandees are so convinced new Canadians won’t accept the Crown, what other features of our inheritance will they also reject? How many Canadians will be saying “eh?” in 20 years’ time? Or following hockey (assuming there are still any hockey teams up here)? How many will recognize “Sir John A. Macdonald”? What would such a nation be remembering on Remembrance Day?

Commenting on the latest census trends, the Toronto blogger Mark Collins remarked that “it’s not one’s grandfather’s Canada.”

And how does Steyn respond to this threat to Canadian identity and culture?

In 1913, when those 400,000 [British] newcomers arrived [in Canada], we knew more or less who they were. We have no very clear idea who the 300,000 or so immigrants per annum of the next few years will be…. But that’s the reality: the Canada of tomorrow will be built by who shows up. For the sake of multicultural virtue, we decided to outsource the future. Nothing much to do about it now except hope the gamble pays off.

Nothing much to do about it, except hope?

VFR reader Ortelio, who told me about the Steyn piece, comments:

Readers of Steyn’s book America Alone could see—though who explicitly noted?—that he was being illogical when he concluded (p. 204) “There are three possible conclusions to the present struggle: 1. Submit to Islam, 2. Destroy Islam, 3. Reform Islam.” He goes on to favor 3, though the ways and means he recommends seem to mix in elements of 2. But his list omitted the most obvious alternative: 4. Separate (humanely) our societies from Islam, in the first instance by ending Muslim immigration. The significance of the new article is that what looked liked illogic and oversight now turns out to be ennui. “Nothing much to do about it…”. Such passivity, from an action man! A symbol of our predicament.

That’s right. But what’s going on here is much worse than ennui. Steyn is the guy who last week at NRO held to task the victims at Virginia Tech because they were too “passive” in the face of the killer’s rampage. But when faced with the destruction of Western societies by non-Western and especially Muslim immigration, Steyn, the brusque and bold critic of passivity, raises passivity to the level of performance art. Look at these terrible dangers, he cries. Europe is being Islamized! Canada is losing its culture! But … there’s nothing we can do to protect ourselves, except hope. Steyn doesn’t even mention the obvious possibility of stopping the ongoing immigration of 300,000 per year that he says will alter Canada beyond recognition.

Thus Steyn’s real message is not the conservative message of defending and restoring one’s threatened civilization; it is the liberal message of surrendering to the destruction of one’s civilization.

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In this connection, let us remember Bernard Lewis’s recent address to the American Enterprise Institute where he concluded that the West’s “only hope” to be saved from Islam is that Islam will democratize itself. Just like his fellow neocon Steyn, who points to a mortal threat to Canada coming from non-Western immigration, then says that there is nothing for us to do about it except to “hope” that somehow things work out, Lewis points to a mortal threat to the West coming from Islam, then says that there is nothing for us to do about it, except to “hope” that the Muslims change themselves.

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Evelyn M. writes:

Talk about not assimilating into the culture of the country they invade, I hear on Chicano radical radio, both English and Spanish, saying things like, “When our children go to kindergarten they are subjected to an alien culture. They have to be educated in their own—our culture.” This is in southern California.

David B. writes:

Steyn “wishes” for Canada (and the United States) to become majority nonwhite countries, but “hopes” that the “gamble will turn out.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 25, 2007 02:22 PM | Send