Mark Steyn Considers Geert Wilders and the Dutch

Steyn is always fascinating.  As for Wilders, whatever else he is, he's also a lightning rod. Death threats are not okay, no matter what sort of person he might be.  As for Steyn's piece, this is how it begins:

When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under 24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this. 

And then I took a stroll in the woods, and felt vaguely ashamed at the ease with which I was willing to hand a small victory to his enemies. 

A Few More Thoughts on State Multiculturalism

Here's a follow-up (or two) on the ongoing recent discussions about state multiculturalism (last post here).  Seriously now -- who is really that surprised that the ghetto-ization of foreign people groups has blown up in all our faces?  

Canada: the Failure of State Multiculturalism

Blurb:

A prominent voice in Canada’s Muslim community said British Prime Minister David Cameron was “spot on” when he insisted British multiculturalism has failed. 

And just like Britain, Canada’s will fail, said Muslim Canadian Congress founder Tarek Fatah. 

He said Monday that, like Britain, Canada has been too tolerant in allowing Muslim immigrants to settle into closed communities, some of which preach Islamic values and a hatred toward the West. 

“The Canadian multicultural model has failed, as the British model has,” said Fatah. “When first generation (Muslims) are more loyal to Canada than the second generation, then we have sufficient evidence to say that multiculturalism has failed.” 

Citing the Toronto 18 terrorist plot as an example of the extremism that can result from ethnic isolation, Fatah said he hoped Canada can “pick up on” the points Cameron made in a controversial speech on Saturday. 

Well, DUH.  At least more people are realizing the perils of this practice.


RELATED POST: UK's Cameron: State Multiculturalism Has Failed.

UK's Cameron: State Multiculturalism Has Failed

Angela Merkel said the same thing in Germany some time ago.  Now it's David Cameron of the UK.  Well, you'll recall how the capital of the UK is "Londonistan."

Has Multiculturalism Failed in Germany?

Hmmmm.  Integration issues?

Quote of the Day: Multiculti Diversity and the Law in an Open Society

Short and sweet from a British commentator:

diversity cannot work unless all are equal under the law.

The whole piece is worth a look, including this explanation of the previous (the last paragraph is spot on):

Quote of the Day: Mark Steyn on Respect and Offense

Here's something interesting in the context of the Mohammed cartoon saga:

I'm bored with death threats. And, as far as I'm concerned, if that's your opening conversational gambit, then any obligation on my part to "cultural sensitivity" and "mutual respect" is over.

He's not, by the way, talking about provocation for its own sake, which he describes as "one of the dreariest features of contemporary culture." True dat too.

More Mangled WWII History: Et Tu, Tom Hanks?

*Sigh and more sigh.*

RELATED POSTS:

• PSA: Oliver Stone Is Not a Historian
• History: On Defeating Japan in WWII, The Answer Is "Yes."

Why are modern-day revisionists obsessed in particular with World War II?

The Fairness Fallacy?

Read this. It's the whole "equality of outcome" mess all over again.

China: 3 Different Thoughts For the Day

No time to elaborate (too much nerd work -- AAACCKKK!), but these 3 very different pieces on China are rather interesting:

• "China's False Monoculture" -- the myth of Chinese homogeneity; China's not nearly as uniform as people think. In fact, only about half the population speaks Mandarin, and China has dozens of (officially recognized) minority people groups and plenty of strange "autonomous regions." Recent riots by Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and last year's unrest in Tibet should be reminders of ethnic/tribal/social/religious/cultural chasms, exacerbated by China's use of force to absorb minority groups.
  
• "When China Rules the World" -- Hey, we welcome our new insect overlords. Or not.
• "China's 100 Years of Ineptitude" -- or why China's not going to rule the world, or even Asia. (Do you really think that the true Asian democracies will meekly roll over and accept the hegemony of China?)
  

Quotes of the Day: Communist Oppression in China

The ladies speak out.

From the wife of a Chinese democracy and human rights activist:

“We, the Chinese human-rights activists, are like the Jews were in Nazi Germany. We can be arrested, jailed, killed at any moment at the Communist Party’s whim. Why the Western media, political leaders, and intellectuals do not support us more is a mystery to us. When we all disappear, you will ask yourself why you did not do more. But it will be too late then.”

From 86-year-old Chinese economics professor Feng Lanrui, who left the CCP after the Tiananmen massacre:

“We are like everybody else on earth ... We want the same democracy you have. We know perfectly well what a democracy is. We do not want a repressive regime in the name of so-called ‘Chinese characteristics.’”

READ THE WHOLE THING. Read it, and don't you dare tell me that democracy is not culturally compatible for Asians. That's multicultural garbage too often used to excuse Asian tyrannies and abandon Asian democrats. Read it, and don't you dare tell me that Communism is not one of the most horrifying evils ever perpetrated by human beings on their fellow man.

Nerd Journal: The Rice Paper Dissertation

You know that I'm sick and tired of the multicultural/diversity game on campus, all wrapped up in race/ethnicity/gender/insert-aggrieved-minority-claim-here gyrations of political correctness. Nobody can be offended, ever. We have to make concessions to every ludicrous claim and demand.

Well, I'm tired of it. And being tired makes me evil. OK, more evil than usual -- which is, admittedly, pretty evil. So I've decided to try and beat the diversity dons at their own game.

I just went to the grad college admin and submitted a proposal: I want my dissertation to be printed not on the usual required archival-quality cotton linen paper, but on RICE paper.

I stated, quite plainly, that as an Asian woman, I find rice paper to be much more culturally sensitive and ethnically relevant than cotton linen paper. Besides, cotton is associated with exploitation! with a history of textile mill labor! with a history of slavery in the American South! No, rice paper is much nicer.

The grad admin looked at me oddly, but they didn't say no outright. They really couldn't say no outright. I'd played all the right cards and adopted all the right terms of the grievance game.

I suspect that in all due time, I'll be the proud owner of Nerdworld's first rice paper dissertation.

One more happy coincidence: Rice paper is edible, after all, so if in future my research turns out to be all wrong, I may be literally forced to eat my words!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above post is all nonsense.

APRIL FOOL'S!

Eureka! -- Race Obsession Is Harmful

You know, I'm not sure whether to facepalm and yell, "Well, DUH!" or be happy that a light bulb has gone off finally for at least one person.

Here it is:

Should public policy be colour-blind? Or must governments and public institutions take account of people’s ethnicity and culture in formulating policy? It is a debate that has been reignited by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to introduce ethnic monitoring in France.

Unlike in Britain, where public institutions routinely collect information about people’s ethnic origins, it is illegal in France to classify people in this fashion. The foundation stone of the secular French republic is that all citizens should be equal and free from distinctions of race or religion. But senior politicians have begun to recognise that France remains deeply disfigured by racism. To combat this, Sarkozy argues, it is necessary to collect ethnically based data. The British experience suggests that such policies often do more harm than good.

Two assumptions underlie the argument for ethnic monitoring: first, that ethnicity and culture are the most important labels we can place on people; and second, that there is a causal relationship between membership of such a group and disproportional outcomes between groups.

Both those assumptions, of course, are DEEPLY and perhaps IRREMEDIABLY FLAWED.

Why not just listen to the excellent Mr. Morgan Freeman?

Oh, and my campus is doing one of its self-analyses for ethnic/racial population numbers. Some diversity/multiculturalist-y office sent me a survey asking me to identify myself by my race/ethnicity. I simply refused to answer. So I got a second one. I ignored that too. And I'm going to keep on ignoring it.

Whoa, Canada: Mangling History in Battle Re-enactments, Plus a Rant

Mark Steyn's new column explores how some folks in the Great White North are re-writing history in the name of political correctness. (The Brits, incidentally, weren't much better not too long ago when they re-enacted the Battle of Trafalgar not as the historically accurate England versus France-and-Spain, but as Team Red and Team Blue in order not to offend the modern French and Spanish -- a ludicrous event that Steyn also rehashes. Poor Nelson! He fought and fell heroically in battle not for this blessed plot, this realm, this earth, this England, but for the Red Team! I do love me some Napoleonic-era naval battles, and this just made me crazy.)

The entire idea of altering re-enactments of historical events is not only ridiculous, but perilously stupid: it's the willful repudiation of facts in favor of embracing fantasy. It's all wishful thinking writ large. "Oh, I hate the fact that [insert actual winners here] defeated our ancestors, so when we re-enact the battle, let's make our ancestors win instead because that makes us feel better about ourselves here in 2009!"

Facts are facts. And they are even more under siege on all front by people crying that facts are hurtful or uncomfortable or divisive or whatever. (I almost feel like Rorschach from "Watchmen" -- no compromise when it comes to the truth, no faking reality no matter what the reason, even if it's cloaked in "the greater good," itself a iffy phrase.)

It's time (and past time) to learn to deal with facts, history, and objective reality. Far too many people now are projecting their modern issues onto the past -- and therefore twisting history almost beyond recognition. The study (and responsible teaching) of history has enough difficulties and uncertainties in it without meddlesome people actively trying to mangle it for their own purposes. Trust me on this.

I need a palate cleanser after that Steyn story! How about this: Say what you want about the American South, but when people re-enact Civil War battles, they never change the actual historical outcomes -- even if southerners are re-creating a catastrophic Southern defeat. Ever been to a re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg? You absolutely should go sometime. It's amazing. Every year the Confederates fight and lose, just as they did in those 3 days in 1863. History buffs flock out there annually to re-create the defeat that ended Lee's invasion of the North and put the South on the defensive for the rest of the conflict.

I'll tell you something else, too: Civil War history buffs are FANATICAL about accuracy in even the smallest detail. (These are people who memorize the serial numbers of different pieces of 19th-century ordnance.) The mere thought of changing any historical detail, much less the outcome of the battle, would be anathema, even if ultimately that history has winners and losers. (I wonder, though, is it only a matter of time before the PC crowd tries to interfere even here?)

OK, end of rant. Need to go run errands!

Euro Notes and Your Voltaire Moment: the Geert Wilders Debacle in the UK

First of all,  Dutch politician Geert Wilders seems (to me, anyway) to be an inflammatory, crude, extremist far-right wingnut.  He's made a name for himself by being, among other things, the creator of the controversial short film Fitna (you can see it online -- MM thinks one should at least see the thing before commenting on its content.  *cough* David Miliband! *cough*)  

Wilders also wants to ban the Koran in the Netherlands -- a position that gives the rank whiff of hypocrisy to the entire "free speech" argument when he exercises it.  I do NOT endorse him, and I think his approach to Dutch problems with multiculturalism makes that tough situation even tougher because of his alienating belligerence.  The man is, frankly, a gadfly, and he's not the spotlessly shining hero and martyr of liberty that he seems to think he is.  In fact, he's kind of a CREEP.

BUT.

He was invited to the UK by several British politicians to screen his film in Parliament, but then the Home Office decided to ban Wilders from entering the country.  He flew to the UK anyway and was turned back at the airport.  The resulting firestorm has been intense.  Supporters and opponents of the Wilders ban have all been shrieking about free speech, so the result is complete cacophony.

As I'm looking at this debacle, I'm thinking that the actual problem is not Wilders per se, regardless of how personally obnoxious or controversial he is.  He is a catalyst and a lightning rod for a bigger problem.  He has metaphorically kicked over the tree that is the UK -- and let everyone see the inner rot at the core.  The same nation that provided sanctuary for Salman Rushdie twenty years ago and stood up to Iran now cannot bear to let in Geert Wilders (and is apparently cowed by its own restive, unassmiliated, and radicalized minority populations).  The entire situation is really about the current state and mindset of the UK government.  Philip Johnston wrote about this a few days ago, for instance, as another editorialist called the moment "a disastrously missed opportunity." See too this very interesting bit from a British left-leaner.  Another editorial opines, not inaccurately, that the Wilders ban only helps extremists on both sides.

A note about the "lightning rod" sorts of people like Wilders.  There is a clear distinction between "defending the right of people to speak" and "defending the content of what they say."  If anything, freedom of speech is the freedom to say things that people don't want to hear, hence the famous quote attributed to Voltaire.  But this brings us to an unhappy situation.  What about people who don't see the distinction between right and content?  Look, plenty of committed defenders of a free society and I can, do, and will defend the right of people to speak even if their words are offensive .  That doesn't mean that we have to defend the substance of what they say (or how they say, either).  Here's a pithy Aussie editorial on just this idea.

What happens when other people don't make that distinction?  What happens when unhappy offended people look at free speech defenders and consider them the same as the speakers?  "Hey, look, So-and-So says that Wilders has the right to speak.  Therefore s/he must support the things that he says.  S/he also wants to (insert stupid Wilders policy idea here), etc. etc."  OH, BOTHER.  This complicates an already complicated situation in a world where overheated emotional people oversimplify at the drop of a hat.  Anyway, I thought I'd just throw this idea out there since everyone's shouting about free speech . . . so we can try to clarify and get back to the critically important debate about the right of free expression.

I'll also express the (almost certainly futile) wish that folks will engage in speech exchange with some good old-fashioned courtesy and civility even when the argument is heated.

We need more debate, not less.

PS: If the Home Office doesn't like Wilders, then why make a martyr out of him and therefore give him a much bigger platform and far more international media attention than if he had simply screened his film to a few MPs and then gone home?  Now you also have the spectacle of the Dutch government (that is prosecuting Wilders at home) more or less speaking up in his defense by criticizing the UK's decision?  Meanwhile, commentators are busy pointing out the massive cognitive dissonance that had the UK opening its doors to all sorts of unsavoury radicalizing characters, thus creating "Londonistan," while slamming those doors in the face of a European parliamentarian.  All this makes the UK government look even more feckless and lame than it already does.  Oh, and it got a letter from the International Free Press Society condemning it for abandoning Britain's own traditions of free speech.  Well done, Jacqui Smith, et al.

PSS: I made it this far through a serious post, but no farther.  My inner sarcasm has woken up, and it demands to know if Geert Wilders has the same hairdresser as Amy Winehouse.

Nerd Notes: Fouad Ajami on the Legacy of Samuel Huntington

Ajami on Huntington -- One well-known academic looks at the life and legacy of another.

If you are not familiar with Fouad Ajami or Samuel Huntington, you might want to Google them. Huntington's thesis of the clash of civilizations is especially timely, and he ranks as a rara avis indeed -- a famous academic who was a sober, insightful, accomplished scholar -- and one who dared to disagree with "elite, intellectual" culture and opinion.

MM in the Kitchen: Carnitas with Salsa Verde + Nerd Journal

This recipe is actually simmering in the kitchen as I type.

I'm very fond of the Mexican/Tex-Mex dish called carnitas, but I just can't find the real stuff up here in Nerdworld Yankeeland. Go figure. So I'm attempting this recipe for the first time. I feel like a mad scientist. I'm also expecting the Cultural Authenticity Police to barge into my apartment and whine that an Asian-American chick has no business cooking up la comida mexicana. If they do, I'll happily embrace my cultural roots and smack 'em over the head with my big wok (authentic enough for ya? huh, punk?). Meanwhile, the smell of pork simmering in salsa verde and chicken stock is just . . . heavenly! There's nothing like dead animal cooking with dead vegetables in dead-animal broth! Mmmmmmm! I guess PETA isn't coming for dinner. More for me!

Meanwhile, I have a DVD of "Burn Notice" on for background noise (thanks, Cine-Sib!), I've been chatting with friends on the phone, and I'm almost done with my latest nerd-paper! Once I'm done, I'll work on my summer movie retrospective for tomorrow as my little Labor Day gift to you. Nerd Lords seem to be worlds away. No Nerd Lords until Tuesday. Ah, life on this holiday weekend is GOOD.

Mad Minerva, out.

UPDATE: The carnitas turned out to be a smashing success. Try that recipe at once! YUM.

Satire Alert: We Need a Superficial Conversation About Race

The Onion hits the nail on the head yet again! Blurb:

Black, white, yellow, green, or brown— we can all be callously summed up in a trite statement of unity.

Like it or not, the U.S. needs a stupid conversation on the issue of race relations. Perhaps more importantly, we need this stupid dialogue to be couched in the most self-righteous, know-it-all attitudes on the part of those involved, as if they have no idea whatsoever of how much more complicated the issue is, and how little their one-dimensional approach to it brings to the table.

Hilarious!

Nerd News: Some Muslims Students Ask Australian Universities to Change Class Schedules

Here it is:

International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.

But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs.

I wholeheartedly agree with this Aussie school head's reply:

La Trobe University International College director Martin Van Run said that although it was involved in discussions with the Muslim students who had made the requests, the university was not planning to change any timetables.

"That would seriously inconvenience other people at the college and it is not institutionally viable," he told The Australian. "We are a secular institution ... and we need to have a structured timetable."

Mr Van Run said that Saudi students were fully aware that the university was secular before coming to study there. "They know well in advance the class times," he said.

Hear, hear.