You bring nuance to a subject that some people pretend is simple. These issues are complex, and we need to have compassion for refugees, respect for immigrants, sensitivity to existing populations and cultures, and so on. That's too much for a lot of people to get their heads around, so they just pick a side. Traumatised people are arriving in the UK and being treated like cattle because our asylum/immigration system is on its knees. The government is overwhelmed and dumps them in hotels, in communities that are already under-resourced. Everyone suffers in this situation.
Thanks for a really intelligent piece - so interesting to hear your perspective.
(I'm currently working on a short post about Nigel Farage, and the dread that he might be the next Prime Minister. I don't know whether I'll publish it - as you say, it's a fraught subject and one wonders whether it's worth adding to the mayhem!)
Thanks Jules, really appreciate this comment. I'd definitely read your piece about Farage, but I feel you, it's a minefield, this stuff. The hope is that reasonable voices will be unafraid to speak up, so that the ground isn't ceded to bullhorn populists. I have faith that there's plenty of compassion and sensitivity out there. Let's hope it wins out.
Thanks Sanjiv. You have certainly contributed to a saner analysis with this piece. I hope you don't get any flak - you haven't said anything controversial. If these problems are going to be fixed we need more rational commentary land less political posturing.
Glad to see you back on the Stack, Sanj. This is a thought-provoking hot take. Since I'm not English (Wish I was though! All the cool people hail from there.), I'm here to learn and for moral support.
So difficult, but this is a great piece. My overriding feeling is utterly disgust at the British press. Those headlines are appalling. And a quick comment: yesterday our driver was a very proud Anglo-Pakistani, second generation, devout Muslim. He told us how proud he was at how his family has assimilated.. he calls himself British but is delighted that his children consider themselves English. He sees this as evidence of his successful parenting. I was less convinced than he is that they would all stay Muslim and marry within the faith...they are all currently at British universities. Who knows or can control who they fall in love with.
Thanks Sarah. The headlines aren't helping for sure. Interesting about the 2nd generation, which direction they choose and the pressures they feel. In my case the pressure was light, to marry a Bengali, etc, but that's not uncommon for the Hindu diaspora, I think it's a different story for Muslims. I do wonder how one can be a devout Muslim and not come into conflict with British culture at some point. That sounds like an interesting cab ride!
Great piece Sanjiv. In my opinion, the fact that this kind of argument or debate was essentially verboten in liberal, establishment Britain led directly to the Brexit vote and the mess we are in now. We need to talk about the issues honestly, rationally and without hatred or condescension.
Nice one Simon, great to see you here. I couldn't agree more. The fact that we're still dealing with that censorious, scolding climate, even during Trump's second term, goes to show how deeply it polluted the culture. But I see it weakening, we may finally be entering an era of plain speaking about difficult subjects. I hope so.
Truly great balance to this Sanjiv excellent mate …baffling as we’ve all been so round the houses that this feels fresh as a perspective ! Just a shame footy isn’t more ingrained in Pakistan and Indian culture as that’s always been the great leveller …Michael Chopra is the only premier league footballer I can think of in recent years,and he ended up down the bookies !
Nick! Thanks for this, and thanks for subscribing! It's weird when Gen X common sense feels like a novel take, but these are curious times... I didn't know that about Michael Chopra, I need to look him up. Footie is the great leveller you're so right. Let's raise a glass one day, mate.
Sanjiv, I discovered you through our mutual acquaintance Hilary H. (who has commented below in support). This is a hard nut to crack. You are brave to go in on it.
I lived in Germany in 1996-1997, in a small city that had an asylum center - as well as a large state psychiatric hospital - located in it. I was an exchange student in high school in this small city. Being an exchange student means you're there for a limited amount of time and you'll most likely leave at the end of your year (which I did). I learned first hand how difficult it is to move to another country, especially one whose native language I didn't speak very well. So I have empathy for immigrants. But I also think that multiculturalism doesn't work. When I lived in this German city, I learned that I needed to be very careful what I wore so as not to draw unwanted attention from men. Not ethnically German men, but men who had immigrated from countries that didn't respect women's rights to wear what they wanted in public and who weren't modestly "covered". These men were not assimilating into the culture. They would harass and stalk me and other girls throughout the town. More than once I was followed almost to my host family's house. It was so scary. They would say the dirtiest shit to my face while walking by me when I walked in the "stadtzentrum". At one point during the year, one of them stuck a small knife in my leg because I had the nerve to hang out in the pool hall with my German girlfriends. I learned that the pool hall was meant to be for men only and not for both men and women. This wasn't the normal exchange year most experienced in Germany in 1996-1997. Outside of the large cities, I think that town was one of the first to begin transitioning towards a more global model due to the asylum center located there.
I haven't been back to that German city since I left it. I am certain it has a much larger population of immigrants now. I've looked at Google maps and I see they now have Vietnamese and Thai restaurants, where they once only had German, Italian and Turkish Doner Kebab shops. They also have a very large Mosque now, which didn't exist when I lived there. On the surface, this all seems great. The food offerings have likely gotten much better. There are likely more exchanges between native Germans and other cultures. All good things. But I haven't a clue if they still have the same issues they had when I lived there regarding the harassment issue. I just know it changed my perspective to a certain extent in terms of tolerance. No one did anything about this at the time and it shouldn't have been allowed. I'm certain most people knew it was going on. It wasn't a large city. It has only 25,000 people living in it.
And look, sexual harassment doesn't go hand-in-hand with immigrants. I was sexually harassed at a job in London by a white Oxford-educated Englishman.
I think the issues though are at a much higher level. The question is what is the long term goal of destabilizing the west via multiculturalism? Why is the push for unfettered immigration so tied to racial politics and virtue (as you noted several times in your article)? Is it to prevent people from pushing back? How is it tied to past guilt that Europeans have regarding the 20th century's evils? Is the goal to demolish nationalism? Is it to undo the concept of the nation-state or of ethnicity altogether? Will what is happening in the West come eventually to all nations? Will this destabilization bring with it a rise in ethnonationalism (seems likely), violence and perhaps genocide? What is the ultimate goal for future generations? In all likelihood it seems like the West is reverting to feudalism because many of the individuals coming from other countries still live a form of feudalism themselves. So perhaps, the global elites have a goal to make all into feudal serfs and can only do this through cultural destabilization. I don't know and I don't really like going down the right wing ethnonationalist wormhole to look for answers. The centrists and the left should be addressing this as well.
The intentional destruction of any culture is inherently bad for everyone. Yet, it's happened repeatedly throughout history. The 20th century had some of the worst of this in modernity, but go back further and our world is filled with violence and ethnic hatred for all kinds of reasons (including people from the same ethnic groups committing genocide due to different religious beliefs). That we are thinking things through and able to have these conversations is important. But there's this terrible impulse to silence the conversation on the left, which leads people towards the right because they're the only ones talking about it and they aren't afraid. But their views aren't necessarily going to lead us in the best direction either. It is going to take a very nuanced approach. If not, I fear that very bad times are coming to the UK and Western Europe. Don't even get me started on America.
What a response Autumn, thank you so much for sharing this and being so frank, it's much appreciated. I'm sorry to hear about your experience in Germany, and I'm sure it's not isolated - the feed teems with these kinds of stories all over Europe. I know the news has a way of magnifying and pouring gasoline, but nevertheless, there's truth there, and it's hard not to worry about where it's leading.
I don't know about the agendas at play here, regarding globalism, the destabilization of the west and so on. Who would you ascribe these grand agendas to, who are these global elites? It tends to veer dangerously close to antisemitic tropes and I'm leery of it all. But it's definitely happening.
I can't agree with you more about the importance of a nuanced approach to these things, and I wish the left and the center would not cede this ground so quickly. I too fear dark times on the horizon, not very far off either. One thing I've realized though, is that being quiet isn't the answer. Had more of us been noisier over the past 10 years, then maybe the mad excesses of both right and left could have been avoided.
Thanks for your reply. I wouldn’t ascribe it to one particular ethnic group of elites. That would not be true at all. Sorry if my questions seemed that way.
Not at all, it didn’t seem that way from your comment, that’s just my concern when I hear “global elites”. It reminds me of my interviews with neo Nazis who make no bones about who they think these elites are. The needle Is certainly tilting in the nationalist direction now…
Understandable. I really do mean elites invested in the global economy. That’s a broad range of powerful people. Some are political leaders, some are Big Tech billionaires, etc. They are diverse and not of one ethnic or religious group. And they are often at odds with each other. I do think they believe what they are doing is right. Ultimately, I think what is driving them is likely a form of progress. But progress often is a double edged sword that destroys so much while attempting to change things.
Thanks again for this thoughtful article. It made me consider these questions. I don’t have the answers to any of them.
Sanjiv, this article brings me joy and exhilaration. The conversation around these issues is so verboten in my (our?) mostly leftist bubbles, but you know from our work together at Pacific U that my perspective on these things is much more nuanced and complicated than the boiler plate leftist response.
It seems to me that there is an underlying assumption by the left that white cultures and/or people have to pay for the proverbial sins of the father (colonialism, slavery, genocide etc.) and therefore, good, white 'allies' are on their (our?) back feet when addressing anything vaguely race-based. Furthermore, any objections we might bring up about how our culture, country, region, city, village etc. is changing too rapidly for our liking can be dismissed-cynically or otherwise-as racism. It's a double standard whose premise is contingent on the post-modern division of humanity into oppressor and oppressed. In other words, anything the oppressed does is justified by their marginalized condition, whereas anything the oppressor does is inherently an expression of power.
I have so many more thoughts on this subject, but I will put a sock in it for the time-being. I appreciate your sticking your neck out with this piece, though I do believe that the dialog is starting to change as more and more people realize that the far leftist view that everything whites do is racist and the right wing view that everything whites do is manifest destiny are both utter nonsense.
I remember you turned me onto Joan Didion at Pacific U. Her famous quote: "The center cannot hold" will once again prove true unless we endeavor to pull it back together.
Appreciate this Bill! You know the immigrant experience, you've been a foreigner, so you can see it from both sides. I'm so happy that you feel that sense of exhiliration, we both inhabit very liberal/left circles and it can be very difficult to even raise these subjects, much less express an opinion that dissents from 'the party line'. I hope things are changing as you say... let's see! I think the center is definitely not holding right now, in fact it has been vacated entirely, all the energy is on the extremes. Thanks for subscribing!
Excellent. I couldn't agree more--and before anyone accuses me of patronising, I have been an immigrant most of my adult life--like you, I became a US citizen, and now live in Portugal, and have learned to speak Portuguese fluently and done my utmost (not always successfully!) to assimilate. I do regard myself as a 'guest' in the country I live in, by which I mean that I should adapt to the host country, not they to me. And I make sure that I am in no sense a burden, financial or otherwise, to the host nation. This seems to me to be the minimum one could expect.
Thanks Garry, appreciate this comment! We've arrived a strange time when what strikes us as common sense is seen as risque and out there, or failing that, weak and uninspiring - I think both extremes hate the middle for not taking a strong enough stand. The moderate center has been largely vacated. Maybe what we need is a kind of muscular moderation? Btw, there seem to be more and more Americans moving to Portugal these days, I wonder how that's going. Well done on speaking Portuguese!
Another great wading into the morass piece, Sanjiv. Thanks. I couldn’t help but think if the part if my family that was and some who remain Amish. They pride themselves in remaining “other.” And Yoder v. Wisconsin confirmed their right to operate Amish schools which stop at 8th grade. There are, of course, more examples of their otherness (the whole horse-and-buggy thing comes to mind), and this I regard as part of America’s greatness. That said, my mother lied about her age to elope at 18 with my father and loved cutting her hair and wearing high heels. I have both admiration for (the community members who invited the widow of the man who had murdered their children at an Amish school to attend their mourning services) and real wariness of many of the Amish (the Ohio pastor who sent his sons out to cut off the beards of congregation members who were insufficiently compliant with what the pastor wanted). You have hit on the strengths and problems. I’ll think about and reread your excellent piece.
What a fascinating reply Jennifer, thank you for this. America is truly a different case for so many reasons and its capacity for Others of so many descriptions is hard to beat. Greatness indeed. What a fascinating group the Amish are, I don't know nearly enough about them. Great to see you here as always.
You bring nuance to a subject that some people pretend is simple. These issues are complex, and we need to have compassion for refugees, respect for immigrants, sensitivity to existing populations and cultures, and so on. That's too much for a lot of people to get their heads around, so they just pick a side. Traumatised people are arriving in the UK and being treated like cattle because our asylum/immigration system is on its knees. The government is overwhelmed and dumps them in hotels, in communities that are already under-resourced. Everyone suffers in this situation.
Thanks for a really intelligent piece - so interesting to hear your perspective.
(I'm currently working on a short post about Nigel Farage, and the dread that he might be the next Prime Minister. I don't know whether I'll publish it - as you say, it's a fraught subject and one wonders whether it's worth adding to the mayhem!)
Thanks Jules, really appreciate this comment. I'd definitely read your piece about Farage, but I feel you, it's a minefield, this stuff. The hope is that reasonable voices will be unafraid to speak up, so that the ground isn't ceded to bullhorn populists. I have faith that there's plenty of compassion and sensitivity out there. Let's hope it wins out.
Thanks Sanjiv. You have certainly contributed to a saner analysis with this piece. I hope you don't get any flak - you haven't said anything controversial. If these problems are going to be fixed we need more rational commentary land less political posturing.
Glad to see you back on the Stack, Sanj. This is a thought-provoking hot take. Since I'm not English (Wish I was though! All the cool people hail from there.), I'm here to learn and for moral support.
Thanks Hilary! Always appreciate your moral support. Lot of cool people in the US too though…
So difficult, but this is a great piece. My overriding feeling is utterly disgust at the British press. Those headlines are appalling. And a quick comment: yesterday our driver was a very proud Anglo-Pakistani, second generation, devout Muslim. He told us how proud he was at how his family has assimilated.. he calls himself British but is delighted that his children consider themselves English. He sees this as evidence of his successful parenting. I was less convinced than he is that they would all stay Muslim and marry within the faith...they are all currently at British universities. Who knows or can control who they fall in love with.
Thanks Sarah. The headlines aren't helping for sure. Interesting about the 2nd generation, which direction they choose and the pressures they feel. In my case the pressure was light, to marry a Bengali, etc, but that's not uncommon for the Hindu diaspora, I think it's a different story for Muslims. I do wonder how one can be a devout Muslim and not come into conflict with British culture at some point. That sounds like an interesting cab ride!
It was very funny. Lovely guy, told us he liked being a driver because he heard so many life stories..but we couldn't get a word in edgeways!
Great piece Sanjiv. In my opinion, the fact that this kind of argument or debate was essentially verboten in liberal, establishment Britain led directly to the Brexit vote and the mess we are in now. We need to talk about the issues honestly, rationally and without hatred or condescension.
Nice one Simon, great to see you here. I couldn't agree more. The fact that we're still dealing with that censorious, scolding climate, even during Trump's second term, goes to show how deeply it polluted the culture. But I see it weakening, we may finally be entering an era of plain speaking about difficult subjects. I hope so.
Truly great balance to this Sanjiv excellent mate …baffling as we’ve all been so round the houses that this feels fresh as a perspective ! Just a shame footy isn’t more ingrained in Pakistan and Indian culture as that’s always been the great leveller …Michael Chopra is the only premier league footballer I can think of in recent years,and he ended up down the bookies !
Nick! Thanks for this, and thanks for subscribing! It's weird when Gen X common sense feels like a novel take, but these are curious times... I didn't know that about Michael Chopra, I need to look him up. Footie is the great leveller you're so right. Let's raise a glass one day, mate.
Sanjiv, I discovered you through our mutual acquaintance Hilary H. (who has commented below in support). This is a hard nut to crack. You are brave to go in on it.
I lived in Germany in 1996-1997, in a small city that had an asylum center - as well as a large state psychiatric hospital - located in it. I was an exchange student in high school in this small city. Being an exchange student means you're there for a limited amount of time and you'll most likely leave at the end of your year (which I did). I learned first hand how difficult it is to move to another country, especially one whose native language I didn't speak very well. So I have empathy for immigrants. But I also think that multiculturalism doesn't work. When I lived in this German city, I learned that I needed to be very careful what I wore so as not to draw unwanted attention from men. Not ethnically German men, but men who had immigrated from countries that didn't respect women's rights to wear what they wanted in public and who weren't modestly "covered". These men were not assimilating into the culture. They would harass and stalk me and other girls throughout the town. More than once I was followed almost to my host family's house. It was so scary. They would say the dirtiest shit to my face while walking by me when I walked in the "stadtzentrum". At one point during the year, one of them stuck a small knife in my leg because I had the nerve to hang out in the pool hall with my German girlfriends. I learned that the pool hall was meant to be for men only and not for both men and women. This wasn't the normal exchange year most experienced in Germany in 1996-1997. Outside of the large cities, I think that town was one of the first to begin transitioning towards a more global model due to the asylum center located there.
I haven't been back to that German city since I left it. I am certain it has a much larger population of immigrants now. I've looked at Google maps and I see they now have Vietnamese and Thai restaurants, where they once only had German, Italian and Turkish Doner Kebab shops. They also have a very large Mosque now, which didn't exist when I lived there. On the surface, this all seems great. The food offerings have likely gotten much better. There are likely more exchanges between native Germans and other cultures. All good things. But I haven't a clue if they still have the same issues they had when I lived there regarding the harassment issue. I just know it changed my perspective to a certain extent in terms of tolerance. No one did anything about this at the time and it shouldn't have been allowed. I'm certain most people knew it was going on. It wasn't a large city. It has only 25,000 people living in it.
And look, sexual harassment doesn't go hand-in-hand with immigrants. I was sexually harassed at a job in London by a white Oxford-educated Englishman.
I think the issues though are at a much higher level. The question is what is the long term goal of destabilizing the west via multiculturalism? Why is the push for unfettered immigration so tied to racial politics and virtue (as you noted several times in your article)? Is it to prevent people from pushing back? How is it tied to past guilt that Europeans have regarding the 20th century's evils? Is the goal to demolish nationalism? Is it to undo the concept of the nation-state or of ethnicity altogether? Will what is happening in the West come eventually to all nations? Will this destabilization bring with it a rise in ethnonationalism (seems likely), violence and perhaps genocide? What is the ultimate goal for future generations? In all likelihood it seems like the West is reverting to feudalism because many of the individuals coming from other countries still live a form of feudalism themselves. So perhaps, the global elites have a goal to make all into feudal serfs and can only do this through cultural destabilization. I don't know and I don't really like going down the right wing ethnonationalist wormhole to look for answers. The centrists and the left should be addressing this as well.
The intentional destruction of any culture is inherently bad for everyone. Yet, it's happened repeatedly throughout history. The 20th century had some of the worst of this in modernity, but go back further and our world is filled with violence and ethnic hatred for all kinds of reasons (including people from the same ethnic groups committing genocide due to different religious beliefs). That we are thinking things through and able to have these conversations is important. But there's this terrible impulse to silence the conversation on the left, which leads people towards the right because they're the only ones talking about it and they aren't afraid. But their views aren't necessarily going to lead us in the best direction either. It is going to take a very nuanced approach. If not, I fear that very bad times are coming to the UK and Western Europe. Don't even get me started on America.
What a response Autumn, thank you so much for sharing this and being so frank, it's much appreciated. I'm sorry to hear about your experience in Germany, and I'm sure it's not isolated - the feed teems with these kinds of stories all over Europe. I know the news has a way of magnifying and pouring gasoline, but nevertheless, there's truth there, and it's hard not to worry about where it's leading.
I don't know about the agendas at play here, regarding globalism, the destabilization of the west and so on. Who would you ascribe these grand agendas to, who are these global elites? It tends to veer dangerously close to antisemitic tropes and I'm leery of it all. But it's definitely happening.
I can't agree with you more about the importance of a nuanced approach to these things, and I wish the left and the center would not cede this ground so quickly. I too fear dark times on the horizon, not very far off either. One thing I've realized though, is that being quiet isn't the answer. Had more of us been noisier over the past 10 years, then maybe the mad excesses of both right and left could have been avoided.
Thanks for your reply. I wouldn’t ascribe it to one particular ethnic group of elites. That would not be true at all. Sorry if my questions seemed that way.
Not at all, it didn’t seem that way from your comment, that’s just my concern when I hear “global elites”. It reminds me of my interviews with neo Nazis who make no bones about who they think these elites are. The needle Is certainly tilting in the nationalist direction now…
Understandable. I really do mean elites invested in the global economy. That’s a broad range of powerful people. Some are political leaders, some are Big Tech billionaires, etc. They are diverse and not of one ethnic or religious group. And they are often at odds with each other. I do think they believe what they are doing is right. Ultimately, I think what is driving them is likely a form of progress. But progress often is a double edged sword that destroys so much while attempting to change things.
Thanks again for this thoughtful article. It made me consider these questions. I don’t have the answers to any of them.
Sanjiv, this article brings me joy and exhilaration. The conversation around these issues is so verboten in my (our?) mostly leftist bubbles, but you know from our work together at Pacific U that my perspective on these things is much more nuanced and complicated than the boiler plate leftist response.
It seems to me that there is an underlying assumption by the left that white cultures and/or people have to pay for the proverbial sins of the father (colonialism, slavery, genocide etc.) and therefore, good, white 'allies' are on their (our?) back feet when addressing anything vaguely race-based. Furthermore, any objections we might bring up about how our culture, country, region, city, village etc. is changing too rapidly for our liking can be dismissed-cynically or otherwise-as racism. It's a double standard whose premise is contingent on the post-modern division of humanity into oppressor and oppressed. In other words, anything the oppressed does is justified by their marginalized condition, whereas anything the oppressor does is inherently an expression of power.
I have so many more thoughts on this subject, but I will put a sock in it for the time-being. I appreciate your sticking your neck out with this piece, though I do believe that the dialog is starting to change as more and more people realize that the far leftist view that everything whites do is racist and the right wing view that everything whites do is manifest destiny are both utter nonsense.
I remember you turned me onto Joan Didion at Pacific U. Her famous quote: "The center cannot hold" will once again prove true unless we endeavor to pull it back together.
Appreciate this Bill! You know the immigrant experience, you've been a foreigner, so you can see it from both sides. I'm so happy that you feel that sense of exhiliration, we both inhabit very liberal/left circles and it can be very difficult to even raise these subjects, much less express an opinion that dissents from 'the party line'. I hope things are changing as you say... let's see! I think the center is definitely not holding right now, in fact it has been vacated entirely, all the energy is on the extremes. Thanks for subscribing!
Excellent. I couldn't agree more--and before anyone accuses me of patronising, I have been an immigrant most of my adult life--like you, I became a US citizen, and now live in Portugal, and have learned to speak Portuguese fluently and done my utmost (not always successfully!) to assimilate. I do regard myself as a 'guest' in the country I live in, by which I mean that I should adapt to the host country, not they to me. And I make sure that I am in no sense a burden, financial or otherwise, to the host nation. This seems to me to be the minimum one could expect.
Thanks Garry, appreciate this comment! We've arrived a strange time when what strikes us as common sense is seen as risque and out there, or failing that, weak and uninspiring - I think both extremes hate the middle for not taking a strong enough stand. The moderate center has been largely vacated. Maybe what we need is a kind of muscular moderation? Btw, there seem to be more and more Americans moving to Portugal these days, I wonder how that's going. Well done on speaking Portuguese!
Another great wading into the morass piece, Sanjiv. Thanks. I couldn’t help but think if the part if my family that was and some who remain Amish. They pride themselves in remaining “other.” And Yoder v. Wisconsin confirmed their right to operate Amish schools which stop at 8th grade. There are, of course, more examples of their otherness (the whole horse-and-buggy thing comes to mind), and this I regard as part of America’s greatness. That said, my mother lied about her age to elope at 18 with my father and loved cutting her hair and wearing high heels. I have both admiration for (the community members who invited the widow of the man who had murdered their children at an Amish school to attend their mourning services) and real wariness of many of the Amish (the Ohio pastor who sent his sons out to cut off the beards of congregation members who were insufficiently compliant with what the pastor wanted). You have hit on the strengths and problems. I’ll think about and reread your excellent piece.
What a fascinating reply Jennifer, thank you for this. America is truly a different case for so many reasons and its capacity for Others of so many descriptions is hard to beat. Greatness indeed. What a fascinating group the Amish are, I don't know nearly enough about them. Great to see you here as always.
Thanks for posting this. You might be shouting in the wilderness here on Substack, and I for one appreciate your point of view.
Thank you Charles, it's good to see you here, appreciate your comment!