Source: Wikipedia.

Huntington himself offered some explanations for why civilizations clash in the typically modern, Harvard style of over-explaining fairly banal concepts, i.e. civilization is profoundly felt, profound differences cause conflict, etc. — not news to anyone who was socialized outside the coddling reach of the American progressive clerisy. More liberal-minded Westerners, especially ones who serve as functionaries of the American Empire overseas (what has been variously labelled the Cathedral, the Blue Empire or USG), tend to be unable to grasp these basic tenets of Homo sapiens, owing to the degree they themselves have actually evolved into another species, Homo economicus. Well-meaning progressive bureaucrats proselytizing on the ancient blood-soaked soil of the Balkans, for example, exit largely unsuccessfully, and with a progressive faith either deeply strengthened or fundamentally shaken. Adored Western celebrities like Benedict Cumberbatch have to apologize profusely for using innocuous and vaguely outdated terms like “colored people,” for fear of offending the omnipresent Other. Elsewhere float around sectarian paeans with tenderhearted, tolerant lyrics such as:

Both women and children / Throw them off a bridge!

Your mosques will pay for each of our churches / … Let them kneel when they see Jesus on the cross

Soup from your blood / Cake from your flesh

And, as if purposely trying to further corroborate Huntington’s outlined clash of civilizations:

Serbia — on your feet, win many battles against …

Modern barbarians from America who nurture degenerates.

Even in the fairly neutered Federal Republic of Germany, an extremely popular rapper like Fler can brag about his “blue eyes, white skin” and proclaim “People say I’m a Nazi / I don’t care, say whatever you want.” Identity is not quite out of fashion yet, even for Europeans, though the thought of similar proclamations happening a little further West is nigh unthinkable. PEGIDA, despite internal drama, is making waves. These contemporary examples from the yet-to-be-enlightened parts of white Europe abound. But I digress — back to the clash of civilizations.

In the years since the early 1990’s, Huntington’s predictions of conflict have not been proven wrong, as a more extreme fan of Francis Fukuyama might have wished. The ‘bloody borders’ of the Islamic civilization have only intensified in violence. Various conflicts — political, military, economic or otherwise — can be identified at essentially all the limits of Huntington’s civilizations. Conflicts can be identified within them too, but the bloodiest and most inflammatory ones inevitably occur at the eternally-disputed boundaries between civilizations. Take another gander at the map above. Between Orthodoxy and Islam we get wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Caucuses. Between Islam and Africa we get Boko Haram. Between Islam and the Hindu civilization we get perpetual terrorism. Between Orthodoxy and the West we get wars in Croatia and Slovenia and the current crisis in Ukraine. Between the West and Latin America, we get quiet rumblings of future upheaval. And of course, between the West and Islam, we get Charlie Hebdo. The clashes of civilizations which are revving up between Huntington’s West, Orthodoxy and Islam will be the defining historical movements of this century.

Skeptics of the gravity of the clash of civilizations between the West and Islam ought to consider the fact that in a mere 14 years since the September 11th attacks in 2001, practically every major Western city has suffered some sort of Islamic attack. New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Madrid, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Glasgow, Boston, Ottawa, Sydney, Stockholm — all have tasted the bitter brew of jihad. To that list we can even add smaller locales like Fort Hood, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Endeavour Hills and the French cities of Toulouse, Montauban, Dijon, Nantes and Joué-lès-Tours. Granted, these attacks vary significantly in form, organization and casualties. The highly-coordinated attacks of 9/11 were not quite the same as the incident involving the fanatic shouting “Allahu akbar!” and mowing down Dijonnais pedestrians in a van. Yet, somehow, I am not comforted knowing that, when strolling through the greatest centers of Western civilization, I can now expect a number greater than zero of Islam-inspired mass shootings, beheadings, bombings (suicide and otherwise), stabbings, hostage-takings, hijackings, assassinations and vehicular manslaughters — all of which, just since the start of the new millennium, have taken place on Western streets where blue-eyed, white-skinned children used to wander and play, at will, carefree.

A bit belatedly, French special police hunt for Islamists with whom to do the ol’ civilization-clashing.

Huntington’s Orthodox civilization has had its fair share of struggles with Islam as well, from Serbia’s tit-for-tat genocidal episodes with neighboring Muslims in the 90’s to Russia’s mindbogglingly violent Chechen saga. Chechens as a group are a bit of a crack team for Islamic civilization. Only Chechens could find time to nearly simultaneously terrorize both America and Russia in their own territory, while also leading the establishment of a brutally sincere Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East. Not bad for an ethnic group barely 2 million strong.

The Great Unspoken Truth in the West, that groups like PEGIDA are attempting to speak, is that the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is not one that could be traditionally regarded as inevitable. Efforts of Europeans long gone have put firm geographical barriers between the West and Islam. The poorest, most rural, most fundamentalist Muslims find not high walls and sentries at Europe’s proverbial gates, but secular governments welcoming them with patronizing words and generous benefits. These Muslims follow the money, slowly accumulate in urban ghettos, and, sooner or later, the clash of civilizations occurs. A couple of left-wing cartoonists are riddled with bullets. Alternately, Western interference in Muslim countries half-way across the world contributes to increasing proportions of dead, angry, and/or gun-toting Muslims. Sooner or later, some armed and aggrieved (usually by the same Western powers) Mahometans come up with a way to strike back at the Great Satan. A couple of skyscrapers experience — ahem — “controlled demolition.” The West, through a combination of schizophrenic foreign policies and reckless immigration policies, is forcing a clash of civilizations that was last settled at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

The once-imagined “Third Way” of Mitteleuropa was mortally wounded by the Boot of Progress in 1918, and put out of its misery in 1945. Western “Progress” and Eastern “Progress” stared each other down until the East buckled under the weight of its Marxist delusions in 1991. The West, triumphant, sounded its own death knell with talk of the “end of history.” History, the cheeky little scrub that he is, came back as quickly as he disappeared upon hearing victory bells. Now the civilization of the West is contending with an Orthodox jihad and an Islamic one, neither of which it is adequately prepared to face, since it can’t even admit it has any opponents left to face. The Islamic civilization, held at bay for more than 300 years, is invited into a West deeply doped up with an ersatz eschatology. The Orthodox civilization, now a quarter-century after the ignominious death of its own ersatz eschatology, is flexing new muscle. The problem with progressivism is that reality doesn’t progress — only narratives do. From TIME:

“This is not another Cold War that we’re entering into,” [U.S. President Barack Obama] said in his 36-minute address. “After all, unlike the Soviet Union, Russia leads no bloc of nations, no global ideology. The United States and NATO do not seek any conflict with Russia. In fact, for more than 60 years we have come together in NATO not to claim other lands but to keep nations free.”

Any perceptive watcher of the world will notice there are more than a few ideological differences between Russia and America to complement the geopolitical ones. Considering NATO’s aggressive expansion since 1991 into Eastern Europe and the otherwise post-Soviet space that was Russia’s proverbial backyard, the claim that NATO is not about “claiming other lands” seems suspect, to say the least. Every great empire in history has tried to frame its own expansion as anything but temporary naked conquest. The American President’s words are in any case as disingenuous as can be. The ruling class of the United States, the Cathedral, the self-organizing consensus of academia, the media and the state bureaucracy (that, for far more complicated reasons, conveniently organizes around chauvinistic left-wing progressivism), viciously hates President Vladimir Putin, Russia, and the Russian people. The politically correct descendants of America’s Puritans cannot stand the forthright, alcoholic Russians, who refuse to join the “international community” and don’t see why anyone would want to sacralize the act of shoving male penis into male anus. For this transgression against progressivism, Russians deserve to burn alive. Russians, surprisingly, aren’t too fond of the choice the “end of history” has offered them — your ass or your life! — and are rather vehemently organizing, opposing, and combating the West’s latest intrusions into Orthodox civilization.

On the bumpy road towards a clash of civilizations.

John R. Schindler (a.k.a. “The XX Committee”), former U.S. intelligence spook, has more than a few interesting things to say about the Russian perspective of this ongoing confrontation.

If nothing else, the current crisis has demonstrated to Russians, with Kremlin prodding, that the United States remains their Main Enemy that it was for decades, now led by the arrogant and weak Obama, who is hated by the Russian public. [Author’s Note: 76% of Russians “personally hate” Obama.]

[…]

To the shock and dismay of hopeful Westerners, including nearly all NATO leaders, the hard hit of sanctions has caused Russians to hate the West, not Putin. Most Russians view their war in Ukraine as a legitimate defense of Russians and Russian interests, certainly nothing like America’s aggressive wars of choice halfway around the world, and they are backing the Kremlin now.

[…]

The Kremlin now believes they are at war with the United States, an Orthodox Holy War in the eyes of many Russians, and that struggle is defensive and legitimate.

[…]

…what they are battling against is not the Ukrainian government, nor American neoconservatives, rather the Devil himself.

President Putin inaugurated the New Year by signing off on a new military doctrine designating NATO as Russia’s #1 adversary. It emphasized Russia’s right to respond to conventional threats with both nuclear and conventional weapons. Schindler does not see good things in the future of Poroshenko’s Ukraine. Huntington’s Orthodox civilization advances consciously on the West.

Serbia — on your feet, win many battles against …

Modern barbarians from America who nurture degenerates.

The West (and Europe in particular), Russia and Islam form a dueling trio in the 21st century iteration of the clash of civilizations. The problem for the West is that it seems to be the only participant unaware that a contest is underway. The Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris occurred on the very same day rebel French writer Michel Houellebecq’s latest novel Soumission was published — of all things, the novel’s plot concerns a future France ruled by Islamists. God apparently has a sense of humor, if only a sick one. Houellebecq’s fictional (or are they really?) Islamists take power over the nationalist opposition with the crucial support of France’s left-wing establishment, dutifully following its progressive directives all the way to the graveyard of civilizations. Following the non-fictional Paris attacks, Western mainstream media duly warned us that the real danger was not swarthy fanatics from the hostile continent across the Mediterranean, but Islamophobia.

In a sense, they are only rejecting one half of the truth for the more palatable half. If you’re a progressive leftist or liberal, especially one in Europe, you’re going to be targeted by both Islamists and Islamophobes. Anders Behring Breivik, Europe’s only notable right-wing terrorist in recent memory, bombed Norwegian government offices then shot up 69 people at the youth summer camp for Norway’s Labour Party. He did this because the Labour Party was supporting Islamic immigration to Norway, a typically leftist thing to do. Breivik did not bomb a mosque and he did not shoot up a madrasa. The motley Islamists who perpetrated Paris’ most recent attacks targeted Charlie Hebdo, a police officer, some random passersby, and a Jewish grocery store. They did this because Charlie Hebdo was blaspheming (a typical leftist thing to do), because the police officer was French (a typical leftist thing to be), because the Jewish grocery store was Jewish (another typical leftist thing to be) and because the random passersby were French (don’t make me repeat myself). The Islamists did not target: Front National, neo-Nazis, Varg Vikernes, Catholic churches, far-right-wing bloggers. Funny that, innit?

This bizarre convergence of interests among radical rightists in Europe and radical Islamists has hardly escaped notice. None other than Michel Houellebecq examines this increasingly incongruous situation in the novel Soumission. Still only available in French and German (an English translation is scheduled for September 2015), yours truly had to rely on this little compilation of reviews by Steve Sailer for enlightenment (yours truly was not about to spend upwards of 22 EUR on the German version — not with a time preference as aristocratically low as yours’ truly!). I will assume you read the linked compilation of reviews, and I will highlight only the most important parts, which are substantial nonetheless:

The new university President, Muslim convert, and rising political star Robert Rediger is revealed as a former identitarian [Read: nationalist] who has quickly advanced up through the ranks and is becoming one of the ideological leaders of the Islamic movement.

[…]

As the novel goes on, the mystery concerning the identitaire role in the new regime only mounts. There were already questions during the “civil war’ as to the various motivations of the jihadi youth and the identitaires. Since they were almost always hooded, it was hard to tell who exactly was attacking whom and there were debates over which side had more of an interest to disrupt the elections. But slowly it is revealed just how much ideological influence Roger Rediger has on the new Muslim government. The clincher is that next door in Belgium, a new Islamic regime comes to power headed by an ethnic European who has well-known roots in the identitaire movement. In Lenin’s classic Who/Whom framework of power relations, it becomes increasingly clear that far from being the weak and subjective Whom, at least some European far right nativist identitaires are actually on the power-holding Who side of the struggle.

But why would the right-wing nativist identitaires want to help push Muslim overlords into power in their country? Jacques searches the internet and finds a very interesting article written by none other than Roger Rediger:

The whole article was an appeal to his former identitaire and traditionalist comrades. It’s tragic, he pleaded fervently, that irrational hostility towards Islam prevents them from recognizing the obvious: they were for the most part in perfect agreement with the Muslims. On the rejection of atheism and humanism, on the need for the subordination of women, on the return to patriarchy: their struggles from any point of view were exactly the same. But this fight to establish a new and natural phase of civilization could not now be conducted in the name of Christianity. No, it’s only with Christianity’s newer, simpler, and truer sister religion Islam that this battle could be waged.

Therefore it was Islam which now had to carry the torch. Because of all the dainty rhetoric, cajoling, and shameful stroking by progressives, the Catholic Church could no longer resist moral decadence. It was now unable to clearly and vigorously resist gay marriage, abortion rights and women moving into the workforce. We had to face the facts: the church had reached a repugnant degree of decline. Western Europe was no longer in any condition to save itself – just as ancient Rome had not been able to so the 5th century. The influx of massive numbers of immigrants — who were still under the influence of traditional cultures which not only accepted natural hierarchies, but also obliged both the submission of and respect due to women — was an historic opportunity for a moral and familial realignment of Europe. In fact this opened the prospect for a new golden age on the old continent. While these new immigrant populations were sometimes Christian; but we must admit they were mostly Muslim.

Roger Rediger was the first to admit that medieval Christianity was a great civilization whose artistic achievements remain forever alive in the memory of men. But little by little it lost ground, medieval Christianity was forced to compromise with rationalism and submit to secular power, and by degrees, was doomed. And as to why? Basically, according to Rediger, it was a mystery; God had simply decided it would be so.

 

Deus vult?

Houellebecq’s identitarians use the mantle of Islam to finally subvert and defeat the decadent Western order. Western civilization, decrepit but poisonous, is finally replaced by Islamic civilization, with the twist that Islam’s existing adherents from the warmer climes only do half the job of replacement — the other half enthusiastically accomplished by native rightists! Whereas today Leftists use the Muslims to buttress their electoral margins contra the Right, tomorrow the Right will use the Muslims to buttress their cultural margins contra the Left. Instead of fighting the Left head-on as the elitist progressive’s low-status, hated country bumpkin, Houellebecq’s rightist simply converts to Islam and enjoys his role as the left-winger’s minority dominatrix, meting out white guilt and otherwise enjoying traditional life.

As a Eurocentric Catholic chauvinist, I take great issue with this prophecy. I am unwilling to sit idle while Europe turns into Saudi Arabia (or worse, Syria) and the United States turns into Brazil. It is lucky, then, that Houellebecq’s perfect timing less provides an argument for Islamism than it illuminates the clash of civilizations soon coming to a head. For Houellebecq’s insightful prophecy is not that Islam will inevitably replace Western civilization, but that Western civilization will be necessarily replaced soon, by something. Islam provides just one convenient path to explore for a writer of fiction. I will now point out that in the same way that France’s rightists, nationalists and identitarians share some uncomfortably similar interests with jihadists, they — crucially — share just as many, if not more, with the other “jihadists” –Huntington’s Orthodox civilization. “Europe’s Far Right and Putin Get Cozy, With Benefits For Both.”

“In Russia today there is a mix of exalting nationalism, exalting the church and Christian values,” says Lellouche. “They are now replacing the red star with the cross, and they are representing themselves as the ultimate barrier against the Islamization of the continent.”

The Christmas tree outside of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral is traditionally purchased by French groups and worshippers. This year it was a gift from the Russian government.

Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front, has made no secret of her admiration for Putin and has traveled to Moscow on several occasions. It seems to have paid off. Last month a Russian bank lent the National Front $11 million.

Two more salient points:

1. “Lellouche” is Pierre Lellouche, a “member of a mainstream conservative party.” His dismissive tone of Front National and its Russian orientations tells me all I need to know. You can always be sure a “conservative” is doing the opposite of what he should be doing if he wanted to defeat the Left, and will always be thinking the opposite of what he should be thinking. Don’t be a “conservative”– remember the rules.

2. One of Houellebecq’s details in his story of France’s Islamization is the new role of far-off, foreign, resource-rich Islamic nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia in providing funding for France’s elite universities (presumably suffering financial difficulties). Am I too optimistic to see the parallel with a far-off, foreign, resource-rich Orthodox nation like Russia providing funding to a French institution like the Front National, or to the Notre Dame Cathedral’s Christmas Tree?

Houellebecq’s prophecy for France’s future under Islam ought to be reconsidered with the three-pronged clash of civilizations in mind. It is not Islamic civilization, but Orthodox, that stands the better chance of rescuing the ruins of the West. The two faces of European civilization — Western and Eastern, Latin and Greek, Roman and Byzantine, Catholic and Orthodox — have shared a fraught, but fraternal, history. The Russians put an end to the madness of Napoleon. They put an end to the madness of Hitler. They may, perhaps, put an end to the madness of Obama. Trapped in the abyss of its own vast wealth, the West lobotomizes itself with mad ideologies that dissolve families and all other organic bonds, replacing them with sub-optimal publicly-produced substitutes. It normalizes insanity and pathologizes health in the quest for eternal equality. Sickness, sterility and death are touted as moral advancements, while all expressions of natural virility are feared, medicated, suppressed, diverted, or finally quashed by the State. The results — such as plunging fertility rates — speak for themselves. I myself hear it now already; but in thirty years, the silence of a missing generation shall be deafening. I can only hope that the silence, once in a while, will be interrupted not by the shrill howls of the muezzin, but by the ringing and chiming of old church bells — and perhaps even the laughter of children playing in the streets, carefree.

The post The Clash of Civilizations in 2015: The West, Russia and Islam appeared first on Social Matter.

No amount of secularism can obscure the fact that French society shares certain worldviews and values and believe that the state has a role in enforcing these “proper” values. Without these shared principles, the famous French welfare state would have been dead in the water. Because of this, it is possible for Marine Le Pen to work within France’s secular framework to fight Islamic  fundamentalism – to a degree. Yet the narrative following the Charlie Hebdo attacks continues to ignore the impact of religion on political stability. In insisting that fundamentalism is merely an aberration of religious values, France and the West presume that everyone is as shallow about spirituality as we have become. Laïcité may enable France – including its Front National – to engage in a secular cultural nationalism at the moment. But ultimately it serves as a myth. It makes a pretence of disinterest in religion, when in reality this has become impossible.

Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, much of the media has responded by declaring its solidarity with the Muslim minority. Decent citizens agree: Islam had nothing to do with the attacks. Do we judge all Christians by the Westboro Baptists?

No, but then the Westboro Baptists don’t receive funding from resource powerhouses like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Islamic fundamentalists do.

Saudi Arabia and its neighbours continue to play a dangerous game. The Saudi practice of crushing terrorism in its borders while allowing funds to reach them abroad infuriated Hillary Clinton. Qatar’s interference in countries like Egypt and Syria got so bad that the other Gulf countries even withdrew their ambassadors. Both countries are aware that gaining religious influence over Islamic authorities in Western countries will increase their political influence – a fact well known to French Muslim organizations. Nabil Ennasri, President of the French Muslim group Collectif des Musulmans de France, was quoted in a recent report:

“France has a large Muslim population of Arab heritage, which will one day, whether it is welcome or not, play an important role in French politics. Investing in this population is a way of recruiting supporters who will — consciously or unconsciously — further Qatari interests.”

Religious institutions are an important avenue of funding for these countries. While the press paints Le Pen as a radical for wanting to “go into mosques“, there is no way to confront fundamentalism without confronting its political and economic portals into Western countries. Says Le Pen:

“The massive investments which Qatar has made in suburbs are made because of the very high proportion of Muslims who are in the French suburbs…We are allowing a foreign country to choose its investments on the basis of the religion of this or that part of the French population or of French territory. I think this situation could be very dangerous…

I say solemnly, the Qataris are financial supporters of Islamic fundamentalists, madmen of Sharia. The French have a right to know that, especially in Libya, the jihadists who are now in power and whose first action was to apply Sharia, were financed and armed by Qatar.”

The Islamic Supreme Council of America actively opposes this current of Islam and has criticized more well-known groups for not being staunch enough in this. It reports that, in addition to the Arab countries, Wahhabi teachings have filled the post-Soviet vacuum in Central Asia. Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke wrote about ISIS’ roots in this ideology in Huffington Post. The Saudi monarchy benefited from its alliance with this faction: Wahhabi clerics supported its leadership role in the Sunni Islamic world. The price for this? Funding its agenda to purge global Islam of “deviations” and unify it under Wahhabism’s stern watch. Through its access to funding and educational resources, it has been able to permeate mosques around the world. Fundamentalism does not simply march into the room, fully formed. It makes use of the increasing links between social status and religious purity, a trend sparked by Wahhabi influence. It justifies itself through calls to increasing stringency until it enters a holiness spiral, bottoming out (?) at Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Perhaps the Caliph is himself an example – the Telegraph reports that he eschewed violence in his years as a scholar, before radicalization in prison. In order to combat this effectively, the West must admit that it is in conflict with an ideology which is not just political, but religious.

Canada has worked with the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Nizari Ismaili Muslims.

Secularist disinterest in religion was possible during that century when Liberalism enjoyed complete triumph over the cowed Christian Churches. This is not the case when mass immigration and global shifts have made religion a powerful force again – and our milquetoast progressives have forgotten what a religion with teeth is really like. France and the West cannot pretend such disinterest in whether it is the esoteric philosophy of the Ismaili, traditional Sunni scholarship, or the puritan ideology of the Wahhabi which is preached in its mosques. It is clearly unreasonable to think that, in the age of the internet, the ideas of fundamentalists will easily disappear. But there is no reason for Western countries to allow networks funded by the same groups promoting fundamentalism in central Asia to operate without prudent oversight and restriction. The alternative is to remain open to ideological exploitation, and ultimately dependent on those rulers who continue their perilous games.

The post Saudi Deals and Secularist Delusions appeared first on Social Matter.

Response to the shootings by Le Plus cartoonist JM:o

The horrific attacks on Charlie Hebdo  have brought forth a defence of free expression from politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens. But the outpouring of support is an exception in a broader pattern of events. The French President tries to call for a national unity that seems little more than a distant memory. Satirists across Europe convey their shock and grief – but everyone is rightfully nervous about republishing the Muhammad cartoons which put Charlie Hebdo on the radical Islamist death list. As Foreign Policy magazine and Reason.com have both pointed out, we are not all Charlie Hebdo, and not a few Western outlets once condemned them for using the same freedoms they now defend. FP recalls a victim-blaming Time article written after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed. Author Bruce Crumley wondered how the common good could possibly be served by “tempting belligerent reaction”. The most disgusting response following the shootings came from a Financial Times writer who accused the magazine of “Muslim-baiting”. Despite generating a negative reaction, these articles seem to reflect the general trend of free speech more accurately than the vigils currently being held across the world. And even with #JeSuisCharlie trending, there is little reason to think that this will change.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the principle of free speech seems to be losing support among up-and-coming Western brahmins. Would the university which forbade students from discussing ideas the student union didn’t like ever allow cartoons attacking protected religions? Charlie Hebdo’s commitment to intellectual freedom is at odds with Harvard leftists who don’t believe that it should extend to violating their social activist forms of “justice”. One wonders how many of the speech codes which at least 60% of American universities now have would have banned it altogether. But is that the whole story? If these trends in academia and media were reversed, would free and open expression be secured? I submit that there is no reason to believe this is true. The key to understanding why lies in the nature of order in diverse societies.

Let’s look at a non-Western state known for being a cultural hub. Singapore is extremely diverse as a country. The three-quarter Chinese majority lives alongside Malays, Indians, and Western expats. English, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, Malay, and other languages are widely spoken. Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and traditional Chinese beliefs are practiced. Yet Singapore’s stable and orderly society has been carefully engineered by its leaders and comes with tradeoffs. Free speech in Singapore is a very different thing. The constitution sets limits: citizens must respect the judiciary, and threats to racial or religious harmony are dealt with severely. To quote a 2013 report by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy:

“A person who promotes ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore can be convicted under the Sedition Act, and be fined up to $5,000 or jailed up to three years, or both…In recent years, the Sedition Act has been invoked on several occasions.”

The report details these occasions, and most include Chinese citizens making racist comments about Malays and Muslims. In one case, a Christian couple was punished for distributing anti-Islamic and anti-Catholic literature. Punishments range from community service to jail time. Singapore is constantly wary of the social consequences of their investment policies. From cultural differences in the rising Filipino population to the management of foreign workers, its leaders keep the country well away from the brink of conflict.

This helps us understand why Singapore employs the stringent laws it is famous for. Singapore enforces harsh punishments on minor infractions in hopes of avoiding greater disorder. When you can get caned for vandalizing a building, you aren’t going to start fomenting physical violence. It’s essentially a broken-window approach to racial and religious cohesion. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani employed a similar philosophy against petty offences while in office, known as a period when crime rapidly decreased.

Swedish Artist Dan Park responds to protesters. The sign says “degenerate art”, a term used by the Nazis. Via sydsvenskan.se

Hate speech laws in the West have much the same purpose. They are intended to keep ethnic, religious, and other minorities from feeling threatened by speech which could incite violence. Hate speech laws intended to fight political extremists become more widely used to ensure social cohesion as diversity increases. Flemming Rose, the man who originally published the fateful Muhammad cartoons at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, knows this rather well. In a recent article, he recounts some of the most shocking examples. Did you know that in 2014 the Swedish government not only jailed an artist for his work, but also destroyed the offending pieces? In his book, Rose argues that such laws reduce humans to mere objects. Those who condemned the cartoons as inciting violence essentially painted Muslims as agency-less automatons, unable to resist waging Jihad against anyone who dares mock their religion. Or so Rose would say. And yet the reality is that the nature of the mob is very different than the nature of the individual. Gustave le Bon, the man who wrote some of the first work on crowd psychology, put it very eloquently:

“It is [because the crowd is more than just a collection of individuals] that juries are seen to deliver verdicts of which each individual juror would disapprove, that parliamentary assemblies adopt laws and measures of which each of their members would disapprove in his own person. Taken separately, the men of the Convention were bourgeoisie of peaceful habits. United in a crowd, they did not hesitate, under the influence of some leaders, to send the most manifestly innocent people to the guillotine.”

What about diversity and its impact? Historically we see that the societies with the strongest traditions of free speech were also some of the most ethnically, religiously, and culturally homogeneous. Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands lead the Press Freedom Index, a fact that Reporters Without Borders attributes to “a real culture of individual freedoms, a culture that is more integrated than in southern Europe.” Also near the top are Luxembourg, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Iceland, and New Zealand. The highest-ranking non-Western countries include Jamaica, Costa Rica, Namibia, Cape Verde, Uruguay, and Ghana. But wait, aren’t some of these countries pretty multicultural? In fact, although Namibia is ethnically diverse, its population is only 2.1 million and the country is 80-90% Christian. Most other ethnically diverse countries show similar trends of small populations, religious homogeneity, and economic stability. The exception is Ghana, which has made tremendous gains in education and press freedom despite having large Islamic and Christian populations, in addition to nine widely spoken languages. All in all, the contribution of culture cannot be understated, as evidenced by the country at the very top of the Index:

“The country that has headed the index since 2008, Finland, paradoxically evinces two obstacles to the development of a benign environment for freedom of information: defamation is punishable by imprisonment in certain circumstances, and just three companies own virtually almost all the national media. In practice, however, it is extremely rare for journalists to receive jail terms for what they write and there is a great deal of media pluralism despite the concentrated ownership. In a country where print is resisting digital well, the media are self-regulated through the Council for Mass Media, an independent body based on the voluntary membership of news media and journalists’ associations and funded mainly by member contributions.”

Given these patterns, the question before Western countries is inescapable. The new diversity brings tradeoffs. In countries with large populations, rapidly increasing minorities, and uncertain economies, one of those tradeoffs is between social cohesion and free expression. Governments in Europe, Canada, Australia, and the US are in the midst of historically unprecedented immigration flows. Europe now has a large Muslim population, Canada and Australia experience an increasing Asian presence, and the US has its expanding Hispanic population. If UKIP, the Front National, and all the other nationalist or right-wing parties were elected tomorrow, they would still need to contend with these factors – even if they managed to cut future immigration to historic lows.

As of this writing, there have already been several violent responses to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Foreign Policy reports that shots and even grenades have been used to attack two mosques in response, and a bomb was used in the eastern region of the country. The dream of the Western liberal was of a cosmopolitan, multicultural, free, and tolerant world. Unfortunately for them, the mass immigration that they supported may ultimately undermine the values they once prized. In Australia, a recent study showed only that 53% of citizens would choose a good democracy to a strong economy – and Australia’s economy is currently pretty good.

History indicates that that number decreases quite a bit when the economy tanks and conflict rises. Flemming Rose himself notes that Weimar Germany was characterized by lax enforcement of laws prohibiting violence. Whether by unwillingness or inability, the results were the same: those who promised order carried the day.  If populations tend towards order over and above freedom in times of strife, then it will be all the easier for governments to curb traditional rights in favour of social cohesion. Charlie Hebdo publisher Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier is reported as having declared that he would rather die on his feet then live on his knees. The words were tragically prophetic. The death of the values which Charlie Hebdo stood for will likely prove far less heroic.

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