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Outline:
Introduction: Dire predictions
Social conflict
More crime
Reduced welfare
Greater ethnic inequality
Racialized politics
Reduced civil liberties
Benefits? Arguments for open borders
Conclusion: Jeopardy. Will Europe Survive?
Introduction: Dire predictions
My name is Frank Salter. I’m an Australian political ethologist, meaning that includes biological approaches when studying society and politics. I’ve spent much of my career researching at a Max Planck Institute in Germany, as well as teaching there and elsewhere in Europe and the United States. One of my research areas is ethnic solidarity and conflict and how this affects democratic welfare states.
In this talk I discuss the dire predictions that have been made about the massive influx of immigrants and refugees still entering Germany and other European countries from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Many then fan-out, crossing Europe’s old national borders which are no longer regulated due to the Shengen Agreement. Some believe this could end European civilization, despite the outpouring of goodwill and hospitality shown by millions of Germans and other Europeans. These predictions have not only come from anti-immigrant ideologues but from moderate politicians.
An example is Tony Abbott, until recently Australian prime minister. Speaking in London, Abbott called on Europe to close its borders to avoid a “catastrophic error”. He declared that protecting the borders will “require some force; it will require massive logistics and expense; it will gnaw at our consciences – yet it is the only way to prevent a tide of humanity surging through Europe and quite possibly changing it forever.”
Curiously, neither Abbott nor the other commentators explain why the influx would be so damaging. The same is true of Angela Merkel’s argument for opening the borders. Where was the sober and transparent assessment of costs and benefits?
In this talk I attempt such an assessment, by reviewing research on the way that ethnic diversity tends to increase social conflict and crime, undermine welfare, exacerbate ethnic inequality, racialize politics and erode civil liberties. I then compare these costs with the benefits of mass Third World immigration asserted
by Angela Merkel and her supporters.
Social conflict
Recent tragic events, including the attacks in Paris, make terrorism appear the most obvious and immediate threat. The overwhelming majority of incomers are Muslims. Though most Muslims are not terrorists, many terrorists are Muslims. In general, rising ethnic diversity increases the chance that one minority or another will oppose the government’s foreign policy. Tragedy results if even a small number of disaffected individuals adopt violence.
However, terrorism is not the main harm likely to arise from the present immigration. The main effect will be to fracture the psychological bond of nationality, leaving citizenship a hollowed-out legalism. That is because rising diversity is associated not only with violence such as terrorism and civil war, but with a general loss of social cohesion. But let us begin with violence.
Data from numerous studies show that the more ethnically diverse a society the greater the risk of conflict and, conversely, the more difficult it is to forge unity. Civil conflict is less likely in more homogeneous societies. Academic researchers have attempted to quantify the risk.
In the 1990s a global study by Rudolf Rummel at the University of Hawaii measured how 109 variables contributed to collective violence of the extreme variety – guerrilla and civil war – between 1932 and 1982; that’s a 50 year period. He found that one fifth of the variation in collective violence was caused by just one variable, the number of ethnic groups within the society. Conflict was made more intense when the antagonistic parties had different religions. [ii] That finding is obviously relevant to the present situation where Muslims are flooding into a largely Christian and secular Europe.
A study of contemporary societies by Finnish sociologist Tatu Vanhanen examined ethnic conflict defined more broadly to include discrimination, ethnic parties and interest groups, as well as ethnic violence and civil war. Vanhanen used evolutionary theory to hypothesize that diversity would cause conflict to rise. Among the 176 societies he studied, Vanhanen found that in 2010 two thirds of global variation in ethnic conflict was explained by ethnic diversity.[iii] In other words, much of the difference between united peaceful countries and those riven by ethnic conflict is the latters’ ethnic diversity.
A related effect of diversity is lowered cooperation and “social capital”, the extent to which people support each other. As heterogeneity grows, participation in clubs and volunteer work falls. People become more isolated and less trustful. The effect is strongest in local neighbourhoods where people experience different ethnic groups.[iv] In other words, it is not ignorance or isolation that cause ethnic discord, but contact with other cultures, including foreigners entering a homeland territory in large numbers.
German governments should be aware of the tendency of ethnic diversity to cause social conflict because that tendency has been studied in German research institutions. For example, ethologist Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, a professor at the Max Planck Society, and colleagues such as Johan van der Dennen at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, have for decades studied the effects of cultural mixing on ethnocentrism and xenophobia in mass anonymous societies. Both have warned that large scale mixing of different ethnicities reduces social stability and risks domestic peace.
Some of the research I’ve been discussing was inspired by evolutionary theory. This is an important approach long excluded from the social sciences. Human psychology evolved in the context of ethnically homogeneous groups. From this perspective the diversity now being imposed by modern elites is unnatural on the evolutionary time scale. That unnatural level of diversity is responsible for some of the conflict, according to evolutionary theory. Further confirmation of this evolutionary hypothesis is the finding that genetic diversity, as distinct from cultural diversity, correlates with social conflict. Since ethnic groups are pools of genetic similarity,[v] mixing such pools increases genetic variation within a society and, according to new global research, causes greater social conflict.[vi]
Stronger causes than genetic diversity are cultural, economic and historical factors, which help explain the surge of goodwill that Germans, Swedes and other Europeans showed Syrian refugees in 2015. But these factors can fluctuate greatly in the short term, while it can take many generations for genetic variation to fall.
More crime
Crime is social conflict in which the aggressor breaks the law. The track record of crime committed by non-Western immigrants to Europe is not reassuring.
A disturbing trend in France, which has Europe’s largest Islamic population, is the growth of no-go areas where even police dare not venture except in force. In addition in France and Britain there are occasional riots so violent and extensive that police lose control. These periods of mass conflict amount to uprisings.
The trend is for parallel societies to be established as the immigrant populations from less compatible cultures segregate themselves and new generations come of age. Generous welfare and multiculturalism exacerbate immigrant crime, which often increases in the second generation.
Between 1997 and 2013 large scale organized sexual exploitation of white girls took place in the English town of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, predominantly by Muslim Pakistani men. Up to 1,400 girls as young as 12 years of age were raped and sex-trafficked by multiple men.
Sweden and Denmark also offer a glimpse of what Germany can expect from the intake of unselected immigrants coming from incompatible cultures. In Sweden the majority of those charged with murder, rape and robbery are immigrants, despite immigrants numbering only 16 per cent of the population.[vii]
In Denmark immigrants from several countries commit crimes at a much higher rate than do ethnic Danes. This is especially true of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.[viii] The greatest frequency of law-breaking was shown by the children of non-Western immigrants. Those aged 15-19 were overrepresented by 93 per cent, those aged 20-29 by 130 percent, and those aged 30-39 were overrepresented by 135 per cent. Ethnic Danes were underrepresented for all these age categories.
For Germany the data are less accessible but an unconfirmed report indicates that in 2011 asylum-seekers committed 3.3 per cent of all crimes, many times their proportion of the German population.[ix] By 2014 that already-high figure had jumped to 7.7 per cent of all crime. In the same period, the number of assaults and shoplifting across Germany more than doubled.
Reduced welfare
Obviously the influx of millions of poor people will strain welfare budgets. Europeans who have paid social security insurance their whole working lives will soon be supporting health, housing, unemployment and age benefits for millions who have never contributed. If the influx is not stopped, this will be the start of an astronomical transfer of wealth, while the system survives.
It might not survive long because most European governments are already heavily in debt and managing heavy welfare expenditures. In 2013, the last year for which data are available, general government gross debt in Austria was 81% of GDP, in Belgium 104%, France 92%, Germany 77%, Italy 128%, Spain 92%, and the United Kingdom 87%.[xi]
In Sweden government debt is only about 39% of GDP but its immigrants from Africa and the Middle East are straining the budget. These immigrants make up about 16% of the population but take as much as 58% of welfare payments, representing a large wealth transfer from ethnic Swedes.[xii] That transfer is a bad investment because about 48% of working-age immigrants are unemployed. Even after 15 years in the country, 40% are not working.
But welfare is still more fragile than these figures indicate.
Research conducted at Germany’s Max Planck Society indicates that ethnic change due to immigration will change taxpayers’ motivation, reducing their willingness to support welfare. Comparison of welfare systems around the world shows that as ethnic diversity rises, welfare tends to decline.[xiii]
Not only welfare declines but any services relying on contributions to public goods. That includes cooperation with police, charities, medical and military authorities.
Foreign aid, which is international welfare, is even more fragile. Foreign aid is strongly and negatively correlated with donor countries’ ethnic diversity.[xiv]
The irony could not be more cruel. By accepting large numbers of people of non-Western cultures, who are seeking to benefit from generous welfare, European countries not only risk losing domestic welfare for natives and immigrants alike, but reducing their foreign aid to immigrants’ homelands. It’s a lose-lose strategy.
Greater ethnic inequality
Ethnic inequality, a major cause of civil conflict, will increase as a result of the present influx. When an ethnic group fails to achieve income equality down the generations, the effect is deeply ingrained resentment and a low threshold for civil unrest. That might be why second generation immigrants often show higher criminality than their parents.
Once again there is no excuse for ignorance because Germany has its own native-born instructor on the causes of ethnic inequality. Thilo Sarrazin was an SPD politician and, until 2010, board member of the Deutschebank, the year he published a book titled Germany abolishes itself: How we risk losing our country.[xv] Sarrazin documented the slow pace of integration of Turkish immigrants into German society and economy, their disproportionate reliance on government welfare and their higher fertility. He found that slow assimilation was caused by the Islamic religion and lower educational outcomes were caused by persistent ethnic tradition.[xvi] When he wrote this, Angela Merkel was already German Chancellor. She condemned Sarrazin and endorsed his removal from the Deutschebank board, an omen of her 2015 radicalism and intolerance.
It is certain that the present influx will escalate ethnic stratification in Germany and in Europe. If this were only due to poor languages skills and low education, the inequality could close within a generation or two (still an appalling assault on the receiving societies). But many of the immigrants come from populations with long records of poor educational and economic performance, likely to result in chronic ethnic stratification reminiscent of despotic empires by importing a new underclass, Germany and Europe are abolishing their egalitarian national societies.
Racialized politics
An open door policy is advocated by self-proclaimed anti-racists such as Angela Merkel and her allies on the far left. The “anti-fa” protesters who shout-down PEGIDA and other conservatives take it for granted that borders should be open to all comers. But one certain outcome of the new immigrant influx is the further racialization of politics and growing demographic pressure on ethnic Europeans. Racialization will take the form of sectarianism, ethnic parties, multiculturalism, school indoctrination, political correctness and affirmative action – discrimination meant to equalise outcomes. Racialized politics is already a fact of life in diverse societies such as Britain, France, the United States and Australia.
Throughout recorded history societies controlled immigration, especially when it involved large numbers. Angela Merkel’s and Francois Hollande’s open door policy is a reckless social experiment that is already inducing compassion fatigue. Nationalist and anti-immigration parties are rising in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The ethnic inequality discussed earlier is an important cause of racialization. By the second generation poorer immigrant groups, especially those that are culturally or racially visible, become susceptible to radicalization by ideologies that legitimate grievances. These ideologies help immigrants rationalise their low socioeconomic status and sense of alienation by making them out to be victims of white racism. The ideologies are acquired from universities, schools, the media, social workers, politicians and ethnic leaders.
Victimhood ideologies also produce guilt and fear in whites, by linking their ethnic identities – and only theirs – to extremism and fascism.[xviii] This is unfair because white majorities are typically less ethnocentric than minorities.
The myth of minority victimhood conditions the white majority to accept replacement-level immigration. These doctrines have been influential in English-speaking countries and much of Western Europe since the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.
Meanwhile in Germany immigration politics has started in the non-democratic mode typical of ethnic politics throughout the West. No referendum is planned to give Germans a choice concerning their destiny. With minor exceptions, citizens do not even have the option of voting against the open door policy in a normal election, because the major parties support open borders. Germans who wish to have a say in immigration policy must vote for new parties that have not yet been captured by special interests.
Reduced civil liberties
Rising diversity undermines civil rights. Wherever the founding ethnic group has lost control of immigration, governments come under pressure from the political left and their minority clients to suppress “hate speech”, which can include statements of opinion and fact. The limiting of free speech also precedes and helps cause the rise of replacement level immigration. But certainly it is also an effect of diversity.
Restrictions of speech have a chilling effect on public debate. The millions now flooding into Germany and Europe are beneficiaries of this repression. Their presence will only increase pressure on government to crack down on restless natives. The underlying reason for the crackdown will be the rise of massive endemic social conflict, wholly predictable and indeed predicted by social scientists.
Benefits? Arguments for open borders
Are these costs outweighed by the benefits proposed by Angela Merkel and her supporters? Six main arguments have been advanced to persuade Germans to accept the influx.
1. The first argument is Merkel’s claim that Germany and Europe are morally obliged to settle genuine refugees. There is obviously a moral duty to help but the argument that refugees must be settled in Europe fails for two simple reasons. Firstly, many of the incomers are not refugees but economic immigrants. Secondly, the heavy costs imposed by the influx on native Germans means that a moral policy must optimise the two sides’ interests, not maximize immigrant welfare at the expense of the host society. After all, the first duty of governments, especially in democracies, is to protect their constituents. Germany and the EU could be helping refugees in or near their own countries.
2. The second argument is Merkel’s claim that Germany will benefit by throwing off its Nazi legacy once and for all. This is a despicable argument because Germans are innocent of genocide, unless one accepts the Nazi doctrine of collective racial guilt. The opposite effect is more likely. Vilification of ethnic Germans could intensify because Merkel has launched a new era of racialized politics in which exponents of mass Third World immigration will use any victimhood narrative to silence the majority.
3. The third argument was stated by the German Interior Minister in mid September 2015.[xix] He claimed that the government had no choice but to accept any number of refugees because Article 16a, paragraph 1, of the German constitution, the Grundgesetz, states that “Persons persecuted on political grounds shall have the right of asylum.” This is a strictly legalistic argument because, as we have seen, there is no moral duty to settle large numbers of refugees in Germany. So let’s look more closely at the law. Paragraph 2 of Article 16a of the Grundgesetz states that paragraph 1 does not apply to persons entering the Federal Republic “from a member state of the European Communities”.[xx] The overwhelming majority of refugees entering Germany have come via other EU states. Germany was entitled to prevent them entering but the Merkel government suspended the Dublin Regulation, which requires asylum seekers to be returned to the European country of first arrival.[xxi] How could Germany have accepted this EU law in the first place if it contradicted the German constitution? If, on the other hand, the Dublin Regulation reflects article 16a of the constitution, how could it be so easily suspended?[xxii] Clearly Germany and the EU can legally protect their borders. It is Merkel and other EU leaders who allowed the influx, not any law.
4. The fourth argument was advanced by Merkel and Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsch, who maintained that the refugees will make productive workers. Zetsch stated: “They could, like the guest workers from decades ago, help us preserve and improve our prosperity. For Germany cannot any more fill the jobs available.” This is utopian speculation that runs counter to precedent and knowledge of cultural differences. More likely, Germany will be burdened by immigrant communities suffering high unemployment and concentrated in low productivity unskilled jobs.
5. The fifth argument is even more radical. It was stated by demographer Stephan Sievert, of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. Sievert optimistically stated that Germany’s population was at last growing, after decades of stagnation.[xxiii] Sievert does not admit that his implied policy entails the rapid demographic replacement of the German ethnic family, in effect cultural genocide by stages. If the German people were given the opportunity to vote on this policy, perhaps a majority would agree with German author Botho Strauss, who declared that he prefers to live among his own people even if they are falling in numbers, rather than live in an imposed cultural mix.[xxiv]
6. A sixth argument has been offered by Merkel, in her New Year’s address for 2016. It is the open border mantra, that immigration is generally good. Merkel stated that “countries have always benefited from successful immigration, both economically and socially”.[xxv] It is a danger sign when highly educated people resort to tautologies, such as deducing that successful immigration is successful. In fact immigrant societies – America, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, and others – are all well down the track of turning their founding cultures into minorities without ever offering them a democratic choice. Merkel also followed the usual pro-immigration line by accusing her critics of “coldness or even hatred”, implying that she is motivated by warmer emotions. And she foreshadowed a new inclusive definition of what it means to be German, which is a prudent move for someone intent on demographic transformation. Omitted from this latest statement, but likely to follow, are other elements of the pro-immigration mantra, such as diversity is strength, or German identity is the same as citizenship, or school children must be educated in tolerance, or immigrants rescue German culture from its white-bread impoverishment. These arguments and assertions are completely normal in Western societies whose political classes have opened them to mass immigration.
These six alleged benefits of massive unselected immigration are typical of the intellectual level of open border arguments elsewhere in Western countries. That such shallow and sometimes mendacious rhetoric is uttered by intelligent individuals would be impossible without their near monopoly of media access resulting from the ideological intolerance that has suppressed open debate for decades.
Conclusion: Jeopardy. Will Europe Survive?
The evidence just reviewed indicates that dire warnings are not overstated. The ethnic transformation now being inflicted on Germany and the rest of Europe by its political class, if continued, will severely damage European culture and way of life. The opposed arguments are flimsy and fail entirely to address the perceived risks. Commentators are not exaggerating then they warn that European civilization, the result of three millennia of cultural evolution, is in jeopardy.
Hopefully common sense will prevail and journalists and politicians will listen respectfully to the people’s concerns and aspirations. Perhaps Merkel and Hollande will recover from their moral mania and free themselves from special interests long enough to deign the flood to recede. Perhaps the EU will formulate a conservative immigration policy, one that does not cater mainly to the interests of immigrants, minorities and the corporate sector but also respects Europeans by preserving their identities, cultures, domestic peace, equality and national cohesion. It is more likely that voters will solve the problem than Europe’s intellectually corrupt political class, and that new parties will be granted the power to reclaim national sovereignty from the failed EU project. In that case the EU will collapse, as individual nations move to protect themselves from the Shengen Agreement, now become a mortal threat instead of a promise. That could form the basis for a new trans-European movement that protects the identities and ways of life of individual nations and Europe as a whole.
But until now these considerations have been foreign to Angela Merkel and her supporters. She sells her open door policy as humanitarian. But in reality this is a cruel policy likely to produce suffering across Germany and Europe. She has failed to consider the interests of individual European nations or of Europe as a whole. Europe’s political class has, in effect, embraced the most aggressive form of multiculturalism, in which the establishment forms an alliance with minorities to dominate the majority.
The suffering the open door policy will bring – the inequality, including the special evil of ethnic stratification, the collapse of welfare, the crime, the slums and no-go areas, the degradation of women, the racialization of politics, the decline in wages, the loss of national cohesion, the growing sense of loss and alienation among Germans and immigrants alike, the accelerated replacement of Europeans in their ancient homelands, the constriction of civil rights and the pervasive chaos – all of this will last for generations.
Merkel is doubly cruel because she is stripping developing societies of their more educated and industrious people. The inevitable fall in European foreign aid will hurt poor countries around the world, caused by the stagnation of European economies and decline in social capital.
A responsible policy would resemble the British strategy of helping refugees in or near their own countries while restricting their immigration to Europe, though it should be noted that in Britain non-refugee immigration is out of control.
For Germany the situation is more threatening due to its toxic political culture, despite its present low level of ethnic diversity. The country’s chances of recovery – which means adopting a sustainable immigration policy – depend on how the following questions are answered by events.
How long will it take for the present reaction to become a powerful political force? How long before Germany’s leadership feels the wrath of a people enraged at the prospect of the transformation of their country? And should the reaction become intense, will citizens remain mobilised long enough to build political organisations sufficiently powerful to correct the situation? Will they be able to inflict political censure on Merkel and the political class so stark that it neutralises the incentives offered by the establishment? Will they be able to do so in the teeth of relentless attacks from the mainstream media and educational establishments? Will they stay focused long enough to renegotiate EU arrangements or withdraw Germany from them? Will they persist long enough to push through constitutional amendments that define Germany as the homeland of the German people and allow legal redress against leaders who attempt demographic replacement?
Whether or not there is a pause in the influx, Germans and other Europeans should educate themselves about the deep causes of this disaster and how to prevent its recurrence.
You must not allow for anything remotely like this, Europe. Your very EGI are at stake of permanent extinction.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 15 December 2015 18:40.
There are war mongers operating behind the scenes of power whose motives highly resemble those of the Cold War era: Russia, adjacent geopolitical objectives, resource acquisition and control are seen as central problems which require strong military force.
What is insufficient in John Marshall’s investigative critique and whistle blowing article, however, is a failure to make clear the facts that:
1) The particular people, including at NATO, behind these strategies - viz., war with Russia, control in the Middle East and the borders of Russia - do not identify as White; and are not acting with White (i.e., European peoples) interests in mind first and foremost.
2) In normal ethno-nationalist terms, Russia is, in fact, a problematic nation, which is not circumscribed to their, let alone to our common White/European interests; not committed to cooperation in geopolitical ordering; border and demographic defense; and provisioning of The European Ethno-National Region and its necessary alliance with The Asian Region and its Ethno-Nations.
The point is, these are very real, not trumped-up concerns, and White Nationalism must take the helm in cooperation with Asian Nationalisms to handle these concerns.
I will venture an outline of why that is and how it might come about in few days. I will do this in anticipation that Kumiko will contribute her considerable insight to correct oversights, flesh-out a myriad of details and augment points where emphasis is needed.
My perspective on this is that we’ve got the stuff of war at hand all around us already. It is now up to us to wrest the lines from the hands of Jews and others who do not identify with Whites, to shape and craft the battle lines in White Nationalist interests instead. I will argue that that will require European and Asian cooperation and, in terms of their prior imperialist overreaches and capacity to offer cooperation, a significantly chastened U.S. and Russia.
First, a look at how “obscure people’ can start wars” by John Marshall - talking about Victoria Nuland and her fellow Jewish and neocon cohorts, though, of course, he does not name the YKW as such:
Exclusive: Official Washington’s anti-Russian “group think” is now so dominant that no one with career aspirations dares challenge it, a victory for “obscure” government bureaucrats, like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as Jonathan Marshall explains.
History isn’t just made by impersonal forces and “great men” or “great women.” Sometimes relatively obscure men and women acting in key bureaucratic posts make a real difference.
Thus, the international crisis in Syria traces back in part to the decision of President Barack Obama’s first ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, to reject peaceful rapprochement with the Damascus regime in favor of “radically redesign[ing] his mission” to promote anti-government protests that triggered the civil war in 2011.
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014. (U.S. State Department photo)
In much the same way, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland did her best to foment the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch against the democratically elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych, “while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for ‘democracy,’” as journalist Robert Parry wrote last July.
Nuland, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and wife of neoconservative luminary Robert Kagan, helped achieve in Ukraine the kind of “regime change” that her husband had long promoted in the Middle East through the Project for a New American Century.
Nuland now has a new counterpart in the Department of Defense who bears close watching for signs of whether the Obama administration will keep escalating military confrontation with Russia over Eastern Europe, or look for opportunities to find common ground and ease tensions.
On Dec. 14, Dr. Michael Carpenter started work at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, with added responsibilities for the Western Balkans and Conventional Arms Control. He replaced Evelyn Farkas, who stepped down in October.
Farkas was a firebrand who accused Russia of “shredding international law and conventions that have held firm for decades.” In a call to arms straight out of the early Cold War, she wrote, “Russia’s challenge is so fundamental to the international system, to democracy and free market capitalism that we cannot allow the Kremlin’s policy to succeed in Syria or elsewhere.”
In a remarkable display of “projection” — ascribing to others one’s own motives and actions — she declared that “Russia has invaded neighboring countries, occupied their territory, and funded NGOs and political parties not only in its periphery but also in NATO countries.” Its goal, she asserted, was nothing less than “breaking NATO, the EU and transatlantic unity.”
Farkas declared that the United States must continue its military buildup to deter Russia; provide “lethal assistance” to countries on Russia’s periphery, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova; and step up economic sanctions “to pressure Russia . . . so that U.S. national security interests and objectives prevail.”
With people like that helping to shape official policy over the past three years, it’s no wonder U.S.-Russia relations have hit such a low point. Might her replacement, Michael Carpenter, take a less confrontational approach?
Carpenter moved to the Pentagon from the office of Vice President Joe Biden, where he was special adviser for Europe and Eurasia. Previously he ran the Russia desk at the National Security Council and spent several years in the Foreign Service.
Carpenter has kept a low public profile, with few publications or speeches to his name. One of his few quasi-public appearances was this April at a symposium on “Baltic Defense & Security After Ukraine: New Challenges, New Threats,” sponsored by The Jamestown Foundation.
His prepared remarks were off the record, but they were greeted warmly — “you’ve hit it right on the head” — by discussant Kurt Volker, former NATO ambassador under President George W. Bush and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain. McCain has demanded that the United States arm Ukraine to fight Russia and he helped inflame the Ukraine crisis by meeting with the anti-Semitic leader of the country’s right-wing nationalist party for photo-ops in 2013.
During a short Q&A session at the symposium, captured on video, Carpenter declared that “Russia has completely shredded the NATO-Russian Founding Act,” a choice of words strikingly reminiscent of Farkas’s denunciation of Russia for “shredding international law.” He accused Russia of “pursuing a neo-imperial revanchist policy” in Eastern Europe, inflammatory words that Sen. McCain lifted for an op-ed column in the Washington Post a couple of months later. Carpenter also indicated that he would personally favor permanent NATO bases in the Baltic states if such an escalation would not fragment the alliance.
The fact that Carpenter chose to make one of his few appearances at the The Jamestown Foundation is itself highly telling. According to IPS Right Web, which tracks conservative think tanks, the foundation’s president, Glen Howard, “is the former executive director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, a largely neoconservative-led campaign aimed at undermining Russia by bolstering U.S. support for militant nationalist and Islamist movements in the North Caucasus.” He has also been consultant to the Pentagon and to “major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East.”
The foundation was formed in 1984 by “a leading Cold Warrior close to the Reagan administration,” with the blessing of CIA Director William Casey, to provide extra funding for Soviet bloc defectors to supplement meager stipends offered by the CIA. Its board members today include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, and previous board members included Dick Cheney and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a prominent neoconservative activist.
All this matters hugely for several reasons. Increased confrontation with Russia, particularly along its highly sensitive Western border, will continue to poison relationships with Moscow that are crucial for achieving U.S. interests ranging from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria. Ratcheting up a new Cold War will divert tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into military spending at the expense of domestic priorities.
Most important, the action-reaction cycle between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe is dramatically increasing chances for an unwanted, unneeded and disastrous war involving the world’s great nuclear powers. Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, noted in a recent commentary for the Arms Control Association:
“Despite protestations by both sides that the exercises are aimed at no particular adversary, it is clear that each side is exercising with the most likely war plans of the other in mind. The Russian military is preparing for a confrontation with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a confrontation with Russia. This does not mean either side has the political intent to start a war, but it does mean that both believe a war is no longer unthinkable. . . .
“Too few appear to recognize that the current cocktail of incidents, mistrust, changed military posture, and nuclear signaling is creating the conditions in which a single event or combination of events could result in a NATO-Russian war, even if neither side intends it.”
In such a way, the actions of relatively minor figures in history – if their provocations are not reined in – can lead the world to cataclysm.
Posted by Kumiko Oumae on Monday, 14 December 2015 03:40.
A still pond
Every action has reflections that ripple outward, like when a pebble is cast into a still pond. The enactment of free trade agreements such as NAFTA and, soon to come, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, have additional effects that are only seen in the criminal underworld. Every opening up of trade that occurs, also is an opening up of the potential for the transport of contraband of various sorts.
One of the webs of associations that have grown and become more complex over the past decade is the international drug trade, particularly those groups who interface with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. As of December 2015, the components of the international drug trade surrounding the Sinaloa Cartel are as follows:
Sinaloa Cartel and associates (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Philippines, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Nicaragua)
Gente Nueva (Mexico)
Artistas Asesinos (Mexico)
Los Mexicles (Mexico)
Los Antrax (Mexico)
Mara Salvatrucha (Mexico, Canada, United States)
Cosa Nostra (Transatlantic)
French Mafia (Transatlantic)
FARC (Colombia)
United States DEA
Elements of Mexican government
Elements of Columbian government
Elements of Taiwanese government
Elements of Myanmar government
Elements of Laotian government
Elements of Japanese government
Elements of British government
Elements of Kosovo government
Elements of Afghan government
Kurdish Workers Movement (Middle East)
Albanian-connected syndicates (Europe, Caucasus)
Russian Mafia (Russia, Central Asia, Europe)
Chicago street gangs (Chicago)
Yamaguchi-gumi (Japan, Transpacific)
Inagawa-kai (Japan, Transpacific)
Sumiyoshi-kai (Japan, Transpacific)
The Seven Star Mob (South Korea, Transpacific)
The H.S.S. Mob (South Korea, Transpacific)
14K (Hong Kong, Transpacific)
Sun Yee On (Hong Kong, Transpacific)
The United Bamboo Gang (Taiwan, United States)
Celestial Alliance (Taiwan, China)
etc.
Ordinarily I’d draw up a map of how these all interact, along with mainstream news sources, but that would be a time-consuming task, and illustrating how they are all together is not the main purpose of this article. I provide that list only to say that they are together.
The alleged email
With Sinaloa Cartel sitting in the middle of that enterprise with the most to lose and most to gain from the success of the expansion of their operations and the linkages that they are cultivating around the world, it is not surprising that when this amalgamation of interests wishes to take on a human voice without disguise or artifice, it manifests as an email from Joaqin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, which allegedly reads as follows:
As drugs are not a part of the organizations ideology for a Muslim State, ISIS fighters have been destroying shipments of drugs from the cartels.
The cartels have made it clear that ISIS just made a huge mistake by destroying their shipments. It’s clear from the leaked emails that they are not only extremely mad, but are definitely willing to step up and take the organization out if they continue to mess with their business.
Here’s part of the leaked email:
“You [ISIS] are not soldiers. You are nothing but lowly pussies. Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation.”
“My men will destroy you. The world is not yours to dictate. I pity the next son of a whore that tries to interfere with the business of the Sinaloa Cartel. I will have their heart and tongue torn from them.”
[...]
To the pious Islamist readers out there, and I know you are out there, be aware of this when you set out on your jihad. Whether that email is real or a creative mock-up of what such an email would look like if it were to be composed, it is basically an accurate reflection of what the mood must be among the high ranks of the various criminal syndicates around the world.
And do not doubt that hearts and tongues will be torn out. So think twice before getting involved. Do you really want your heart and tongue torn out?
With what army?
ISIL fighters have managed to negatively impact the bottom line of weapons manufacturers, oil services companies, agribusinesses, and now drug cartels and those who are invested in the movements of drugs around the world. That has ramifications.
For example, if Yamaguchi-gumi were ever to be listed as a ‘legitimate’ business conglomerate on the Japanese market instead of as multiple companies with obfuscated revenue streams and connections to ‘legitimate’ banks, it would actually be the second-largest private equity group in Japan. And in the west, this same logic applies, as many might remember from the situation involving Citigroup, and Barclays, and Bank of America, and so on.
Some people may have heard of the idea that the world revolves around guns, oil, grain, and drugs. They are right, it does. And some may ask, “What army will open the way for drugs to traverse the Middle East without interception again? The criminal organisations don’t have an army.”
Actually, there is an army which will accomplish that task, although it is not one assembled for that specific purpose. I wonder if anyone can guess which army that is?
Chess and not checkers
The world really is an interesting place, and people sometimes end up with really interesting unintentional-allies. In the coming period, I would propose that it would be prudent for ethno-nationalist groups to adopt a rhetorically nuanced approach to the drug war—much like the one I’m taking in this post—one which takes into account that the criminal syndicates have a potential to be a pseudo-ally to the NATO war effort because of shared interests, although not shared ideals.
People like Donald Trump and his supporters seem not to understand this dynamic, because they seem to want to fight ISIL and the Sinaloa Cartel at the same time. For what purpose? Surely it would always be more sensible to make good use of the cartels against ISIL. Government piggybacking on the trade—which is to say, standing on both sides of the trade—would also generate money from the fact that contraband tends to have enormous profit margins because it is illegal, and piggybacking would also enable the government to understand the market better and to mitigate the trade’s most socially-harmful side-effects ahead of time.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 20 November 2015 11:34.
One of the best litmus tests as to whether or not one is being too liberal, too promiscuous with regard to sex, is whether or not you need to use a condom. If you don’t know someone well enough to be sure that you are not going to get a disease or have an unwanted pregnancy, then maybe you ought to get to know them better before having sex with them. If you really like someone and if they are really worth it, you are not likely to have to use condoms at all. And would you really like to use them?
Subtitle: don’t forget to forget your condom. A.I.D.S. is a most beautiful disease, generally targeting people who deserve to die for their bullying, irresponsible, reckless treatment of sex.
Particularly when the bounds of EGI are unguarded, the need to treat sex carefully, as an act which can endorse or undermine our EGI, becomes all the more important. It will be used by our enemies in psy-ops, such as the profusion of interracial porn. It will be used by our enemies to promote liberal politics, empower those horribly destructive to our interests and to dis-empower those thoughtful of our interests - those concerned with our people in our broad pattern. It will be used by our antagonists to outbreed our race, including outbreeding some of our most qualitatively differentiated genetic capital. As de facto safeguards of liberalism, they have their go-to “moral arguments” to distract us from the moral re-ordering of our people.
After marriage, the condom is taken by liberalism as one of its lines of defense. Don’t be fooled, there’s no substitute for the White class and its bounds. This holds your freedom in sacrament and in celebration that gives our people life and health as opposed to destruction.
There can be a time to be Dionysian, promiscuous for some who choose to be - i.e., among our own people - but that time is when the borders or our EGI are secured and members accounted for. Until then, good riddance to those who treat our genetic treasures irresponsibly; it couldn’t happen to worse, more deserving people of a miserable fate.
Don’t you just feel so sorry for her…
Always remember, er, forget your condom. If you think that you have to use one, you’d better get to know who you are screwing around with a little better - maybe a lot better.
Daily Beast, ‘Porn World in Panic Over Charlie Sheen’s HIV Diagnosis’, Nov 20, 2015:
‘There is so much fear right now amongst the girls…’
Well-known for his porn star companions, Charlie Sheen’s recent admission to being HIV-positive has sent a ripple of fear through the adult industry. There’s no protocol in place for this. There are no records of who Sheen’s hired, thus no quarantine list for the porn stars he’s been sexually active with.
In the semi-regulated world of adult film, when an HIV scare is made known everyone asks, “Did I perform with the person who tested positive?” Fear turns to panic if it was a close call, relief if it wasn’t. That’s only after a name is released—or patient zero comes forward. Production shuts down, quarantine lists are drawn up for first generation, second, third, and so on. An ideal “who’s performed with whom” list chronicling before and after known exposure is made available. Some call this “the honor system.”
Unfortunately, those outside the business don’t always play by the industry’s self-regulated rules. Needless to say, former Two and a Half Men actor Charlie Sheen plays by his own rules.
“There is so much fear right now amongst the girls…like who have I had sex with that has had sex with them, or have I had sex with a girl who has had sex with Charlie?” says Alana Evans, 2015 AVN Hall of Fame recipient. “Maybe we can get Charlie to put together a list of all the porno girls he’s had sex with so the rest of us can make sure we’re okay? That’d be great.”
In case you missed it, Sheen admitted on the Today Show that he was HIV-positive, and has known of his diagnosis for four years. He also alleged “all sexual partners have known” about his condition with “no exception.”
While some are applauding Sheen for his bravery in coming forward, there’s speculation amongst industry insiders as to why now? Some credit the 27-year-old blonde who spoke anonymously to the Daily Mail with forcing Sheen’s hand. She estimates the A-lister had sex with at least 50 porn stars since his diagnosis and “fears the porn industry could face an ‘HIV epidemic’ as a result.”
‘There is so much fear right now amongst the girls…’
Sheen’s latest role as victim is a bit hard to swallow. He paints a vivid portrait of his suffering at the mercy of his addictions, depression, and multi-million dollar extortions from ex-lovers. Even so, that his two ex-goddesses are contradicting his story raises questions concerning his credibility.
Ex-goddess Bree Olson, who dated and lived with Sheen for seven months in 2011, appeared on The Howard Stern Show to claim she had no idea about her ex’s condition, and claimed she learned about his HIV-positive status “right along with everyone else.”
“He never said anything to me,” Olson added. “I was his girlfriend. I lived with him. We were together. We had sex almost every day for a year—with lambskin condoms.”
Now lambskin condoms—incredibly thin condoms are billed as providing the closest thing to not using condoms at all—only guard against pregnancy and do not prevent the transmission of HIV. Olson told Stern that while she wanted to use standard Trojan condoms, lambskin was Sheen’s condom of choice.
While Olson tested negative for HIV, in Sheen’s home state of California it’s a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison for a person with HIV to have unprotected sex with the intent to infect someone who’s unaware of their status. Though that is incredibly hard to prove in criminal court, California also has a misdemeanor charge carrying up to six months in prison for willfully exposing others to HIV.
No thoughtful person makes AIDS prevention a cause.
Of the hundreds, or thousands, of women who made themselves available to Magic Johnson, he said: “I tried to accommodate as many as possible. Some of them were unbelievable.”
This liberalism, this irresponsibility to our EGI, is not what we’re here to defend. With unspeakable irresponsibility and selfish uncaring (to say the least), they bring into the world behavior and genetics destructive to any reflective people - especially our European people.
Africa is one of the only places where AIDS is on the rise. That is good. Their population needs to be drastically reduced and its increase, let alone interbeeding with others, needs to be thwarted.
Magic, er, E.T. says, “Remember to not use a condom. AIDS is a beautiful thing.” It kills those irresponsible and reckless with our EGI.
Because not all merit defense, we need an order to secure those who do. 14
“No glove no love”, so the motto of condom proponents goes - a condom being referred to as a “glove”, in their liberal slang.
With “Sheen preferring ‘lambskin condoms”, in particular, an older slogan comes to mind as particularly apt to capture the refrain of those who would contest their liberalism - they are treating those who engage in reckless and socially destructive behavior “with kid gloves” - that is to say, they are protecting them too much and therefore enabling bad behavior in the long term.
Handle a situation, or a person or an object, delicately and gingerly.
Origin
Kid gloves are, of course, gloves made from the skin of a young goat. I say ‘of course’ but, in fact, when they were first fashioned in the 18th century they were more often made from lambskin, as that was easier to come by. They were clearly not intended for use when you were pruning the hedge and wearing kid gloves was the sartorial equivalent of pale white skin, that is, it indicated that the wearer was rich enough to indulge in a life of genteel indoor idleness. The earliest mentions of kid gloves are from England in the 1730s and the following is a typical report of a wealthy gentleman, laid out in his ‘Sunday best’, from Bagnall’s News, in The Ipswich Journal, December 1734:
The Corpse of Mr. Thorp, A Distiller in Soho, who died a few Days since, said to be worth £10000 was put into his Coffin, quilted within with white Sattin; and after several yards of fine Holland [best-quality linen] were wrapt about his Body… on his Head was a Cap of the same Holland tied with a white Ribbond; he has about his Neck two Yards of Cambrick; a Cambrick Handkerchief between his Hands, on which he had a pair of white Kid Gloves: and in this manner he lay in state some Days and was afterwards buried in Buckinghamshire.
At that time, kid gloves were viewed as rather ostentatious and only suitable for the nouveau riche - much as heavy gold chains might be viewed today.
At the town-hall event, Mr. Obama also warned young Asians to guard against racial divisions in politics, saying in the U.S., “it’s still an issue that comes up.”
“I really hope that all of you are fighting against the kinds of attitudes where you organize political parties or you organize interest groups just around ethnic or racial or tribal lines,” Mr. Obama said. “Because when you start doing that, it’s very easy for people to start thinking that whoever is not part of my group is somehow less than me. And once that mindset comes in, that’s how violence happens. That’s how discrimination happens. And societies that are divided ethnically and racially are almost never successful over the long term.”
He said in the U.S., “we’ve struggled with this for over 200 years, but it’s still an issue that comes up.”
“And so I would guard against that here in your home countries,” the president added.
[...]
We hear you, Obama. And do you know what the best way to guard against that problem is? Don’t import tens of millions of people into a continent who don’t belong there and are hostile to its people, social mores, and value systems.
Because societies that are divided ethnically and racially are almost never successful over the long term.
The Social Democrat Prime Minister announced an initiative called ‘Sweden Together’ (‘Sverige tillsammans’) on Thursday morning.
He said that municipalities, religious groups, sports associations, unions and public sector employers would all be invited to a major conference in October to discuss how to help refugees better integrate into Swedish communities.
The Prime Minister told Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio that he wanted a more even distribution of refugees across all 290 municipalities in Sweden, a policy that has been pushed by Sweden’s integration minister Ylva Johansson in recent months.
At a press conference in Stockholm at midday, ahead of cross-party talks on the refugee crisis, Löfven said there would be a large focus on getting refugees into schooling and the work force.
“This is about them having a speedy entrance into our society and getting a job, education, and housing,” Löfven told reporters.
“For us to be able to get through this demographic challenge, we need to get more working. This means we need to quickly get those who have newly arrived into the work force. This is what our investments are aiming for.”
One concrete change that was announced at the press conference was an increase in the compensation for municipalities per refugee, which will be raised from 83,100 kronor ($9,867) to 125,000 kronor ($14,873).
The government said it would earmark 1.8 billion kronor for the entire package to be spent over the next year. 870 million kronor of this will go into helping refugees find work quicker, offering speedier translation and validation of foreign education
The leaders of Sweden’s centre-right Alliance parties which made up former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s previous government are set to attend discussions with Löfven later in the day, along with the leaders of the government’s coalition partners the Greens and the Left Party. The nationalist anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party has not been invited.
“We must have a political gathering, both about what we’re doing here at home in Sweden, but also what Sweden stands for in the EU,” said Löfven, adding that it was currently “unhelpful” that Sweden and Germany were currently sharing the bulk of responsibility for new arrivals.
Sweden’s Prime Minister met Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin earlier this week. Both leaders told a press conference that they backed the introduction of new quotas to force other European countries to take in more refugees, as is being proposed by the European Commission.
The Nordic nation currently takes in more refugees per capita than any other EU member state.
Sweden’s Migration Board (Migrationsverket) received a total of 11,743 applications for asylum last month, up from 6,619 in June and 8,066 in July, as an increasing number of refugees headed for Scandinavia over the summer.
Marine Le Pen, the president of France’s far-right Front National party, is to appear in court for allegedly inciting racial hatred over comments in which she compared Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation.
The FN leader made the comments in a speech during a party rally in Lyon in 2010. Asked on Tuesday about being summoned to appear in court on 20 October, Le Pen told Agence France-Presse: “Of course, I’m not going to miss such an occasion.”
Later, she told Europe 1 it was “scandalous to be prosecuted for having a political opinion in the country of freedom of expression.”
At the time she made the remarks, Le Pen was campaigning to become FN president, succeeding her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, himself no stranger to charges of provoking racial hatred.
At the rally, Le Pen made reference to “street prayers” after reports of Muslims praying in public in three French cities, including Paris, because of a lack of mosques or a lack of space in local prayer rooms. The French government later clamped down on the “illegal” use of the public space for prayers.
“I’m sorry, but for those who really like to talk about the second world war, if we’re talking about occupation, we can also talk about this while we’re at it, because this is an occupation of territory,” she told supporters, prompting waves of applause.
“It’s an occupation of swaths of territory, of areas in which religious laws apply … for sure, there are no tanks, no soldiers, but it’s an occupation all the same and it weighs on people.”
Despite numerous complaints from anti-racist organisations, a preliminary inquiry by the authorities in Lyon was dropped in 2011. However, one association pursued the legal complaint, and when the European parliament lifted Le Pen’s parliamentary immunity in July 2013, a preliminary inquiry was opened. In September 2014, the prosecutor’s office announced she would be sent before a judge.
As of 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s speeches had led to 18 convictions, five for repeating that the Holocaust was a mere “point of detail” of the second world war.
Marine Le Pen has been credited with “de-demonising” the FN and throwing out its more xenophobic and extremist elements since taking control of the party in January 2011. Critics accused her of swapping the FN’s historic antisemitism for Islamophobia.
Le Pen’s deputy, Florian Philippot, reacted angrily on Twitter to her summons. “The only people who should be sent before the court are those who allow prayers in the street that are illegal and against the principle of secularism!” he wrote.
Philippot accused the French authorities of trying to smear Le Pen before regional elections to be held in December.
Le Pen also expressed her anger on Twitter. “We’re quicker to prosecute those who denounce the illegal behaviour of fundamentalists … than to prosecute the fundamentalists behaving illegally,” she wrote.
The penalty for inciting racial hatred in France is up to a year in prison and a €45,000 fine.
* France’s Front National has also been charged with fraud in an election finance inquiry.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 18 September 2015 07:31.
Word has it that Juncker is socially conservative and therefore does not relish the migrant crisis; but he is a businessman who is looking after business interests for himself, business constituents and to maintain his position as an EU representative of those interests.
That is why he felt constrained to put across a plan to try to preserve the Schengen zone by diffusing responsibility among its members and (in his theory) that might dilute the impact of the migrants.
An additional aspect to the psychology of his position is that he is from Luxembourg, one of the smallest European nations. One can imagine business persons from small countries finding the delay and tedium of having to go through border controls as they move in and out of a Luxembourg every 15 minutes an insufferable handicap.
Nevertheless, from a WN/ethnonationalist perspective, particularly until such time as the borders of the entire zone are secure from non-European imposition and those who are already here are drastically reduced in number by means of repatriation, the Schengen zone will have to give way to tighter national border controls.
From an ethnonationalist point of view, in any event, there has to be more national accountability to their own and to European people as a whole.
Sep 16 2015: In last week’s State of the Union speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker referred to the Schengen Area – a border-free travel zone made up of 26 European countries – as “a unique symbol of European integration”. After Germany’s recent announcement that it would be “temporarily reintroducing border controls”, some say that unique symbol is in jeopardy.
A look back at the past 30 years since the agreement was signed can help clarify what exactly is at risk.
What is Schengen?
The Schengen Area is made up of 26 European countries that have removed border controls at their shared crossings. The agreement was signed in 1985 by five members of the EU, and came into force 10 years later. Following the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty, the Schengen agreement became part of European law. That meant all new EU members had to sign up to it, although Britain and Ireland had already been given the right to opt out. As the map below shows, four non-EU countries – Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein – are also members of the area.
Why are people talking about the end of Schengen?
We are experiencing a global refugee crisis. Around the world, 60 million people have been forced to flee war, violence and human rights abuse – levels not seen since World War II. Hundreds and thousands of those people have attempted the often perilous journey to Europe in search of a better, safer life.
Some of them haven’t made it – while the image of Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body on a beach in Turkey shocked the world, many more have died trying to get to Europe. According to figures from the International Organization for Migration, 2015 could end up being the deadliest on record.
Of those who do make it over, the majority have been heading to Germany. The country expects to take in 1 million asylum seekers by the end of the year, more than all other EU countries collectively received in 2014. It is in response to these huge numbers that Germany decided to re-impose its internal border controls. The country’s interior minister said the move aimed to “limit the current inflows to Germany and to return to orderly procedures when people enter the country”.
Some have been quick to emphasize the temporary nature of this decision. But with countries such as Austria and the Netherlands now following suit, others think Schengen’s days are numbered.
Has anything like this happened before?
The option for a country to temporarily reinstate border controls was actually built into the original agreement, as the European Commission pointed out last weekend: “The temporary reintroduction of border controls between member states is an exceptional possibility explicitly foreseen in and regulated by the Schengen Borders Code.”
In the past, countries have chosen to exercise that right. For example, in 2006 Germany reinstated border controls when it hosted the FIFA World Cup. France did the same in 2005, following the terrorist attacks in London. In what was perhaps a precursor of the troubles to come, during the post-Arab Spring mass migration of 2011, politicians in France and Italy called for deep reforms to the agreement.
So what’s different this time?
Even in Schengen’s early days, critics pointed to one big flaw: freedom of movement within the Schengen area only works if the common external borders are fortified. With many frontline countries such as Greece already experiencing crises of their own, the task of strengthening those external borders has become even tougher.
The stakes were raised this summer after a heavily armed terrorist suspect was apprehended on board a train travelling between three Schengen countries. The ease with which he had moved around the area prompted some to refer to Europe’s open-border policy as a terrorist’s paradise.
Perhaps more importantly, people’s attitudes within the area are starting to change. This recent crisis is just one in a long line of turbulent events for Europe these past months and years. Whether they are right to do so, some blame the union for these developments. While Schengen and the free movement of people might be at the core of the European project, for some that no longer seems worth fighting for. A poll back in July showed that the majority of western Europeans would like to see Schengen scrapped, and last year former French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for it to be “immediately suspended”.
But with so many people now displaced by conflict and violence, others argue that the European project – which has brought peace to a continent previously locked in war – has never been more important.
As plans to share out asylum seekers more equitably across the European Union make little progress, many will be closely watching the developments for hints of what it means for Schengen.
