In the last several years, I’ve revisited places in Western Europe that I have been to before when I was younger. It’s not so much the passage of time, though in part of course it is that, so much as wanting to see Europe once more while it still exists. Mass migration and elite self-hatred of their own cultural patrimony is changing Europe into something unrecognizable, something deformed, something suicidal.
When the brittle, wholly artificial “European Union” set about to draft its constitution, Pope John Paul II lamented that it refused to give even a glancing recognition to the debt owed Christianity by Europe as a whole. No Christianity, no Europe. Naturally, the final draft of the constitution resolutely said nothing about the single greatest force that shaped it throughout history.
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“Never travel in the high season unless absolutely unavoidable” is the single best piece of travel advice I’ve been given. So I find myself in Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance, just at the end of the high season. The crowds are few now and one gets a feeling of the city returning to its year round occupants with a sense of relief but no ill will toward the bustle that contributes greatly to its economy.
Strip away the veneer of tourism, though, and an observant visitor can tell that things have changed. The flood of migrants from North Africa and elsewhere tend not to stay in Florence–it’s a relatively small town–but even the transit of the dispossessed leave their mark.
Last year a long term American expat in Florence was murdered by an illegal immigrant from Senegal after consensual sex at her flat. Her Italian boyfriend, you see, was due to show up and she was in a hurry to have the empty hook up done and over with. The migrant became enraged at being treated “like a dog.” Perhaps even now someone is writing an updated version of “Looking For Mr. Goodbar,” open borders version.
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Italy’s problems consist of far more than an assignation gone wrong. Early this year Somali migrants stormed government offices in Sesto Florence (a suburb of sorts) after a fire in a shelter killed one of them. The mayor pleaded with other Italian cities to “help us.” I’m struck by people from failed countries with nothing to offer their host countries demanding even more state largesse.
Several months later the mayor of Florence proper said “The French model is a failure,” referring to France’s infamous banlieues in which foreigners are warehoused, often becoming “no go zones” for the rest of civil society. The mayor lamented that there were simply too many foreigners in public housing, displacing Italians.
Fully one third of Italy’s prisoners consist of foreigners, which I suppose is the ne plus ultra in public housing. Clearly, the rest of the world isn’t sending their best to Italy.
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Italian Twitter is a revelation, even in translation. Oriana Fallaci is rightly celebrated there. An atheist, she once said “I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger,” the name of Pope Benedict XVI before his papal elevation (famously, she had a private audience with him in 2006). Opposition to losing one’s culture, one’s very way of life, because of mindless mass migration by an elite that has turned on it’s own populace, meets the same rancid objections here as elsewhere. Fortunately, these Italians are as un-dissuaded as others around Europe in the face of abuse and scorn.
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Things may be changing although whether in time is an open question. Last month the mayor of Venice, in a meeting with the mayor of Florence no less, said “if someone runs in St. Mark’s Square screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ we’ll shoot him.” That’s a refreshing change from the Regressive Left’s “why do they hate us?” refrain.
In the short time I’ve been in Florence, there have been three terrorist attacks in Europe, one in London and two in France. The loathsome mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn, has said previously that such incidents are “part and parcel” of living in a big city. Only terror attacks in Europe don’t happen exclusively in big cities and even then, no such admonition to capitulate is needed in Tokyo, Budapest or Krakow.
The London “bucket bomber” was known to Scotland Yard as he had been in custody a mere two weeks ago. Preciously, he was a “foster refugee,” revealing how insipid British society has become. Prime Minister Theresa May has raised the London threat level to critical. Fallaci was correct eleven years ago when she said “The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.” There’s simply no getting around this cold truth.
Just yesterday I read on my balcony, in the shadow of the Duomo, a Star Tribune story headlined “One year later, motive of St. Cloud mall attacker remains unclear.” This is a flat out lie and everyone knows it. Radical Islamic terrorism imported into Minnesota is the cause. Female genital mutilation exists here because people from backward cultures insist on bringing barbarity with them. No thanks.
The efforts of the elites to silence objections to the loss of freedom and erosion of culture is the same in Europe as it is in America, disturbingly so. It’s as if there’s only one playbook and they share it. Mostly this consists of denigrating those who object, who notice and who aren’t afraid to describe reality honestly instead of through a fatuous multicultural haze that only works in the imagination, not in actuality.
Being called a fascist is popular here (sound familiar?) when speaking out against disastrous policies of mass migration and other social ills. Defending one’s culture in the teeth of a sustained onslaught brings forth only the nastiest of responses. This is because, of course, there is no sound rejoinder to the argument that all cultures are not equal and should not be treated as such.
One Italian tweeter, @20928, said it best: “Non è tanto il Fascismo che è in me ma l’antifascismo che è in voi che mi fa capire che non sto sbagliando…”
Approximately: It’s not so much the Fascism that is in me but the anti-fascism that is in you that makes me realize I’m not wrong…
Image credit: author
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In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor.™ He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy. He can be reached at Wbua@nycunarjfza.pbz
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter