Posted on October 17, 2018

What Multiculturalism Hides

Jan Keller, Gatestone Institue, October 16, 2018

Multiculturalism is not a manifestation of Europe’s generosity, or some noble embodiment of love and truth. Multiculturalism is what remains after mass migration reveals itself as a threat, rather than a benefit, to the economies of European countries.

{snip} From the end of the war until the mid-1970s, foreign workers tended to come to France temporarily, without their families, and return to their countries of origin. These workers were generally recruited from former French colonies to do menial and low-paying jobs — not in order to enrich the culture of the host country.

At the end of the 1970s, that situation changed. Foreign workers began coming to France with their families and also having children after arriving in the country. At the same time, however, there were changes in the economy that ended up leaving descendants of the recruited workers hopeless. {snip} In other words, they had been born in a country that suddenly had nothing to offer. The only thing that the government could come up with was a rationale for the dire situation — a mission for these children of migrants: that they should enrich themselves culturally in the country to which their parents had migrated. This new policy of multiculturalism, which emphasizes the benefits of cultural diversity for society and the state, is an example of the exploitation of others based on a fantasy of virtue. Those at whom the sweet talk of multiculturalism is aimed, can see that it has done nothing to improve their lot, and are now realizing that their future is bleak.

Now let us look at those who favor multiculturalism for the Czech Republic, in Eastern Europe, which has been resistant to it. What they do not grasp is that the Czech Republic today does not resemble France in the early part of the 20th century. We Czechs do not need to recruit foreign workers to perform menial jobs. On the contrary, we need to develop an economy based on skilled labor. It also does not make sense for us to seek highly skilled migrants for this purpose. Such migrants prefer countries whose languages they speak and in which they can earn higher wages than those offered in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, given the problematic nature of our current education system, which is unable adequately to prepare graduates for jobs in tech companies, it would be absurd for us to rely on technology experts from developing countries to rescue our economy.

Some politicians claim that we need a mass wave of immigrants to care for our elderly. This is controversial: in a new country, if they are unskilled, they will barely be able to care for themselves, let alone for others, and will present an additional burden to our already overburdened social security system. If, on the other hand, we bring in highly qualified immigrants to our workforce, we would be taking away from poorer countries the best they have to offer. {snip} If we take them away from their countries of origin, the situation in those countries will further deteriorate. The result will be an even greater flow of unskilled migrants escaping those countries. These new arrivals will create an even greater burden on the social security system than it will incentivize economic development. {snip}

{snip}

Under these circumstances, the nature of multiculturalism has changed. It has become a means to exert fierce psychological pressure primarily on the middle- and lower-income sectors in Europe. {snip}

In short, mass waves of migrants represent statistically significantly greater risks than opportunities. They do not serve to boost prosperity. Our insurance systems, which were founded by, and developed for, the nation states whose populations they were meant to serve, were simply never designed to cover them.

The proponents of the new multiculturalism want to share their welfare states with masses of refugees who — through no fault of their own — will be unable to participate in financing themselves for a long time to come.