 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 8, 2007
/ 22 Sivan, 5767
Cultural takeover
By
Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares to leave 10 Downing Street, "Mohammad" is the second most popular name in Britain.
As President Bush is finally deserted by his long-suffering conservative base, "Jose" is not the second-most popular name in the United States. But Spanish, as yet unofficially, is America's second language.
Such developments represent two obviously different phenomena — the impact of Muslims and Hispanics on societies once aptly summed up as English-speaking peoples. What is similar is the phenomena's transformative effect: Britain is increasingly defined by its accommodation of a tiny (3 percent) Islamic minority; the United States is increasingly defined by its accommodation of a large Hispanic minority (14.8 percent), some considerable number of whom are here illegally.
Is this a shocking turn of events? You bet. Of course, to anyone who remembers the "Behead Those Who Insult Islam" posters displayed in London last year, the Islamization of Britain may seem long obvious. But that doesn't mean it isn't startling to see, quantified, in a government tally of baby names, a reliable indicator of the increasingly Muslim future of Britain.
Similarly, to anyone beset by bilingualism, both in business and the business of daily life, the Hispanization of America is currently a fact. But that doesn't mean there isn't an almost tangible gut-check, say, in reading about the extent to which 2008 American presidential candidates, Republicans and Democrats alike, are gearing up Spanish-speaking drives within their English-speaking campaigns to vie for Spanish-speaking voters.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, is the principled exception, believing, as he has said, that where a bilingual individual gains an advantage, a bilingual country suffers from irreparable fragmentation because the disappearance of a common language leads to the end of a common culture. If the Senate effectively legalizes 12 to 20 million mostly Spanish-speaking illegal aliens — a mainly Mexican bloc which, ironically, is anything but "diverse" — the common language (English) and common culture (American) slip that much farther away. It's inevitable. This Spanish-speaking demographic is simply too massive to assimilate — even assuming the multicultural states of America were still in the assimilation business, which we're emphatically not.
And that's shocking, too. But more than shocking, this whole issue is depressing and distressing — although I know I'm not supposed to say so. Whenever anyone has the bad taste to point out markers of cultural transformation, the rest of us are supposed to play it very cool, expressing only the most noncommittal reaction, if any at all. We're not supposed to flinch, and we're certainly not supposed to lament such changes, or mourn what is being lost, or, heaven help us, do anything to stop or reverse them, such as demanding the enforcement of existing immigration laws that would both encourage the repatriation of illegal aliens and discourage more from coming.
The socially acceptable position, the one that qualifies as politically correct wisdom suitable to be shouted from rooftops (or written in the Wall Street Journal editorial page), is to accept phenomena such as the Islamization of Britain and the Hispanization of the United States as givens, as progress, as proof of one's own moral goodness. Anything less than regarding these wholly optional changes, ours to make or not, as national destiny — international destiny? — is denounced as malicious bigotry.
In this way our conception of ourselves as an existing culture — open to modification and growth, yes, but not irreversible transformation — has been grossly undermined. Not only are the traditions and characteristics (English-speaking? non-Muslim?) of our societies now regarded as being retrograde embarrassments, we are also supposed to cheerfully maintain our societies in a perpetual state of ethnic and/or religious flux. The irony that goes unremarked is that the homogenous — dare I say, non-diverse? — nature of Islamic and Hispanic countries sending forth immigrants remains immutable. Which is why it won't matter much to the world if the United States ever becomes the 18th Spanish-speaking country in the Western Hemisphere, and if Britain ever becomes the 57th nation in the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Except, that is, to those who would lament the passing of the English-speaking peoples. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair obviously don't belong to such a group, but who does? The group exists in shamed silence, having bought the PC line that cultural self-preservation — Western self-preservation, that is — is nothing but an exercise in crude racism. But is it really? If we never hear any answer but "yes," it's time to get out the handkerchiefs and weep, silently.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2007, Diana West
|
