Europe's immigration "backlash"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/24/sweden-immigration-far-right-asylum

The above article was sent to me by someone as pessimistic about Europe as I am; however, I see a glimmer of light in this Guardian article written by Ian Traynor in Malmo or Jason Rodriques, I can't tell which. The article is entitled "Sweden Joins Europe-wide backlash against immigration, its asylum polices are the continent's most generous. But the Public mood is now changing."

"Backlash isn't a word I would choose to describe the events in this article. However, it seems to me that anyone of intelligence should have expected some sort of reaction from ordinary Europeans unless policies incapable of changing actually changed. The sort of change necessary to preclude a backlash would be to get the European populations to want these incoming immigrants to integrate with them, and for the immigrants themselves to give up their Sharia-based religion and accept European secularism. Or for the European leaders -- who need immigrants to pay taxes so they can provide the entitlements to the people they want to vote for them -- to reverse their policies. But absent these impossible changes, Europe will be left to drift. The immigrants will continue to be crammed willy-nilly into the people, and the people will be expected to cope.

Those of us who are pessimistic about Europe expect the people to go right on "coping" until Europe becomes Eurabia. But a "backlash" was considered a possibility -- not a very strong one in a people Robert Kagan called "Venus" to America's "Mars." But I recall discussing a possible backlash a time or two. While on the one hand Europe seems too Venusian to change, on the other, is it possible to imagine that the people who brought us two world wars will tolerate being overrun by the nasty a set of hoodlums they describe to us in their newspaper articles?

Of course Europe is still a long way from a real backlash. The occasion for the article is that a sufficient number of Swedes "voted for an extreme-right movement accused of being Islamophobic that broke into parliament in Stockholm for the first time, probably condemning the country to a fragile minority government." That statement reeks of disapproval. The Swedish people who have switched their vote in hopes of getting some relief from the immigrants being piled on them get no respect from Ian Traynor or Jason Rodriques. That some Swedes are having truck with a "movement accused of being Islamophobic" is not something they can approve of. But do they or anyone else in Malmo or the rest of Sweden offer any viable alternatives? No. So they would sit idly by while more and more immigrants were stuffed into Malmo and expect the natives to take it and go on taking it without a whimper or an objection. Shoot, as wimpy as Europe has become that might work. Heck, it is working.

Traynor and Rodriquez go on to discuss what they consider backlashes in other nations of Europe. Sarkozy of France has expelled some Gypsies. Geert Wilders continues to gain political strength in the Netherlands. Heinz-Christian Strache is expected to take more than 20% of the vote as he runs for mayor of Vienna. Jobbik has gained a parliamentary foothold in Hungary. In Italy the Northern League is growing in popularity. In Germany the book by Thilo Sarrizin is the "political sensation of the summer."

I'm sorry Traynor or Rodriquez, none of that sounds like a real backlash to me, but it is interesting and ought to interest Europe's political leaders. The message it sends to me is that you European leaders would be wise to restrict immigration and clamp down on the excesses of your immigrants. You had better do something about your mess or there will be a backlash . . . maybe.