When the Moors migrated en masse into Spain, they neither established a perfect clone of an Arabian caliphate nor constructed a conventional Christian kingdom. Instead, over a period of centuries, they created al-Andalus, a Muslim society that made some civilized allowances for the Europeans who had preceded them there. By the time of the Reconquista 800 years later, the Spain that had once been was no more.
Today, the English who languish under Scottish rule in the United Kingdom are horrified by the changes that have been taking place since 2003 in the Oxford Junior Dictionary. This 10,000 word dictionary, published by Oxford University Press, is primarily intended for the use of UK schoolchildren, increasing numbers of whom are not English. Words which have been removed from the dictionary include Christmas terms such as “carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe,” fantasy words like “dwarf, elf, goblin,” words related to Christianity such as “altar, bishop, chapel, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, psalm, saint, sin, devil,” and even such classically English animals as “magpie, piglet, starling, weasel, wren.”
It will probably come as little surprise to learn that the head of children’s dictionaries at Oxford University Press responsible for overseeing such changes glories in the proud Anglo-Saxon name of Vineeta Gupta. Gupta declares:
When you look back at older versions of dictionaries, there were lots of examples of flowers for instance. That was because many children lived in semi-rural environments and saw the seasons. Nowadays, the environment has changed. We are also much more multicultural. People don’t go to Church as often as before. Our understanding of religion is within multiculturalism, which is why some words such as “Pentecost” or “Whitsun” would have been in 20 years ago but not now.
Her claims might be a bit more convincing if “Whitsun” were on the same level of common usage as “psalm,” “saint,” “sin,” or “devil.” And it would be very interesting to hear Ms Gupta explain how “dwarf,” “elf,” and “goblin” are no longer relevant in the land of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, especially considering how their works are still being profitably mined by publishers and Hollywood producers alike.
Wealthy, technologically advanced, self-satisfied and flattered into complacency by the way in which people from other cultures have readily aped Western customs after being introduced to them, the societies of the West have long assumed that their traditions possessed magically transitive qualities. But, as Ms Gupta is demonstrating to those who were foolish enough to allow her ancestors from the Indian subcontinent to come live among them, it is not.
In Minnesota, 100,000 Somalis now live amidst the German and Scandinavian Lutherans that bravely, and perhaps unwisely, chose to settle the land of Ten Thousand Mosquito Factories. Last week, one of those Somalis, Shirwa Ahmed, was buried in Burnsville, his remains having been returned from Somalia subsequent to his murder of 29 people in a suicide bombing there. He was described by the media as “a Minnesotan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.”
The truth is that he was neither, and to pretend otherwise is to accept the legal fiction that national and cultural identity are nothing more than paper. An official document stating that the color of one’s eyes are blue does not suffice make them blue when they are observably brown, and Shirwa Ahmed was no more Minnesotan than Vineeta Gupta is English. A genuine Minnesotan might consider digging up the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, (actually, a proper porphyrogenite would be much more keen to blow up the wretched Hump and see the Vikes playing outside in the snow again where they belong), but the thought of attempting to kill large quantities of people in Somalia would simply never enter his mind.
Whenever anyone points out the undeniable fact that multiculturalism is a cancer slowly killing Western culture, it is customary for left liberals to angrily demand to know why that individual hates people from other cultures. But one need not hate anyone to prefer the continued existence of one’s culture and society. A much more relevant question should be directed at the proponents of multiculturalism and immigration: Why do you hate Western society so much that you wish to see it destroyed?
