(The Federalist) — On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not limit the number of refugees coming into the country. “On the issue of an upper limit, my position is clear,” Merkel said. “I won’t accept one.”
Setting aside the electoral implications of Merkel’s statement, which defied her party’s long-term coalition partner just two months before federal elections, it perfectly captured the refusal of European leaders to face the migrant crisis head-on—a refusal that in turn epitomizes the slow suicide of European civilization.
President Trump’s Warsaw speech earlier this month provoked predictable cries of racism and xenophobia from a mainstream media worried that even the term “western civilization” was a dog whistle for alt-right nationalists. Implicit in such criticism is the dubious notion that western values are not really western, that people of all cultures and religions desire more or less the same thing.
