by Slavoj Žižek was recently interviewed by Mehdi Hasan about Žižek’s position on Europe’s migrant crisis:[embedded content]Yes, Žižek is correct that many of the migrants have come from nations with a profoundly different culture from that of Western Europe and there is a huge problem of lack of assimilation, but then, strangely, Žižek went on and seemed to want to deny this. To the extent that European governments are responsible for the interventions in Libya or Syria, they should do something to help the genuine refugees in the Middle East. But Europe’s responsibility for the disaster in the Middle East ranks much lower than that of the United States and the Gulf states. We now know from one of Hillary Clinton’s emails as quoted in a WikiLeaks Podesta email dated to 2014 (which can be read here) that the Saudi and Qatari governments fund ISIS and are also responsible for the disaster in Syria:“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” https://wikileaks.
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Lord Keynes considers the following as important: Slavoj Žižek on Europe’s Migrant Crisis
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Yes, Žižek is correct that many of the migrants have come from nations with a profoundly different culture from that of Western Europe and there is a huge problem of lack of assimilation, but then, strangely, Žižek went on and seemed to want to deny this.
To the extent that European governments are responsible for the interventions in Libya or Syria, they should do something to help the genuine refugees in the Middle East. But Europe’s responsibility for the disaster in the Middle East ranks much lower than that of the United States and the Gulf states.
We now know from one of Hillary Clinton’s emails as quoted in a WikiLeaks Podesta email dated to 2014 (which can be read here) that the Saudi and Qatari governments fund ISIS and are also responsible for the disaster in Syria:
“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”This issue is also discussed here:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
So the Saudi and Qatari governments also bare a huge part of the blame for this refugee crisis, and ought to take refugees.
Furthermore, it does not follow that all these refugees should be brought to Europe or America. Instead, the US, EU and European nations should use their tremendous wealth and power to persuade other majority Muslim nations to take refugees and pay for humane and decent conditions for these refugees there – in nations where these refugees speak the same language, share the same religion, and have the same culture, e.g., nations in North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain (the Gulf states in particular being rich enough to afford it). Money and resources could be offered to those nations not rich enough to afford it.
Moreover, many of the migrants who came into Europe in 2015 and this year are not genuine refugees at all, but economic migrants from many countries not even in Middle East at all (see here).
Europe cannot take millions of economic migrants this year and every year for the foreseeable future. By accepting millions of mere economic migrants, the floodgates will be opened and disaster will follow.
Multiculturalism in Europe is one of the greatest failures of the neoliberal era, and open borders and mass immigration themselves are both part of the catastrophic neoliberal program of the past 40 years or so.
Despite the contemptible nonsense by Mehdi Hasan, the civilisation of Europe, its people, and its cultures need to be protected against the demographic and cultural catastrophe that is coming.
But a leftist like Žižek only vaguely understands this.
Žižek is also mostly wrong about the right-wing populists. For example, Nigel Farage and UKIP are not the “greatest threats” to Europe. UKIP is basically a nationalist Thatcherite party, and they are neither fascist nor far right.
Probably the greatest threat to Europe today is the European Union followed by the tidal wave of mass immigration from the Third World. Most of the populist right, whatever their mistakes on many other issues (and one could point to plenty), are at least opposed to both of these genuine threats.