Europe with its immigrants is a far better place than without them

Recently the New York Times carried an interesting report on Multiculturalism which has become a fraught issue throughout Europe in recent years. A rancorous chorus of populist politicians, like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Jimmie Akesson in Sweden, have made major electoral gains by stoking fears about multiculturalism. Mainstream politicians have joined in, too. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have recently made deeply critical speeches, and the Dutch government decided recently to dump a decades-old policy of multiculturalism.

The real target of much of this criticism, however, is not multiculturalism but immigration and immigrants — especially Muslims. Mr. Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party, the third largest in the Dutch Parliament, has campaigned for an end to all non-Western immigration, a ban on mosque building and the outlawing of the Koran. Mr. Akesson, whose far-right Sweden Democrats shocked the nation by winning 20 seats in last year’s parliamentary elections, denounces immigration as the biggest threat facing Sweden since World War II. Centrists have responded not by challenging such prejudice but by appropriating the right’s arguments in an effort to hold on to votes.


The fact is that mass immigration has really been a boon to Western Europe. It has brought great economic benefits and helped create societies that are less insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan. But the policies designed to manage immigration have been largely a disaster. To see why, one needs only to look at the experience of Britain and Germany. Both have adopted multicultural policies, though they have taken different paths. The consequences, however, have been similar.


The challenge facing Europe today, therefore, is to stop listening to the idiotic ramblings of radical right-wing politicians, like Wilders, who are against ethnic diversity in Europe, but also that it must reject multiculturalism as a political policy, while embracing the diversity that immigration brings. So far no country has yet succeeded in doing so. That does not mean it can not be done, but it will mean that the more liberal politicians in Europe must step up to the plate, take off their gloves and go on the attack against politicians like Wilders and Akeson, instead of trying to appease them.


EU-Digest