The Somali Experiment

 

The revolution is proceeding apace, at least south of the border. I was shocked recently to hear Matt Walsh call for the mass deportation of Somalis. Their culture, he says, is incompatible with American values.

I cannot imagine hearing this even two years ago. This goes sharply against the leftist dogma that all cultures are equal, and cannot be criticized, since good and evil are themselves culturally relative. And it goes against the leftist dogma that culture is racially determined, so that any criticism of another culture is racist.

If Walsh’s position becomes the American mainstream, everything changes. At least, if the logic is applied consistently—which rarely actually happens. Leftist “woke” thought has always been wildly inconsistent.

To begin with, of course, this makes mass immigration look far more dubious as a policy. And this seems to be becoming the consensus across the developed world. Ther have been mass demonstrations in England and Ireland, not just the US, and the governments have at least begun giving lip service to the idea that mass immigration is a bad thing. And for reasons of cultural incompatibility.

But more than this: if culture is not genetic, and cultures are not intrinsically equal, this kills multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is just holding people back and restricting them to ghettos. Obviously, everyone should gravitate to the best elements, the best solutions, the best culture; instead of living as an exhibit in a human zoo. Which is of course the idea the U.S.A. was based on: e pluribus unum, the melting pot.  And, of course, this is what Martin Luther King and the drive for desegregation was all about. We had lost our way.

This also kills accusations that teaching “First Nations” practical skills in the residential schools was “cultural genocide.” The reality is that “First Nations” cultures were, as we actually used to call them, “primitive.” The French explorers used to say, “sans loi, sans roi, sans foi”: without laws, without government, without religion or philosophy. They were less developed, and produced a less satisfactory life. A daily struggle for survival left no time to develop things like permanent structures, wheeled vehicles, writing, settled agriculture, and the like. Without writing, with the old usually dying of exposure or abandonment at a relatively young age, with epidemics wiping out most of the population about every two generations, any innovations discovered by solitary geniuses over the millennia were unlikely to be remembered and passed on.

This also makes the European enterprise of colonialism look less sinister. The argument at the time was that the European powers were tutoring less developed societies, introducing peace and prosperity, orderly systems of government, commerce, and accounting, building schools and railroads and hospitals, and keeping the peace. Was this altogether wrong? Was it really all about pushing other people around and stealing their resources? If so, how account for the fact that European colonies usually cost the present country money, rather than making them money? How account for the fact that most former colonies took a financial hit post-independence, and many sank into conflict?

Somalia being a case in point. Independence has not worked well for the former Italian Somalia and British Somaliland.