As the immigration and sovereignty debates roll on, some pundits have tried to examine why there’s such a focus on Islamic immigration, versus other forms. American immigration restrictionists do focus on Mexico and illegal immigration over our unsecured border, but often have a different tone to even the slightest uptick in Muslim immigration numbers.
As Latin American immigration has altered the American social landscape, one can plainly see the degraded areas and changes to culture and society. California of 1955 is long gone. In its place are tent cities, slums, and inland portions, where political writers like Victor Davis Hanson cite the two camps of farmers and ranchers in California: those who have found a dead Mexican on their property versus those who have not.
These overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants arrive with the corrupt, yet European legal framework of Mexico or various South American republics. Customs, however, are different. Family decisions, formation, and habits are all different. These immigrants still work within the American legal system and navigate the same political expectations and responsibilities. While voting engagement is still leaving Democrats disappointed, Mexicans are enthusiastically aware of the system and legal protections.
These Latin American and Sub-Saharan African immigrants to America are also easily seduced by the material comforts of America’s economy. Consumerism is quite the strong pull for them to integrate just enough to enjoy the lifestyle available here compared to the Third World. Integration is a tricky issue because people trapped in an old mindset would expect integration and assimilation to mean embracing America. But under progressive hegemony, embracing America means enjoying American consumer culture, while berating American society.
The curious case with Muslim immigration is that Islam is a competing socio-political worldview, in comparison to managerialist-installed progressivism. The surveys are pretty clear on Muslim beliefs, with large percentages wishing to live under Sharia law no matter where they go. Muslim men clearly see the value in Sharia backing them up compared to the Western feminist legal system. In a broader sense, the Muslims also arrive into a far more decadent West than even twenty years ago. Mexican and African immigration is a replacement but a degradation of the current system. Muslim immigration is wholesale replacement.
There is an historical example of this. It is an example often cited in our current public discourse: Rome. It requires looking at a decline of the empire in a nuanced way. The fall of the Western Roman Empire saw a similar two-wave effect to its end. It also involved Muslims and wholesale replacement of the current regime. Not all barbarians are equal.
As Germanic tribes worked their way through the Western Empire, they did not leave their stamp on the former Western Roman Empire as much as it absorbed them. Genetically, they did not have as wide of a footprint. The Roman aristocrats were able to retain their estates. The Church’s role even grew as the bishop of Rome was elevated. Due to the barbarian invasions, public life altered and had a dose of instability injected into it. The monasteries found new, willing entrants from the more delicate side of humanity.
Even politically, these new kingdoms retained Roman features and administrators. The Ostrogothic kingdom, led by Theodoric, had two chief ministers who were Roman in blood, name, and training. The villas simply found new masters and inhabitants. These chieftains also looked to the emperor in Constantinople as a superior. The trappings of power were easy to seduce the barbarian warlords.
A clear illustration of this is how the economic world did not change. Commerce continued, as the Mediterranean was the sea trade network of old. Coins were still struck in gold with new faces. The Syrian and Jewish merchants still traded in Eastern goods and slaves. This trade was important; the tolls and taxes these barbarian kings could levy were their source of income. These kingdoms did not have to focus on land and territory as long as their treasuries were full from commerce. Many offered incredible protections and privileges for the Levantine merchants.
The coast had ports not just for taking in goods, but Eastern Roman imperial culture. The Germanic tribes did not create their own culture and spread it to Western Europe. There was no new Germanic art to stamp its mark on the glory of Rome. These barbarian fiefdoms were degraded versions of the old Roman provinces, but still very much a continuation of the Roman world.
Islam destroyed all of that. Islam raced across North Africa and destroyed the barbarian kingdoms. The race across North Africa was a roughly century long razing of the Maghreb. The area had seen fighting and exchanges of control between Gothic warlords and the Byzantines. This has weakened it, but had left the western half of the Mediterranean open, completing the unified Mediterranean trade zone. Even if the Western Roman Empire was officially over, the cultural flow and continuity existed.
Islam swept in and ended all of that. Muhammad’s creation was not just a religious one, but a political experiment. Considering its birthplace, Islam was a different method to tackle the Middle East’s mosaic of tribes and cultures. Muslims took power in areas, and, due to its overland connection to the riches of the East, had no reason to trade with continental Europe. There was no fleet in Western Europe that could maintain security for trade. Ports shriveled up and decayed, if not outright died. The economy went into disarray and had to reorient, the Church faced an existential crisis, and political entities had to alter their entire way of thinking and administration. Even broader, the entire focus of Western Europe shifted northward to escape the Muslim menace.
Muslims came with an entire system of governance and religion opposite of Catholicism and Roman history. It did not view these institutions as seductive or worthy of inheriting. A social and cultural chauvinism created a tool box for these Islamic colonizers to introduce and implement. To this day, Islamic scholars consult the Quran for how to integrate new inventions into daily life, looking for words to interpret for a thousand-year-old book. They brought their system like any conquering, colonizing force. Whether Europe, North Africa, the Middle East or India, the effect was the same.
This is why removing the progressive, democratic superstructure funneling Muslims into the United States should be a priority. Humans are not fungible, and not all groups will have the same reaction to exposure to a system. The barbarians caused the decadence of late antiquity to deepen. The Church worked on molding its message and form. Trade continued. Nothing was quite like the shock of wholesale systemic change that Islamic conquest forced on Europe.
The gap today between first and third world cultures is wide. One can see this today, as former colonies in the southern hemisphere decline from the date of independence to today. Islamic infiltration poses not just decay or hollowing out of what was built, but a reconfiguration from home to businesses to government.