Clash of civilisations leaves politicians confused

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless you also read the two others. But of these, the only trustworthy one is the last (the book of their art).John Ruskin

A civilisation encompasses different cultures but all these cultures use the same basic ideas and technologies. With modern unifying technologies and hypercommunication all civilizatons on this planet tend to converge. In the end, only differences in cultures will be left.
But for the time being we can distinguish the following civilizations:
The Western Civilisation,
The Eastern Civilisation,
The Arabian or Islamitic Civilisation,
The Mid-African Civilisation which is actually a collection of different civilisations but these are too hard to distinguish for Western people so we leave it at that;
A few of prehistoric civilisations that are still alive and can be found in remote areas like the Amazon rainforest and the polar regions in the north.

From this simplified definition we can develop a better understanding of what is going on with immigration and why it bothers the populations of Western Europe so much even though they have had no problems with immigrations in the last five centuries.



The Western civilisation hatched in ancient Greece, was adopted by the Romans, got incorporated in the Roman Catholic Church that conquered Europe, and subsequently managed to wipe out all other civilizations that existed in Europe, which were the Scandinavian civilisation which we came to know as "viking" with their dragonships, the Celtic civilisation with their druids, the British civilisation with their wicker war chariots, the Pictic civilisation remnants of which still live on in the Highland games, and the Germanic and Gothic civilisation with their communal 'fair' government that made them quarrelsome and weak for 2000 years. For instance, the use of juries in legal proceedings as done in England and the USA is typical for the Germanic civilisation even though present day Germany has been wise to abolish such ancient customs.
History tells us that the Western civilisation is about 3000 years old and if it had not been for the monestaries of the Roman Catholic Church, it would have been wiped away in the 4th and 5th century.

And then there are civilisations that we in the West had been at war with but tended to know nothing about, especially the steppe-based civilisations based on horses that we have come to know as the Huns, the Magyars, the Mongols, and the Golden Horde, respectively, the latter of which integrated with another civilisation to become the Ottoman / Turkish civilisation.

Civilisation is the imposition of a type of order upon a populated area. The order expresses itself in a myriad of ways. The most visible elements of a civilisation are their styles of architecture and the arts, their traditions in dress and warfare, and the technology they use to communicate, like script, and their ways to survive. But it  is the less visible elements that are more important and give strength to a civilizaton. Such elements are organisational knowhow, values, moral guides, defensive knowhow, concepts of ownership, concepts of how to make wealth, and last but not least, their wisdom of how to survive, accumulated through centuries of experience. All of these elements can be put under the idea of "order". The order of the ancient Egyptian society was different from the ancient Greek societies in fundamental ways. For instance, the Greek ruled by consent, they invented the idea of democracy around 550 B.C. Egyptian rule was monolithic, everything depended upon the pharao who was seen as a real god and actual source of life itself.

Today we have immigrants from areas with different civilisations. This confuses politicians. They think these people are just like earlier waves of immigration in the last four centuries.. But they are not.

The European Union has to deal with immigrants from Arabian countries with the Arabian civilisation, and from African countries with the African civilisation. Both of these civilisations differ greatly from the Western civilisation. Their values and morals as well as in their technologies, organisational histories and their ideas about life and living are completely different.
It is this element of unfamiliarity that worries the peoples of Europe but they have not been able to express it in these terms. They simply say that their cultures are at stake.

The faulty policies in the West stem from comparing the immigration to earlier immigration waves.
These earlier waves consisted of people that hailed from cultures that had the same civilisation fundaments. For instance, in the 1950's - 1970's, there were waves of guest workers coming from Italy and Spain to work in the northern countries. (See Illustration, Italians in Dutch jute factory in 1960's,)

It created no problems. They understood our civilisation. In the 1980's - 2000's it were the Turks. But the Turks come from an area where the Western civilisation mixes with the civilisations of the Middle East. This made Turkish people more adaptable to the Western civilisation than people from other areas, which is why they managed to rule over different civilisations for centuries. That is quite a feat. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire ruled over a wide range of cultures but they were all part of the Greco-Roman-Christian civilisation block. For instance, people who have been educated in the classical Latin of Julius Ceasar and Ovid, can decipher the  newspapers in Rumania. The Latin language has been preserved remarkably well in that country.

A viable civilisation provides for the future of its populations and is able to look at its past in order to learn from it. These abilities give a civilisation stability. But for this to take place, the people need to have a sense of permanence. That is where the Greek-Roman civilisation excelled and all the other civilisations in Europe failed. For instance, in the Gallic area, there were no buildings of stone, yet there were large cities. Some of these cities were huge, yet have vanished altogether, like Bibracte in Burgundy. But the roads and cities that the Romans have built are still there. When you are in Paris, go to the intersection of the Boulevards of Saint Germain and Saint Michel, right in the heart of the old city, and you'll be astounded by what you'll find there.
This sense of permanence in comparison with other European civilisations gave the Romans a feeling of superiority and this feeling has not left the Europeans.

A good solution would be to require the new arrivals to learn the elements of the civilisation and the particular culture they have emigrated to, so they can have some value for the societies they want to be integrated into. It is utter stupidity of our politicians that a doctor from Syria cannot become a doctor in Europe. With a few adaptation courses he or she would be very valuable. Instead, such a person is being grounded to a meatball and considered only good enough to flip some hamburgers.
By contrast, people who lie and know nothing, are housed and fed and can do as they please, often ending up in criminal circuits because they cannot be employed. The endresult is ghetto's and no-go areas.  
But the principal grievance of the populations in the West is that the immigrant do not integrate and do not adopt the Western values and force the local people to accept it. What is being overlooked is that people from different civilisations have totally different backgrounds and cannot adopt just like that with a simple course of three days. A catholic immigrant from Italy is readily integrated. An islamitic Arab from Libia or a black African from Congo has no idea what he is emigrating to.
One can easily adopt to another culture if that culture is of the same civilisaton as one's own.
It is very hard to adopt another civilisation, if at all possible.

The fears and uncertainties are the result of clashing civilisations and has a lot to do with the problem of identity, which is the subject of my next book.

Amsterdam, 28 October 2018

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. John Ruskin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_ruskin_147659

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. John Ruskin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_ruskin_147659

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. John Ruskin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_ruskin_147659