The Drudge Report, that highly sensitive weather-vane for what interests Americans—as opposed to what the MSM wants them interested in—has seen fit today to carry not one but two different reports on German Chancellor Merkel's negative remarks on multiculturalism , both with the same headline:
(note that Drudge, seeking to supply its readers' appetite, had to use U.K. sources.)
Sounds good—but not good enough to trick The Vanishing American:
...let's remember that she has said things like this over the years. I specifically remember a time a few years ago when a number of the Western leaders made remarks along the same lines, almost in unison. And here is a piece from almost six years ago, wherein Merkel said almost the same thing...this was just after the murder of Theo van Gogh, at a time when the peoples of Western countries raised a loud alarm about the Islamic presence.
So following these 2004 pronouncements on the 'death of multiculturalism', here we are, six years later, still at square one — no, we are not where we were six years ago. We are much farther along the road to the loss of our countries and our culture. If multiculturalism was dead back in 2004, why is it still lurching along?
Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated Saturday October 16, 2010
Citing similar speeches from the UK's Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard, TVA answers:
The same pattern is there in all these remarks by Western leaders: they claim that 'multiculturalism is dead' — which is just a way of offering a sop to their citizens who are now vociferously questioning mass immigration — but then they qualify their words by saying that ''we have to have integration; the immigrants (who will, of course, keep coming) must learn to integrate and become part of our way of life,'', etc....These 'leaders' are just trying to pacify the restless natives of their countries by throwing out a few deceptive words to quell the discontent... They are just trying to gull and lull their easily-fooled constituencies. Let's not be among those easily fooled.
There is no doubt that TVA is correct about this, as an attentive reading of the news reports here shows—for instance the Reuters version:
Merkel...said on Saturday that...Germany could not get by without skilled foreign workers.
But reflexive pessimism is misplaced: that Merkel, just like John McCain or David Cameron, feels the need to make these noises reflects the perception that they cannot entirely ignore what their electorate thinks, much though they wish to. For this, heroes like Germany's Thilo Sarrazin and the patriotic blogosphere—including The Vanishing American— deserve much credit.
But as yet, no rest.
