Lessons from history

GK Chesterton was once musing about the vagaries of history and he concluded that we rarely get what we expect: “In the sixth century, everyone thought that the big issue of the day would be the effect on Europe of the conquering Germanic tribes, but suddenly a little boy in Arabia by the name of Mohammed…”

In other words, there are moments that precipitate a revolutionary change that hitherto went largely unforeseen. I believe we are at such a moment today.

Until recently the issues dominating the political agenda and the mass media were the global financial crisis and conflict in the Middle East. Suddenly, no one is any longer in doubt that the real crisis throughout Europe is mass immigration. And by “mass” I mean on an entirely unprecedented scale. Something completely different.

In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher was told that 25,000 foreigners were migrating to Britain every year. She was shocked: “Gosh! – that’s a town the size of Grantham every three years.” There are now more than 300,000 coming in every year. That’s a city the size of Birmingham every three years. This means inevitably that the character of our country is being changed beyond recognition. Already we see the burgeoning of what are described as “communities.”

But that is not what they are in reality. A community is a diverse collection of people in one place. The community thus means all of us, of differing creeds and colours. What we call “communities” are not this: they are ghettos not filled with diversity but mono-cultural, mono-religious. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has drawn attention to “no go areas” in Britain today and got no thanks for his pains.

This does not augur well for the future of our country. But a dangerous situation is being made much worse by mass immigration which everyone now – even people writing in The Guardian and talking on the BBC - admits is unsustainable. But you ain’t seen nuffin’ yet.

Never mind the hundreds of thousands of incomers, there are countless millions of people all across North Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Middle East who are desperate to get themselves into Europe in order to escape terrorism and the civil wars which are raging in a score of countries.

At the beginning of this article, I said that these events are entirely unprecedented. I must revise that. It has happened before, in the 5th and 6th centuries when the Goths, the Visigoths and the Vandals swarmed into the Roman Empire. We are about to see population shifts massive as those that occurred at the end of the Roman Empire.

To begin with, these immigrants merely influenced and mildly modified the character of Europe. The Roman ruling class, for instance, had fallen drowsy and become lazy, so they were delighted when the Goths – Arians, by the way – more or less took over the civil service and much of the business of daily life. But then there came incursions that were much more numerous and far more violent. As a result the Empire was finished and Europe entered the Dark Ages, in which the continent languished for centuries until it was revived first by the monastic movement and then by medieval Christianity.

Effectually, this was a new civilisation: monasteries, schools, universities, the parish system, hospitals, hospices, charity and the rule of law.

The mass immigration of today is comparable with what took place all those centuries ago and we face the prospect of a new Dark Age. There are other striking similarities. For instance, Sidonius - the 5th century poet, bishop and urban prefect of Rome – was one day approached by the emperor who, in the face of the barbarian invasions, said, “I am minded what I will do, Sidonius. I will close the gates of the city.”

Sidonius replied, “Too late, Sir, the city is full of these newcomers already.” Too little, too late. Such was the judgement in Sidonius’ time and it is the judgement on our time too.

There is a further complication. Throughout Europe there is growing disillusionment with the political class, with the mainstream parties. Voters are increasingly turning in very large numbers to minority parties, to the extremes of Left or Right: to preposterous upstarts who promise them something for nothing – just as, in the days of Rome’s decline, they were provided with bread and circuses. In Rome’s day, the empire was threatened by aliens without and decadence within. A fatal combination. RG Collingwood described this exactly: “From Plato onwards, Greco-Roman society was living its life as a rearguard action against emotional bankruptcy. The critical moment was reached when Rome created an urban proletariat whose only function was to eat free bread and watch free shows. This meant the segregation of an entire class which had no work to do whatever; no positive function in society, whether economic or military or administrative or intellectual or religious; only the business of being supported and amused.

“When that had been done, it was only a question of time until Plato’s nightmare of a consumer society came true: the drones set up their own king, and the story of the hive came to an end.” Does it ring any bells? Of course Christians naturally look to our institutional faith as a remedy. Unfortunately, though Christianity is thriving and growing in many other parts of the world, it is dying in Europe – killed by secularisation and political correctness.

I end with the words of that other prophet, TS Eliot: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready-made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”

The mass immigration of today is comparable with what took place all those centuries ago