TwentyFirst C Christianity

Sins of the Hippies are Visited on their Older Selves

I have tried to make this point before. The cultural vandals of the 1968-1975 period in the West are now its leaders, and they can't understand why others want to do the same to their aggressively secular and morally empty culture.
The following is extracted from The Brussells Journal:

""Things will never be the same, however. The fact the European Union is giving exorbitant sums of money to buy the peace of France’s Muslim population betrays that they are uncomfortable about the unrest spreading to other European cities. Not only in France but all over Europe, tensions in society are rising. Though issues of unemployment and inequality in the French suburbs may have contributed to the recent explosion of arson and aggression, they are not the only cause. The riots are not just a response to social injustice.
One striking aspect of the riots was the hatred reflected in the faces and demeanour of the rioters.
It is time to ask where this hatred comes from. Is this Islam waging Jihad? Is it social breakdown caused by welfare dependency? Or are the young Muslims filled with contempt for the secular Western culture of intolerance and indecency, a hedonist society that does not believe in God, that no longer procreates and merely consumes to the detriment of its own future generations – a civilization which discusses gay marriage and adoption while its girls and women dress as whores and are displayed as such on the pictures and in the songs that fill the streets and shops of European cities?
Though Islamic fundamentalism and the stifling French social welfare system are partly to blame, I suspect that many immigrants hate the West not because they see it as an enemy – that may be true of the United States – but because they despise it – especially liberal, secular Western Europe. They are filled with hatred for the arrogance of the Europeans, who regard themselves as enlightened and tolerant, but in their sense of infinite superiority fail to see that they are merely imposing their own culture upon others.
Interestingly, the latter is exactly what the liberal mainstream in Europe accused traditional Western society of doing in the 1960s. The “youths” of the 60s broke loose from the perceived imperialism and intolerance of conservative morality in a largely Christian society during a spate of unrest and protests on university campuses, culminating in the symbolic month of May 1968, when marxist students rioted and burned cars in the streets of Paris. Today, the culture of this so-called post-modern “Generation '68” is the dominant one.

Through their almost totalitarian control of politics and education, the revolutionaries of '68 have reshaped European society into a secular and anti-religious one. That is the kind of society which their leaders, who dominate politics and the media today, like to describe as “enlightened” and “tolerant.” But they cannot comprehend that a new generation with a different culture is doing exactly the same as they did in their youth: rebelling against the arrogance of a dominant culture in a wave of large-scale vandalism.

Those same cultural leaders, who still think of their own behaviour almost four decades ago as heroic and justified, find it hard to condemn the rioting “youths” of today. They are now condoning those who hate and despise them, because in their own secular “jihad” against the last remnants of the conservative Christian culture of Old Europe, they think that the Muslim immigrant “youths” are their allies. Hence, they fail to see their own mortal enemy. Conservative Christians and others who do not worship secular “multiculturalism” are branded as intolerant, racist xenophobes and laws are made to silence them. In doing so, however, the liberal establishment is feeding the beast that will eventually destroy it.
Perhaps the secularists think that it will be as easy for them to destroy Islam as it was to destroy Christianity. ""

I would only add to this analysis that the 'white youth rebellion' of the 60s and 70s was a false and ignorant one, framed by half-digested Marxism and existentialism. The Black rioters in the US were not rioting against whites, as much as protesting for the right to become like them, which many now have.
In comparison, the Moslem youths of Europe are quite ignorant of the causes of huge corruption, hypocrisy and stagnation in the countries of their ancestors because they are being force-fed Jihadism and its unreal fanaticism, as if it is justified criticism of Western culture as a whole.
Sadly, it is likely their elders, who are themselves ambivalent about the West though they fled to it, may not be able to withstand the radicalisation of their children, as much as many of them probably want to. This is because the money and energy is not to be found in their own institutions, or in their moderate mosques.

posted by Barrie @ 4/25/2006 04:41:00 PM