Attacks on migrants threaten Europe's safety
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 8, 2016
The invocation of "rape" harkens back to the days of Jim Crow laws in the American South. Over 4,000 people were lynched between 1882 and 1959, and about one-third of the victims were accused of rape, according to journalist Ida B. Wells. Often the charges were unsubstantiated and based on bias. Other times, as in the case of Leo Frank, a white Jew, the victim was convicted of rape in a court of law (on questionable charges) but still lynched by thuggish mobs intent on exacting punishment rather than letting the law deal with him. In either case, lynching is wrong. It harnesses the passions and animal violence of an unthinking crowd.
Charges of sexual misconduct are powerful and hardwired through evolutionary history to provoke reaction. Men think they need to protect "their" women. Rape is rightly detested. But such charges can be brought up falsely by a demagogue and raise ugly racial stereotypes that are hard to dismiss with reason.
In the U.S., Donald Trump has made "rape" a big part of his campaign. In his speech announcing his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he accused Mexico of "sending" "rapists" to the country, in reference to illegal immigrants. His supporters on social media have broadened Trump's critique to view the act of immigration itself as a kind of "raping" of America.
They have also lashed out at interracial marriage, on the racist assumption that the white race must be kept "pure." Trump's own national campaign spokesperson criticized both President Obama and 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney for having parents born abroad. "Any pure breeds left?" she tweeted.
Europeans have their own murderous history of right-wing extremists scapegoating minorities. They should be worried by where this trend could lead.
There's nothing wrong with questioning immigration policy. It may very well be that Europe has taken too many migrants with too few restrictions. It may very well be that there are no policies in place to enable these migrants to assimilate into the life of their new countries and that the number of migrants exceeds Eu-ropean countries' capacities to cope. All of this might be true, but it should be settled through legitimate means of government.
The claim made by opponents of mass migration is that it will threaten Europe's safety and civilization. These attacks on migrants are actually accomplishing that.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm
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