Here's a brief description, written by a reviewer in 1995. If I hadn't just told you that, you would think this was a contemporaneous account of Western Civilization:
For some years now the West has lost all sense of belief in itself and, because of this, has lost the will to defend itself. Such a clever and inventive civilization, this Western culture, but the things it creates are ugly. They destroy the self-respect of those who make them and of those who buy them. And the ideas it produces are worse. The biggest idea that this West of 1973 has produced is "the beast," the idea of "world conscience." This beast is made of two parts, one of guilt and one of anti-racism. The guilt portrays Third World poverty as a consequence of Western greed, while the anti-racism condemns any attempt by the guilt-ridden to protect themselves against the Third World retribution that is to come.
The ugly material goods, the objects that corrupt their makers and consumers, are produced by capitalists. But the ideas come from the critics of capitalism, from left-wing activists and journalists, and from churchmen. And here is a nice paradox the left dominate the media, but the right have to tolerate them because, without the audiences that left-wing broadcasters attract, the capitalists would have no means of selling their tawdry goods.
In France, in particular, a proud tradition has deteriorated. A limping, ramshackle culture, full of self-interested cant, shot through with veins of self-hatred, is to be tested. A mere hundred unseaworthy boats will bring a million uninvited immigrants from the other side of the earth, and France will be found wanting. It will fail the test and all of the West will fail with it. (The Social Contract)
We're All (fill in the blank) Now
Here's an interesting tidbit from the same review: In the book, a radio journalist coins the slogan "We're all from the Ganges now."
I had forgotten that line. I guess it didn't start with 9/11...
Cultural Preservation = Nativism = Racism?
I can understand immigrants, especially Indians, calling the book racist, but in Raspail's defense, unless he went sci-fi, he had to pick somebody to play the poor, stinking hordes, and in 1973, India fit the bill. Also, before wielding the timeworn racist argument, consider the plain fact that other nations and peoples have leveled the same charge at the white Europeans who invaded them, swamped them demographically, or who simply had the temerity to vacation in their lands.
Putting that aside this is a crackling good story with a moral to it. It also raises the question, is it racist to want your culture to remain unadulterated by outside influence? Or to at least choose, rather than have it foised upon you? Raspail is a "traditionalist" who "dislikes the incursions that Anglo-Americanisms have made into the French culture. Though he once knew some English, he no longer wishes to use it."
What's racist about that? And if any and all resistance to outside influence is racist, then the only right action is to stand aside while aliens dismantle your culture and change the face of your nation.
Nothing Stands in the Way
As Border Patrol agents are pulled off the border so they can change diapers and make sandwiches for future Democrat voters, ask yourself this question:
What would prevent millions of illiterates from crashing our borders? Castoffs from around the world, an international Mariel boatlift from over 100 countries dispatching 'undesirables.' It could happen easy enough: Shipped to Mexico by people who hate us, facilitated from Mexican ports to our borders by criminal gangs and corrupt politicians. A polyglot sea of humanity, in waves of hundreds of thousands, demanding to be granted entry in the name of human rights and all that is holy. What could we do about it?
Answer: Nothing
Anyway, if you feel dirty or guilty after reading Raspail's book, I suggest T.C. Boyle's excellent portrayal of illegal immigrants (and American hypocrisy) in 1990's California, The Tortilla Curtain.
See also
Familiarity Breeds Tolerance and Respect
Western Hero - Camp of the Saints, Europe's Nightmare
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