Just about every evening, my wife and I are on suicide watch. You see, we watch DW News out of Berlin and then BBC News out of London. On full display are the reasons why the two nations and much of the rest of Europe are slowly committing economic and cultural suicide.
The news anchors, reporters and guest commentators come across as sophisticated, educated, openminded, cultured, and cosmopolitan—well, at least for a couple of minutes. Then, their true nature begins to show through, revealing their unoriginality, ideological conformity, identical worldviews, groupthink, and smugness.
They are as uniform in their thinking and just as programmed as newscasters in the former Soviet Union, but with better haircuts, teeth and clothes.
It becomes clear that they have bought into multicultural mumbo jumbo and are guilt-ridden about their white privilege and history of colonialism and imperialism. Worse, Germany has the additional original sin of Nazism, and Britain has its original sin of slavery.
As a result, DW and BBC borrow a page from Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope and engage in woke-a-dope. Demonstrating their woke bona fides, they not only allow their former colonial subjects to pummel them for the injustices of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and Nazism, but they pummel themselves.
Unlike Muhammad Ali, however, they never punch back, but it’s not for a lack of worthy targets. There are hundreds of nationalities, races, skin shades, and ethnocultural groups outside of Europe with a history of conquering, colonialism, oppression, slavery, brutality, genocide, and other injustices. If Europeans deserve to be pummeled, so do these non-Europeans.
One of the worthy targets, the former Ottoman Empire, subjugated much of the Middle East from its strategic location next door to Europe. Its successor, the state of Turkey, is not only on the doorstep of Europe but is a member of NATO. It refuses to apologize for its genocide against Armenians.
Another worthy target, the former Mongol Empire, extended its bloodshed into Europe. Yet contemporary Mongolians don’t feel guilty about this history. Instead, they celebrate it by visiting the tourist attraction of the 130-foot-tall statue of Genghis Khan on horseback in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Still another worthy target are the Hindus and Muslims who have been at each other’s throats for centuries on the Indian subcontinent, which of course was the location of the British Raj.
The list of worthy targets goes on . . . and on and on and on.
The most visible evidence of the German and British guilt trips and apology schticks is the great care that DW and BBC take to have the proper mix of colors, races and cultures in their newsrooms. No doubt, the diversity is contrived and forced, instead of being natural, organic and free-range, as it is in my extended family.
If my firsthand experience with global corporations is representative, then someone or some department in the respective hierarchies of DW and BBC is responsible for racial bean counting, making sure that there is the right percentage of white beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans.
It’s doubtful that Al Jazeera is into racial bean counting.
The following words are verboten on DW and BBC to describe themselves and their political comrades: left, left-wing, extreme left, socialist, communist. The following words are not only allowed but encouraged to describe their political and philosophical opposites: right, right-wing, extreme right, fascist.
The words in the first group aren’t spoken, even though there are communist parties in Europe, even though some Germans still long for the former East Germany, even though tens of millions died at the hands of Reds on the continent, and even though the German and British political establishments are decidedly statist and want the reach of the government’s monopoly on power to extend way beyond the protection of life, liberty and property.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Hegel and Karl Marx were native sons of Germany and that their thinking still pervades the German intelligentsia. At the same time, the thinking of Hume, Locke and Adam Smith no longer pervades the British intelligentsia.
The words in the second group are spoken with alarm in DW and BBC newscasts, as if the sound of jack boots can be heard in the street outside the newsroom. The alarm can be triggered by something seemingly innocuous, such as someone or some group questioning Germany’s or Britain’s immigration policies. That instantly labels them as not only right-wing extremists but also as racists and supremacists.
The DW and BBC cadres have the gall to smear as fascist even those who have legitimate concerns about an influx of Islamofacists who don’t hide their hatred of liberal democracy, civil liberties, homosexuals, feminists, and Jews. The world is upside-down when anti-fascists are called fascists and real fascists are not called fascists.
It’s another example of woke-a-dope: Although there are approximately two billion Muslims in the world, the European intelligentsia consider them to be a minority group.
As such, in keeping with woke doctrine, they can do no wrong and have a right to pummel the Christian majority.
An aside: In the U.S., my “race” of Italian is not considered a minority, but the “race” of Hispanic is, although there are over 60 million Americans of Hispanic descent, versus 18 million of Italian descent. By not being labeled as a minority group, Italians are excluded from DEI initiatives. It’s only fair, you know.
The courageous essayist and thinker Heather Mac Donald touched on Germany’s woke thinking about immigration in a recent 7,000-word commentary in City Journal. The article documents the massive number of migrants and the associated terrorist attacks, crime, welfare costs, and impact on German culture. It also reveals how the German government has joined with the German media and other key institutions in trying to silence, marginalize and demonize the AfD Party for its populist stands on immigration, the Ukraine war, and other issues. Among other slurs, the party has been portrayed as fascist and in bed with Putin—when, if anyone was in bed with Putin, it was former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
There are certainly bad actors in the party, as there are in leftist parties, but the establishment seems clueless about the reason for the party’s popularity: the establishment’s arrogance, tone deafness, and fascist-like and Soviet-like censorship of speech.
Which brings us to Angela Merkel’s 736-page memoir, “Freedom.” The former German chancellor tries to show how wise she was over her 13-year reign, but conditions in Germany say otherwise. Her climate policies have hurt Germany’s competitiveness and manufacturing prowess, her cozying up to Putin has backfired, her social spending is unsustainable and has resulted in deteriorating infrastructure, and her immigration policies have caused divisiveness and a political backlash.
Merkel defends her immigration policies as humanitarian, and as such, it is irrelevant to her whether or not migrants had a right to stay in Germany. Under her policies, an average of 400,000 immigrants entered the country each year, causing Germany to spend as much on them as it does on defense. Unsurprisingly, she is adored by DW News.
The situation is similar in Britain and in the BBC newsroom.
Britain, Germany and other Western nations will end up on the ropes if they keep playing woke-a-dope and not hitting back at those who want to destroy them.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.