It was a letter filled with contempt, resentment, and disgust for the French government. A charge sheet of wrongdoings of a nation that called itself the defender of human rights and dignity. A country that mercilessly eliminated the remnants of the callous kings and queens. Slayer of Marie Antoinette and everything refined and aristocratic. Yet hundred years after the French revolution the history was about to repeat itself. Emile Zola was a journalist and writer whose name wasn’t unknown to Paris. He was elected to Legion d’honneur and was the meteoric star for his support of naturalist movement. On 13th January 1898, he wrote his notorious letter J’accuse in Paris daily paper L’aurore.
The letter was addressed to the president of France vilifying the role of government in charging Alfred Dreyfuss, a Jewish army general in the French army who was accused of spying for Germans after the Germans took over French Alsace in Franco-Prussian war of 1871. He accused the government of not following the due process and judging on inadmissible evidence largely based on the testimony of French cleaning woman in Germany embassy who found the documents in the first place. Corroborating this was graphologists who analyzed the handwritings of Dreyfuss for the match. The irony of the situation was that Alfred Dreyfus himself was barred from examining the evidence or defending himself in public. Emile Zola was maligned for his letter and was sentenced to prison which he avoided by fleeing to England. Dreyfuss was sentenced to prison in French death island of Guiana in South America.
Many wars, colonizations and plunders later, France, Germany, and British fathered EU, a sanctuary for an interfaith, economic, social and political symbol of excellence. First time in the history a geographic organization was given a Nobel peace prize in 2012 without any serious thought about its history and contributions to the destruction around the world. With the bloody white hands, it received the gold medal of peace. Has this tolerant, inclusive and liberal continent now moved on from the times of Dreyfuss where Emile Zola has to flee for his life for even speaking up for them? Far from it.
Jo Cox was slaughtered in daylight in the UK for supporting the rights of its immigrants and minorities. Right wing extremists in favor of Brexit, this time, had far more leverage than the anti-Semites in France of 1898. An article from Telegraph chronicled the rise of the Muslim population in Europe. It turns out that top seven baby names in Brussels are Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza. Spanish Muslim population in 1998 went from 3.2% to 13.4% in 2007. In 2004 the EU thought its population would decline by 16 million by 2050. Now it thinks it will increase by 10 million by 2060. Britain is expected to become the most populous EU country by 2060, with 77 million inhabitants. A continent that lost a majority of its population because of its ridiculous wars was inviting people from all its colonies and neighbors for workers to help it rebuilt it, in addition to its bereft women. With generous US aids, Turkish workers and immigrants from all over the world, these Allies became global powers again. Sadly the immigrants had to be right religion, right age, and nonchildbearing and this they realized only after they’d juiced out the labor of two generations.
The U.S. birth rate now is 1.9 births per woman over her lifetime, when 2 births per woman are necessary to sustain the population on its own. The situation is not very different in Europe either. The crisis is so ridiculous that countries like Denmark, South Korea, and Singapore gave incentives to their citizens to make babies. Muslim societies that value families and relationships spend time and money for their children and sacrifice money-making pursuits over longer lasting happiness. This means women need more time and freedom from careers to be able to do that, something not very foreign to western societies, that hundred years ago before they preferred to increase their income and weapons and decrease their children.
These moribund societies go around in developing countries now attracting students to its universities, luring them with immigration programs and making false promises of an egalitarian and fair society. A report shows that international students in London alone spend $4.3 billion for their fees and living expenses. The majority of these dreamy travelers to El Dorado expect a society just in Hollywood movies where their children would be treated without bias and prejudice for their color, language, religion and political views the very thing they run from. The greener side on the other side is however not as green as it looks on TV. Mehdi Hassan, a well-known journalist, wrote about his frustrations with British myth of secularism with spectacular eloquence in his Guardian article.
A deeply important question is not for the Europeans to answer but for its unwelcomed guests. What are the factors that make people crowd a boat across the Mediterranean risking their lives and dignity? Is it worth being called a Nigger, stabbed to death like Merwa Sherbini, unfairly treated in universities, and beg for a naturalized citizenship that brings you everything but self-respect? When people like Bernard Lewis go out and call these ravaged, war-stricken, homeless people the legions of third Islamic invasion of Europe, is there any reason for a Muslim country like Turkey to be applying for EU membership? It can be argued for sure that education should be open and accessible to all but if that is such a noble cause why the visas and passports, which didn’t exist before the 1920s and are a creation of these very EU powers? After all isn’t it the message we get from EU, the abolishment of borders?
When George Galloway destroyed Christopher Hitchens for his support of War on Terrorism at Baruch College, New York in a debate in 2005, why did that never reach its victims in Palestine, Lebanon, Kabul and Falluja in their languages? When Danish seize the belongings of immigrants, Hungarians attack them on frontiers, and Austrians loathe them, why does that not replace frivolous quiz shows and celebrity news in the middle east and beyond? Governments like Australia have published ads in Pakistani papers not to come to Australia. How worse can it get? Years of Western-sponsored dictatorships and their cronies have brought havoc to a region that was the center of civilization and human rights. It is worth noting that a majority of these dictators have graduated from these universities that were supposed to teach them the history of European revolutions and European notion of peace and prosperity. Instead, we got contras trained and sent back to unleash the bloodbath.
Fortunately, the answer to the question is clearer than ever. The matter at hand is no more the answer but our attitudes towards it. How long will we flirt with our generations over the mirage of the ‘Greener side’?
