Morality and the Call to Double the Quota

I went to a meeting recently for Double the Quota, a pressure group represented on line by doingourbit.co.nz, which is trying to influence parties fighting the next election to change the annual refugee quota from 750 to 1500.  It run by an earnest young man Murdoch Stephens who has a talent for promotion on this subject.  In general little thought is given to the type of refugee New Zealand admits, and the issues faced by European countries now is testament to ill-considered border control.

I wanted to know if considerations were given to the ideological persuasions of refugees, as opposed to those suffering genuinely from persecution, so I asked this question:

The question I have is so unexamined, yet so important, that I regret the need to offer a preamble of observations, going, as it were, where angels fear to tread.

If we examine the moral foundations of the world we New Zealanders live in, we find its basis in Judeo-Christian Greco-Roman values, coupled with the ability to slowly and progressively evolve, thanks to the Enlightenment, the moral climate of a nation-state, to remove the causes of inter-state and intra-state conflict.  This has brought about the secular liberal democratic world we live in, with its emphasis on human rights, equality, the rule of law, democracy, and high levels of trust.  It has led to what is, according to almost every index of civilisational values, the acme of civilisation, centred on northern Europe, but influencing all English-speaking nations worldwide. 

While other moral foundations exist successfully elsewhere, not one contrasts so sharply, so deeply, so contradictorily with these values than Islam.  Islam goes beyond the presumption that the Koran is the actual, eternal and uncreated word of Allah, the Scripture whereof there is no doubt.  It goes beyond the presumption that Muhammad is the last and final prophet, the Perfect Man and worthy of emulation.  It goes beyond its fundamental concept of tawhid, the uncompromising universality of Allah’s creation.  Islam is essentialist, supersessionist and supremacist.  Islam obliges all its followers to impose its seventh-century order on all mankind, by force if necessary, time without end. 

This is the disruption we now see throughout the world.  From the assault on the Twin Towers, through Europe’s no-go areas, the Arab Spring, the increasing limitations of free speech and national and cultural identity.  Unlike members of any other race, or ideology, or identity, there is a global consistency in the inability of Muslims to assimilate.  Rather, their expectation is for their host nations to assimilate with Islam.

My question is this.  Can we ignore the existential danger that Islam presents to our moral framework by admitting Muslim refugees into this country, rather than the real victims of Middle East and North African disorder, their non-Muslim citizens, Christians, Baha’is, Jews, Yazidis and so on, who are known to assimilate? 

Given that it was the briefest summary possible of the chasm that exist between Western and Islamic ethics, judging by the few comments I received there was a total failure of comprehension.  One woman, in great solipsistic fashion, knew of, or had, a Muslim husband, and on that basis I was wrong.  The Labour Party’s candidate for the Wairarapa, Kieran McAnulty, said I would have banned his relatives on account of their IRA links.  I said to him later that he did me an injustice, and that perhaps he didn’t understand the thrust of what I was saying.  He said he did, but what is clear is he thought I was referring to terrorists, so his comprehension did indeed fail him.  Another man said he wasn’t going to debate me, but I was wrong.  I asked him why he said that. He answered to the effect that I was forgetting Islam’s Golden Age.  Perhaps he thought that Islam was responsible for Western civilisation.  But explaining one of the most egregious examples of historical revisionism and neo-mythical creation wouldn’t cut much ice with someone who had declared the death of debate. 

The presenter himself, Stephens, had greater cosmopolitan experience and education, but seemed to rely on his Muslim acquaintances for his knowledge of Islam, which, on the evidence presented, was not great.  I would imagine such of these people he knew to have a greater willingness to discuss Marxist or globalist topics than Islamic ones with an infidel, and likely also not to represent the cohort setting the agenda for Islamic conquest.  He answered my question with a litany of exceptions to Islamic migration that he was aware of, but did not, or would not, directly answer my question. 

It’s easy to dismiss these responses as those of small-town, small-minded provincial denizens, and indeed had I formulated the question a day earlier and presented to the generally more educated and larger audience in Wellington, I may have got a more constructive response.  Maybe.  But the majority of provincials and city-dwellers alike share a dysfunctional and incoherent view of the role Islam plays in both the modern and historic worlds.  To expect insightful responses from this audience is a step too far.

Pathos trumps logos.  What the experience showed me was that using logical and factual appeal to an audience imbued with the sympathy engendered by the photograph of Aylan Kurdi, rather than the odious context of parental neglect that led to his death, was unlikely to enlighten. 

The road to hell is paved with the good intentions of Double our Quota.