"The Revolt of the Masses"
Pandemonium in Dublin, a city in flames,
and the immigrants at the center of it all...
by Bill Bonner
"From the very opening-out of the world and life for the average man,
his soul has been shut up within him. It is in this obliteration of
the average soul that the rebellion of the masses consists…"
~ Jose Ortega y Gasset
Dublin, Ireland - “Hooligans,” was the judgment of our neighbors. “Resentment,” was the guess of a friend at church. “Thuggery,” was the justice minister’s opinion. Dublin was the scene of inhabitual pandemonium last Thursday. Normally, it is a safe city. A calm city. People are polite. It is not like Baltimore or Paris – where social disturbances are more common. “We’re like the rest of Europe now,” said a friend cheerfully.
We happened to be in town when all Hell broke loose. Souls, shut up for too long, suddenly broke down the door and ran wild in central Dublin. Every policeman in the area was summoned to the downtown. Police helicopters were in the air. Sirens sounded all over town. ‘What was the hubbub all about?’
Running Wild: We turned on the television to discover the city center in flames. Children had been stabbed. Rioters looted dozens of stores and set fire to at least one city bus. What was the cause of the riot? This is where it gets interesting: nobody wanted to say. The police chief announced that there were ‘rumors’ running wild on the internet…and that we should pay them no mind. He went on to say that the ‘person of interest’ (in the stabbing incident) was in custody…and that they were looking for no one else.
A viewer might have been puzzled. It took a local to explain it…almost in whispers. “Oh…there was a long fuse on that one. Dublin has gotten so expensive. It’s hard to find an affordable place to live. And it doesn’t help that there are so many immigrants and refugees coming in. The attacker…according to the internet…but you can’t believe anything on the internet…they say he was an illegal immigrant. People had had enough. We had an incident not long ago when a young woman was killed by an immigrant from Africa. The man got the maximum sentence. But in Ireland, the maximum is only 20 years. People didn’t think that was satisfactory. Nobody wants to say so, but this is about immigrants.”
But if one immigrant was the villain, another was the hero. Caio Benicio, a Brazilian Deliveroo driver, apparently stopped the assault by taking off his helmet and using it to bash the assailant in the head.
What Goes Around: Ireland was once a leading source of immigrants – into England, North America, Australia and much of the rest of the world. They were widely resented as “lawless,” “hard-drinking” and “uncivilized.” “No Irish Need Apply,” was a regular feature in the want ads. But they assimilated well. At least 20 US presidents have had Irish roots. And now, what went around comes around…the Irish no longer suffer as immigrants in foreign countries…now, they suffer immigrants in their own.
And all immigrants are not created equal. The Normans conquered England. Within a few generations they were indistinguishable from the native Anglo-Saxons. But the Moors invaded Spain in the 7th century. They never merged into the local population and were expelled 700 years later. And American Blacks, too, even after hundreds of years, still keep their distance and hold their own culture somewhat apart.
But anger against immigrants is rising. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports: "Far-right party stuns with win in Netherlands." "[People in one] of Europe's most socially liberal countries, woke up to a drastically changed political landscape Thursday after a far-right party swept national elections in a result that has reverberated throughout Europe.
Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom, which advocates banning the Quran, closing Islamic schools and entirely halting the acceptance of asylum-seekers, won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, making it by far the biggest party, in a clear rebuke of the country's political establishment. "All of Europe wants a political turnaround," said Alice Weidel, the leader of German far-right party AfD, or Alternative for Germany, as she congratulated Wilders on his win."
Urban Mobs: Immigrants are an easy target. They take up space. They compete for housing…jobs… in many countries, they are a burden on the taxpayer. Latinos in the US…North Africans in France…Palestinians, Ukrainians, Syrians, Yemenis – the greater the numbers…and the larger the ‘cultural gap’ with the natives…the greater the trouble.
The resentment builds. Eventually, it finds an outlet. Sometimes it is the natives who protest. Sometimes the immigrants themselves. And not everyone expresses his discontent by writing a letter to the editor. Some prefer to firebomb police cars. But is that all there is to it? Urban mobs letting off steam? Probably not. Stay tuned…more on the Revolt of the Masses…tomorrow."
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