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As rioters celebrate the destruction of France’s inheritance, the West confronts an uncomfortable question: what happens when a civilisation loses the will to defend itself?

What would happen if you took mass migration, multiculturalism, soft-on-crime policies and an education system that teaches people to resent their own country’s history… and throw the lot into an ideological blender.

What would happen?

It’s an important question… because Australia’s political class is busy assembling precisely that recipe, apparently convinced that if you mix enough incompatible ingredients together, you get social cohesion.

Or perhaps they think reality is something that happens to other people.

Either way, it’s worth looking at where this experiment might end up.

And the answer, after this weekend, is pretty clear to see.

Riots in France

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Is that Melbourne?”

Well, no, not yet.

This weekend, it’s France.

Widespread arson, vandalism, pillaging, 150 police injured, more than 1200 arrests.

All the usual symptoms of a society discovering that good intentions are not, in fact, a substitute for functioning institutions.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu released a statement saying,

“It’s time to choose your side, either that of the Republic or that of the rioters.”

You see the problem, right?

Apparently, you must wait until the country is on fire before deciding whether you’re on the side of civilisation or the people setting fire to it.

For years, the French have been sold the same collection of fashionable delusions now being marketed to Australians.

Borders are mean-spirited. Western culture is oppressive. Criminals are just misunderstood victims awaiting rehabilitation. Radical Islamists are really just lonely people in need of a hug and a funded community outreach program. Oh, and diversity is our strength.

And anyone who points out that some cultures are more compatible with a free society than others is immediately informed that the real problem is their attitude.

The sermon continues until reality interrupts.

And reality, unlike a university lecturer, is not obliged to give you a passing grade for your intentions.

Which brings us to one of the most heartbreaking images from the weekend:

Here’s a young, white French woman pleading with the mob not to ransack her family’s store.

She begs them to stop.

And perhaps because she has been assured all her life that diversity is strength, she keeps asking the obvious question.

“Why? Why?”

Then, seemingly unable to comprehend what is happening, she tells them,

“But this is not the cause!”

I’m not sure I’ve seen a better metaphor for the West than what happened to that woman… standing in front of a mob, begging them not to destroy the business her family presumably worked hard to build.

“Why are you doing this? I thought you wanted what we wanted?”

It’s the question Western civilisation keeps asking its own demolition crew.

The War on the West

We were told that mass migration would enrich us. That multiculturalism would unite us. That importing people from societies with radically different values would somehow produce a stronger, more cohesive society.

And whenever anyone asked how this was supposed to work, they were accused of being divisive.

Now, when the predictable consequences arrive, we are told the answer is more integration programs, more funding, more dialogue and more carefully worded statements about how violence does not represent the overwhelming majority.

And maybe it doesn’t.

But the woman standing in front of the mob is still the one who has to clean up the mess.

Diversity is our strength? Tell that to the insurance company.

I’m not sure if this is a better metaphor, but it’s certainly worth considering.

The mob in Limoges cheered as the 143-year-old Hotel de Ville collapsed in a blaze of fire.

A century-old building incinerated by people who could never have built it.

And they cheered. For what?

Yet, that’s the Western world right now. Mobs whose greatest achievement is a degree in gender studies, burning down a civilisation that they could certainly never have built.

Heck, they don’t even understand it.

They want the West’s prosperity without its principles, the West’s freedoms without its responsibilities and the West’s institutions without the cultural inheritance that made those institutions possible.

Political Class Distance

There’s one more striking image from the weekend’s riots.

Not police cars being pelted with rocks.

Not department stores being looted by migrant gangs.

Not thousands of people protesting in the streets beneath flags waving in support of Islamic terrorists.

No. No. This last bit of vision I want to show you is from Friday night — while all of that and worse was happening, here’s French President Emmanuel Macron…

While the country was being burned to the ground, the leader of the country was at a Celine Dion concert.

There’s something almost Shakespearean about it.

The kingdom is in flames, the streets are in revolt, the institutions are under attack — and the nation’s leadership is enjoying a night of entertainment.

At least he knows his… “heart will go on”.

The image is devastating because it captures something larger than an evening’s scheduling decision.

It captures the distance between the political class and the consequences of its own decisions.

For years, Western leaders have treated the concerns of ordinary citizens about immigration, crime, assimilation and national identity as regrettable inconveniences.

People who raised them were lectured about tolerance, scolded for their ignorance and assured that everything was under control.

Now the streets are telling a rather different story.

And while citizens are left to wonder whether their businesses will survive the night, their leaders are busy demonstrating that the show must go on.

Perhaps that is the real tragedy of the modern West.

Not simply that we’ve imported problems we’re unwilling to confront.

Not simply that we’ve allowed our institutions to weaken while insisting that everything is improving.

Perhaps the real tragedy is that the ruling class has become so invested in the story it tells about itself that it can barely recognise the disaster unfolding right outside the theatre.

Australia should pay attention.

We are not Europe, and we’re certainly not France. Our circumstances are different, and the future is not predetermined.

But the ingredients being assembled here are familiar enough: mass migration without sufficient attention to assimilation, multiculturalism treated as an unquestionable good, an increasingly indulgent attitude towards crime, and an education system that too often teaches young Australians to regard their own inheritance with suspicion.

None of this makes riots inevitable. But neither does repeating the word “diversity” make social cohesion inevitable.

A country is not held together by slogans. It is held together by shared loyalties, common expectations, enforceable laws and a willingness to defend the civilisation that makes peaceful coexistence possible.

Ignore those things long enough, and eventually the people who built the house will find themselves standing outside it, asking a mob why it is smashing the windows.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.