Anti-Israel protesters disrupting Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, NYC.
Last night I attended our city’s ceremonial lighting of the municipal Christmas tree in front of City Hall. The mayor and councilors were there; the local MPP; Santa Claus, and a dancing angel. A big event, well attended, with other ancillary events going on all over town. Free Christmas films in the restored theatre. Marshmallows over campfires in the park. Strolling carollers. Dancers in the malls. An organ recital at the Anglican church. It should have been a magical evening for families.But it was marred from the start by perhaps a half-dozen protesters who parked in front of the unlit Christmas tree, waving Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese flags, playing loud music with a political message from some boombox, as if to drown out those on the dais, and shouting through a loudspeaker such slogans as “Happy f***ing birthday, Jesus!” and “Jesus was born in Palestine.”
After a while they disappeared. I hope it was because the police threatened arrest.
Such demonstrations and, worse, riots in places like Montreal, are a major reason why popular sentiment is turning so quickly against mass immigration. October 6, last year, was a turning point.
Day after day, the pro-Palestinian protesters are doing their best to show that multiculturalism does not work.
Now even Justin Trudeau and Kier Starmer are promising to reduce immigration and deport illegals.
The silent majority only wants to live their lives in peace and quiet.
Grifters can play on this. They raise a fuss, and the majority will give them whatever they demand, to keep the peace.
But this is danegeld. The troublemakers get louder and louder, seeing that it pays well, until at last the majority wakes up to the realization that the only way to keep the peace is to get rid of the troublemakers.
The grifters will always make this mistake.
We seem to be at that point.
I am tempted to say that Muslim immigrants from the Levant specifically are the problem. I thought at the time it was madness to allow a mass immigration of Syrians fleeing the Syrian civil war. The problem was, by letting in both sides, we were importing the war itself. It was as if, in response to persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, we opened our borders to all German immigration, not just Jews.
But it is not just the Muslims who have gone too far. It is also the transgender lobby with their demands to take our children. It is the indigenous lobby with their church burnings and false claims of mass graves. The great awakening is surely waking up to them as well.
It may not get too bloody; it may not be as bad as WWII.
A similar parallel is Quebec, with its mounting demands and threats throughout the second half of the twentieth century. All it took then was Stephane Dion laying down the law in a closely reasoned public letter.
Let’s hope.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
