Ed West Ed West

The new East-West divide: multiculturalism vs sovereignty

We all know that relations with Russia are at their lowest ebb since 1991, when Boris Yeltsin brought down Communism during one of his alcoholic blackouts. What’s becoming increasingly clear, though, is that there is a new ideological cold war – and I’m not sure we’ll win this one.

The German approach to dissent over these past few months has been revealing. Earlier this month, a leading eurocrat chided the Hungarians for refusing to accept that ‘diversity is inevitable’, using that strange Marxist language these people love. Another accused that small central European country of being ‘on the wrong side of history’. Meanwhile Angela Merkel compared those who lock others out to the Communists who once locked their own people in.

It is not just that Germany wants central Europeans to accept refugees for convenience sake, or for humanitarian reasons; it is that the West now defines itself by the ideology of multiculturalism.

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