Is liberalism too weak?

Some believe that the liberal values of the west are leaving it open to exploitation.

Thespians love a cause. They are often heard berating the public on political issues, even when it comes to matters they know little about. Consider what happened last December when the managers of the Gaîté Lyrique - an arts centre in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement - decided to hold a ‘Refuges Welcome in France’ conference and offer free tickets to immigrants. This celebration of diversity backfired when the attendees refused to leave.

There are now over four hundred people living illegally in the Gaîté Lyrique. The staff have been acting as hoteliers, erecting makeshift beds in the auditorium and providing meals and other services. Most of the new residents are African males claiming to be children. Yet this group of children are clearly not observing the rules of the playground, what with all the attempted sexual assaults, drug dealing, and general violence and mayhem that is now a continual feature of life at the theatre.

The criminality has escalated to such an extent that staff are complaining that they lack the necessary training to handle this scenario. While they were perfectly competent at selling tickets and ice-creams, they feel less secure when it comes to fending off unwanted sexual advances and acting as intermediaries in fights between strangers who speak no French. The theatre managers have now said they will soon abandon the premises and probably face bankruptcy.

Many have seen this as a cautionary tale for our times, a kind of microcosm of what has happened throughout Europe since the beginning of the migrant crisis. As such, we also have the inevitable gang of local socialists – the Collectif des Jeunes du Parc de Belleville – supporting the rights of the migrants to occupy the theatre, and suggesting that any age tests to determine whether they are adults or minors is ‘racist’. Others have argued that this entire scenario is proof of what happens when liberalism goes unchecked. As the old adage reminds us, it’s always the well-intentioned people who open the gates for the barbarians.

Has the naïve kindness of westerners made us an international laughing stock? There are evidently many young men who are willing to abuse open border policies and our commitment to universal human rights. The Chinese even have a word – baizuo – to describe milksop white western liberals whose generous nature leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Friedrich Nietzsche remarked that ‘there is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly’. Have we now reached this point?

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