Fear masquerading as tolerance

A central problem in welcoming people from poor countries is that Europeans have lost faith in parts of the civilisation to which migrants were drawn in the first place. ‘‘Europeans would like to exit from history, from la grande histoire, from the history that is written in letters of blood,’’ wrote the French political scientist Raymond Aron in the 1970s. ‘‘Others, by their hundreds of millions, wish to enter it.’’ It is hard to follow Europe’s rules and embrace Europe’s values, as newcomers are sometimes told they must, when Europeans themselves are rewriting those rules and reassessing those values. [Prospect] Read more