Ferguson defending his book The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die,
to what looks like a skeptical interviewer at WNYC
Hirsi Ali's recent appearance at Yale has brought her into the limelight again, and I commented on this in my last two posts: Creed Vs. Conscience, and Hirsi Ali is no Spokeswoman for the West.
Below, I've re-post an article I wrote about her now-husband Niall Ferguson, at my blog Camera Lucida, written on August 20, 2012 (about a year ago), and how I think I qualify to critique, and even denounce, Ferguson's (and Ali's) positions on culture and politics:
Ferguson in America------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm the last one to talk about non-Americans talking/writing about American affairs, but I think (I know) I have much more sympathy and admiration for America than many who spend a lot of their time dissecting the country.
As I mentioned earlier, I was recently there for about two weeks, and felt much more at home there than I do here in Toronto. One could say that New York is different, but as I have written before, I spent my formative adult years in the U.S. I went to undergraduate in a small college in Pennsylvania (Lock Haven University), and went on to get a masters at Rutgers University, with a some time in the Univseristy of Connecticut before my parents sponsored me to come and immigrate to Canada. I have always been a reluctant Canadian, and I am not being ungrateful, since I am sure that my presence here "benefits" the multi-culti ethos that pervades the country. Of course, Canadians are always shocked when they find out that I don't believe in, nor participate in, multiculturalism. In fact, most of my activities denounce it.
So, having said that, I think I have more clout to talk about America than does Niall Ferguson, who is the mentioned in Lawrence Auster's discussion on the Newsweek article which Ferguson wrote.
I agree that only someone scornful of America would head his article with: "Obama's Gotta Go" which is some kind of American slang which Ferguson uses to make his title rhythmically interesting. The rhythm is in black style, another jab at Obama, who is black, but doesn't "act" black. So, this scornful Ferguson even mocks one of the cultural elements of America - black slang and swagger, which at its best is entertaining and charming. Ferguson could have just left off those references.
But, who is Ferguson to talk? He is married to a black woman, a Somali foreigner who lives in America. She is not there for the love of America, but for the convenience of being in America (and being American). In fact, she recently had a child with Ferguson, whose tawdry personal life involves several bouts of adultery during his first marriage, including with Ali. The child they have together is illegitimate. In a Globe and Mail interview, the "devout" atheist, anti-Christian Ali says that she doesn't mind if her child, at adulthood, comes to her and declares he's a Muslim. "Alright, go for it" will be her response.
Ali is also involved in "helping" Muslim women escape Muslim countries through her foundation the AHA Foundation, which means that she will simply increase the number of Muslims (albeit female only) into the West without any considerations for their assimilation, change of religion to fit with the West's Christian culture, or any other such matters. Her idea is not to help the West, as she keeps repeating like a parrot, but to ultimately help those like her, who have semi-denounced their cultural and religious upbringings, but who can also be part (of families, of groups) who haven't. Letting in one Muslim woman also is some guarantee that the "abusive" husband, or sister with a family of five, etc. will make it into the West, increasing the Muslim population in the West.
So, when her grown son encounters one of these Muslim women's daughters, whom she helped to immigrate to America, and declares his intentions to marry her, Ali's response would be: "Go for it."
Finally, Ferguson himself has a website where he posts some of his articles. One that caught my attention, but I didn't know how to bring it up in a previous blog post, is his eulogy for China. Of course, like all clever neoconists, he words his article well. But it is an article with a message of submission to Chinese power, and a wry belief in the fall of American power. I, as a mere cultural observer, do not believe that America will succumb to China, whether militarily, economically or culturally. Or that the Chinese will reach the level of American greatness, with their corrupt system and third world-like conditions which they try hard to hide from the world. Barack Obama may try to speed up the process, and Ferguson may continue his rap of Barack attack, but the American people will realize how much they have to lose if they relinquish their position to a Chinese hegemony.
I doubt Ferguson believes, or wants to believe, this. His convoluted position, of submission coupled with sporadic aggression, doesn't have the principles to reveal to him America's strength and beauty.
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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