Originally posted 2023-01-11 20:01:19. <\/small><\/p>
Multiculturalism has become prevalent in Europe over the last fifty years. In many places it has supplanted European culture itself. In part this has been a result of the end of European Empires, a consequence of the wars of the 20th century and an understandable sense of repentance for the excesses of an Imperial past. We are embarrassed by a history that painted huge areas of the globe pink, or whatever colour our particular nation applied.<\/p>\n
At the same time, across Western Europe, we have seen the rise of a sense of cultural equivalency, which holds that all cultures are of equal worth, and should be equally respected: according to this, European culture was no great shakes, just one of many.<\/p>\n
European culture, wherever it is being practised, is founded upon the inherent value of the individual human. This appreciation of individuality is what the Renaissance was all about, a point hammered home in Jacob Burckhardt\u2019s eponymous work. That is why it is only then that we begin to learn the names of the artists of the day. With few exceptions, the identities of Medieval European visual artists are unknown. The Renaissance changed all that: artists were individuals to be celebrated, and indeed their very idiosyncrasies, which were often radical, were tolerated and even lionised.<\/p>\n
We would not have Shakira or Tom Cruise, Steinbeck or Shakespeare, Bach or Beethoven, had it not been for Dante, Giotto and Donatello, in other words.<\/p>\n
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A minority does not need to become the majority in order to achieve its ends; being motivated and knowing how to manipulate the system makes up for numbers.<\/p>\n
This culture waged relentless, brutal, incessant war for 1000 — yes one thousand — years against Europe with the specific aim of defeating it, colonising it and rubbing its culture and religion out. Only the incredible, last-gasp rally of Europe when its armies, massively outnumbered, defeated the Ottoman Turk forces outside the gates of Vienna in 1683, saved us. The last great charge of the Winged Hussars was not in vain. These men saved European culture from the blackest of nights.<\/p>\n
That culture is called Islam.<\/p>\n