With temples throbbing with disbelief, I read of the new guidelines for our primary schools, "Intercultural Education in the Primary School", with dear, sweet Mary Hanafin declaring that "diversity is respected and that we celebrate it and appreciate it". Naturally, she cited Auschwitz, saying that it must never happen again, writes Kevin Myers.
Where do these people in public life live? Do they read their newspapers through special Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm spectacles? Of course, Auschwitz must never happen again, because clearly, Auschwitz, qua Auschwitz, cannot recur. But the principles upon which Auschwitz operated - murderous hatred of an ethno-religious group - have been recurring repeatedly: in Rwanda-Burundi, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Chechneya, Bangladesh, the Congo, Cambodia, China and India-Pakistan. So what on earth is the point in an Irish Government Minister piously declaring something must never happen again, when native variants of it repeatedly have, right across the world?
Moreover, why do we bother having an opinion on such matters when we have piously but persistently denied our armed forces the wherewithal to do anything whatever to prevent such atrocities? And if that wasn't bad enough, we have created a safety lock on the deployment of the under-equipped army which is dependent on UN authorisation - the UN being, of course, the hopelessly corrupt and hypocritical organisation which has stood pathetically by as mass murder has followed mass murder across the globe.
But no matter: you cannot put a foot wrong in Irish life if you embrace some politically saccharinic platitude such as "diversity", regardless of how well or badly it has worked elsewhere. Diversity - or whatever the Dutch for it is - was all the rage in the Netherlands 40 years ago. "Come to the Netherlands and be as diverse as you like," chortled the merry burgers of Amsterdam in the 1960s, and sure enough, every conceivable nationality poured into the country.
The result? Jews are attacked in the streets of Antwerp by Islamic militants expressing their own form of diversity. An artist is ritually murdered in Amsterdam in another expression of diversity. Rotterdam will shortly be the first European city with a racially and culturally non-indigenous majority. Many English cities are about to go the same way. In one, Halifax, Hindus are even turning to the filth that is the British National Party because of attacks on them by Muslims: diversity again.
Charlie McCreevy was right when he said recently that we have benefited from immigration. It has been an almost wholly benign experience. But we should not judge from those five years, but from the 50 years of European mainland immigration. The present good relations and general harmony are typical of the early days of immigration. Natives are delighted that foreigners will do the work they don't want to do, and often the immigrants are escaping poverty or oppression. This is the honeymoon period. Ahead lies a marriage from which there is no divorce.
So, we might get some marriage guidance counselling in, nice and early; and the first thing the counsellors - let's make them Dutch - will probably tell you is that you do not emphasise diversity. You do not put up signs in many languages in schools, thereby giving parity of esteem to foreign cultures, foreign norms. Instead, you emphasise and celebrate commonality, within a native culture of tolerance.
But let's make it clear: our tolerance has limits. The State has the right to insist that no school teaches hatred of anyone, as do the Saudi-backed madrasahs across the world. It has the right to insist that no one of any age is compelled to marry, and that such compulsion is tantamount to rape. It has the right to protect itself against the practice of marrying out, which has been the cause of the rapid multiplication of immigrant communities across Europe. It has the right to insist that such practices as female circumcision are gravely criminal, and will lead to condign punishment for the parents and circumciser.
But the defining feature of the debate about immigration in Ireland is its non-existence. The all-will-be well school, with its winsome little nursery rhymes about diversity and multiculturalism, has created an atmosphere of silly, unquestioning optimism, absolutely heedless of other countries' experiences. The possibility that people of Irish ethnic origin might be in a minority in 50 years' time, adumbrated by the president of Dublin City University last March, went by without a single comment from anyone, save here.
I said at the time that controlled immigration is a good thing: good for the natives, and good for the newcomers. But it doesn't always work. You'll find few native Fijians today who will commend immigration: their economy is controlled by the descendents of Indian immigrants, and the career of choice for many young Fijian males today is in the British army. You won't find many American Indians marooned on their reservations who'll declare their love of immigration. And you'll find no native Carobs to give you their opinion, because they are extinct.
In one sense, a discussion about immigration in Ireland is meaningless, because the current demographics of Europe mean that by the end of this century the continent will be predominantly Islamic, and there's nothing we can do about this. But do you now understand what the Pope is really talking about when he condemns the culture of contraception which has such a catastrophic effect on Europe's indigenous populations? His unspoken concern is probably that within two or three generations, Rome could be an Islamic city. The Pope doesn't want that, and, do you know, nor do I.