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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1127 this has to include the defence of their cultural and territorial integrity as well. Cultural integrity cannot be maintained if the political community has no right to decide whom it accepts into its ranks and with what conditions. And self-determination presupposes control over a piece of land and the resources it contains. Responsible husbandry cannot be imagined otherwise. ‘There are good reasons for holding that the peaceful integration of a million-strong wave of people into European societies annually is impossible, because the culture and way of life of the people here differ from theirs in many respects. The hard-won basic values of our civilisation, such as religious tolerance, personal autonomy, the equal rights of women and the respect of human dignity are alien to the majority of the arrivals; at times they are unacceptable or perhaps clash with the commands of their religion. It can often be noticed that the second generation of immigrant families from other continents respond to their difficulties and failures in integrating by rejecting the need to adapt to and cooperate with the majority society much more than their parents did. And the greater the cultural distance, the faster the immigrants arrive and the greater their numbers, the smaller is the probability of successful integration. The peaceful existence of cultural islands side by side is hard to imagine in strongly integrated modern societies. All this does not affect the second objection. To some extent, we are undoubtably responsible for the development of the circumstances which now force the millions affected by the natural and social consequences of globalisation to leave their homeland. Besides, mercy towards the people fleeing war, persecution or destitution demands that we take them in and help them even if we had no part in their misfortune. How can we meet two contradictory demands if both arise from the deepest of ethical convictions? The new migration confronts us with a dilemma which puts our wisdom to the test. If we wish to determine the suitability of our political institutions for the handling of the serious upheavals that no doubt await us, the result will be crushing. Instead of weighing the real contradictions, European public opinion and its political opinion leaders have committed themselves almost without exception to one of two untenable positions. Sweeping aside the just objections, they have fought passionately for acceptance or rejection. ‘Thus, the possibility that the duty to help and the right to self-defence might be reconcilable has barely been mentioned. What prevents us from accepting the validity of the command of humanity and at the same time also that we can only live a life worthy of human beings in
