Americans have buried George Floyd. Yet, the funeral did not end the ongoing protests, demonstrations, and riots. There have been casualties. The chaos has led to the destruction of local businesses, public administration buildings, and our cultural heritage.

It is time to reflect on what has been going on and to learn our lessons. We are dealing with a complex issue and our conclusions will be no different. It is not a black and white picture, no pun intended. Still, some are tempted to take shortcuts and deal with the cops in haste and to make an example out of them. Any decisions leading to defunding or even dismantling local the police forces may bring about anarchy.

The brutal truth is that Floyds case was not exceptional. Last year alone, 1,100 people died because of violence. Most of them were white and they were either beat up to death or shot dead. In addition, 150 police officers die in the United States each year. Therefore, the numbers do not give us clear-cut answers or a black and white picture. Any attempts of a deeper analysis of what happened or inquiries into Floyds past are met with hysterical knee-jerk reactions. There is no room for a rational discussion.

Are other places free of such problems though? Poland still remembers the death of Igor Stachowiak, who died in police custody. French streets have been taken over by violent clashes with yellow vests. A few years ago, we witnessed the brutality of the debates over the future of Catalonia. Every once in a while, German fascists, anti-fascists or alter-globalists awe us with their own street debates.

As a result, Europe is in no position to preach to the United States. Should anyone wish to insist on having the moral high ground, they should be reminded of Europes vast and long imperial and colonial past. I am writing these words in Brussels with a view of the statue of Leopold II, the Butcher of the Congo.

Another sad truth we must face is that we will never be entirely free of racist and xenophobic incidents. They have to be limited to a minimum and always be met with an adequate response from our societies and governments. What I mean by that, is a reaction that is suitable and balanced. What that entails is a peaceful demonstration and a due process of law. Hijacking protests by politically loaded issues is not justified. Unfortunately, all sorts of excluded, scandalised, offended, and dissatisfied groups that contest our social and international order tend to jump on the demonstration bandwagon.

Common thieves and criminals also blend into the crowd. The tendency to justify violence, theft and destruction of property by the liberal media is appalling. Racial tensions intertwine with economic issues. Recently, the latter has deepened due to the pandemic, and the US has been hit particularity hard. Problems of such high degree of complexity will not be solved overnight. Hastened administrative decisions only lead to more anarchy.

Unfortunately, one-size-fits-all type of solutions have been emerging for years. They have been driven by noble ideas of promoting tolerance and equal rights for everyone, including all minorities. Political correctness and affirmative action are among such policies.

The former was intended to rid the contemporary political discourse of hate speech, negative stereotypes, labelling, and shaming. It was to eradicate racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic attitudes. Those were the goals. Instead, it led to the creation of doublespeak, which tends to be even more harmful due to its more sophisticated way of humiliating minorities.

I will spare you any examples. Just watch a couple of stand-up comedians on TV. In many cases, the newspeak is a mockery in itself and it simply boosts the popularity of the original term. In a complete frenzy, new phrases are being blacklisted, as they are supposedly related to slavery. Books, motion pictures, and monuments also fall victim to the self-righteous wave of censorship aimed to distort our collective memory.

Affirmative actions goal was to promote minorities access to education and social mobility by the application of quotas. What it led to were promotions that had no basis on merit. It is a common opinion in the United States that due to affirmative action a lot of people get promoted as soon as they can prove their heart is still beating. I was able to witness it first hand in the 1980s while I was a political immigrant from the progressive Eastern Bloc.

Unfortunately, privileges such as those based on a working-class or a peasant family background in Communist Poland do not lead to equality. So the question becomes how do we promote equality without granting minorities unfair privileges? Despite negative experiences with social engineering, the liberal left keeps marching on in that direction. Political correctness has also found its way into the world of science and art. Prestigious prizes tend to be granted based on PC criteria in order to appease discontent. Celebrity circles have been dominated by all sorts of minorities too.

This all leads to a distorted vision of history and reality. Try watching a contemporary TV series on Europes history and compare it to what you can learn from textbooks and from works of art. Do the scripts tell the stories the way they happened? Do actors looks and gestures portray the reality of the days past? Or are we being served a sort of virtual reality based on the wishes of todays social and ideological engineers?

The recent demons of extremism are bound to -and they do- inspire a pushback. In some cases, the recoil is soft in its nature and a moderate New York Times journalist will simply resign. In other cases, it is much more uncompromising. President Donald Trump has called certain liberal circles left-wing fascists and some politicians even go as far as to call for a military intervention in areas taken over by protesters.

To sum up, I would like to underline the fact that our civilisation was founded on the canons of Greek philosophy and democracy, the Roman legal and administrative system, and the Christian work ethic and family values. Our civilisation seeks compromise when dealing with complex problem-solving. The protests have been running amok and they increasingly resemble anarchy. As a result, our civilisation is facing attempts of annihilation.

In my opinion, it is our civilisation, rooted in Greek, Roman and Christian values that matters! It is our duty to defend it from the dictatorship of extreme minorities, who are fighting for unjustified privileges disguised as equality.

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Anarchy and annihilation are running amok - New Europe