Michael thought about his father’s organization. If it continued to prosper it would grow into what had happened here on this island, so cancerous that it would destroy the whole country. Sicily was already a land of ghosts, its men emigrating to every other country on earth to be able to earn their bread, or simply to escape being murdered for exercising their political and economic freedoms.
—The Godfather
Many immigration patriots or members of the Independent Right began as libertarians, or may even still describe themselves as such. And one thing which can be said about libertarians is they are constantly discussing first principles. What is the role of the state? What is its purpose? And in the end, is it anything other than a protection racket, or a Mafia?
Of course, the move to the right usually comes when a libertarian starts to seriously consider questions of demographics, culture, ethnicity, and immigration. After all, “property” is simply borders on a small scale.
If a government does not enforce national borders, that government ceases to fulfill its function as a guardian of the collective property rights of the entire community. Instead, it simply functions as a parasite, capturing wealth and redistributing it to the “connected.” It becomes a criminal syndicate. And when the government is directly funding mass immigration, it is in essence operating no differently than a criminal gang flooding a community with drugs, destroying the larger society in order to increase private wealth for a very few.
Indeed, organized crime is now operating as part of the “refugee resettlement” racket by which politically connected Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), often masquerading as religious organizations, are paid outrageous amounts of taxpayer money to deconstruct their own country and communities by facilitating mass immigration.
The Calabria-based ’Ndrangheta has reportedly stolen 32 million euros from funds which were supposed to support “refugees.” The scheme allegedly involved a “Catholic charity.” Even before the current artificially created “refugee crisis,” organized crime groups in Rome were using a similar scheme to harvest millions of euros from funds supposedly directed at helping “refugees.”
These cases are only the ones which have been exposed. Even the mainstream media report the level of corruption may be far larger than anyone suspects. The “migration crisis,” created because of the government’s refusal to protect its borders, is providing a huge opportunity for criminal syndicates to enrich themselves at the public’s expense.
The New York Times reports:
The case in Calabria may be just the most glaring example of how the misery of others has provided ripe opportunity for mobsters and corrupt officials as Italy struggles to keep up with an unceasing flow of migrants and refugees — more than 93,000 so far this year alone.
The swelling of the migrant population, investigators say, has made the running of reception centers a cottage industry of potential government corruption and mafia penetration…“Mobsters are where power and money are,” said Nicola Gratteri, one of Italy’s more active anti-mafia investigators.
The breakdown of order engendered by the refugee crisis is also allowing the Mafia to exploit the situation on an even broader scale. The Mafia is working with groups of refugees to force newcomers to sell drugs. If refugees refuse to join in the scheme, they are attacked and sometimes mutilated. Women, naturally, are forced into prostitution.
Yet ultimately, the Mafia is not the most dangerous criminal enterprise exploiting the wave of migrants. The most dangerous organization is the government itself. In Palermo, the government has been notably more eager in cracking down on indigenous criminal networks than refugees, leading Mafia bosses to declare a “war” against the newcomers. The mayor of Palermo has also boasted about how he now runs a “mosaic” city, rather than a European one.
As Paul Gottfried has outlined, in the modern West, the administrative elite garners legitimacy and power by breaking down cultures and institutions, which developed organically. Once a society has been hollowed out, the elite gains power by socially conditioning the masses through government programs designed to achieve “equality,” egalitarian propaganda funneled through the mass media, and “NGOs” which are funded by huge taxpayer subsidies.
Thus, in a city like Palermo, the government actually supports mass migration because officials believe refugees will be easier to control than existing institutions, notably the Mafia. Andrea Romano, an MP for the Democratic Party, put this explicitly by saying:
What we see in Sicily is that when the state tries to better organize the migrants, the Mafia reacts. It tries to push people against the state and the migrants, because it wants the situation to remain blurred and disorganized. That allows them to take control.
Yet there’s a contradiction at the heart of this approach. As we’ve seen above, though refugees can provide a challenge to existing institutions (even criminal ones such as the Mafia), they also lead to social chaos, which provides financial opportunities for the unscrupulous.
Romano, who favors moderately reducing migration, admits: “Of course the tension is going to rise when migrant number[s] go up. It is unavoidable in the face of such an emergency.”
It even allows the Mafia to occasionally challenge the state for legitimacy. The UK Express reports “a former mafia boss” has formed a group to stop migrants from leaving for Europe. The group, based in the seaside town of Sabratha west of Tripoli, achieved a 50 percent drop in arrivals in Italy compared to a year earlier. It is also reportedly looking for support from the Libyan government, which has an uneasy control over parts of the country.
Needless to say, under the former rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan government stopped flotillas of Africans from reaching Europe. However, because Europe ultimately backed the effort to overthrow Gaddafi, it enabled the “migration crisis” which now threatens Europe itself. It falls to paramilitaries and extra-legal forces to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of the state. The result is a loss of legitimacy for state governments.
Thus, the elite’s attempt to create a more pliable population amenable to social conditioning keeps backfiring. Instead of leading to social peace, it leads to unrest. Instead of undermining indigenous criminal networks, it can provide new opportunities for mobsters. Instead of creating new workers to pay for pension plans and the retirement of elderly Europeans, it leads to the growth of more dependents.
Indeed, the negative effects of mass migration are now so obvious and undeniable that one questions whether there is even a deliberate strategy at all. Some would argue that powerful ethnic groups which hate the West are deliberately undermining the indigenous population of Europe. Others could argue there is an ideological agenda at work, as leftist parties seek out voters which will continuously vote for them.
Yet the simple motivation of short-sighted greed may best explain the actions of many of those who actually work on the ground to replace Europe’s population. Obviously, this explains the behavior of the corporations who want cheap labor. But those who directly benefit from mass migration in the form of government grants or from running NGOs are now a powerful constituency unto themselves. Their supposed altruism is simply a cover for the most shameful self-interest.
The refugee resettlement racket should not be viewed as political activism. It should be viewed as organized crime. Indeed, at best, it furthers the growth of organized crime. At worst, it actually renders the state less legitimate than paramilitaries and mafiosi because it falls to indigenous criminal networks to fulfill the basic protective responsibilities which justify government in the first place.
Those who work in refugee resettlement personally profit by hollowing out their larger societies. They are not “activists.” They are criminals. And sometimes, they are even worse. Better to be ruled by a Don Corleone than a George Soros.