We're up to our kneees in it... whom do we blame?

I was going to draft an open letter to Mark Steyn in the wake of his article - titled The Future belongs to Islam, published in Maclean's magazine - but I have since decided against doing so, for he has far more important matters about which to worry than a few Muslims moving into his neighbourhood. I could continue ad infinitum about his self-professed crusade for "freedom of speech", though he knows full well this argument is but a red herring his audience will devour: he could have issued a diatribe against the Chinese or the squirrels, but chose instead to lock his crosshairs on the Islamic population.

That's enough I'll say about that, for, as I mentioned earlier, his problem - our problem - is far greater, and no amount of fear-mongering on his or anyone else's part (Ezra, Paul, Rupert, Conrad; I'm looking at all of you!) will whisk it away; in fact, it only stands to compound it further.

The quite suburban cul-de-sac on which I was raised - where, in 1987, my parents transplanted our family in an effort to distance us from the crime plaguing the city - is not so quiet in 2008. Just in the past week or two, a party down the street grew out of hand, during which time, a melee insued in the street, followed by a brick being hurled through the window of someone suspected by another party of instigating the fisticuffs. In a separate incident, a young lady with whom I grew up, who now has a family of her own, witnessed a group of kids stomping the piss out of someone across the street from her mother's house; as she strolled by, she was instructed to "keep on walking", and that she "didn't see anything". Lastly, the local residents have noticed a steady flux of automobile traffic to and from a certain house on the street, stopping only for a moment while one of the young men leaned his head and torso into the window and, presumably, completed a "business transaction". Some residents have also noticed an individual in a Hummer making a weekly visit at three or four in the morning, presumably to make a delivery. There is now talk of banding together and requesting that the police investigate this suspected hub of narcotics trafficking.

As I listened to this tale, I could not help but think to myself, "Sure, call the cops. If not them, it'll be someone else." The sleepy suburban street on which my parents sought refuge in 1987 is now plagued by society's ills in 2008. The shit pipe has backwashed into the living room, and the residents are now scrambling to clean the mess. It pains me to see these people, my neighbours of yore, live in fear; what hurts more is that this was inevitable, and that no amount of police presence will do a thing about it. After all, we live in a market economy, and these people are just as eager as the next to make a buck for themselves. Haul their asses off to the jail house, and three other families will take their place. Bailing buckets may rid your domicile of that foul sludge, and disinfectants and other harsh chemicals may remove its noxious odour, but it all has to travel somewhere, and down the pipe it can no longer go. Perhaps into your neighbour's yard? Does that solve the problem?

Time and again, we are told by those we perceive as figures of authority to be vigilant against the "cancer" innundating our humble society, these "weeds" that inconveniently sprout all over our pristine lawn. Much like in our gardening endeavours, our approach, thus far, has been to tear the weed out of the ground, or extract the cancerous tissue from the body, and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Homeowners, landscapers, gardeners and the like, I ask you this: what happens? The weeds return. The moral of this story? No mechanistic approach can solve an organic problem. This "cancer" is not some alien element we can simply discard and forget; it is part of us. Eliminating the people plagued by the problem does not solve the problem; rather, it is indicative of our being consumed by the problem.

Oh, yes; I almost neglected to mention a critical detail: these so-called "trouble makers" are not Arabic, nor are they Black, nor are they of the Islamic faith; they are White! Yes, folks! White people are running drugs out of a cozy suburban bungalow! Perhaps on your quiet resdiential street, too! You see that, Mark Steyn? While you're pining over the Muslim family who just moved into the house next to yours, worried about whether or not they will greet you with plastic explosives, Whitey lurks on your block, supplying your children and their friends with weed and other goodies. What's that? Some Imam said the world must be rid of all "non-Muslims"? Well, why don't you ask your Muslim neighbours how their friends and family back home feel about Whitey's presence? Even better: why don't you sit yourself down and read these religious texts? And if the hijab and the niqab scare you, ask these women how they feel about flashing their tits to onlookers - better yet, if you have a daughter of your own, ask her.

In sum, the point I'm trying to convey - the same point I've been trying to convey through this medium all along - is, the effort we expend marginalizing groups of people in the name of "security" while remaining totally oblivious to the core of the problem ends up making us less and less secure. Say we succeed in removing these elements from our merry society; then what? The problem is still there, so what do we do? Continue amputating limbs and extracting organs until nothing remains but a hollow, hemmorhaging torso? The universe is who we are, and nothing is added to or subtracted from infinity (here is where I ought to cite the appropriate spiritual master for this bit of wisdom, but knowledge cannot be downcast into something proprietary); in more applicable terms, our own fear and subsequent subjugation of "others" manifests itself in society's ills, and we can't simply flush them away - out of sight, out of mind - because they end up somewhere, mainly here.

But I do agree with Mr. Steyn on one count: it is not my place, nor anyone else's, to tell him what he can and cannot say to his adoring fans; so please, tell your readers to flush that shit down the pipe, but remember: shit comes from your body, and shit has a way of finding its way to your sanctuary.

N.B.: By "shit", I do not mean the people Mr. Steyn fears, but rather the problems of which he attempts to wash his hands clean by attributing them to said people. I should add, you are intelligent enough to deduce this yourself, but I cannot take any chances in a society that discourages its citizens from probing beneath the surface of anything; nonetheless, had I inadvertently insulted your intellect with this final note, I offer my sincerest apology.