Conservatives must do more than take office, they must take power

I have to admit, sometimes it becomes tiresome: Every time I attend a supposedly “grand summit” of (mostly Anglosphere) conservatism like Jordan Peterson’s ARC Conference, what do I hear? The usual grand declarations on identity, biology, and the “defence of the West,” but all too often, I have only discovered a room full of people using the language of opposition while having no plan of how finally to occupy the seats of power. They endlessly rehearse what they are against, as if this alone will suffice.

While being in opposition can be entertaining, ultimately politics and culture are about power: As we can see in Germany and France, or as we could see in the UK under the former Tory government, merely being in office is not enough. Conservatives (or those labelling themselves as such) also need to have a will to be in power and not just to be in office. The power truly to change things can be found not just in the realm of politics but also in culture, education, and entertainment. The Left fights wars—cultural, ideological, total—while conservatives content themselves with fighting single-issue battles. The Left controls culture, media, education—it is, essentially, always in power. Conservatives, meanwhile, take office now and again, but rarely shape the culture.

I do not often write about the events in the Middle East, but very often what happens in this region and how Western elites react to it is a good reflection of what is going on within the West: What October 7, 2023 unveiled was more than the bankruptcy of Hamas’s ideology which should be obvious to anybody. It was also the unmasking of a virulent, anti-Western undercurrent running through much of modern multiculturalism, which remains the favoured ideology of Western elites.

In the West’s institutions that shape the “Zeitgeist” – universities, media, even environmental movements – resistance to Israel is not about empathy for Palestinians, but about the reflexive urge to oppose whatever is seen as “Western”. Those who proudly donned their rainbow flags and supported Hamas protests revealed the true bankruptcy of multiculturalism, which is a creed that asks nothing, expects nothing, and knows nothing of the “other” it supposedly supports. Is it insanity, or just ignorance, to claim solidarity with those who would never reciprocate like the “queers for Palestine”?

At its root, multiculturalism is both destructive and the intellectually laziest of all ideologies: It absolves its adherents from actually learning about or engaging with any other culture in a meaningful way. It is, to borrow a phrase, the bigotry of low expectations. Consider the data: Polling in the Palestinian territories found that over 50 per cent of respondents would support continued armed resistance until all of Israel is eliminated, even when presented with the prospect of a two-state solution. These are not marginal views, they are mainstream among a significant number of Palestinians.

And yet unperturbed, the West’s educated elites indulges in the illusion that economic opportunity or dialogue alone can trump the deep roots of ideological hostility. Ironically, history proves the exact opposite. In the years following the Second World War, it was not gentle debates and understanding that ended fascism‘s appeal, but humiliation. The unconditional surrender, denazification, and re-education that followed after 1945 enabled Germany and Japan to become fully integrated into the democratic West. Communism endured, in part, because it never experienced this utter collapse. Islamism today stands unchanged at its core, because it has not been truly defeated, whether it be militarily or ideologically.

Unsurprisingly, integration of a growing Muslim minority (that in certain areas is already approaching a majority) into a system that demands nothing of them while despising itself is an approach that can only fail. Why would the confident ideology assimilate with the ideology that is riddled with self-doubt? Even from the most basic understanding this makes no sense: When faced with the choice of cheering for the winning or the losing team, most people will pick the latter and not the former. Now ask yourself, is Islam in the West the winning or the losing team? The future will not belong to those who simply manage decline, which appears to be the one remaining goal for the adherents of multiculturalists, who often believe that the demise of the West will usher into the rise of the rest.

In truth, however, the end of Western civilisation will only lead to a more barbaric and uncivilised world, in which tribes, not nations or ideas will be the main bannisters of social life. We already see this in Western cities, where the authority of the state has been replaced by the authority of the tribe: Brussels, Malmö, Rotterdam – these are cities that no longer exist in the way they used to. It should not be too much to ask that those who choose to make their home in Europe adopt, at a minimum, its fundamental values. Culture is not the same as race, it can change, and history is full of such examples. The failure to understand this leaves us with the paradox of liberal societies defending illiberal enclaves, all while wondering why the sense of common purpose is eroding.

The future will belong not to those who simply manage decline, but to those who regain a sense of confidence in their own civilisation, who reclaim the right to define and defend their core values. Multiculturalism was always a hollow creed; its time, if not already past, is rapidly running out