The war on patriotism and national identity in the West will have lethal consequences

The fall of Afghanistan is just one part - the West's self-hating path is making our society a threat to itself and all humanity

Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban, amidst the horror of the world. Like Iran in 1979, a barbaric Islamist extremist movement has taken power, aided and abetted by illiberal forces in both Western and non-Western worlds. But just as important as external issues for the West, and especially the English-speaking world, is the fact these geopolitical issues are inseparable from the culture wars that have raged in our societies for the past few decades.

They are inseparable because there is a war being waged in Britain, USA, Canada and Australia on any sense of national identity, pride and patriotism by the alliance of Leftists, multiculturalists and Islamists. They have successfully convinced enough people that our nations are inherently racist and wicked, and we must hate ourselves out of existence. Nowhere is this more evident than the explosion of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement last year, the meltdown in England following the Euro 2020 defeat, and the residential schools tragedy in Canada.

By convincing people that the very existence of their countries are an original sin, they have created an environment where the very idea of loyalty, patriotism and the nation-state itself is anathema, to be replaced by a nihilistic culture of victimhood, identity politics and virtue-signalling. It is telling, of course, that none of the woke celebrities and sports people out there have bothered to say much if at all on Afghanistan, just as they will stay silent while Cubans and Iranians struggle for their freedom.

The lethal consequences of this manifest itself whenever citizens of Western nations, born and bred in the West and knowing no other home, become radicalised and join jihadist groups in the Middle East. A disturbing amount of pro-Islamist propaganda, if not emanating from countries like Turkey or Pakistan, emanates from Western European and North American cities. Multiculturalism and moral relativism, and the sheer terror of being considered “racist”, has allowed this to flourish.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Britain’s ongoing witchhunts against alleged “racists”, while Islamist sympathisers in British society continue to spew their poison and cheer on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This is a logical consequence of the identity politics threatening to upend the liberal democratic consensus we have lived under.

We have also seen how campaigns against our flags, national anthems, place names, statues and institutions rage in our societies. Yet the Taliban are now suppressing the Afghan flag and anthem (against which we are seeing some defiance), and will certainly destroy Afghanistan’s heritage and kill countless people.

Shamima Begum, after all, was British born and bred. She was radicalised in Britain, and not in the Middle East. John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban fighter, grew up in Marin County, California - one of the wealthiest and most liberal areas in the United States. The fact that such cases emerge from the privilege of Western liberal democracies should alarm people.

But what should alarm us the most is how our sense of self has collapsed after decades of anti-Western subversion. We do not believe our values, heritage and traditions are worth defending anymore. In some cases, even cherished traditional institutions have been subject to subversion. This is a phenomenon peculiar to Western Europe, North America and Australia, in stark contrast to Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Middle East where a will to defend their sense of worth still exists.

It is why the West has allowed the Taliban to take over Afghanistan. It is also why protesters in Cuba and Iran have received inadequate or nonexistent support from Western politicians and media. Because if you don’t believe in yourselves, you cannot champion the freedom of others.