we are told, “Americans don’t do dirty work,” could thisnreluctance be because the work doesn’t pay well enough?nCould the job be re-engineered so that it would be morenhumanly attractive? (Pushing it off on people of anothernethnic group shows scant respect for their culture.)nA few statistical studies have been published purporting tonshow that immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out innbenefits. To such astonishing reports one can only say asnBenjamin Disraeli said long ago: “There are lies, damnednlies, and statistics.” Whatever we furnish our new immigrantsnhas to come out of the hide of people who have longnbeen there — the taxpayers. That includes the taxpayers ofnthe same ethnic group as the new immigrants.nWhy are we told so little about this by radio, television, ornnewspaper? One explanation looms over all others: the ricenbowls of the wordmasters are not threatened by immigrants.nIf you are employed at hard labor weeding vegetables, ornworking long hours making beds, or serving tables in anrestaurant, new immigrants threaten to take your job. But ifnyou are one of those who talk into a microphone or write onna word processor, the immigrant from another culture is nonthreat to you at all. The level of skill required to be anwordmaster is almost beyond the reach of persons whonchange culture and language as adults. The Pole JosephnConrad and the Russian Vladimir Nabokov were exceptions.nCan you name another?nAdults who try hard can learn another language, butnseldom well enough to make a living in the media. Since thenmedia people are never threatened with unemployment bynincoming migrants, they find it difficult to imagine what itnwould be like to be so threatened. It takes imagination to putnyourself in the place of a lowly worker in a nonverbalnprofession. Media masters, with the best will in the worldnbut poor imagination, present a one-sided picture of thenconsequences of immigration.nUncontrolled immigration poses still greater dangers, asnDaniel Pipes’ account of The Rushdie Affair reveals.nSalman Rushdie, an expatriate from India, made little stirnamong the general public until the publication of his booknThe Satanic Verses in 1988. This was immediately attackednby Muslims in India, Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere. In Junenof the following year an Iranian agency offered a reward ofn$170,000 to anyone who would assassinate the author.nRushdie, long a resident in England, went into hiding,nprotected by British security agents. The reward was immediatelynrecognized and condemned as an unparalleled attacknon freedom of speech.nNot all the inheritors of freedom of speech recognize hownperishable this precious gift is. Many influential Westernersnsided with the Muslims. Muslims in England demandednthat Rushdie’s book be declared in violation of British lawsnagainst blasphemy, but British officials pointed out that thesenlaws referred only to blasphemy against the state religion,nChristianity.nAt this point a Tory MP led a delegation of Muslims tonthe Home Office to lobby for an extension of the blasphemynlaws to cover Islam. The archbishop of Canterbury agreednwith the petitioners. In America Jimmy Carter, a born-againnChristian, did not go that far, but he did urge that we shouldnall be “sensitive to the concern and anger” of Muslims. Atnthis point the American philosopher Michael Walzer point­ned out that, if this trend in religious thinking continued,nblasphemy would become an ecumenical crime. A fine idea,nsaid Iran’s ambassador to Creece: “Reverence for people’snbeliefs should be the cornerstone of international relations.”nOne can grant that it is no more than prudent to wordngenuinely international communications so as to show nondisrespect for other people’s beliefs, but is it wise to hog-tienfnfranational communications with the restrictions imposednby distant religious authorities? Among the minor religionsnpracticed in Iran is Zoroastrianism (called Parsiism in India).nThere are about one hundred thousand Parsis in India andnfifty thousand Zoroastrians in Iran. Suppose an Englishmannor an American made blasphemous remarks about AhuranMazda, the Zoroastrian god: should the non-Zoroastrian benjailed in his own country?nIf blasphemy were to be made an ecumenical crime wenwould soon become painfully aware that there are thousandsnof religious sects in the world. Nothing shows more clearlynthe folly of conceiving the world as a “global village.” Onenof the major characteristics of a village is limited tolerance.nIn “One World” there would be no place for heterodoxy, nontolerance for freedom of speech. Perhaps we should erect anmonument to Salman Rushdie as the First Outlaw of thenClobal Village.nMore than tolerance and freedom of speech may somenday be involved in conflicts of this sort. The specternof genocide must be exorcised. Not many people realize thatnthere are two forms of this crime. Active genocide is the sortnone first thinks of— Hifler killing six million Jews. But therenis another form — more subtle, less obvious, but potentiallynequally effective — that we may call passive genocide. Thenway this works was recently revealed in three remarks by AlinAkbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iraniannpadiament: “One billion [Muslims] will become 2 billionntomorrow and 3 billion the day after tomorrow.” “You [innthe West] are afraid of our cultural presence in yourncountries.” “[Islam] is the sole determinant of man’s futurencourse.” Translated blunfly: “We Muslims are going tonoutbreed you.”nDiversity within the borders of ansingle state can become too great for thensurvival of all the competing ethnic groups.nBut, if borders are kept intact, diversitynamong nations is tolerable.nSince the principal international conflict in the Rushdienaffair was between Britain and Iran, let’s compare the two.nTheir populations are almost identical: 54 million in Iran vs.n57 million in the United Kingdom. But the rates of increasenof the two populations are strikingly different. The Iraniannpopulation is now doubling in size every 20 years; thenUnited Kingdom will take 290 years to double if it holds tonits present course. At the end of a single 290-year period, ifnpresent trends continue, Iranians would be more than tennnnOCTOBER 1991/21n