Douglas Murray explains how, for many, the West has become the problem, and that the dissolving of the West has become a solution. Although he grants that the West — primarily Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia — has had its problems and has committed its sins, he wonders why the same negative attention is not paid to the faults of other countries throughout the world, including China, where “unimaginable abuses” are “perpetrated in our own time by the Communist Party of China.” Or Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, which are “rife with racism.”

Murray raises the key question: If we don’t like Western culture, what culture do we think would be better, in terms of human rights, economic welfare, scientific achievement, or any other metrics we would care to name? This is not theoretical. If we undercut our own culture, as we are doing now, the beneficiaries will likely be countries such as China, Russia, and Iran. Would this be an improvement for most of the people in the West? For most of the people in the world?

The answer, Murray states, is in —

“the most devastating proof of all, which is the simple matter of footfall: a footfall that is entirely one-directional. For there is, even today, no serious movement of peoples in the world struggling to get into modern China. For all its financial prowess, the world does not wish to move to that country. It does want to move to America and will go to extraordinary lengths—even the risk of life—to reach that goal. Similarly, there is no serious global effort to break into any of the countries of Africa. Indeed, a third of sub-Saharan Africans polled in the last decade said that they wanted to move. Where they want to move is clear.

“The migrant ships across the Mediterranean go only in one direction—north. The people-smuggling gangs’ boats do not—halfway across the Mediterranean—meet white Europeans heading south, desperate to escape France, Spain, or Italy in order to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of Africa.”