Wednesday Morning Rant

Yesterday, Ace posted an article on the NYC camps for illegal aliens. Two excerpts from the quoted New York Post articles stood out to me for their similarity to other experiences in other countries that were flooded with invading colonists:

"For the past month or so, we will come here, and there'll be one or two tents set up, and we'll ask them to take them down," a city Parks Department enforcement officer told The Post at the site on Sunday.

"But every day when we come back, there's more."

Migrants camping outside the increasingly lawless Randall's Island tent city were spotted selling everything from burgers to blunts on Monday -- as Mayor Eric Adams said the city would be reviewing shelter security following a fatal weekend stabbing.

North of Calais, France was a camp referred to as the "Calais Jungle," likely deriving from a Pashto word meaning "forest." It was established because of its proximity to trans-Channel shipping and rail. Colonists from North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East landed at Calais and entered the Jungle. Those descending on Calais, like those descending on the United States, largely consisted of economic migrants. There were relatively few permanent residents in the camp complex. It was for transients, and most of the occupants were there temporarily as they worked to make their way across the Channel and into Britain. The Jungle long predated the influx of "refugees" that descended on Europe in the wakes of various disasters across the regions, but it quickly became overwhelmed and persistently unmanageable.

It became the topic of countless news stories in Europe and Britain (and still is), and was visited by many foreign journalists like Rebel Media's Lauren Southern. Coverage of the Jungle was never lacking.

The French government consistently tried to quash the Jungle, but it kept returning. A mixture of tents and semi-permanent structures, it grew into thousands of people. As it grew, the squalor of the camp spread. The situation was untenable. The French tried to police the camp with continuous patrol by riot police, but it was largely unable to maintain order. Eventually, the French authorities began to forcibly dismantle the camp in stages and ensure that it stayed disassembled.

First, the French erected temporary shipping container "housing" in the north of the Jungle, then swept the south, destroying the camp with bulldozers. Finally, it evacuated the northern area and dismantled the rest of the Jungle. All the while, various parties - journalists, NGOs, etc. - decried the French action against the Jungle as a human rights abuse. Even progressive establishment food critics got in on extolling the virtues of the Jungle:

The surprise, the great surprise, is the chicken livers. They are perfect. Soft, with that mysterious, renal flavour that is medicinal and industrial, but also like earth and grass and licked copper. The sauce is pungently hot, but still a negligee, not a shroud, for the meat. This was a properly, cleverly crafted and wholly unexpected dish, made with finesse and an elan that defied the surroundings, but at the same time elevated them. Ali smiled with a rare pride.

Despite the constant accusations that the French were inhumane monsters capitulating to - or even directly representing - right-wing extremists, the French finally did dismantle the camp and disperse the people. Some ended up in other, smaller camps peppered throughout France and other countries. Some lingered in Calais, still trying to make a break for Britain. The problem never went away, it just got distributed under moderately better management when the Jungle was finally excised from Calais.

The Calais Jungle is gone today, and has been gone for years. Given the growth of similar complexes here in the wake of the influx from the nation's south, however, It would be foolish to disregard the experience of Calais.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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