^^ you are the fastest article finder ON the west. Double pun me.
Sounds like
The Camp of the Saints
Update:
The Camp of the Saints Revisited Editorial
The Social Contract Press, parent of THE SOCIAL
CONTRACT journal, is honored to bring back into print
Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints. We do so just as
the immigration policy debate has risen to new heights in
the United States—indeed, across the world. We began
negotiating for the rights to publish this edition long
before several recent seminal events helped focus
attention on the wider issues involved.
The first was the passage in California of
Proposition 187, a citizen's initiative calling for an end to
most social services and welfare benefits, including
schooling, for illegal aliens. Fought out in the context of
California's gubernatorial and U.S. senate races, this was
the first time in recent decades that immigration policy
played a role in actually electing or defeating political
candidates.
Then there was the remarkable use of The Camp of
the Saints in the cover article of the December 1994 issue
of The Atlantic Monthly, "Must It Be the Rest Against the
West?" by historians Matthew Connelly and Paul
Kennedy. The Atlantic Monthly has the record for the
longest continuous publication of any magazine in the
United States, and is arguably one of the most
prestigious. This article has done much to renew interest
in Raspail's book and legitimize the consideration of its
thesis; fortuitously, this article appeared just as the book
was going to press.
The recent arrival on our shores of boatloads of
people whose stories and conditions evoke Raspail's
theme has taken it out of a theorist's realm and transposed
it into real life. As I write, boats are landing on
Australia's northern coast and there are reports of another
5,000 people on the high seas, headed South. The future
has arrived, as indicated by the photo chosen for the
cover of this edition: the Golden Venture beached off of
Queens, New York, its human cargo standing on our
shores swaddled in blankets.
The Camp of the Saints has been a controversial
book in the United States since Norman Shapiro's
translation was first released in 1975 by the respected
publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons. The novel
alternately has been praised as a clear minded view of the
future or, contrarily, vilified as "racist." Individuals have
even been attacked for merely being familiar with it. We
trust that with the publication of the Atlantic article this
stage has passed.
* * *
A word is warranted about the role of a novel in the
immigration debate. We humans do not seem to like our
truths unvarnished. Rather than "just the facts," we
commonly prefer to have them dressed up in the
memorable forms of plays, poems, allegories, metaphors,
fables, parables, proverbs, tragedies and satires. The poet,
the playwright, the novelist, the filmmaker can present
truths and open our eyes in ways that demographic
analyses, comparative income studies, or social welfare
statistics never can. The storytellers can advance notions
prohibited to others.
Over the years the American public has absorbed a
great number of books, articles, poems and films which
exalt the immigrant experience. It is easy for the feelings
evoked by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty to
obscure the fact that we are currently receiving too many
immigrants (and receiving them too fast) for the health of
our environment and of our common culture. Raspail
evokes different feelings and that may help to pave the
way for policy changes. The Camp of the Saints takes the
world population explosion and the immigration debate
in a new direction. Indeed, it may become the 1984 of the
twenty-first century.
We are indebted to Jean Raspail for his insights into
the human condition, and for being 20 years ahead of his
time. History will judge him more kindly than have some
of his contemporaries.
To support the reissuance of The Camp of the Saints
we adopt its title as the theme for this issue of THE
SOCIAL CONTRACT. Articles include a review of the
book by our Australian correspondent, Denis
McCormack; a report on an interview with Raspail by
our editorial advisory board member Katharine Betts,
conducted while she was on sabbatical in France; a
translation of a flier put out by Raspail's publisher which
gives some insight into the man; a compilation by
associate editor Wayne Lutton of previous reviews; a
reprint of Raspail's preface to the third (1985) French
edition (previously printed in THE SOCIAL CONTRACT,
Vol.IV, No.2, Winter 1993-94); and then articles and
data on the immigration-induced racial and ethnic
transformation of the U.S. that is underway. All this
could keep you awake at night.
Combined with our other reports and reviews we
believe you will find this issue well worth an evening.
John Tanton, Editor and Publisher
