stipulates that two species cannot occupy the same ecologicalrnniche, and a similar principle applies to subspecies and socialrngroups in direct proportion to the strength of their identity.rnIn colonial South Carolina, French Huguenots were so relievedrnto find themselves in a Protestant country that theyrnset aside their differences with the English and merged theirrnown churches into the Anglican establishment. FrenchrnCatholics in Canada, however, have never fully reconciledrnthemselves to the English conquest, and the Quebecois havernproved to be masters at manipulating the Anglo-Canadianrnliberal regime into granting them a privileged position.rnIn a republic, the citizens have some chancernof gaining equal access to justice. In arnpolyethnic empire, like Rome in the thirdrncentury, or America on the verge of the 21st, thernmixture of tribes, races, and nations reducesrnthe privilege of citizenship to a trifle.rnIn the United States, the dominant theme of ethnic conflictrnhas been the difficult relationship between blacks and whites.rnTocqueville, among others, foresaw that the race questionrnwould be crucial to the survival and success of the Anglo-rnAmerican republic. The War Between the States, while itrnwas not fought by either side primarily on the slavery question,rneliminated one legal strategy for avoiding the antagonismsrnthat lead to genocidal conflict. Jim Crow laws represented arnsecond effort to resolve the question in favor of the whiternmajority.rnUltimately, the legal status of blacks seemed to be settledrnon the principle of legal and political equality. By the 1950’srnand 60’s well-intentioned Americans—in the north as well asrnin the South—came to believe that the struggle for civil rightsrnhad something to do with such old-fashioned Anglo-Americanrnvirtues as fair play and equality under the law. For some people,rnblack and white, this probably was the case. I think of RoyrnWilkins, longtime head of the NAACP, and of many misnamedrnSouthern “liberals,” who objected to the indecenciesrnand discourtesies inflicted upon persons of color all over thernUnited States.rnNonetheless, a concern with fairness and decency was notrnthe only or even the primary motive of the civil rights movementrnor in fact of any rights movement. Members of an underclass,rnreal (e.g., black) or imagined (e.g., women, homosexuals),rnwant not equality but superiority, not decentrntreatment but the right to inflict indecency, to bully as theyrn(so they think) have been bullied.rnNo sensible person should have imagined that legal andrnpolitical equality would content such intemperate and viciousrnrevolutionaries as Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael,rnand Jesse Jackson, each one of them the very model of therndegraded demagogue who addicts his followers to the stimulatingrnbut debilitating fix of greed and envy. An Americanrnpeople capable of preserving itself might wisely have concededrnall the demands for legal equality and declared victory.rnInstead, bent on a course of self-destruction, we have continuedrnto inject higher and higher levels of greed and envy intorneach minority group that comes to the table demandingrnwhat it has not earned. We have blighted the prospects of ourrnchildren and grandchildren for the sake of strangers, and wernhave dressed up our failure as parents in the lofty language ofrnaffirmative action and social justice. Anyone who finds himself,rnas I do now, in a city whose schools are under the supervisionrnof a federal judge knows something of what it feels likernto live in an occupied country.rnThe American house was tottering into ruin by the latern1960’s; however, in more recent years, not content with ethnicrnwarfare that is the consequence of slavery, the American rulingrnclass decided, with malice aforethought, to inject millionsrnand millions of aliens from Latin America, Asia, andrnAfrica, each with his own reason to resent Euro-Americanrnculture, each to be given preference over the children of citizensrnwhose ancestors worked and fought and died to makernthis country. And how are we repaid for our suicidal generosity?rnBy resentment against Eurocentric education, byrnwhining against the display of Christian symbolism, by demandsrnfor more rights and privileges to make up for what recentlyrnarrived Pakistanis and Arabs have suffered at Americanrnhands.rnThe height of absurdity was reached in the bombing ofrnthe World Trade Center. Six years ago, Mr. Mohammed A.rnSalameh apparently entered this country on a six-month visarnand was making good money in construction jobs that hadrnbeen given to him instead of to an American. Nourishingrnwho knows what resentments against American policy in thernMiddle East, he and his friends murder five or six people theyrnhave never met for reasons the victims will never understand.rnSometimes the terrorists are more disciplined. One MirrnAimal Kansi, a 28-year-old Pakistani, told friends he wanted torndo something big to protest America’s policies toward thernMuslim worid. He had succeeded in acquiring a green card, arnsocial security number, and a driver’s license, which made itrnpossible for him to buy the gun with which he shot two CIArnofficers before sneaking back to Pakistan, where no one is ablernto find him.rnArab and Pakistani terrorists, Nigerian con artists. Orientalrnand South American drug lords, Russian gangsters—all arernintroducing their particular brands of cultural enrichment intornan already fragmented United States that increasingly resemblesrnBosnia more than the America I grew up in. It is interesting,rneven entertaining, to observe the tender regard ourrneditorialists display toward that former province of Yugoslavia,rnalmost always described as “a multicultural society” or asrn”Bosnia’s experiment in multiculturalism.”rnThe results of our own experiment may well turn out to bernas grim. The future of urban America was made veryrnclear during the L.A. riots in which blacks and Mexicansrnteamed up against Koreans. The alignments will shift, but thernviolence can only increase. This has nothing to do with thernway things ought to be or the way we would like them to be.rn”Can’t we all just get along?” is the cry of either a saint orrnan imbecile. Of course we cannot. There is too much atrnstake. The state of nature, of human nature, is not a heliumrnomnium contra omnes, unless we supply some noun like familiarnor genus. It is the war of families and kindreds andrn14/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn