Restricting Immigration And Populism Are Not Dirty Words !!
Survey the world today and you find 5 women leaders who are anti-immigration and populists. Let’s start with the new and 1st female Prime Minister of Japan- Sanae Takaichi, who has made it known that she is going to stop the large numbers of immigrants who have entered Japan recently, leading to widespread local resentment amongst Japanese, who have lost jobs to these immigrants. Takaichi has appointed as her new Economic Security Minister, Kimi Onoda, a 42 year old who is pro-Japan, anti-immigration, and who was born in America to a Japanese mother. She has made it known that her topmost priority is to protect Japanese jobs from being taken away by foreigners.
Asia is therefore leading a renewed charge towards nationalism and the protection of citizens’ rights to good jobs in their homeland, not to mention the preservation of national and cultural identity.
But of course, we cannot ignore the strong lead which was started by strong European women leaders.
Marine Le-Pen is well known for her strong opposition to the crazy European open-border policies which have allowed millions of immigrants to swarm the continent. Today, she is the most popular leader in France and would win the next presidential election in 2027 if not for the fact that she is disqualified by a corruption conviction, which she is appealing. I hope she wins her appeal and becomes President. Politics in France has become a joke under Macron with 4 failed Prime Ministers in the last year.
Then we have Giorgio Meloni of Italy, arguably the strongest and most popular European leader today. She is into her 3rd year as Italian prime minister, much longer than most Italian prime ministers have lasted in the past. She is another leader who is strongly anti-immigration and populist.
Finally, we have Alice Wiedel, the leader of the Alternative for Deutschland in Germany (AfD). From the fringes, AfD have become the most popular party in Germany. Wiedel will be the Chancellor of Germany in the not too distant future. I am glad to know that she attended the same university in England as I did.
There you go, 5 strong women who know at the core what matters to citizens. Women instinctively know what is important in life - the ties to family and nation. No mother will want her children to be 2nd class in their own country. No mother will ever tell her children that national identity is not so important as we have heard from someone recently. If national identity is not important, why should men have to serve national service.
The problem with many male leaders is that they fall for faddish ideas and concepts. They are the Davos men, pseudo-intellectuals who have no core beliefs but are content to follow the herd and spout intellectual nonsense such as mass immigration and open borders. In this regard, I am glad that Trump, Xi, Modi and Prabowo, the leaders of the 4 most populous nations in the world have taken a different route. Who can say that they are failed leaders ? They are successful leaders who have transformed their countries. Trump has led a counter-revolution to upend the wokeness and DEI madness that had consumed America. He will go down in history as the most consequential president after Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
I cannot conclude without mentioning Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party in Britain, another staunch anti-immigrant advocate. His party may have only 5 MPs at the moment but they are poised to sweep away the ruling Labour Party in a massive landslide at the next GE in 2029. Britons are tired of the huge influx of foreigners in recent decades, which successive governments have not been able to stem.
At the end of the day, citizens come to realise despite all the promises of high growth which most politicians spout, that they want their country back. They want to keep their national identity strongly alive. That nationalism is not a vice but a virtue, for without nationalism there cannot be patriotism. A country is a home and not just a work-place. That is why the tide has now turned viciously against mass immigration.
Lim Tean