Nothing illustrates a passage from Jean Raspail's "The Camp of the Saints", one of the major books of the twentieth century, as precisely as these pictures from Brussels in 2021, in which an anonymous homeless man fries an omelette on the Eternal Flame at

Your universe means nothing to them. They will not try to understand. They will grow tired, they will be cold, and they will light a fire at your beautiful oak door

― Jean Raspail.

These photographs spread across social media at the time amid a great wave of discussion about illegal and, incidentally, perfectly legalised migration into Europe.

Of course, one recalls here how in France, when a Moroccan immigrant lit a cigarette from the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, he was soon deported. And a number of other cases of desecration of monuments to military glory, which all the same did not go unpunished.

For all the outrageousness of these images and of the situation itself, one question remains. After all, we cannot be sure that the man with the blurred face is an illegal migrant at all; his ethnic and cultural background is unknown. One thing can be said with certainty: the man has crossed one of the impermissible lines of our culture. For what reason he found himself in such conditions, what brought him to such circumstances, is no doubt a separate and tragic story in itself. The scene is Brussels, and in view of that it would be only natural to ask: how has such a progressive state, with socialist authorities, brought the country to the point where the homeless cook their food on the flame of a national monument? More interesting still, why is a monument of such significance not under round-the-clock guard by an honour company, or at least under the watch of a single policeman or soldier? Yes, the first impulse is to speak out in populist fashion against a great destructive force embodied in a migration that appears, mistakenly as it may seem, to be controlled by no one. In fact there is no sense in blaming ordinary people, who, as ever, turn out to be victims of circumstances stronger than themselves. It is far more important to trace the source of the problem, and that is usually located in the offices of those who take the decisions, and these are very cultured and educated people indeed