Whether the Europeans react fascistically or not, there is going to be political turmoil as a result of this process. Anyway, can an aging, demoralized society which only believes in its welfare benefits and month off in August even start to mount an effective movement (fascist or otherwise) against a vigorous, young community of people who believe ardently in their own cause, their own superiority, their own God-given right to rule, people who are willing and eager to employ ruthless and even suicidal violence to seize power? I doubt it. Note that I am presuming that what we now call "Islamism" will still be around, and be popular decades hence. I think it will be, because it is self-consistent and circular, hence impenetrable, it is self-congratulatory, and it allows people an excuse for their own failure, a perfect political cocktail. I see no reason for it to fade away, and I see no challenger to it from the so-called "moderate Muslims", a community which seems to be increasingly mythical with each passing day. Nor, alas, do I think the spread of liberty and democracy across the Middle East is a viable project. I like the president, I voted for him twice, and it is nice that he thinks all humans hunger for liberty, and I wish I could share that belief, but most do not. They have no experience with it, no history of it, don't understand it, and don't want it. They want personal safety, advantages for their families, as big a slice as possible of a zero-sum pie, and if they hunger for anything it is for revenge against their enemies, real and imagined. Sayyid Qutb and Osama will be heroes to Islamic youth in Europe in the decades ahead, not some would-be Arab Thomas Jefferson.

Not Cairo on the Seine. Beirut, or Grozny. Or Kabul under the Taliban.

I hope I am wrong, but I am not hopeful. I wish the facts suggested any different outcome to me, but they don't.

If you have any liking for what we have for centuries thought of as "Europe", visit it now. It is almost over. Forever.

Posted by: Lexington Green on August 2, 2005 11:22 PM

Another possibility is that this islamic population has been multiplied in order to precipitate a war of religion, from which officials can obtain the dictatorship of their dreams. The class war never boiled over to the point of allowing full despotism to be established, much to the chagrin of a government professoriate which had placed its hopes of dystopia on that war. Just when despair was about to set in, a new hope for totalitarian possibilities emerged from the Mideast: bloodthirsty immigrants! D. Coleman, on p. 140 of Human Variability and Plasticity, shows that "no plausible level of immigration is able to stop population ageing", which means the dishonest arguments about labor shortages and such, are covering for something else. The question would be how to get power, not how to get workers, as if officials were businessmen. They are looking for troublemakers who can incrase their power, and finding them. The outcome of all this is war.

Posted by: John S Bolton on August 3, 2005 01:54 AM

Some projections, based on a continuation of current trends, foresee a Muslim majority in France by 2050, and perhaps in all of Europe.

Those projections are a bit xenophobic, aren't they? In that it is well known that birthrates drop when prosperity rises. Also, just to claim that the Muslimas will not learn anything from the expressed personal freedom around them, and won't emancipate over fifty years time is a hostile assumption.

Posted by: ijsbrand on August 3, 2005 03:53 AM

The projections are not xenophobic, they are just projections.

"Muslimas will not learn anything from the expressed personal freedom around them"

Look at Britain. Home-grown suicide bombers, and a community that is at best lukewarm in its opposition to the suicide bombers, or intimidated into silence. The expressed freedom of the West is not appealing to many people. Many people in the West, myself included, are disgusted by the squalor of our popular culture. Muslims I have met in Chicago struggle hard to keep their children from being exposed too much to American culture. They bring their teenage daughters back to Pakistan to arrange marriages for them. Many people who come to the West from other places see only corruption, and cannot see the less obvious things which are good about the developed world. They like access to material well-being and public safety, and despise everything else. This may be tough to take, but it is exactly the "expressed personal freedom" that many people see in the West that makes them hate us, hold us in contempt, in a small minority of cases, want to kill us.

Posted by: Lexington Green on August 3, 2005 09:01 AM

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
-- Samuel Johnson

This is the crux of the matter. They are not there yet. But when it becomes undeniably clear to European elites that their way of life, nay their very existence is threatened by the Muslim tide, they will act.

Posted by: ricpic on August 3, 2005 10:57 AM

Good business idea for the taking: A chain of halal meat markets all over France.

Posted by: Neil on August 3, 2005 08:31 PM

On "Coast to Coast" (WABC Radio) last night, heard show about rock stars who claim--or claimed-- to have had UFO abduction experiences (e.g. Elvis, David Bowie). Cat Stevens was one of those to make such claims. But we know who REALLY abducted him.

Posted by: winifer skattebol on August 4, 2005 11:27 PM

won't emancipate over fifty years time is a hostile assumption.

The bombers in London were Pakistani, and the Turks in Germany have been there since WW2. They've become less assimilated as their numbers have grown, not more, as there is now a whole subculture that they never have to exit.

It is not "hostile", it is reality.

Posted by: blah on August 5, 2005 03:24 AM

should say "2nd gen Pakistani"

Posted by: blah on August 5, 2005 03:25 AM

From what little history I've read, Muslims would bribe the elites to let them into the cities and towns they eventually colonized and took over. This is exactly what's happened in Europe. Afterall, how'd they get there in the first place?

Posted by: lindenen on August 5, 2005 08:39 PM

Did you know whether you say Moslem or Muslim depends upon whether you're transliterating from Persian or Arabic? Moslem from Persian, Muslim from Arabic.

Posted by: winifer skattebol on August 6, 2005 02:25 PM

As far as I know, in group of Turkic languages (like Tatar, etc) it's also Muslim.

Posted by: Tatyana on August 6, 2005 07:28 PM






Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember your info?