Friday, October 20. 2006
Financial Times: "US Prophets of Europe's Doom are Half Wrong"
Posted by Joerg Wolf in Transatlantic Relations on Friday, October 20. 2006
In Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept (Amazon.com, Amazon.de) -- now into its eighth printing -- the American reader is told that by ignoring the threat from radical Islam: "Europe is steadily committing suicide and perhaps all we can do is look on in horror." Tony Blankley, author of The West's Last Chance (Amazon.com, Amazon.de), warns that: "The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s." In The Cube and the Cathedral (Amazon.com, Amazon.de), George Weigel, a Catholic conservative, claims that "western Europe is committing a form of demographic suicide". In this he echoes Pat Buchanan, who argued in his best-selling The Death of the West (Amazon.com, Amazon.de) that Europe's population is set to fall to 30 per cent of its current level by 2100, meaning that "the cradle of western civilisation will have become its grave".Rachman opines:
I suspect that few Europeans would recognise themselves in this distorting mirror held up from the other side of the Atlantic. And yet -- tempting as it was to toss all these books into the bin and go out for a drink in the midst of my doomed civilisation (one might as well enjoy what little time is left) -- it is impossible completely to dismiss the American prophets of European doom. Strip away the hysteria and the hype and they make two serious points.He describes these points as rising Muslim populations and low fertility rates, but also points out:
Similarly, the American vision of a Muslim takeover of Europe -- creating a new continent called "Eurabia" -- relies on projecting demographic trends to their limit and beyond. Weigel fantasises about a day when "the muezzin summons the faithful to prayer from the central loggia of St Peter's in Rome". Given that just 1.7 per cent of the Italian population is currently Muslim, that seems a long way off. Of the 456m people of the EU, just 15m to 16m are Muslim."The American vision"? Surely, most Americans do not share these opinions...? The Financial Times provides his entire review article.
Endnote: Davids Medienkritik approvingly quotes more Islamophobia, but also thankfully presents Dr. Gedmin's great column "If I were Muslim, I'd be offended by the Pope's speech".
Related: Too Much Cookies (German Blog) analyses the Mozart opera controversy. English summary in Dialog International.
Mr. Rachman deplores American hyperbole about 'doomed' Europe but then in a little hyperbole of his own.
Is Euroipe doomed? Probably not - at least by Muslim immigration. I figure most European countries will either throttle back Muslim immigration or deliver an 'assimilate or else' message somehow. Certain select countries may have a larger problem. France, Nederlands, Belgium, Sweden, and possibly Denmark, Norway, and Spain.
But.... What concerns me are low European economic growth rates and the aging population. Europe doesn't grow quickly enough to provide decent opportunities to many of it's young workers. How are low-skilled workers going to pay for pensioners? Perhaps not an enormous problem in East Europe or Spain - but an enormous concern in Italy, France, Germany, Nederlands. Eh?
This was interesting: [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701652.html]Washington Post on French child subsidies[/url]
Certainly nothing is doomed - what did Lawrence of Arabia say again? "Nothing is written" - and Europe isn't being invaded by the Arab world. Not yet, anyway. But if the US prophets of Europe's doom are half wrong, then I guess that means they're half right, too.
Well, Clarsonimus, you're not helping things by posting half-truths on your blog. You write that the Mozart opera that was cancelled had yet to be performed when it actually had already been shown for almost three years. You also write that the pope is not free to say what he wants, when he was criticized for doing just that: saying what he wanted. This whole "Eurabia" thing is blown out of proportion, it's really just another way of voicing anti-European sentiments, along the lines of implying that Germans are more likely to tolerate pedophilia, like the good folks at medienkritik did today.
@influx
I don't know much about Cohn-Bendit, but I do wonder how a guy who has openly made comments like "It happened several times that children would open my fly and begin to caress me" could still have a political career anywhere! The fact that this man is not in prison does testify to a certain tolerance of his actions, does it not?
Theodore Dalrymple has some similar assessments to the American writers, and his credentials as "not an American" are pretty solid.
Most Americans think little about the issue at all, just as most Germans spend little time pondering events in South America or Australia. For those who do think about what is happening to Europe, I think "worried," is a better descriptor than "frightened," "angry," or "panicked." As all of us hear very little of good news coming out of anyone else's country, it is true that the riots outside Paris, the murder of Theo Van Gogh, and the muslim violence in the larger cities of Western Europe tend to loom larger in our minds than they perhaps should.
Not all trends persist indefinitely. The trend of Western Civilization condoning muslim violence is worrisome. The demographic trends of the advanced nations are worrisome. But people adapt to changes and create new trends. Not very long ago we were all panicked about population growth everywhere. Now we worry about it in selected areas and have the reverse worry in others.
Not all trends persist indefinitely. The trend of Western Civilization condoning muslim violence is worrisome. The demographic trends of the advanced nations are worrisome. But people adapt to changes and create new trends. Not very long ago we were all panicked about population growth everywhere. Now we worry about it in selected areas and have the reverse worry in others. Kirsten from [url=http://caravanawning.org/]porch awnings[/url] guide
@AVI
Who is "condoning muslim violence"? When? Where? The shrill commentaries about Europe's doom also tend to lump all of Europe together, as if there were no national differences. Remember when the Paris riots started and people started talking about how the fire is going to spread from the banlieues all over Europe? Well, I'm still waiting for the fire to hit Berlin. The situation in Paris is so different from Berlin: no comparable colonial history, and people who make some money will leave the banlieues as soon as they can, whereas someone living in Kreuzberg, say, is much more likely to reinvest his or her money in the community.
I agree that there does not seem to have been much if any spillover into Germany. The Belgians were not so lucky. Amsterdam, Manchester, and Stockholm have swiftly rising crime rates, but not among their native populations.
Yes, Americans tend to unfortunately lump all of Europe, especially Northwestern Europe, together. However, please note that you are attempting to lump yourselves together in many ways. I am somewhat, but not entirely exempt from that fault. I make a sharp differentiation between Eastern and Western Europe, and am very much an Anglophile. I do, however, tend to think of the Scandinavian and Benelux countries as a single group, much as an American region of states might be, and of Germany, Switzerland, and France as tightly tied to them. Southern Europe - whole different animal.
American writer retired Colonel Ralph Peters has a more realistic view. Peters believes, and I agree, that if European Muslims get out of control they will be killed in large numbers and the rest expelled.
Europe has gone soft after 60 years of US military protection. Should the need arise, the heirs of the Holocaust and two World Wars will revert to deadly violence in short order.
really it will be a great surprise to find this book about the prospects in Europe and it will be funny to start this book up in the sale in Europe. New war. But as for me I don't like his view.
))) I think Americans write sch books in order to bring round themselves that they will not face the end of their civilisation wich is really coming closer to them, they just try to distract their attention towards a made-up Apocalypse of Europe...
Yes, the Europeans have been saying that for two centuries, Jonatan. It can't possibly be you closing your eyes and wishing again.
I don't know about apocalypse, but the Europeans are farther down whatever bad road we're on than we are.
I suspect that few Europeans would recognise themselves in this distorting mirror held up from the other side of the Atlantic. And yet -- tempting as it was to toss all these books into the bin and go out for a drink in the midst of my doomed civilisation (one might as well enjoy what little time is left) -- it is impossible completely to dismiss the American prophets of European doom. Strip away the hysteria and the hype and they make two serious points. I think his opinions were right to the point. Ander - [url=http://learnhowtojumphigher.net/]learn how to jump higher[/url] dude
No wonder europeans are worrying, Aparently there is £11 millions sent home every DAY by imigrant workers in Britian. Thats £11millions disspapearing from the UK's pockets every day. Soon we will be needing financial aid from all directions.
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Britians economy is turning out to be one of the worst in europe, everyone thinks of them as a rock in europe but they are far from it, it is being bled dry.
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If you are going to post ads why not do the honorable thing and pay Joerg for it? Otherwise its just a cheat and likely to backfire because I know many people that will never buy goods from this type of spam.
I think US fear of radical Islam is no more than a slogan, and I bet that the "US prophets of Europe doom" do not believe a single word of what they want to tell us.
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California's Pepperdine University is hosting a conference about the Eurabia nonsense. Some of the topics of discussions have a few questionmarks, but it is clear in which direction they are going. Some samples: 1. What has been the role of Islam and Comments ()
Tracked: May 24, 12:20