The Eurabia Myth

UPDATED AT BOTTOM OF POST


Writers such as Mark Steyn and Bat Ye'or have been predicting, for the past several years, that Europe is destined to fall to its Muslims inhabitants due to the twin fates of demographics and lethargy. While I respect Mark Steyn, and believe his points to be salient and important, I do not share his pessimism as to the fate of Europe

However, that does not mean that I think all will be well with Europe. It has always been my opinion that Europe will be what Europe always has been; a land of brutal and barbaric defenders of what they perceive to be their culture.

It looks like Ralph Peters agrees with me (Hat tip to Olivia):


November 26, 2006 -- A RASH of pop prophets tell us that Muslims in Europe are reproducing so fast and European societies are so weak and listless that, before you know it, the continent will become "Eurabia," with all those topless gals on the Riviera wearing veils.

Well, maybe not.

The notion that continental Europeans, who are world-champion haters, will let the impoverished Muslim immigrants they confine to ghettos take over their societies and extend the caliphate from the Amalfi Coast to Amsterdam has it exactly wrong.

The endangered species isn't the "peace loving" European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent's Muslims immigrants - and their multi-generation descendents - who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.

In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds.

Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.

THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.

The year 1492 wasn't just big for Columbus. It's also when Spain expelled its culturally magnificent Jewish community en masse - to be followed shortly by the Moors, Muslims who had been on the Iberian Peninsula for more than 800 years.

Jews got the boot elsewhere in Europe, too - if they weren't just killed on the spot. When Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice," it's a safe bet he'd never met a Jew. The Chosen People were long-gone from Jolly Olde England.

From the French expulsion of the Huguenots right down to the last century's massive ethnic cleansings, Europeans have never been shy about showing "foreigners and subversives" the door.

And Europe's Muslims don't even have roots, by historical standards. For the Europeans, they're just the detritus of colonial history. When Europeans feel sufficiently provoked and threatened - a few serious terrorist attacks could do it - Europe's Muslims will be lucky just to be deported.

Sound impossible? Have the Europeans become too soft for that sort of thing? Has narcotic socialism destroyed their ability to hate? Is their atheism a prelude to total surrender to faith-intoxicated Muslim jihadis?

The answer to all of the above questions is a booming "No!" The Europeans have enjoyed a comfy ride for the last 60 years - but the very fact that they don't want it to stop increases their rage and sense of being besieged by Muslim minorities they've long refused to assimilate (and which no longer want to assimilate).

WE don't need to gloss over the many Muslim acts of barbarism down the centuries to recognize that the Europeans are just better at the extermination process. From the massacre of all Muslims and Jews (and quite a few Eastern Christians) when the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099 to the massacre of all the Jews in Buda (not yet attached to Pest across the Danube) when the "liberating" Habsburg armies retook the citadel at the end of the 17th century, Europeans have just been better organized for genocide.

It's the difference between the messy Turkish execution of the Armenian genocide and the industrial efficiency of the Holocaust. Hey, when you love your work, you get good at it.

Far from enjoying the prospect of taking over Europe by having babies, Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time. When a third of French voters have demonstrated their willingness to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front - a party that makes the Ku Klux Klan seem like Human Rights Watch - all predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.


I'd love to hear what our European contributors have to say about this article.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn responds via Powerline:


I don’t know whether Mr Peters is referring to my book, because, as usual when this particular columnist comes out swinging, he prefers to confront unnamed generalized opponents: thus, he refers to “a rash of pop pundits” predicting Europe will become Eurabia. Dismissing with airy condescension “a rash” of anonymities means you avoid having to deal with specific arguments.

Had he read America Alone, for example, he would know that I do, indeed, foresee a revival of Fascism in Europe. He concludes: “All predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.” Which of us predicted anything about “going gently”? As I write on page 105 of my book: “It’s true that there are many European populations reluctant to go happily into the long Eurabian night.” What I point out, though, is that, even if you’re hot for a new Holocaust, demography tells. There are no Hitlers to hand. When Mr Peters cites the success of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front, he overlooks not only Le Pen’s recent overtures to Muslims but also the fact that M Le Pen is pushing 80. As a general rule, when 600 octogenarians are up against 200 teenagers, bet on the teens. In five or ten years’ time, who precisely is going to organize mass deportations from French cities in which the native/Muslim youth-population ratio is already – right now - 55/45?

As I’ve said innumerable times, the native European population is split three ways: some will leave, as the Dutch (and certain French) are already doing; some will shrug and go along with the Islamization of the continent, as the ever-accelerating number of conversions suggests; and so the ones left to embrace Fascism will be a minority of an aging population. It will be bloody and messy, as I write in America Alone, but it will not alter the final outcome. If you don’t breed, you can’t influence the future. And furthermore a disinclination to breed is a good sign you don’t care much about the future. That’s why the Spaniards, who fought a brutal bloody civil war for their country in the 1930s, folded instantly after those Madrid bombings. When you’ve demographically checked out of the future, why fight for it?

Ralph Peters is late to this debate. If he’s going to join the discussion, he might do better to tackle the facts. But that would require him to acknowledge real specifics rather than “a rash of pop pundits”. You’ll notice that his column and mine differ not just in their approach to worldviews but in their approach to argument: mine cites four specific persons, their actions and assertions; his boldly batters anonymous generalizations. I know which I regard as more effective.


My response is that just because a few cities are destined to have a Muslim majority in a few years does not mean that Europe itself is destined to have a Muslim majority. France, for instance, is approximately 10% Muslim. England is approximately 2% Muslim. That's an awful long way from a majority.

As to the aging population argument. That is trickier I do admit, but the Euros do still run things, and that, of course, means they own everything, including all the big guns.

As for the notion that there are no Hitlers on the horizon, Mark Steyn knows history well enough to know that Hitler came out of nowhere and rose to power pretty damned quickly. Believe me, there are young men out there who see their opportunity to change the course of history. As long as there is youth, there is ambition. Hopefully, they will have a vision for a better course of action than that of Hitler.

When I participated in a group interview with Mark Steyn, I posed the question to him of whether he was aware that, in the aftermath of 9/11, we had a baby boom in the United States? The reality is, when a civilization is subject to a mortal threat, the instinctual response is the opposite of what one would expect. People do not curl up and say, well, the future looks dark, we'd better not have children. Instead, they say to themselves, our civilization is worthwhile, I want to pass it on.

I know this from personal experience, because this is exactly the decision my wife and I made after 9/11, and we were joined by countless friends. A huge group of women within our circle of friends were all pregnant at the same time.

Europe is going to fight and it is going to win.