THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 100, April 14, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
EUROPE OR EURABIA?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE & ITS CULTURE: ISLAMIC DOMINATION OF THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT, EUROPE'S
REJECTION OF ISLAM & ISLAMIFICATION, OR HARMONIOUS INTEGRATION OF MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS INTO EUROPEAN
SOCIETIES -- THE DIFFICULTY OF IMAGINING ANY OTHER FUTURE SCENARIO FOR WESTERN EUROPE THAN ITS BECOMING
ISLAMICIZED OR HAVING A CIVIL WAR
FULL STORY:
The future of Europe is in play. Will it turn into "Eurabia," a part of the Muslim world? Will it remain the distinct cultural
unit it has been over the last millennium? Or might there be some creative synthesis of the two civilizations?
The answer has vast importance. Europe may constitute a mere 7 percent of the world's landmass, but for five hundred
years, 1450-1950, for good and ill, it was the global engine of change. How it develops in the future will affect all humanity,
and especially daughter countries such as Australia which still retain close and important ties to the old continent.
I foresee potentially one of three paths for Europe: Muslims dominating, Muslims rejected, or harmonious integration.
FIRST PATH: MUSLIM DOMINATION OF EUROPE
Muslim domination strikes some analysts as inevitable. Oriana Fallaci found that "Europe becomes more and more a
province of Islam, a colony of Islam." Mark Steyn argues that much of the Western world "will not survive the
Twenty-first Century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many, if not most, European
countries." Such authors point to three factors leading to Europe's Islamization: faith, demography, and a sense of
heritage.
The secularism that predominates in Europe, especially among its elites, leads to alienation about the Judeo-Christian
tradition, empty church pews, and a fascination with Islam. In complete contrast, Muslims display a religious fervor that
translates into jihadi sensibility, a supremacism toward non-Muslims, and an expectation that Europe is waiting for
conversion to Islam.
The contrast in faith also has demographic implications, with Christians having on average 1.4 children per woman, or
about one third less than the number needed to maintain their population, and Muslims enjoying a dramatically higher, if
falling, fertility rate. Amsterdam and Rotterdam are expected to be in about 2015 the first large majority-Muslim cities.
Russia could become a Muslim-majority country in 2050. To employ enough workers to fund existing pension plans,
Europe needs millions of immigrants and these tend to be disproportionately Muslim, due to reasons of proximity,
colonial ties, and the turmoil in majority-Muslim countries.
In addition, many Europeans no longer cherish their history, mores, and customs. Guilt about Fascism, racism, and
imperialism leave many with a sense that their own culture has less value than that of immigrants. Such self-disdain has
direct implications for Muslim immigrants, for, if Europeans shun their own ways, why should immigrants adopt them?
When added to the already-existing Muslim hesitations over much that is Western, and especially what concerns
sexuality, the result are Muslim populations that strongly resist assimilation.
The logic of this first path leads to Europe ultimately becoming an extension of North Africa.
SECOND PATH: EUROPE'S REJECTION OF ISLAM
The first path is not inevitable. Indigenous Europeans could resist Muslim domination and, as they make up 95 percent
of the continent's population, they can, at any time, reassert control, should they see Muslims posing a threat to a
valued way of life.
This impulse can already be seen at work in the French anti-hijab legislation or in Geert Wilders' film, Fitna.
Anti-immigrant parties gain in strength; a potential nativist movement is taking shape across Europe, as political parties
opposed to immigration focus increasingly on Islam and Muslims. These parties include the British National Party,
Belgium's Vlaamse Belang, France's Front National, the Austrian Freedom Party, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands,
the Danish People's Party, and the Swedish Democrats.
They will likely continue to grow as immigration surges ever higher, with mainstream parties paying and expropriating
their anti-Islamic message. Should Nationalist parties gain power, they will likely seek to reject multiculturalism, cut back
on immigration, encourage repatriation of immigrants, support Christian institutions, increase indigenous European
birthrates, and broadly attempt to re-establish traditional ways.
Muslim alarm will likely follow. American author Ralph Peters sketches a scenario in which "U.S. Navy ships are at
anchor and U.S. Marines have gone ashore at Brest, Bremerhaven, or Bari to guarantee the safe evacuation of Europe's
Muslims." Peters concludes that, because of European's "ineradicable viciousness," its Muslims "are living on borrowed
time" As Europeans have "perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing," Muslims, he predicts, "will be lucky just to be
deported," rather than killed. Indeed, Muslims worry about just such a fate; since the 1980s, they have spoken overtly
about Muslims being sent to gas chambers.
Violence by indigenous Europeans cannot be precluded, but Nationalist efforts will more likely take place less violently; if
any one is likely to initiate violence, it is the Muslims. They have already engaged in many acts of violence and seem to
be spoiling for more. Surveys indicate, for instance, that about 5 percent of British Muslims endorse the 7/7 transport
bombings. In brief, a European reassertion will likely lead to on-going civil strife, perhaps a more lethal version of the Fall,
2005, riots in France.
THIRD PATH: HARMONIOUS INTEGRATION
The ideal outcome has indigenous Europeans and immigrant Muslims finding a way to live together harmoniously and
create a new synthesis. A 1991 study, La France, une chance pour l'Islam (France, an Opportunity for Islam)
by Jeanne-Helene Kaltenbach and Pierre Patrick Kaltenbach promoted this idealistic approach. Despite all, this optimism
remains the conventional wisdom, as suggested by an Economist leader of 2006 which concluded that, dismissed
for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia is "scaremongering."
This is the view of most politicians, journalists and academics, but it has little basis in fact. Yes indigenous Europeans
could yet rediscover their Christian faith, make more babies, and again cherish their heritage. Yes, they could encourage
non-Muslim immigration and acculturate Muslims already living in Europe. Yes, Muslim could accept historic Europe. But,
not only are such developments not now underway, their prospects are dim. In particular, young Muslims are cultivating
grievances and nursing ambitions at odds with their neighbors.
One can virtually dismiss from consideration the prospect of Muslims accepting historic Europe and integrating within it.
U.S. columnist Dennis Prager agrees: "It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for Western Europe than its
becoming Islamicized or having a civil war."
But which of those two remaining paths will the continent take? Forecasting is difficult because crisis has not yet struck.
But it may not be far off. Within a decade perhaps, the continent's evolution will become clear as the Europe-Muslim
relationship takes shape.
The unprecedented nature of Europe's situation also renders a forecast exceedingly difficult. Never in history has a major
civilization peaceably dissolved, nor has a people ever risen to reclaim its patrimony. Europe's unique circumstances make
them difficult to comprehend, tempting to overlook, and virtually impossible to predict. With Europe, we all enter into terra
incognita.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in The Australian, April 15, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List,
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5516
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Europe, European States, Politics, & Public Policy
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University,
a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a former
lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes' article -- "Europe or Eurabia?" -- is derived from a talk he delivered to the Quadrant in Australia on April 13, 2008,
and appears in The Australian, April 15, 2008. He is in Australia for the Intelligence Squared Debate to take place in
Sydney on the evening of April 14.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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