A World Without Europe
(except as a geographic expression)
Brother, it ain't all bad.
What's Europe done for us, after all? Dragged us onto not one but
Yes, Europe's done all that.
But then there were Greece and Rome, England and Switzerland. Leonidas' three-hundred and the even more admirable seven- hundred Thespians. Salamis and Platea. Horatius Cocles. The Parthenon and the Pantheon. William Tell and the Magna Carta.
Sempach and Stirling Castle. Roads, laws, engineering, science, philosophy. Democracy. Us.
Only a cold blooded, ungrateful bastard wouldn't shed a tear when only the barbarian foot trods the pass at Thermopylae. That, or someone like left-wing icon Susan Sontag, who said:
"Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history."
Note that the late Ms. Sontag once did apologize for that remark, but only to the cancerous.
This is probably as good a time as any to say that most Moslems in Europe today are not nuts. Anecdotally, I offer into evidence an achingly beautiful Turkish girl named Lale whom I met and chatted with once in Schiphol Airport, just south of Amsterdam, in 1999. Lale was Turkish only by parentage. She spoke German primarily and very little Turkish. She'd been a model for German magazines. She was dating or engaged to a German (I misremember which) and intended to
I don't think Lale was all that atypical. Many, perhaps even most, Moslems in Europe might like to become Europeans, insiders rather than outsiders, given the chance. It's not clear they are, or will be, given that chance.
But is Europe,
As of this writing (11 September, 2007) Brussels is the capital of the European Union. Brussels is ruled by the Socialist Party. Of the eighteen members of the Brussels City Council who are in that ruling Socialist Party block, ten are apparently Muslim. Does this prove Brussels is majority Muslim? No, not at all. If Muslims made up a majority this little tidbit wouldn't be so interesting. Rather, it shows that something considerably less than a majority is required to rule a political entity.
As Brussels, the capital of the EU, goes, so goes . . .
Well, we don't know.
Leaving aside a couple of fringe stands, there are basically four theories on the future of Europe. These are:
1. Differentials in birthrates condemn Europe to a) a Muslim majority and b) non-Muslim Europeans to second class citizen status and barbarism, more or less soon. This is Mark Steyn's position for a), and absolutely the position of the Koran, the Sunna, and the Hadiths for b).
2. The Europeans are nuts. However weak they may seem now, before they go under they'll go fascist, if not outright Nazi. The Moslems are heading for the ghettoes and the gas chambers, not rule over the Continent. I think this is, more or less, Ralph Peters' position.
3. Europe will become majority Muslim, but it will be okay so long as we've treated them well while we were the majority. This is basically the progressive position.
4. Problem? What problem? So long as I get my five weeks paid vacation yearly, guaranteed job security, universal health care, etc.—all of which are my right because I am in the position to rob the future for them—there is no problem. Let the future care for the future; I got mine. This appears to be the basic European citizen's position, with some not inconsequential dissent. (Note: for some of the dissenters, check the obituaries.)
