Europe: Islamification or civil war?

April 15, 2008, Daniel Pipes:

... with Christians having on average 1.4 children a 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, in about 2015, are expected to be the first large majority-Muslim cities.

Russia could become a Muslim-majority country in 2050 ...

... self-disdain has direct implications for Muslim immigrants, for if Europeans shun their own ways, why should immigrants adopt them? When added to the existing Muslim hesitations over much that is Western, especially concerns about sexuality, the result is Muslim populations who strongly resist assimilation ...

Indigenous Europeans could resist it and, as they make up 95per cent 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 ...

Peters concludes that because of Europeans' "ineradicable viciousness", the continent's 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 being killed ...

... optimism remains the conventional wisdom, as suggested by an Economist leader in 2006 that dismissed, for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia as 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 under way, their prospects are dim. In particular, young Muslims are cultivating grievances and nursing ambitions at odds with their neighbours.

One can virtually dismiss from consideration the prospect of Muslims accepting historic Europe and integrating within it. American columnist Dennis Prager agrees: "It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for western Europe than its becoming Islamicised or having a civil war." But which of those two remaining paths will the continent take?

So who is Daniel Pipes? He is an American scholar, currently visiting Australia. He said this in 2007:

Is it not telling that great numbers of moderate Muslims see danger where so many non-Muslims are blind? Do developments in Pakistan and Turkey not confirm my oft-repeated point that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution? And do they not suggest that ignorant non-Muslim busybodies should get out of the way of those moderate Muslims who are determined to relegate radical Islamism to its rightful place in the dustbin of history?

He believes/believed in bolstering moderate Muslims:

... radical Muslims are the problem and that moderate Muslims are the solution ...

... the American government and other powerful institutions should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering, and celebrating those brave Muslims who, at personal risk, stand up and confront the totalitarians.

So does that now mean Pipes has given up on the idea of bolstering moderate Muslims? In Europe, at least, it would appear so. Lawrence Auster:

Got that? America's best known critic of "radical Islam" regards a synthesis of Islam and the West as the IDEAL outcome. He WANTS the West to be somehow half-Islamized, so long as the process is, you know, peaceful.

Unfortunately, he continues, there is "little basis in fact" for this hope ... he apparently means that both a successful Islamic assimilation in Europe and a successful Islamic "synthesis" with Europe are impossible ...

Pipes is implying a scenario in which Europeans rid their continent of Muslims, not by brutalizing and killing them (he says the Muslims will likely be more violent than the Europeans), but by "[less violent] nationalist efforts," i.e., by presumably civilized though firm steps encouraging or requiring the Muslims to leave. And here Pipes's detached approach to the problem helps our side. Though he stands back as a spectator and never expresses any positive allegiance to Europe in this coming mortal conflict, he also declines to judge the Europeans for any strong measures they may have to take to defend themselves. And perhaps that is the strongest pro-European position that Pipes is capable of. But didn't Jesus say, he who is not against us is for us?

So here we have a moderate scholar giving up hope of Muslims living peacefully in Europe. Optimism has "little basis in fact" and "not only are such developments not under way, their prospects are dim". Will Australia take note? Meanwhile, recently in France, signs of "ineradicable viciousness"? ...

French Muslim war graves defaced, 6 April 2008:

Vandals have desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest WWI cemetery, officials have said.

A pig's head was hung from one headstone and slogans insulting Islam and France's Muslim justice minister were daubed on other graves ...

About 78,000 colonial subjects of France, including many Muslims from North Africa, died in the war.

The Notre Dame de Lorette war cemetery, near Arras in northern France, is on the site of some of WWI's largest battles ...

In a similar attack in April 2007, Nazi slogans and swastikas were painted on about 50 graves in the Muslim section of the cemetery. Two men were sentenced to a year in prison for that act.

Pictures from Yahoo:






More "ineradicable viciousness" in Ukraine? ...

Vandals Desecrate Muslim Graves, 14 April 2008:

KIEV -- Vandals have desecrated a Muslim cemetery on Ukraine's Black Sea Crimea peninsula, highlighting persistent ethnic tensions in the region, officials said Friday.

The regional police said someone overturned about 40 gravestones at the cemetery outside the province's main city of Simferopol late Thursday. The attack likely reflected tensions between Muslim Tatars -- a Turkic ethnic group -- and ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in the Crimea.

Representatives of the Crimean Tatars said the vandals had written offensive signs and slogans on the cemetery's fence ...

In 1944, the Tatar population of Crimea was deported en masse on the orders of Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazis. Many have returned since 1991.

Yahoo photos:



So a scholar in favour of bolstering moderate Muslims can see no hope for his ideas in Europe. Will Australia take note and now stop Muslim immigration? Not anytime soon. They'll just say Pipes was a right-wing bigot all along, or Europe is different to Australia, or something like that, and the blind optimism (with "little basis in fact") will continue.

I am in no way condoning or encouraging such 'ineradicable viciousness', merely pointing out the signs, and acknowledging the views of Pipes who is predicting no peaceful outcome in Europe. So why would Australia believe it can do better? Not a good time to develop a superiority complex.

There are other options which Pipes has not discussed e.g. European nations cutting free their Muslim populations. But Pipes' point, that Islam and the West are not compatible, necessitates some form of separation.

UPDATE:

Swiss journalist Alain Jean-Mairet responds to Daniel Pipes:

If the practice of the Islamic religion is not categorically rejected in Europe, the future of the continent, contrary to Daniel Pipes' prediction in Europe or Eurabia, is clearly mapped out. In a word, it will be decline.

Europe is too satiated and refined, too old, too neurotic and weary, and probably could find within itself the sense of abandonment or sacrifice necessary to yield to a culture it had been forced to believe was superior. But the soul of Eurabia is that of a medieval beast, barbaric, proud and without real culture, except for the culture of lies. The union of the two could never generate a society that looks to the future.

This is because the culture of Islam itself is non-existent. At its base it is hardly more that the thick, salted and putrid sap of the desert, the tribal customs cultivated when the need to survive as a group is the dominant preoccupation. The culture attributed to it comes from conquests, pillaging, or sudden bursts of energy that impose themselves not thanks to Islam, but in spite of this spiritual black hole that the message of the prophet Mohammed really is. And so a cultural encounter between Europe and Eurabia will produce only aborted efforts. The culture of hatred and of limiting fatalism that will be spread by the mosques will prevent any new creativity from blossoming ...

What is left is a degraded unlivable situation where hatreds harden, violence becomes a daily occurrence, and the brightest people emigrate. [...] For the moment all indications are that things are getting worse, and if Europe does not succeed, in the near future, in eliminating the near totality of the practice of the Islamic religion on its territory, that is, the driving force and crucial element behind the hatred and political ascension of Islamists, it will lose the means to govern itself.

One way or another, Islam will be the future of Europe. [...] If Europeans seriously ponder this problem and its foundations, and then act with courage and determination, there is a chance they can resolve it. If they prefer to believe in their lucky star, they will soon be lying under it.