August 7, 2007
Europe
Cannot Begin Again
By Jon N. Hall
Europe is committing suicide.
A century ago, however, the nations of Europe were the Masters of the
Universe. Their far-flung empires girded the globe. Europe had the biggest,
the best, and the most of everything. Then everything went to hell. The
relatively peaceful century after Napoleon I ended with World War I, which
led to WWII. Europe lost her preeminence and her empires, and fell under
the protectorate of a former colony.
Europe was brought low by a century of horrible political leadership.
From Asquith, to Wilhelm II, to Clemenceau, to Chamberlain, to the fascists,
to de Gaulle, to the traitors of The Euro-Arab Dialogue, to the bureaucrats
at EU headquarters, Europe’s leaders have been one disaster after
another. For every Churchill there’s been a gaggle of scoundrels,
incompetents, and dummies with delusions of national, if not personal,
grandeur.
Europe is a fallen continent. Her blunders, failures, and sins over the
last century are legion. The most cataclysmic events of the last century
all started in Europe, dragging in the rest of the world and killing millions.
The Holocaust was not so very long ago, yet naked anti-Semitism is again
common in Europe. European Jewry is again under attack, and Jews are again
emigrating. Europe seems to have learned nothing.
But today Europe has made a stunning reversal: Instead of marching on
her neighbors, Europe is allowing herself to be trampled on. Europe now
suffers from an entirely new disorder: the terminal disease of “softness”.
Except for the Brits, the Euros have only token militaries. They can’t
project power, not like the American military. So the Euros shamelessly
sit back and let America defend them. They couldn’t even handle
the breakup of Yugoslavia without American help. Perhaps all the fight
got bred out of the Euros with the loss of generations of young warriors
at places like Kursk and the Somme. (The loss of so much good European
manhood might also explain why Europe hasn’t produced a Mozart lately.)
Make no mistake: Europe IS committing suicide. But then the Euros have
been working on this little project since 1914. Only now they’re
getting serious about it, stepping up the pace. And they seem helpless
to reverse course.
The demographers have done the math, and it is well nigh certain that
unless something is done, and soon, Muslim immigration and breeding, combined
with the low birthrates of native Europeans, will transform Europe into
a Muslim-majority continent in this century. Europe will cease being Europe.
Europe will become Eurabia. The wellspring of Western Civilization will
be—gone. And it will stand as the greatest tragedy in history.
So did America actually sacrifice the lives of 405,000 of her brave boys
in WWII just so Europe could be taken over by barbarians led by insane
medieval religious zealots?
More and more the answer is trending yes. But speaking of sacrifice, let’s
not forget the 116,000 American military deaths in the Great War, the
1.4 million American military casualties in both World Wars, and the countless
billions of Yankee dollars spent since 1917 on behalf of this suicidal
continent. Has America been a bunch of patsies?
Here’s Bruce Bawer quoting
Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard on Europe’s future:
Unless they build up a cadre of intellectuals in Europe who can think,”
he said, America “can kiss Europe good-bye.” The Continent’s
future, he predicted, “is going to be vastly different than we
imagine…. It’s going to be war. Like Lebanon,” with
some enclaves dominated by Christians and others by Muslims. There will
be “permanent strife,” and no one will have the “power
to mollify or mediate… It will be more gruesome than we can imagine.”
When the horror comes, he warned, the journalists who helped bring it
about will “wag their heads and flee—and leave it to those
who can’t flee to fight it out.
[While Europe Slept, pp. 188-189]
(“When the horror comes”? Well if it hasn’t already
come, the Euros shouldn’t expect another American bailout when the
horror does come, as the new wisdom in the U.S. is to stay out of civil
wars.)
How YOU can help save Europe:
Analysts like Tony Blankley and Mark
Steyn have produced detailed strategies to counter Europe’s
descent. Primarily, these are actions to be taken by government.
But is there anything the average American citizen can do all by himself
to help save Europe from her madcap rush into oblivion?
Yes: YOU can stop doing business with Europe. When you buy European products
you are doing nothing less than funding the dissolution of the Europe
that America once admired but no longer recognizes. Besides, buying European
just props up their socialist systems. And according to Mark Steyn, “the
vast majority of Islamic terrorists in Europe are on welfare”.
It has been said: “when you drive alone, you drive with Osama”.
Which merely means that terrorism is blowback from buying petroleum. A
corollary to that is this: When you buy European, you’re subsidizing
the establishing of a caliphate in Europe, complete with Shari’a
law, dhimmitude, honor
killings, ritual female genital mutilation, stoning, beheadings, and
all those charming things that come with Muslim culture.
Caution: This boycott is meant only for Old
Europe. New Europe we need to nurture. So please continue to do business
with the former Soviet bloc. The boycott also stipulates a ban on travel
in Old Europe. But you can still vacation in New Europe. Consider a visit
to the Czech Republic, Hungary, or the Baltic states. And remember: This
is your own personal boycott, not the boycott of a faction or a government.
So YOU call the shots.
After the Danish cartoon flap and the ensuing Muslim boycott of Danish
goods, folks were urged to buy Danish to support free expression. And
recently Fox News superstar Bill O’Reilly lifted his boycott of
France in response to France’s good sense in electing Nicolas Sarkozy.
Solidarity with the besieged and rewarding good decisions are reasonable.
And since this is your boycott you might opt to give Denmark or France
a break, and focus your boycott on those nations
still in denial. You might decide to target your boycott at the Netherlands
for its shameful treatment
of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Or how about Sweden?
In all of Europe, Sweden has the most insane immigration policy. How can
any decent American even think of buying a Saab or a Volvo when Swedish
authorities are so blasé about the
rape of native Swedish women by Muslim immigrants? What can one say
about a country that won’t protect its women?
This boycott is not to be taken up lightly; Europe’s economies will
be hurt. But that’s the point: to jar Europe to her senses. If Europe’s
harbors and warehouses were piling up with goods that couldn’t be
sold, if its cities were devoid of American tourists, if Europe could
no longer take America for granted, then maybe just maybe Old Europe would
wake up and do something.
This boycott is launched neither out of malice nor rancor for the good
folks of Europe. No one wants to hurt them. But the sooner Europe begins
to tackle this problem, the better her chances for survival. When we see
real commitment to change and real results, then we can think about lifting
our boycotts.
What’s wrong with Europe?
Despite Europe’s sorry history over the last century, the American
left thinks Europe is the font of all sophistication,
and is forever telling us: America needs to be just like Europe.
But when it comes to government, Europeans are just plain backward. And
the backwardness of European governments trickles down and corrupts their
citizenry. The Euro masses have gotten so used to sucking at the public
teat, they’re never gonna let go. That’s why you see those
French farmers and students rioting in the streets about even the smallest
adjustments to their precious welfare state.
Europe’s socialist states are founded on fatal flaws. Europe’s
social programs are unsustainable; they are doomed, and would be even
without the Islamist threat. Indeed, one of the reasons Europe imported
the Muslims was to keep her welfare systems going. But when the caliphate
comes, Europe will bid her socialist utopias a fond bon voyage, auf
Wiedersehen, or their Arab equivalents.
In his 1964 book Suicide of the West, James Burnham wrote that
‘what Americans call “liberalism” is the ideology of
Western suicide’ [p. 26]. If Burnham is correct, could conservatism
be the ideology of “Western survival”, and the cure for what
ails Europe?
Alas, Europe has no lusty tradition of anything Americans would call conservatism.
Yes, there was Margaret Thatcher. But “the Iron Lady” was
the exception; Europeans rarely have a limited-government alternative
to vote for. Usually, Euros must choose between competing brands of statism:
what Americans call “liberalism”.
Contrary to America’s elite left, Europe needs to be more like America.
Europe needs to sharply ratchet back her welfare programs, institute workfare,
cut tax rates, privatize, increase military spending, and require more
of her citizens. But the most important thing Europe should do is to start
thinking differently.
Though Europe has a far longer history than does America, America is nonetheless
the granddaddy of nations. This is not because we have more missiles and
aircraft carriers. It’s because we have the better system. Since
1789 America has enjoyed a continuity and a stability that Europeans can
only dream of. Europe may have produced Mozart, but America produced Madison.
Government is what America does, it’s what America is good at; Europe
isn’t really very good at it.
Which explains why Europe must continually be reinventing herself. Take
France: Since 1789 the governments of France have numbered well into the
double digits. Every few years we see the rollout of a “new and
improved” France, or the latest model of a reengineered Germany.
It’s like certain webmasters forever fiddling with their website’s
design; Europe just can’t seem to ever get it quite right.
The superiority of America’s system and of her founding ideas is
so obvious it needs no debate. But sum it up like this: America can afford
to spend billions to defend Europe and the Free World, keep the sea lanes
open, protect the world’s energy supply so the oil keeps flowing,
and still beat Europe economically. Yet, the American left asks us to
believe in the superiority of Europe. But that’s crazy talk—America
isn’t dying.
Epistle to the Europeans:
My dear friends in the Old Country,
Speaking on Muslim immigration, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn told his
party leadership, “…this is about the future of your children…There
is no other issue.”
Decent Europeans must then ask themselves: What has brought us to this
dreadful pass?
Despite your sophistication and nuance, we Americans may be better able
to answer this question than you Europeans: Your problem, yet again, is
your leadership. It is your leadership that has brought you, yet again,
to the edge of the abyss. And it’s more than the usual corruption
and venality (see Chirac); your politicians are colluding with the Islamists,
wooing them, vying for their votes. But your problem is not only your
politicians; it’s your entire cultural elite: your intellectuals,
your academics, and your media. Your elite is possessed by a set of very,
very bad ideas. And your elite seems only to be getting worse, if that’s
possible. An example is the poetry-writing Dominique de Villepin, who
is an admirer of Napoleon, one of history’s monsters.
What you Euros need is a wholesale purge of your elites. The elections
of Merkel and Sarkozy are only first steps, and baby steps at that. If
need be you must do as the sainted and martyred Pim Fortuyn did: create
new political parties. You must vote out the establishment and vote in
a new army of patriots who won’t sell you out, who won’t betray
you. You must demand that your state-financed media begin being fair and
balanced, and that it carry opposing points of view. (The homogeneity
of your media is pathetic.) You must launch new media of your own, founded
on patriotism. You must replace your treasonous professors. In short,
if you wish to save Europe and your civilization you must do—whatever
it takes, even if it means the breakup of the EU.
And while you’re at it, you need to start having babies again, and
fast.
Outside the West, the world is a pretty bleak affair. But with a global
caliphate the world will be a Hell, a Hell in which your children will
live.
The future of Freedom in Europe:
It’s getting late, and if Europe is to avoid the New Dark Ages that
Steyn predicts, you need to act NOW. To spur such action, reflect on what
you’re about to lose.
The fundament of what you will lose is Freedom. All else that you hold
dear is built upon the foundation of Freedom. The entire history of the
West can be seen as one long painful march towards Freedom. Yes, we’ve
had our setbacks and detours, our helots and plantation slaves. But the
West kept slogging on, ended slavery, and extended full rights to former
slaves. Only in the West can the Common Man live in dignity and hope.
But Freedom can degenerate into license unless in the service of a higher
cause. And this is the core of the problem in Europe—Nihilism. This
is where the Islamists have an edge on you. They believe in something,
and you don’t. And with your loss of belief, you’re unwilling
to sacrifice. So the Islamists sneer at Freedom. What good is it?
Contrary to certain Muslim propagandists, the word “Islam”
does NOT mean “peace”—it means “submission”.
Islamism is an ideology of submission, a breed of fascism, entirely totalitarian.
There can be no accommodation, no middle ground—only submission.
So, I submit to you: If you can believe neither in God nor Western Civilization
nor Freedom, try believing in your children.
If you cannot do that, then Europe is not worth saving.
Besides Freedom, you are about to lose your Identity. Will your new Muslim
overlords allow you to keep the Vatican and Chartres? Or will they destroy
them, like the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan’s ancient Buddhist
statues? But perhaps your structures will be spared destruction if they
are sufficiently Islamized. Maybe they’ll look better adorned with
minarets. Or maybe your loss of Faith makes you indifferent to the fate
of Christendom’s monuments.
One of the dearest things you Euros will lose is your Self Respect. For
after 1,300 years of success at fighting these guys, yours will be the
generation that lost it all. But how will you have lost? In pitched battles?
Or by doing not a damned thing? And if Europe is lost, you will not be
worthy of your great ancestors nor the great civilization your forefathers
bequeathed you. Your sin will be more egregious than Esau’s: Rather
than selling your birthright for a mess of potage, you will have given
away your children’s inheritance. And why? Because you just couldn’t
be bothered?
You’ll also lose—and let us not minimize its importance—fun.
You still like fun, don’t you? Fun has been an important element
in Western advances, in addition to being a value in itself. But will
the caliphate allow you any fun? Will they ban kite flying as did the
Taliban in Afghanistan? How would old Ben Franklin have discovered electricity?
And you’ll also lose modernity, prosperity, and just about everything
you cherish and take for granted. It will all be ground to dust. (Ah yes,
the sophisticated European elites, they just love the smell of napalm
in the morning.)
If Europe is to survive, Europe must change. Europe must get past the
humiliation and loss of the last century. Dwelling on the sins of your
fathers won’t get you anywhere. Instead, you must focus on pre-1914
Europe, the 2,500 years of glory and advancement. Hearken back to when
Europe was great. That is your heritage.
Should resistance prove futile:
If Europe is to be Islamist, Europe cannot have the bomb.
If it becomes apparent that a tipping point is about to be reached and
that Europe will soon be Islamist, Europe will be on the brink of becoming
the still-civilized world’s mortal enemy. Europe will then be required
to open up her arsenals and give the still-civilized world her WMDs and
any significant conventional weaponry. Failure to comply will be answered
with extreme prejudice.
So you see, you Euros have more to fear than just the Islamists. And another
thing: If America, yet again, has to save Europe, we’re going to
present you with a bill for services rendered. This time you pay. So you
might as well save yourselves this time around. Since you’re about
to lose everything anyway, what have you got to lose? So saddle up, and
gird your loins.
However, one can’t hold out much hope for a continent rediscovering
its lost manhood when it’s led by the likes of a Dominique de Villepin,
the guy with the important hair. (By the way, isn’t “Dominique”
a girl’s name?)
When things start getting ugly, you Euros mustn’t think you can
just load up your new super-jumbo Airbuses and come to America. We’re
tired of being your safety valve, and we have our own immigration problems.
Besides, you boys need to stay and fight the barbarians. (But since you’ve
never properly appreciated them, America will take all your Jews, especially
the Einsteins and the Mahlers, thank you very much.)
Coda:
One hopes to spend one’s dotage smelling the roses, catching up
on one’s reading, and listening to Mahler. (Without the heaven-storming
Mahler, the world would be a mistake.) But now one must worry about what
kind of world awaits the grandkids.
It’s the damnedest thing. The Euros are supposed to be sophisticated.
How could they have been so idiotic? Can’t anyone over there think
anymore? The thought of Europe going Islamist is hateful to any real American.
It’s monumentally ugly, like minarets atop Parliament.
What has happened in Europe over the last 30 some years is the most horrendous
mistake Europe has ever made. It threatens Europe’s existence more
seriously than the Huns, the Mongols, the Soviets, and earlier Muslim
invasions. It is a “reverse Trojan Horse” carried out on a
continental scale. And more than anything else, it complicates the resistance
to jihad. It makes America’s work all the harder. And it relegates
Europe to something far less than a full partner in the continuing march
towards Freedom.
The War for Civilization is a millennial struggle. It is bigger and more
dangerous than WWII or the Cold War. They say it will last for decades.
And Europe is AWOL.
There are 2 types of Americans: those forever changed by 9/11, and everybody
else. One wonders what it will take for a second type of European to emerge.
Europe cannot begin again. Can America exist alone?
Essential reading:
America Alone, by Mark Steyn, 2006
While Europe Slept, by Bruce Bawer, 2006
The Force of Reason, by Orianna Fallaci, 2006
The Death of the West, by Patrick J. Buchanan, 2002
The West’s Last Chance, by Tony Blankley, 2005
|
|
