Clarion Call

When assessing the crisis of radical Islam facing contemporary Europe, Americans may be tempted to shrug and say that it is only Europe's problem, and it serves Europeans right for allowing the easily preventable problem to occur in the first place. In Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too, author Claire Berlinski maintains that while Europeans may have ignored the spread of radical Islam to their ultimate peril, it would not behoove Americans to simply categorize the matter as solely being Europe's problem. For Berlinski believes that the central cause of Europe's crisis is one that could easily unfold in America in the near future (and one may argue, has already begun to develop): a lack of spiritual centeredness that has caused Europeans to look for replacements ranging from faddish weight-loss programs to bizarre musical trends – resulting in a lack of moral fortitude amongst native Europeans against a variant of Islam that demands submission and brooks no dissent.

Like Bruce Bawer, the author of While Europe Slept (reviewed yesterday on this blog), Berlinski is an American who has spent a substantial portion of her life in Europe. However, her analysis differs sharply from that of Bawer. For example, Berlinski's viewpoint of the crisis comes from having spent much time living in Great Britain and France, resulting in a perspective quite different from that forged by Bawer's experiences in the Netherlands and Norway. In yesterday's review of Bawer's book, I noted how Bawer noted a difference in how immigrants were treated in the Netherlands versus the United States. In the former, immigrants are dealt with as a community and are not expected to assimilate, whereas in the United States, the opposite tends to be true.

Correct as that observation may be, the official policy of France, notes Berlinski, is to treat all citizens – native-born and immigrant alike, as rights bearing individuals within the French Republic rather than as members of various ethnicities or nationalities. However, in the books fourth chapter, Berlinski convincingly argues that the approach of addressing Muslims (and Jews and Christians) as a community has worked remarkably well in Marseilles, which was spared the violent Muslim rioting that spread across France just a few years ago. Comparing and contrasting the accounts of Bawer and Berlinski, it seems apparent that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of Islamic radicalism – a solution that works in one country may not work in another. That fact alone makes predictions of European political unity in the near future (if ever) seem dubious at best.

The chapter that fascinated me most, though, was the third, entitled "White Teeth." The name of the chapter is a reference to a novel by the same name – written by Zadie Smith – about the immigrant experience in contemporary Britain. I suppose I felt drawn to this particular chapter because of my own background; growing up as someone of mixed ethnicity, my father being "Anglo" (a nonsensical term as his ethnic background is French-Canadian with a bit of Chippewa) and my mother being Hispanic (albeit from a family that has been American for seven generations). Spending my teenage years living in the city of Laredo, Texas, I went through the bizarre experience of being an effective alien in a city founded by a direct ancestor of mine in 1755. The reason? My Spanish-speaking skills are poor, I have a non-Hispanic surname, and I don't "look Hispanic" – the latter of the three being quite ridiculous as "Hispanic" is a cultural designation, not a racial one. Hispanics can be (and are) white, black, American Indian, or a mixture thereof.

But getting back to Berlinski's book, in the third chapter she illuminates the experiences of second-generation British Muslim, showing that most do not fall prey to radical Islam's deadly lure. However, even to second or third-generation British Muslims, radical Islam can hold some appeal because contemporary British culture does not offer anything of similar religious value up in response. Writing of secular Britain's "empty flabbiness," Berlinski interviews a British psychotherapist named Phiroze Nemuchwala who has lately focused his practice "on imparting those common religious values that , he believes, give life meaning. " Dr. Nemuchwala explains:

Until recently in Europe it was about serving Christ…What I try to get across to them [his patients] is that there has been this current of thought in world thinking for three or four thousand years, and that certain things are agreed to be deeply meaningful and certain things are agreed to be not so. I call them the true deliverers of the Good Life. I contrast this with false deliverers, things that promise to deliver but don't really – the obvious ones being money, sex, fame.

So if such false deliverers are not viable alternatives, and true Christianity is no longer around to fill the void, then what else may act as a substitute? Toward the end of the book, Berlinski writes of the popularity of a German rock band named Rammstein, which incorporates Nazi-like imagery into its musical lyrics and live concerts. This would seem to indicate a possible resurgence of fascism – something New York Post columnist Ralph Peters wrote of late in 2006:

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.

But others, like military science-fiction author Tom Kratman, perceive a different outcome. In the afterword to his latest novel, Caliphate, Kratman writes:

Ralph Peters thinks the Europeans will revert to type and crush the Muslims long before they become a problem. To this I think there are two answers.

One obvious answer is that Islam is already a problem, in many places (my Ouija board says Theo Van Gogh and Pym Fortuyn will vouch for that much), and there appears to be no crushing in the offing. The other answer, perhaps in its way more obvious, is that one must have a commitment to the future and fight for that future…or to commit genocide for it. Where is the broad-based commitment to the future?

…the average, typical and normal European is committed to hedonism and the sense of security in the present and could care less about the future. This is the stuff death squads and Einsatzgruppen are made of? Puhleeze! Where are the children who will form those death squads? The Euros couldn't be bothered having them.

Having to choose between a fascist resurgence and an Islamist takeover is like having to choose which hand you want cut off. I am hoping that neither course will be taken, but from what Berlinski, Peters, and Kratman write, that may be a forlorn hope indeed.