Mark Steyn and Ralph Peters see the future of Europe very differently. Each draws on data from the past or present and extrapolates it into the future. Very different futures indeed. It is hard to tell who is right, or if either of them are correct.

But notice that there is some similarity to their predictions. Each of them says that something’s got to give. Either (a) Europe has to change to become something that is today unrecognizeable, or (b) Europeans will deport the Muslims in their midst. It is likely that they are both right that something’s got to give. There is no equilibrium in the current situation.

We are in the midst of an extremely strange and volatile time. Islamic sharia law is a backwards approach to societal organization that produces horrible results for economic well-being and for liberty wherever it rules; if it were being marketed by the Shakers or the Amish, it would be an historical oddity, nothing more. However, Islam is an incredibly aggressive, prosletyzing religion that has a proud history of the sword. Its firebrands believe it is God’s will to impose a backwards society on the whole world, with them in charge.

Backwards systems that guarantee poverty and slavery can be imposed upon mankind. The USSR lasted 75 years from its founding in 1917, but starved and killed tens of millions of its own people to do so. Mao’s China likewise killed tens of millions of its people for decades, and enslaved hundreds of millions more, before coming to a felicitous rapprochement with capitalism twenty years ago. So slavery and backwardness can win, at least for a period of time.

What most concerns us is this. An intelligent, millennarian Muslim who thought about these issues in depth might come to the (correct) conclusion that his Jihad was not really against Israel or the United States — they might be Satans, all right, but the real Great Satan is the Modern World itself. Unless the Modern World is itself destroyed, economic progress, technology and wealth and ease would again rise up to mock God’s perfect 7th century sharia paradise. Might such a man not destroy the Modern World for his God? What do you think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will do with his nuclear weapons?

Steyn and Peters are both correct. Something’s got to give.

UPDATE

There is a bit of a Steyn v. Peters debate going on at Powerline.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 10:53 am and is filed under China, General, Iran, Religion, War, business, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.