Time marches on, or is that backwards?
Mark Steyn discusses ongoing events in Europe and around the world, and sees unrest growing as a function of demographic change (HT: Powerline):
Beyond the fashionable “anti-Zionism” of the Euro Left is a starker reality: The demographic energy…in almost every Western European country is “Asian.” Which is to say, Muslim. A recent government statistical survey reported that the United Kingdom’s Muslim population is increasing ten times faster than the general population. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and many other Continental cities from Scandinavia to the Côte d’Azur will reach majority Muslim status in the next few years….
the Islamicization of Europe entails certain consequences, and it might be worth exploring what these might be. There are already many points of cultural friction — from British banks’ abolition of children’s “piggy banks” to the enjoining of public doughnut consumption by Brussels police during Ramadan. And yet on one issue there is remarkable comity between the aging ethnic Europeans and their young surging Muslim populations: A famous poll a couple of years back found that 59 percent of Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.
Fifty-nine percent? What the hell’s wrong with the rest of you? Hey, relax: In Germany, it was 65 percent; Austria, 69 percent; the Netherlands, 74 percent. For purposes of comparison, in a recent poll of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — i.e., the “moderate” Arab world — 79 percent of respondents regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace…
there are occasional arcane points of dispute: one recalls, in the wake of the July 7 bombings, the then London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s somewhat tortured attempts to explain why blowing up buses in Tel Aviv is entirely legitimate whereas blowing up buses in Bloomsbury is not. Yet these are minimal bumps on a smooth glide path: The more Europe’s Muslim population grows, the more restive and disassimilated it becomes, the more enthusiastically the establishment embraces “anti-Zionism”…
In Britain in January, while “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators were permitted to dress up as hook-nosed Jews drinking the blood of Arab babies, the police ordered counter-protesters to put away their Israeli flags. In Alberta, in the heart of Calgary’s Jewish neighborhood, the flag of Hizballah (supposedly a proscribed terrorist organization) was proudly waved by demonstrators, but one solitary Israeli flag was deemed a threat to the Queen’s peace and officers told the brave fellow holding it to put it away or be arrested for “inciting public disorder.” In Germany, a student in Duisburg put the Star of David in the window of an upstairs apartment on the day of a march by the Islamist group Milli Görüs, only to have the cops smash his door down
Europe has big problems on its hands, and it’s hard to see how any of this ends well. We expect repression of law abiding citizens and their freedom of speech, and fantasy solutions like banning American talk show hosts from England. But ultimately these things cannot work — people will act out what they cannot say. What happens then?
May 10th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I think it’s safe to say that Europe is done–the only question now is whether or not we follow them down the same, dark, road in the next few decades.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:39 am
A defense mechanism is a psychological device we use to avoid the effects of stress. There are many defense mechanisms: dishonesty, daydreaming, ritual, sublimation, etc. Stressful situations that cannot be dealt with are avoided by turning our attention to less stressful situations.
This article addresses, without identifying, the displacement defense mechanism. Contemplating the Muslim threats is is too stressful, so we focus on, and blame, the Israelis, who are no threat to anyone who does not screw with them.
For ECM – Two years ago I would have said that the USA would go into Europe, for the third time in less than a century, and bring order out of the chaos that Euros are prone to. Now we have to get our house in order before we put their house in order. But Obama is creating too much chaos to be tolerated, so our house will be put in order (by Republicans, of course). Republicans have done this before; Eisenhower cleaned up the mess in Korea, Reagan cleaned up the mess from LBJ’s War on Poverty, and Bush cleaned up the mess that was the dot.com Bubba Bubble.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Fear not, when us folk in Europe have had enough we will end it. Your man Obama will have his hands full finding the extra taxes he needs now that the global warming charade is being exposed and cap and trade meets its doom.