Steyn calls for the Islamization of Europe—and the L-dotters cheer

Mark Steyn, as he did a few days ago, again argues that Bush’s praise for the European Union Leviathan means nothing. Bush, as Steyn sees it, is just mouthing empty words of approval for an entity he knows is irrelevant and/or doomed, and he doesn’t see any profit in arguing against it.

But Steyn’s cynicism goes beyond mere indifference or ill will toward the statist monstrosity of the EU. Echoing many other “conservatives” today, his hostility is directed against Europe itself, so much so that he takes satisfaction at the thought of the fall of Europe, and even cheers at the thought of Moslems taking Europe over:

Europe’s problems—its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era)e has ever successfully absorbed—are all of Europe’s making. By some projections, the EU’s population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches—and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there’s no point picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr. Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.

“Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe … But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.” So, an Islamized Europe is a desirable thing. Like many desirable things, it will be difficult to achieve, but, never fear, ultimately we will get there. This is why it doesn’t matter that Bush praised the EU: not only will the EU not survive, but Europe itself will be Islamized, and this prospect of impending European catastrophe is something about which we Americans ought to feel some satisfaction, even a delicious thrill.

And notice why Steyn views an Islamized Europe favorably. Not because it will be better for Europe and Europeans, but because it will make Europe “easier for America to deal with.” In other words, an Islamized, and presumably weak, Europe will stand less in the way of America’s global ambitions than does the present Europe. In Steyn’s view, continents, nations, and peoples have the right to exist only insofar as they do not oppose the American democratist empire. Even our own civilization has the right to exist only insofar as it does not oppose the American democratist empire.

I have previously pointed to the contradiction between Steyn’s usual triumphalism and his more recent expressions of cultural pessimism about the rising power of Islam in the West. Now, apparently, he has resolved the contradiction—by looking at the Islamization of the West, and declaring it to be good.

He thus reveals the core of the emergent neocon mind, unhinged from any sense of loyalty to an inherited society. Neocons’ loyalty is only to the neocon ideology of global democratism. Europe—the cradle of Western culture, Christendom, the nation-state, the modern world, and the white race—can and will be destroyed, and that’s just fine with the neocons. As was also shown by David Gelernter’s creepy declaration that Americanism is a “Judeo-Christian religion,” the neocons are detaching themselves from any recognizable American political tradition or Western identity. Seated atop their universalist ideology as atop a space rocket, they are leaving the historical earth behind them.

Meanwhile, at Lucianne.com, there was an interminable chorus of “What a genius,” “Steyn is the greatest,” “Steyn is the best,” “Why aren’t there more like him?”, with many people cheering the death of Europe and its conquest by Islam. Indeed, the L-dotters view Europe the same way that they view the Democratic party. Just as they cheer the fact that one of America’s two major parties has gone insane and anti-American (because that spells Republican electoral dominance), they cheer the fact that Europe is going down the tubes and being taken over by Moslems (because that spells American global dominance). Any concern for the larger whole, whether of the West or of America, is gone. Conservatives have become an ideological phalanx, massed together against the world.

Thankfully, a few countervailing voices could be heard amid the general rah-rah. Here’s a sampling:

Reply 1—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 6:13:34 AM

Last time out, Steyn said he agreed with the CIA, and given the Agency’s track record, it worried him—he thought the CIA’s pessimism about the future of the EU meant the EU was destined for a glorious future. Now on further reflection, he thinks the CIA was being too generous—the EU in fact is stillborn, and Europe as an Islamic caliphate will be easier to deal with than Europe as the weaselocracy it is now.

Reply 13—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 7:41:44 AM

“Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.”

That phrase “an Islamic Europe” makes chills run up and down my spine. Whatever you think of Europe now, it’s better than a Europe under Sharia law.

Reply 14—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 8:00:42 AM

Sitting down with a bowl of popcorn, and laughing uproariously at intervals, might be a good strategy, if the stakes weren’t so deadly serious. Europe stands to become a Muslim region, as they have, for the most part, already abandoned Christianity and made the practice of Judaism almost outlawed.

The burghers’ daughters marry the dark Muslim youths, and don burkahs, as they go to the markets, and the street where the gasthaus was the center of social life falls silent, as a new mood of false decorum steals across the land. Behind closed doors, and in darkened rooms of what were once churches, now become mosques, the sentences of shar’ia law are carried out, almost always at the expense of these same burghers’ daughters, now being beaten severely for minor infractions, and unable to leave. Hell came for a visit and stayed.

Reply 15—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 8:09:15 AM

If Europe’s going Muslim so are we, just at a later date. We are already a post-Christian nation. This faith vacuum opens the door for Islam. It’s already more acceptable to teach Islam in the public schools than anything Christian. It’s time to wake up on this issue. We are fighting for our very lives here. Our grandkids can kiss this puppy goodbye and they’ll do it wearing a burka.

Would vent more but I’m late for church.

Reply 22—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 9:32:44 AM

#1, you failed to pick up on the self deprecating sarcasm in the “last time out” column. Steyn has not changed his position at all. Pay close attention.

Reply 24—Posted by: , 2/27/2005 9:41:43 AM

Superb!

As for the gasping, sputtering, self-absorbed Old Europe, it is lifeless. No spark of courage, vision, integrity remains. ‘Tis time to pull the plug.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 01, 2005 02:43 PM | Send