Posted on 02/11/2006 6:44:11 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Over the last ten days, the press has been full of stories about violent Muslim protests against cartoons published in Danish papers, caricaturing Muhammad. Reuters, in a story this week, took the conventional line: that the cartoons had created a “crisis” between Europe and the Islamic world.
Well, Reuters and the rest of the press are right about there being a crisis, but wrong about when it started and what caused it.
The cartoons were, of course, offensive, but the kind of thing that those of us in free countries expect of a free press. But the Muslim response has been unthinkingly violent. Rioters have set fire to Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon; several Danes and people thought to be Danes have been killed. Funny, isn’t it, how Western liberal elites still believe that all religions are alike?
And the European response has been less than admirable, like the German official who begged the parties to “avoid any steps that could further inflame this conflict.” He feared that we are on the verge of “a sort of clash of cultures.”
This kind of obsequiousness is the expected outcome of what author Bat Ye’or calls “Eurabia.” “Eurabia,” which has been in the making since the 1970s, is “the shifting of Europe into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence,” accomplished through European-Arab “collaboration at all levels”: political, economic, educational, and in the media.
And this collaboration “became the channel for Arab immigration into Europe,” leading to what Ye’or calls “a pseudo-culture” characterized by “anti-Americanism,” “Judeophobia,” and a “general hatred of the West.”
It’s this “pseudo-culture” that’s on display today. The timidity of the response to Islamic violence is the result of what Ye’or calls a “multiform European symbiosis with the Arab world.” After nearly three decades of appeasement, Europe is unable to say “No!” to the Islamic world, even when its core values are at stake.
Another factor hastening the advent of “Eurabia”—or the Islamicization of Europe—is what historian Niall Ferguson calls “the extraordinary prospect of European demographic decline.” Arab immigration has coincided with a precipitous decline in birthrates. So an aging and shrinking population, coupled with sacrosanct welfare state, has left Europeans dependent on Islamic immigrants. The result? There is “a youthful Muslim society . . . ,” in Ferguson’s words, “poised to colonize” an aging Europe.
Finally, there’s Europe’s cultural and spiritual exhaustion. Less than 10 percent of the population of Western Europe attends church once a month, and more than half of Scandinavians “say that God does not matter to them at all.”
The combination of low birthrates, immigration, and “decadence” leaves Ferguson, like Ye’or, worrying about a “creeping Islamicization” of Europe. Not only is Europe ill-prepared to wage a “clash of cultures,” it is not even willing to admit that it is in one! European elites thought that secularism—renouncing its Christian heritage—and solicitude for Islamic positions would buy peace.
They were wrong. Appeasement only emboldens those being appeased, as Europeans ought to have learned by now. And replacing even a “pseudo-culture” requires a viable alternative, something Europe doesn’t have.
And so people are being killed over, of all things, cartoons.
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"Appeasement only emboldens those being appeased, as Europeans ought to have learned by now."
Is America ever going to figure this out?
Good article but that statement above isn't really true. People are being killed because someone dared to speak the truth (however obliquely) about one of the most highly protected and oldest pack of lies holding sway in the world today.
While Christianity is refined by the passage of time, islam is molding and rotting with age...yet its followers cling irrationally to its corpse. Today's muslims remind me of a collective Norman Bates...they are alive, but their minds and hearts are attached to something fetid and evil...and dead.
The EU elites think that unlimited right to abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, eradiction of the Church from the public life, and more prosecution of Serbs will help.
I think you may be wrong, as much as I want to believe you are right. I think Christianity and Judiasm became stagnant and lost a lot of ground to the Muslim faith. While I believe that Muslims have a piece of the truth, they digress from the whole Truth. We need to get the Gospel out there -- Old and New Testament -- we need to preach an uncompromised Word of the Love of God for the Redemption of Mankind which is the total message of Life the Jews and Christians share. When a belief in Death, Slavery, Rape, Poverty and Ignorance is more meaningful to a vast number of people, we need to rethink where we've missed our opportunities to Bring Life and have it more abundantly.
I look at the faces of the people on the rampage in the ME and think, "I don't have to understand a word you are saying -- the poverty and ignorance in those faces says it all." Dickens was right, "Look beneath my robes -- Want and Ignorance." I paraphrase, to be sure -- but unless we deal with those two horrific enemies of Redemption of the World, Jesus, -- there will be no peace.
Well, I agree and disagree with what you said, but I think you and I are singing from the same hymnal.
The faith of some people has certainly become stagnant, but Jesus is as fresh and new in the heart of some people as if He were walking among us (and actually He is closer than walking among us when He is real in our hearts). I agree that the Gospel needs to be put out there, but I would also say that the acceptance of Jesus is a decision that folks have to make. They, for the most part, know the Gospel...they just aren't embracing Him.
What better mechanism for keeping the rabble in line, than by being able to threaten them with Islamic violence?
IMO what some of these terrorist breeding muslim countries need is some good old fashion materialism. I believe that a democratic and stable country can be recognised by the level of commercial advertising within it. I think materialism could bring about a slow political and a relgious "reformation" as more kids focus on computer games and videos and more men focus on making money. At that point the majority don't give a hoot about terrorising and will turn against it. Crazy idea I know, but I do think that would solve a lot of things.
Truth hurts and per example, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria were unter Turkish occupation for 500 years and last 120 years mainly due to British/German supportt to Turkish Ottoman empire,
A same matter accured after WWII when west sold Poland to Communism.
All quiet on the west...
European culture is almost totalitarian with the state controlling church, education and media. breaking the power and wealth of church was part of the rise to power of the nation state, and reviving churches should start by geting the priests off of the civil servan roles and the churches out of meseum category.
I love to hear about the love in the hearts of those who love the Giver of Life. I read something not long ago in a doctor's office which I'd love to share and I think it speaks to what happened in Denmark: "Be careful what you think, for your thoughts become your words. Be careful what you say, for your words become your actions. Be careful what you do, for your actions become your habits. Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. Be careful of your character, for that is who you are, and who you are is person who will meet God at the end of your days."
A little more thought, a little less lip would have saved lives, and I guess we've gone way past ignoring bad behavior as I was taught to do.
You are right. For Roman Catholics, it was Vatical II. Once the rules of the Church, at that time almost 2000 years old were thrown out one-third of the people left.
Christians don't stand for anything today.
Here, I know you are wrong -- we do stand for something. Why, you're here now standing up for what you believe. I'm here now looking for answers and hope. I don't want to be a part of the hate, destruction and death cultures. I want to live, it's a right Jesus died to give me -- so I wouldn't have to -- I mean. I know that those who believe will survive, but I know that we'll have to leave those who hate and destroy behind for a time. I read and believe the end of the story -- the Good Guys win and LIVE.
And considering that the world is at that point in history when the very embodiment of insanity and evil (islam) is about to go nuclear...I suggest that everyone get ready to meet his Maker.
Don't forget the burning of the Danish flags. Who would have thought Danish flags even existed in the Middle East?
Kinda makes you think they were brought there specifically to provide fodder for a 'spontaneous' riot.
As to the nuclear matter, you may just be right. I've often thought of His reappearance, "...on a silver cloud...," I believe it is said. Of course, I can only hope He's thought of a much better way to pick me up. On the whole, I'd rather make my exit on much better terms with the world. Yet, not my will, but Thine, be done.
If what those rioting are burning are Danish flags, we've got to keep the Danes in our prayers -- those are the flimsiest "flags" I've ever seen, and so poorly made. I could see right through the one I saw burning. Of course, necessity is the mother of invention.
I can't think what rules you might mean. Was there some change to faith and doctrine in Vatican II? Please explain: I'm honestly puzzled.
No, not unthinkingly violent. It took months of lobbying the Islamic world to foment the current violence, along with the use of some particularly onerous images which were NEVER published before all this started, and all perpetrated by one Islamic schollar.
The coordination of effort, protest, and violence makes this appear anything BUT unthinking, and likely premeditated and coordinated instead.
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