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The distinguished Romanian historian Neagu Djuvara, who is 98, said on Saturday that he believes that the recent murders in France are a step in a process by which Europe will be conquered by Muslims, who are taking a revenge for the conquest of Muslim lands by the European powers in the 19th century. There is now nothing that we can do, he says, to stop this process.
Neagu Djuvara outlined his theory of the rise and fall of civilisations in 1975 in his Civilisations et lois historiques, Essai d'étude comparée des civilisations.
His bleak prognosis, for those who read Romanian (or for those who understand Google translate), is here. He thinks Europe will, in time, be ruled by Arabs and gypsies.
I think that his points about immigration being about to transform Europe for the worse are right and that Western civilisation is in decline. What great writers, painters, artists or thinkers have appeared since 1950? None. I am not sure I believe in a Muslim conquest of Europe but it is possible. I am sure, however, that a war on Islam would be exactly what the extremists most want. As they wanted the Americans' reaction to September 11th.
The German television station ZDF recently reported that half the population of Germany would be immigrant-descended in fifty years' time. A German Christian Democrat MP, one Martin Gillo, even apparently put this on his website (but then took it down).
“According to current calculations, people with an immigration background will be the majority of the [German] population as early as 2035. That is less than a generation… A new age begins in 2035! It will be an age when we ethnic Germans become a minority in our country. How will we be treated then? Friendly, courteously and as belonging to the “Future Germans”? Or will we be satisfied to at least be tolerated as a protected minority?”
He welcomed this new age but 2035 was a big mistake on his part and much too soon. Only about 5% or 6% of the population of Germany are probably Muslims nowadays. 9.1% of all newborn babies in Germany had Muslim parents back in 2005.
I agree with Robert Reich who made made this point yesterday.
Few ideas are as wrong-headed and dangerous as the notions that the West is engaged in a "clash of civilisations" with the Muslim world, or that we are at "war" with radical Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are moderate, they have nothing to do with radical Islam, and they eschew violence. Radical Islam itself is not a unified force or a movement; it's a set of gangs manoeuvring for dominance over other gangs, and using violence mostly against other Muslims. But the extremists would like nothing better than for the West to embrace the notions of a clash of civilisations, or a "war" against a coherent organisation, because these ideas give them legitimacy, enhance their appearance of power, and give them more resources and recruits.
Did we learn nothing from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
Muslim extremists represent a fifth column in Europe, a huge danger and a strong argument that mass immigration into Western Europe was not a good idea. However, nothing could be more disastrous than a situation where most Muslims in Western Europe resent the governments which rule them and the non-Muslims around them. This development is possible, is what the bad men want and must be avoided at almost all costs.
At the same time, we should reduce immigration into Europe from the developing world to a trickle, otherwise indigenous Europeans will in time, perhaps in less than a century, become a minority in Europe.
Muslim lands taken by European powers in the 19th century were of course themselves taken violently from Christian control in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries by unprovoked Muslim attacks. These attacks on Christendom then continued in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
ReplyDeleteSo if this man is right, Islam would be taking revenge for Europe having defended itself.
Mark
One of the cardinal errors committed by people like Pope John Paul II (and incidentally other Western leaders here and there) was to "apologise for the Crusades".
DeleteThe Crusades initially - which was the era when they strategically-mattered - were Christian civilised Europe's response to a desperate and murderous assault - perpetrated by pre-capitalist-barbarian-headhackers. This assault was on ancient civilised Christian states in the Middle East, and ultimately on Byzantium, the Gate Of All That Mattered, and which was fertile nice settled Europe. Yep, we hacked a few heads, but only now and then, and not kind of in wholesale, industrial quantities. (I'm not saying that was a good idea in itself; the English notion in particular was - usually - to have a good scrap for a bit, then come to some agreement between the combating parties.)
I think it was the Poles, under John Sobieski, who strapped a kedge-anchor onto them, with some difficulty, at Vienna, as late as 1683.
Europe - and all the rest of the proper modern world that it made, is nice. That's why robberators, burgulators, muggerators and rapistrators want it. You can't blame them in one way; there's nothing nice at all where they originated, and they had to get out or perish. The only thing nice was "the oil"...and they took thousands of years to _not find_ it. So we had to instead.
I was surprised when reading Lord Chesterfield's Letters I found him describing the Crusades as criminal but he was right; they were not justifiable and were very brutal. They were a copy of the Muslim idea of jihad but those lands had been conquered by the Muslims several centuries earlier. Oddly, the crusades received little attention from Arab and Turkish historians until fairly recently when they became a stick used to beat the West with. What is clear is that trying to rule over Muslims is not easy though we did it in India and parts of Africa. The Ottomans ruled Arabs for centuries, of course, but that was one Muslim people ruling another.
DeleteHow many times have I heard this scenario being outlined? It really does get boring.
ReplyDeleteThe nightmare fantasy of Europe being overrun by Muslims overlooks several factors:
- Demographic trends change. Some European countries have higher birthrates than others and the countries with lower birthrates may change long before there are a sufficient number of Muslims to become a majority.
- Birthrates in Muslims countries vary too. Iran had quite a low birthrate for some time. Muslims in European countries tend to have fewer children than they do in Muslim countries.
- Large numbers of immigrants from Africa and Asia to Europe are Christian or from religions other than Islam.
- It overlooks the increasing hostility towards Islam in Europe. The more Muslims flex their muscles and demand privileges, the more native European populations react and support parties hostile to immigration or multi-culturalism.
But of course, it is much exciting to predict that we are all doomed.
There is a backlash, which is promising. At least a significant number of indigenous Europeans have recognized the threat. But how do you isolate a group of your citizens (Islam comprising 2% to 10% of the populations of European nations) who have not broken any laws? Can you deport them, or intern them, and still maintain your country's constitutional and ethical integrity? It seems as though to defend your culture you must abandoned it and hope to reclaim it later on. During World War II, the U.S. confined in camps about 110,000 Japanese Americans and around 11,000 German Americans, without any legal basis, beyond considering these people to be a threat. But 120,000 was a manageable size, and the perception that they were just threat for a few years. After the war, they were re-integrated without renewing any concerns regarding their loyalties. As for any national guilt, it was assuaged through compensation, many decades after the government’s actions, at a time when the issue no longer held any importance. But the scale of the threat that Europe is encountering is beyond such superficial measures, and it won’t be going away for some time soon. Is there a middle ground between cultural suicide and despotism? We are seeing some hopeful forces come into play. The push to revive the nation states, mass rallies, anti-immigration parties, rhetoric that no longer cowers at being labeled politically incorrect may do enough to energize Europeans to take back their continent. However, if this is the course taken, it will be a slow one.
ReplyDeleteMark P
Is that 2% of the population really the trouble you are making it out to be?
Delete6%, not 2%. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/17/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/
Delete"civilisations burn themselves out and disappear": sounds reasonable. The rest of the predicitions: maybe so. But he is 98...I've read also the recent political comments by Kohl and Gorbachev, both also approaching the century mark, and it feels out of touch to me.
ReplyDeleteChristoph R
Another way to look at it might be that long exposure to European Enlightenment ideals may eventually spark a Muslim Reformation, which forms a counterweight to the Medievalists.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the majority of Muslims in Europe are not 'Medievalists' but are thoroughly influenced by western values, except when it comes to things that suit them, like policing the behaviour of their wives, daughters and sisters.
DeleteApres moi, la déluge! A common trope amongst conservative-minded people, who are naturally pessimistic and given to grand narratives - but not very helpful for those who will still be here when Neagu Djuvara is gathered to his ancestors! He is of course right that mass immigration is damaging our common continent and civilisation, but who can tell what will happen re. Islam? It is entirely possible that it will start to fragment and fade as Christianity has fragmented and faded, when faced with the temptations and even more the rationales of modernity
ReplyDeleteDT
I like that you referred to the romanian author rather than huntingdon, who is better known for forecasting cultural conflict.
ReplyDeleteFor many reasons we in WE can regret the huge influx of people from an alien culture.
Unfortunately i doubt that it will be possible to manage the adverse effects of multiculturism.
Ironically it is the people who have propogated this ideology that will suffer most.
Christians and jews can keep their heads down apart from the occasional pogrom.
Atheists and the groups they promoted eg lbgts, are doomed under islam.
David
Radical Islam will disappear completely in 30-40 years like communism did, although it was a bit slower... That is one major policy cycle duration for such macro plays. I have zero worries from that corner, but yes expect some more crimes and attacks while the state systems map them completely.
ReplyDeleteThe moderate Islam population bomb in the EU worries are actually trickier since the arguments for a policy of race selective, reproductive rate management is less intellectually justified. As someone wrote: by wishing to get the minorities out, you become less of the enlightened European you ultimately want to protect. We must assimilate them faster, which slows down their birth rates, and makes them controllable through standard media channels. Also, we need a strong economic support system for all couples wanting 2 children, and long maternity leave, this should bring up native reproduction rates. Over 2 and the economic incentives should die down.
What I do worry about is a large and stupid mixed economic underclass becoming a permanent fixture in our lovingly caring surveillance state (which we need unfortunately).
Tudor
Really! Radical Islam didn't disappear in the last 500 years, but it will disappear in the next 40 years?
DeleteSome quotations from a writer I love, Hilaire Belloc.
Delete“We shall almost certainly have to reckon with Islam in the near future. Perhaps if we lose our Faith it will rise.”
“The future always comes as surprise. . . .but I for my part cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.”
“And in the contrast between our religious chaos and the religious certitude still strong throughout the Mohammedan world. . .lies our peril.”
“There is nothing inherent to Mohammedanism to make it incapable of modern science and modern war.”
“[Islam] still converts pagan savages wholesale. . . .No fragment of Islam ever abandons its sacred book, its code of morality, its organized system of prayer, its code of morals, its simple doctrine. In view of this, anyone with a knowledge of history is bound to ask himself whether we shall not see in the future a rival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam on Christendom.”
he might be right but unless we start to stand up for our values he will be right. He makes the assumption that all muslims want to live in muslim la la land - which is an incorrect assumption to start with.
ReplyDeleteDjuvara is not a historian, he is a former French civil servant who happened to have studied history in Romania in the '30s before he emigrated to France
ReplyDeletefunny how immigrants are so hard on immigrants smile emoticon
even his family were immigrants to Romania, so he should know how it is when immigrants take over