EN GARDE! BELIEN VS. PETERS
Pajamas Media, CA
Politics Central
Nov 28 2006
When we read Ralph Peters’ NY Post column last Sunday – The ‘Eurabia’
Myth: Muslims Take Over Europe? Sorry, There’s No Chance – we at
Pajamas Media thought Peters’ ideas were a good subject for debate.
And we could think of no one better to do it than Paul Belien of The
Brussels Journal. Belien accepted our invitation and he did such a
good job we decided his riposte would be the start of a series of
such responses on PJM. EN GARDE, Mr. Peters!
* * *
Ralph Peters’ latest book "Never Quit the Fight" proposes a map of
how America should redraw the borders in the Middle East. This enraged
many Muslims.
Perhaps, having enraged Middle East Muslims, Peters, a retired US
Army intelligence officer, thought it was about time to restore the
balance and enrage non-Muslim Europeans.
Last Sunday he published an op-ed piece in the New York Post, entitled
The ‘Eurabia’ Myth: Muslims Take Over Europe? Sorry, There’s No Chance.
Peters’ argument is that Muslim immigrants will never be able to
conquer Europe because the Europeans are "world-champion haters"
who will never let "impoverished Muslim immigrants" take over
their societies. On the contrary, Peters asserts, the "continent
that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing" will "over-react with
stunning ferocity." Europeans, Peters reminds us, "are just better
[than Muslims] at the extermination process. […] It’s the difference
between the messy Turkish execution of the Armenian genocide and the
industrial efficiency of the Holocaust. Hey, when you love your work,
you get good at it."
Hence, "Europe’s Muslims will be lucky just to be deported," Peters
says. Fortunately for these Muslims, however, Peters is more than
willing to deploy the U.S. Army in Europe "to guarantee the safe
evacuation of Europe’s Muslims." He even invites a good number of
them to settle in America since the United States has such a good
track record with Muslim immigrants, who "have a higher income level
than our national average."
Ralph Peters’ diatribe against the Europeans reminds me of
those anti-American Europeans who accuse Americans of being the
"world-champions of genocide." To prove their point they invariably
refer to the plight of the American Indians, once the rulers from the
Redwood Forest to the New York Island, now exterminated and confined
to reservations. Though the number of people voicing such opinions is
growing in Europe I do not take their vicious arguments seriously. I
do not take Peters’ vicious anti-Europeanism seriously either, though
I have noticed that this type of American anti-Europeanism is growing
as well.
While visiting the US recently I met a conservative professor who
told me almost literally the same thing as Peters. He, too, said
that Europeans were ineradicably vicious, that hating others is in
their blood and that they can never be cured of their mass-murdering
impulse. He, too, said that, rather than taking native European
immigrants in, America should open its doors to Muslims, because
those people "can at least be respected while Europeans can only
be despised." He even added that the biggest mistake the U.S. made
during WWII was to nuke Japan instead of Europe.
I can understand why these conservatives have come to despise Europe.
They despise it because it refused to assist the U.S. in Iraq and
because it refuses to stand with Israel. They know well enough,
however, that the reason why European governments, such as that
of France, do not stand up against radical Muslim regimes in the
Middle East, such as Iran’s, is because these governments fear the
large minorities of Muslims within their own borders. In short, they
despise Europe because it has lost the will to fight for its own
survival. Nevertheless, they blame Europe for exactly the opposite
reason.
Their contempt has turned to hatred, which is understandable because
it is all too human, but it is nevertheless utterly wrong.
Those who despise Europeans for having lost their willingness to
fight back against Muslim arrogance are now accusing them of wanting
to exterminate the Muslims. Those who have come to hate the Europeans
are now saying that Europeans are "exacerbating fear and hatred."
They claim that Europeans are contemplating a second holocaust –
this time with the Muslims as their victims.
In their hatred for Europe some conservatives even seem to have begun
to embrace the Muslims. Stephens is prepared to invite the latter
to come to America, thus welcoming to the U.S. the cause of Europe’s
disease today. It is said that hatred makes people blind, and Peters’
article in America’s most conservative newspaper is the best example
of this.
As a European who loves America I belong to a minority. I edit an
online magazine The Brussels Journal which tries to rally the small
band of pro-American Europeans and warn America not to make the fatal
mistakes we have made in Europe.
I can assure you that "Eurabia" is real enough. We have received
threats from extremist muslims, we have been harassed by the
authorities. I was present when earlier this year a group of scholars
met in The Hague to discuss Eurabia. I saw how they had to do so
anonymously, under assumed names and under police protection.
Eurabia is not a myth. Eurabia is all too real.
We see how the inner cities and suburbs in various European countries
are degenerating into "no go" areas, where people get killed, where
the police no longer venture and where radical Muslims hold sway. The
French authorities have published a list of 751 "sensitive urban
areas," which are no longer under the control of the authorities and
which have become, as Daniel Pipes remarked, the "Dar al-Islam, the
place where Muslims rule." Almost 5 million people, or 8% of the French
population, live in these "sensitive urban areas." But, apparently,
there is hope, because here is Ralph Peters in The New York Post,
offering to have the U.S. intervene and evacuate the inhabitants
to America!
Americans do not realize how dramatic the situation is in Europe
today. The Europeans are running. Instead of fighting they are
leaving. They are leaving the cities for the countryside. In my
home town of Antwerp 5,000 immigrants move in every year while 4,000
Antwerpians move out. Many Dutch are leaving their highly urbanized
country for places such as rural Norway. Some are leaving Europe
altogether.
The Netherlands and Germany have more emigrants than immigrants today,
and in other countries, such as Belgium, Britain and Sweden the number
of emigrants is rising. These people are not driven by hatred, they
are driven by despair and the hope for a better future which they
realize their Eurabian home countries are no longer able to provide.
Paul Belien is editor of The Brussels Journal and an adjunct fellow
of the Hudson Institute.
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