Title: Islamic Europe?
EU elites finally fear something about Islamization
A kind of chain reaction ensued. Two days after Bolkestein spoke, the
Financial Times printed a letter that Franz Fischler of Austria, the
outgoing E.U. commissioner for agriculture, had sent privately to his fellow
commissioners. Fischler complained that Turkey was "far more oriental than
European" and, worse, that "there remain doubts as to Turkey's long-term
secular and democratic credentials. There could . . . be a fundamentalist
backlash."
Europe's reaction was a collective So now you tell us! Taken together,
Bolkestein's and Fischler's remarks seemed symptomatic of the political
correctness that suffuses the issue of Turkish accession. A majority of the
European parliament is anti-accession, the various national parliaments are
against it, and the national populations are overwhelmingly opposed. It is
the European Commission that has been driving the process--and now two
prominent members of that very body, on the eve of leaving their political
careers behind them, were saying it was all a big mistake that nobody dared
to talk about. (Perhaps the only thing that infuriates the European
man-in-the-street more than such bureaucratic shiftiness is the United
States' bafflingly consistent support for Turkish E.U. membership.)
WHAT IS FASCINATING about the Lewis interview that gave rise to this round
of European soul-searching is that it was not meant to be specifically about
Europe. His interlocutor asked Lewis about developments in the Iraq war, the
evolution of the Palestine question, the hopes for liberal democracy in
Iran, and the prospects for defeating al Qaeda. (On this last subject, Lewis
provided an unsettling answer:
"It's a long process and the outcome is by no means certain," he said. "It
works similarly to communism, which appealed to unhappy people in the West
because it seemed to give them unambiguous answers. Radical Islam has the
same force of attraction.") He was equally engaging when he described the
European Union's break with the United States in terms of a "community of
envy." ("Understandably, Europeans harbor some reservations about an America
that has outstripped them. That's why Europeans can well understand the
Muslims, who have similar feelings.")
But Europe's own Islamic future came up only incidentally. Asked whether the
E.U. could serve as a global counterweight to the United States, Lewis
replied simply: "No." He saw only three countries as potential "global"
players: definitely China and India, and possibly a revivified Russia.
"Europe," he said, "will be part of the Arabic west, of the Maghreb." What
seems to have infuriated European listeners is that Lewis did not assert
this as a risqué or contrarian proposition. He just said it, as if it were
something that every politically neutral and intellectually honest person
takes for granted.
Is it? Bolkestein said he did not know whether things would turn out as
Lewis predicted. ("But if he is right," Bolkestein added, "the liberation of
Vienna [from Turkish armies] in 1683 will have been in vain.") Bassam Tibi,
a Syrian immigrant who is the most prominent moderate Muslim in Germany,
seemed to agree with Lewis's diagnosis, even while rejecting his emphasis.
"Either Islam gets Europeanized, or Europe gets Islamized," Tibi wrote in
Welt am Sonntag. Having spent much of the past decade arguing for the
construction of sensible Islamic institutions in Europe, Tibi seemed to warn
that Europe did not have the ability to reject Islam, or the opportunity to
steer it. "The problem is not whether the majority of Europeans is Islamic,"
he added, "but rather which Islam--sharia Islam or Euro-Islam--is to
dominate in Europe."
Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
Address:
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