Civil war in France? That's an odd term for NRO's Stanley Kurtz to use - even if it is, as he has claimed, tongue-in-cheek. (Really?) Especially when we have what looks like the real thing looming in Iraq. Then again, I'm getting used to seeing certain American commentators and bloggers using over-the-top language about the coming apocalypse in Europe. Power Line - a blog I enjoy reading - seems to agree that Islamification is well on the way to finishing off the troubled land of Chirac. Apparently, the country is already "the major emerging Euro-Arab power."
Kurtz has been reading Mark Steyn's new book. (I haven't yet):
Steyn argues that, under pressure of a growing Muslim population, ever more non-Muslims will be coopted, or even convert. [He] predicts that a rump of traditionalists Europeans will eventually fall into civil war with Europe’s surging Islamists. At this rate, though Europe may flip more easily than even Steyn believes.
Meanwhile in this interview, Steyn adds:
I mean, you and I would think nothing of hopping on a plane, going to London, Paris or Berlin. Those are going to be very uncomfortable places for a young, middle-aged Western woman circa 2020, 2030...
Now, I happen to be a big fan of Mark Steyn's cultural pieces - no one skewers trendy nonsense with more wit and style. But when it comes to the bigger picture, I also recall that on the eve of the 2000 election he told us he'd be going to bed early on the big night because a Bush landslide was a foregone conclusion. If he can't get an election result right, why should I trust him to forecast a whole continent's fate over the next thirty years?
And here, in case you'd forgotten, was what he had to say after the capture of Saddam:
The insurgency will continue for a few weeks yet, but it will peter out, like the dictator, not with a bang but a whimper.
OK, that's an easy game to play. We all make our share of blunders, and I hate to think what's lurking in the archives of this blog. Still, you'd have thought the fact that he was far off the mark would make him think twice about announcing Europe's demise. Not so. Even liberal pundits have been known to fall into this trap, by the way.
Yes, Europe faces major challenges, and there's no question some sections of the élite are still in denial. But even assuming Steyn is right, his brand of certitude leads to all sorts of mistakes. Triumphalism takes over. Self-righteousness runs amok. You start assuming that your opponents - and even your allies - are all somehow corrupt or acting in bad faith. You stop reading signals that don't match your preconceptions. You start daydreaming about cakewalks... That's why I have major reservations about doom-mongering books by the likes of Claire Berlinski. (Steyn's review of my review is here.)
Last word goes to Gideon Rachman, reviewing a batch of new titles in the FT:
The [demographic] trends that the American doom-merchants have latched on to are real enough. The weakness in their arguments is that – at every stage – they tend to make the most pessimistic assumptions... Similarly, the American vision of a Muslim takeover of Europe – creating a new continent called "Eurabia" – relies on projecting demographic trends to their limit and beyond.
But then I suppose Rachman is not to be trusted because a) he spends his working life in that centre of decadence and bad teeth known as London, and b) he's a member of the MSM.
