Why Europe Still Doesn't Get Islam

Like an old car starting up on a cold winter's day, European governments have been slowly waking up to the realization that all those jolly Islamic people might be a problem after all. Unfortunately they don't understand the dimensions of the problem. To them the riots, the bombings and the murders are only part of a culture clash, with challenges no different than any other minority group. That is why they prefer to focus on schools and burqas, while ignoring the violence. The thinking is that this is still a cultural problem that can be corrected with 3 drops of educational indoctrination, and 6 drops of enforced integration for the natives whose discriminatory attitudes are just making things worse. The problem is that their model is wrong.

The Islamic problem is not merely a clash of cultures, but also a clash of civilizations. Had it been merely a clash of cultures, Europe would only be in the same boat as America. Troubled, but not immediately fatal. Instead Europe is facing a clash of civilizations. The cultural and religious dimensions of the conflict underlie a larger perception on the Muslim side, that they are fighting to expand the borders of the Muslim East, rather than trying to be accepted in the Christian West.

As Americans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their experience with multiculturalism, Europeans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their inexperience with multiculturalism. Both make the mistake of assuming that Islamic violence is part of the multicultural norm, rather than the resumption of an old invasion of Europe. The chaos and confusion in a multicultural society can make it hard to spot real threats against the background noise, frustrations and raw nerves of cultural friction. It becomes easy to lump in complaints about too many Indian restaurants, with complaints about angry mosque worshipers. And it becomes all too easy for authorities to tell people to just make the best of it, while ignoring the situation. The authorities are certain that eventually a natural balance will arise a generation or two down the road. The slow realization that the native born Muslims are actually more radicalized than their fathers and grandfathers is worrying them, but not in a particularly constructive way. Instead they are torn between England's accommodation policies and France's integration policies, neither of which get at the heart of the problem.

Debates over swimming classes or a radical mosque here and there are only the smaller branches of a fast growing tree. Because the problem is not merely cultural differences, those can be and have been accommodated. The problem is that Muslims believe that their way of life is morally superior, and that any system or institution that does not follow those laws, is invalid. Furthermore they believe that they have a duty to impose their laws on others in the name of their religion or honor. Attempting to accommodate people who believe this, by accepting their laws in whole or in part, leads to an avalanche effect, with each concession generating demands for new concessions. There is no final point of accommodation to be had, except complete submission to Islam, because those being accommodated never recognize the inherent validity of the system that is accommodating them. Not until it becomes their system.

The clashes over food on Ramadan or pork in restaurants or seeing eye dogs in taxicabs are reflections of that attitude. And they are not the worst of those reflections by far. That honor might be reserved for the rapes and murders committed by Muslims who believe that rape is a sin for a woman, not a man, and that murdering infidels is the way to paradise. And while European governments still insist that there is a tremendous gap between a Muslim cab driver refusing a blind passenger or the Muslim rape gangs of Oslo or Sydney-- but they both stem from a common attitude. From the Muslim insistence that their values are so superior and universal that they have a right to enforce them on others. And so a Swedish girl who is dressed normally by her country's standards, is treated by Muslims according to the laws and standards of the Muslim world. Similarly the Muslim cab driver treats blind passengers or customers buying whiskey by the laws and standards of Islam.

One country cannot have two legal systems. On that both Muslims and Europeans generally agree, not counting those like the Archbishop of Canterbury, who are already ready to accept some doses of Sharia law, in exchange for the promise of peace and stability. The question is whose system will prevail? Demographics will eventually answer that question, and between aggressive immigration, high birth rates and the prospect of Turkey in the EU-- the answer does not appear to be favorable to the future of Europe. But before that happens, Islamic Supremacism is already dictating the answer through sheer force and intimidation.

Most minorities will adapt to a host country, one way or another. However a minority that expects to be a majority, that sees itself as the vanguard of a moral, religious and national force reclaiming territory in the hands of immoral infidels for Allah-- is not going to adapt. Instead it will expect the natives to adapt to it. And the willingness of European governments to adapt to them, has only fed that sense of Islamic triumphalism and burnished their expectations for a Caliphate. Tolerance has only fed the Clash of Civilizations. Every finger given, has led to a torn off hand. Negotiations has fed European governments into the same deceptive two track system, in which the first track is manned by false moderates who are all smiles and empty promises, and the second track is manned by open terrorists who want to seize power without compromise. Ironically, the same system, European governments have insisted on feeding Israel into.

A clash of cultures can be resolved peacefully. A clash of civilizations in which both sides are competing for the same physical and political territory will spill over into violence, unless one side checkmates the other. Right now Muslims have become quite good at checkmating Europeans, using oil and the threat of violence as leverage. Which is why Europe finds it easier to reduce the whole thing to a cultural problem that can be worked out, with enough available Hallal meals and tolerance seminars, rather than a war set to pour out rivers of blood on the streets of London, Paris and Oslo.

While Muslim Gulf states help feed the Islamization of Europe, they continue to rely on money, protection and tourism from the West. Islamization is one form of leverage for them, giving them a choke hold on their best customers. And neither America nor Europe have dared to significantly defy them in quite a while. And when Europe crumbles, and Israel is destroyed, America will stand alone. Culturally and politically isolated among an increasingly Muslim and Marxist Third World, and resentful rival superpowers, Russia and China. And then it will have a desperate choice between fighting for itself, or surrendering to the cultural oblivion tugging at it right now.

European countries have a limited time frame in which to act, and a wolf howling at their backs. The longer a problem goes on, the more people acclimate themselves to it. And the less capable they are of taking action to avert it. Demographics is not in Europe's favor. The continued flow of migration from the Muslim world into Europe, will complete the process of irrevocably transforming it, as much as Turkey or Palestine was, by Muslim invaders. Dismissing the birth pangs of Eurabia as merely cultural friction is equivalent to pretending that gangrene is only a sore. This is not merely a cultural problem, it is a civilizational one. Flattering, pandering and tolerance lessons will not make it go away, only feed it till it explodes across all of Europe.

One cannot ignore the inevitable for long, only become numbed to it. That is the cooked lobster effect. Some European countries have developed a little sensitivity to a grave problem, but that is not nearly enough. Respecting Ramadan and dispensing Halal will not resolve it. They only define the latest parameters of European submission to an invading civilization. This is not a war of practices, so much as of assumptions. Europe's Muslims have come to assume that the future belongs to them. Europe's governments assume that everything will work out with a little pandering. Both groups need to be forced to change their assumptions, before it's too late.