Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
Book by Christopher Caldwell
The New York Times summarizes Caldwell as follows:
"When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture [Europe's] meets a
culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines
[Islam's], it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter."
Caldwell argues that the mass immigration of Muslims
to European cities has altered the culture of Europe because of a strong Muslim
reluctance to assimilate to the culture of their new homelands. Muslim
immigrants do not so much enhance European culture as they supplant it.
Caldwell asserts that Muslim immigrants are patiently conquering Europe's
cities, "street by street."
He considers "the most chilling observation"
to be that "the debate over Muslim immigration in Europe is one that the
continent can't openly have, because anyone remotely critical of Islam is
branded as Islamophobic. Europe's citizens — as well as its leaders, its
artists and, crucially, its satirists — are scared to speak because of a
demonstrated willingness by Islam's fanatics to commit violence against their
perceived opponents. There exists, Mr. Caldwell writes, a kind of 'standing fatwa'
against Islam's critics."
Caldwell predicts that immigration's ultimate impact
will vary throughout Europe. Britain is most susceptible to violence and
political extremism. Sweden has the greatest problem with isolation and
segregation of immigrants. Spain, already beset by questions of national unity,
is most vulnerable to being swamped by the sheer volume of immigration. Turks
in Germany may slowly assimilate. Finally, France will continue to experience
"spectacular social problems" but its republican traditions offer the
best hope for fully assimilating immigrants' children and grandchildren.
According to The Observer, "Caldwell cuts to
shreds the conventional wisdom of the 'immigrationist' ideology - the view that
mass immigration is inevitable and in any case a necessary injection of youth
into our ageing continent. He shows, contrary to the immigrationists, that the
flows of recent decades are unprecedented. He also demolishes the economic and
welfare-state arguments for mass immigration.... One of the most startling
figures in the book is that the number of foreign residents in Germany rose from
3 million to 7.5 million between 1971 and 2000 but the number of employed
foreigners stayed the same at 2 million."
The Observer noted, "Caldwell is at his best
describing the confused cultural and intellectual condition of much of Europe
at the time the first waves of immigrants were arriving. It was hard, he points
out, to follow Europe's rules and embrace its values when Europeans themselves
were rewriting those rules and reassessing those values.... The idea of
national traditions and solidarities came to be scorned by liberals in many
European countries."
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