Customer Reviews

Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too: Library Edition

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

These are not good days for Europe. It has lost its way and seems incapable of recognising the many dangers and threats it is facing. Many Europeans recognise that an ideological, spiritual and cultural malaise has swept over the continent, but they seem unable or unwilling to properly assess it, or to adequately deal with it.

Europe certainly has a major, gaping hole in its soul, with its outright repudiation of its Christian heritage. And into this void has rushed various challenges, such as militant Islam, resurgent nationalism (including a revived Third Reich), and rampant anti-Americanism.

Claire Berlinksi is an American academic and journalist who has lived and worked in Europe for many years, and she does not like what she is seeing there. She argues that Europe is in the midst of a major crisis, and it is a crisis that will impact America and the rest of the free world.

Europe's rejection of its Christian past is only one aspect of this crisis, but it is a significant part. Berlinksi is no religious extremist. She describes herself as a secular Jew. But she is well aware of the consequences of the secularisation of Europe.

Radical Islam's attempt to turn Europe into a Muslim stronghold is another major part of the crisis. Berlinski looks at a number of European nations in detail, including Germany, Italy, France, Holland, as well as Britain, and examines how they are coping with their unassimilated and resentful Muslim populations.

Consider the Netherlands for example. Berlinksi shows that just as the Dutch attempted to appease the Nazis sixty years ago, they are now capitulating to militant Islam. Sure, the assassinations of two prominent Dutchmen has given them a reality check, but the Dutch tradition of tolerance is still working to undermine the nation.

When Bosnian Serbs swept into Srebrenica, pony-tailed Dutch forces didn't fire a shot: they simply stood by and allowed the massacre of 7,000 men and boys. Holland, like the rest of Europe, is "passive, paralysed, and fundamentally in disaccord with American idealism" says Berlinksi. While European diplomats bickered as Yugoslavia burned, it was the Americans who finally intervened.

Nation after nation in Europe has simply capitulated to hostile forces instead of standing up for what is of value. Within days of the 2004 Madrid terrorist train blasts, the newly-elected Spanish government pledged it would pull its troops out of Iraq, handing the al-Qaeda terrorists exactly what they wanted,. Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement is being replayed over and over again in Europe, with very few Europeans learning the lessons of history.

Demographic trends are also a major concern in Europe. If present trends continue, much of Europe will be losing population in the near future. And this is closely tied in with a disillusioned collective psyche. A nation or a continent that has no reason to exist, has no hope for the future, has no firm set of values to cling to, is not going to want to have children. Only people of hope, as well as people with a sense of the past, have children. Nihilistic, centreless Europeans have no hope, have no vision, and therefore, have no future.

Indeed, the only Western nation which is not suffering from population decline is the United States. Americans still have a sense of purpose and destiny, so they are still willing to have children. Europeans, by contrast, have been cast adrift, socially and spiritually, with no anchor and no rudder. Their childless nations offer brute testimony to this fact.

Each nation Berlinksi examines shows ominous signs of moral decay and political paralysis. Europeans have lost their way. They no longer have anything to believe in. Thus they no longer have anything to fight for, or to live for. "Without vision, a people perish," we are told in the book of Proverbs. That truth is being played out before our eyes in Europe. Thus Europe as we know it may not long survive.

For those who are alert and observant, this will come as no surprise. But too many people have been deaf and blind as to the looming fate of Europe. Will Europe arouse from it slumber, shake off its lethargy, and turn things around, or will it simply further decline into oblivion? Whether the warnings sounded in this book will be heeded, and heeded in time, remains to be seen.

This frequently witty but deadly serious account of Europe today is a type of travelogue in which the author writes from different countries, commenting upon the continental malaise from various perspectives. The compelling narrative blends personal experience and interviews with impressive historical knowledge, psychological insight and political analysis. She reports the opinions of a wide spectrum of individuals, both indigenous Europeans and Muslim immigrants, while interpreting the ominous signs visible everywhere.

With reference to the French philosopher Chantal Delsol, Berlinski explains the root of Europe's political and spiritual crisis as the collapse of faith that has led Post-Christian Europe into destructive nihilism. The delusions of postmodernism, relativism and multiculturalism are paving the continent's path towards collapse. The mindset expresses itself in the self-loathing of European elites, the strange passivity of the people and Europe's willingness to bargain with depravity which she calls a "self-extinguishing tolerance." I highly recommend Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks to understand the mental dynamic at work.

The high European suicide rate reflects its cultural, spiritual and ideological emptiness. Anti-Americanism, coupled with antisemitism & antimodernism, is just another pseudo-religious substitute serving as the glue holding the sorry mess together in the absence of anything meaningful. She has noticed its messianic & orgiastic aspects, as did Christopher Hitchens and Julie Burchill. The idea of the European Union has undermined national identity but lacks emotional appeal and is thus no match for the expansionist force of Jihad that has led to riots, the Danish cartoon uproar and the murders of artists and politicians.

Berlinski reveals the hidden room in the house of Europe: Bleak lawless ghettos where decidedly non-Western practices like female circumcision are tolerated because of Multiculturalism; Radical preachers inciting their followers against the society that gave them refuge; Alienation amongst even 3d generation immigrants whose grandparents arrived in the 1950s; Violence and the murder of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn in Holland. This confirms the observations of Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept.

In chapter three where Berlinski discusses the popular novel White Teeth by Zadie Smith, she remarks upon the petty, ignorant and uncritical anti-Americanism of people like Harold Pinter and Margaret Drabble. The projection of the rage and self-hatred of the elites on Israel and the United States will not solve the continent's problems.

An exception is the city of Marseille where she finds hope. The local approach directly contradicts the French ideal of republicanism but it works. Ethnicity and religion are recognized and community leaders hold regular meetings where they get to know & respect one another. The city has shown strong resistance to antisemitism and the vandalism rampant in the rest of France.

Her verdict on the Spanish election that followed the Madrid bombings confirms Chantal Delsol's diagnosis: for Europeans no cause is worth a fight. In Italy she thinks of Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride, expresses regret about the ugly housing projects & shopping malls of cement on the outskirts of the cities and reflects on a young woman's lack of interest in having a family. A fascinating fact emerges: the birthrate in the former Axis powers, including their ally Spain, is dropping faster than anywhere else. People who have lost a vision of eternity and immortality would of course avoid breeding.

She provides a side-splittingly funny analysis of the antiglobalist José Bové & his ideological predecessors, identifying him as a perennial European personality predisposed to vandalism & violence, amongst which earlier incarnations were Tanchelm of Antwerp, Joachim of Flora, Hans Böheim and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They were all false messiahs whose millennial utopianism included the demonization of Jews. In this regard, I found William Nicholls's Christian Antisemitism of great value for understanding the bigger picture.

The chapter on the German band Rammstein is my favorite by far. She shows how their act is a particularly grotesque example of what Delsol terms "black market nationalism" - a result of the repression of profound instincts. This brilliant analysis, simultaneously hilarious and horrifying, encompasses translations of their lyrics, their use of Leni Riefenstahl footage in promotional clips, the imagery on their album covers, the videos of their songs Mein Teil & Links and the nature of their live performances.

Her account of the first interview with the band made me laugh: Her penetrating questions & their clumsy responses that reveal at best unclear thinking but more likely stupidity. Prototypically German, they have the bombast of Wagner and employ the now familiar eerie hypnotism of the German language, martial music, crass vulgarity & images of extreme violence in their shows.

There is also a follow-up interview. It becomes quite clear that the band's phony pacifism masks a resentment of American power. Gnawing guilt leads to peevish disgruntlement, she observes in describing the opinions of band members. Intelligent they are not and they've certainly not learnt from history. On one page she prints quotes and asks the reader to guess whether they are by Goebbels or Rammstein, proving that the only difference is that Goebbels was more articulate.

The Rammstein phenomenon shows up the farce of Europe - their music is emphatically German. It is also preoccupied with the smell of burning flesh, blood, fear, sadism, doomsday & destruction. The manner of their delivery in concert reveals much but they do not realize they are the living embodiment of the vocabulary, dramaturgy, occultism, ferocity & nihilism of the Third Reich. When confronted, they react with hurt surprise.

Christianity may be senescent in Europe - for now - but nationalism lives. Berlinski's brilliant read concludes with bibliographic notes and an index. Other informative books that deal with the crisis in Europe and the forces behind it include The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century by Chantal Delsol, Sinisterism by Bruce Walker, The Last Days of Europe by Walter Laqueur, The Dragons Of Expectation by Robert Conquest, Decline and Fall by Bruce Thornton and Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I have only finished the first few chapters of this book, but those were enough to make me recommend this book without hesitation. Perhaps the most gloomy thought arising from the reading was: "Oh no, the Europeans are doing it again." And when I say "doing it again," I mean starting a World War. After all, ever since 9/11 we have known that the majority of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. A much more disturbing question is how many of them came via EUROPE. Muhammad Atta, the ringleader, for sure. In this century, more than 350,000 Americans have laid down their lives in EUROPE, trying to keep Europe alive and free. How then can it possibly be true that EUROPE is alive with anti-Americanism, and tolerating large communities of Islamic radicals who have sworn, over and over again, to destroy America?

I will single out two items which absolutely defy belief.

First, after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, someone painted a large mural in Holland proclaiming "Thou shalt not kill." A local Muslim, incredibly, objected to the mural on the grounds that it was "racist." Even more incredibly, the Dutch authorities capitulated to him and ordered the mural painted over. Even MORE incredibly, someone filming the destruction of the mural had his videotape confiscated and destroyed.

Are we in full surrender mode yet, or not??

Second: a top Dutch politician now spends every night in a high-security prison because his security guards cannot vouch for his safety otherwise! He is "allowed" weekly visits with his wife! On the other hand, a man who murdered a top Dutch politician was fined 34,000 Euros and will be out of prison within a few years -- he did not get life imprisonment!

So Dutch politicians are forced to spend their lives in prison, while their murderers are fined and released!!

Are we in full surrender mode yet, or not?!

Buy this book and read it.

Europe has become a ticking demographic time bomb. But the noise of this ticking did not resonate with American ears until a much louder sound accompanied the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. In MENACE IN EUROPE, Claire Berlinsky outlines the nature of a menace that has as many heads as a hydra. Berlinsky identifies this menace as nothing less than an attempt by the radical elements of Islam to do no less than displace western style democratic governments with ones modeled on the Sharia of Islamofascist Iran.

Berlinsky points a finger at multiculturalism, which, allied with the politically correct demise of religion, has proved to be the flash point around which western Europe has wilfully chosen to depopulate itself out of existence. Gleefully watching the gradual disappearance of ethnic European stock are the Imams urging the immigrant Moslems of Europe not to assimilate while simultaneously declaring that militant Islam is the wave of the future. Berlinsky pictures a hapless and hopeless Europe that refuses even to acknowledge a problem that grows more serious each day. Newspaper accounts of Moslem atrocities against ethnic Europeans are strangely muted. In fact, she damns an entire bureaucratic mixture of government, media, education, and political correctness that has unfortunately chosen a delicate moment in time that coincides with the Internet Age that has permitted the radical Imams to reach out and infect world Islam with the notion that conquest is their Allah-ispired divine right.

Parts of Berlinsky's book are oddly written. Her chapter on Jose Bove and the hate songs of Neo-Nazi punk rock groups tend to muddle rather than clarify her thesis that the menace of her title is now "in" Europe and quite ready and able to spring over the Atlantic to create a comparable havoc right here in the United States. MENACE IN EUROPE is one of those timely books that warn the reader that the nightmare of the end of western civilization has already begun.

Claire Berlinski's "Menace in Europe" is a MUST read for every person even remotely interested in American Foreign policy and most certainly for the movers and shakers of our government.

We in the "west" have taken for granted 20th Century Europe's commitment to our vision of the World as it should be. Our investment in two World Wars has convinced us that we are entitled to that commitment. But, we forget that Europe is but a peninsula on the huge continent of Asia. We forget that that Peninsula has been invaded by "aliens" many times and that each such "invasion" has dramatically changed the course of European history and more importanly European thought and ideas.

In a World where vast changes in power politics, economics and demographics are a constant and increasingly worrisome phenomenon, we should consider well Berlinski's observations lest America becomes isolated in an unfriendly World.

Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too by Claire Berlinski is a chilling and frightful read. Having been a student of history, there are alarm bells galore throughout Menace that are familiar to anyone who has studied the 20th Century. Could europe be on a collision course with military, social, or economic hard times yet again?

Berlinski does a masterful job at uniting todays headlines with an up to the minute analysis of the problems facing our cultural brothers and sisters. Why is europe heading this way? Berlinsky makes it clear that europe's problems today are not far removed from the tidal forces that caused so much death and destruction in the last century. It is clear that ghettos, whether Jewish or Muslim are still ghettos and do not make for a stable social fabric.

The more I read, the less comfortable I felt.

Good analysis.

Bruce Bawer, Theodore Dalyrymple and Mark Steyn are among those who have attempted to inform Americans of the decline of European culture and the essentially unfettered rise of Islam in Europe.

Claire Berlinski now joins them with a well reasoned, if someimes seemingly undisciplined, narrative of Europe's not so terribly slow surender to Islam.

Berlinski writes as an American who lives in Europe (and now Turkey, as well). Her writing style can best be described as "perky." She is not overly well organized, but does support her arguments with sources. She apparently attempts to borrow a page from Ann Coulter and Mark Steyn by blending humor with her barbs. Not as acerbic or talented comedically as Coulter or as outright funny as Steyn, she still accounts herself well.

The substance of her argument more closely resembles that of Bruce Bawer: Berlinski is an American living in Europe who simply cannot understand how the Europeans remain painfully blind to what is happening in their nations.

Berlinski begins with an overview of the Spanish train bombings and moves to her theme that European nations have been too accomodating of radical Islam and that this presents a threat to the United States. As she puts it "[a] morally unmoored Europe . . . poses a threat to American interests and objectives everywhere on the planet." This theme will undoubtedly upset left-wing multiculturalists, but Berlinksi solidly establishes the truth of her argument.

Berlinski wanders quite a bit in her narrative, which is sometimes disturbingly anecdotal, like when she recounts her tale of knowing the real brothers behind those in Zadie Smith's fiction. She also spends many pages summoning up the ghosts of the Nazi era in the music of a group known as Rammstein. Neither of these parts particularly impressed me: in fact, I thought both were overly long and wandered too far afield. (Berlinski did succeed, however, in getting me interested in checking out Rammstein's music, not for any political overtones, but because it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I don't think this was her intent.)

Berlinski is strongest when she argues that European Union won't work, though it is never quite clear how Islamic immigration works into that.

Finally, throughout the book, Berlinski makes it clear that Europe has no claim to moral superiority over the United States. I wanted to cheer when Berlinski sets forth a partial list of the wars of Europe . . . it runs for almost two pages. Her analysis of the German malaise brought about by its 12 year adventure in mass murder and then 50 years of being protected by the United States is spot on.

Bawer and Steyn provide a much better picture of how Islam is destroying historical Europe. Dalrymple has no peer when comes to describing the death of European, particularly British, culture. Berlinski needs to a mature quite a bit, but "Menace In Europe" is still a very worthwhile read.

Jerry

Berlinski's is quite a fine book, but it is my firmly held opinion that "While Europe Slept" by Bruce Bawer is the clear priority read for those concerned with these crucial matters.

Claire Berlinski's approach is a story-telling tack that permits readers to draw guided conclusions by means of the informative situational vignettes she provides, while Bruce Bawer's approach is to clearly define, delineate and describe the situation in Europe with utmost clarity.

After checking-in with Bawer, add Claire Berlinski's fine book to the mix.

I recommend reading this book along with Bruce Bawer's excellent WHILE EUROPE SLEPT. Unlike the authors of so many books that have come out on this subject since 9/11, both Claire Berlinski and Bawer are neither agenda-driven Christian Evangelicals or members of some neo-conservative think tank playing upon the fears and prejudices of the American public. Both have worked and lived in Europe and offer first hand experience as well as exceptional research. Berlinski is a novelist (see LOOSE LIPS and her soon-to-be-published LION EYES) and a secular Jew whose experience with Europe's dilemma goes back to her days as a university student, living in England and France.

MENACE IN EUROPE is a mixture of humor and alarm. For example Berlinski writes about agro-radical Jose Bove, parralleling his life and career with the millennialists of Medieval Europe. Or consider the chapter she devotes to the bombastic German rock group Rammstein, showing the group's lyrics and press releases, describing their videos, as examples of what she sees as the European penchant for nihilist aesthetics and bleak worldview. It is this approach that makes Berlinski's book an entertaining as well as enlightening read.

Berlinski goes beyond the fact that Europe's Muslim population is rising and that it is antagonistic towards Western values. She shows that Europe's problems are old ones: class warfare, collectivism, over-reliance on the State, the loss of faith and respect for religious institutions that are often replaced with nihilist philosophies, ad nauseum. Such things predate the relatively recent influx of immigration from the Islamic world by centuries. Europeans are now faced with an alien population in their midst, one that no longer wishes to remain apart. Rather, emboldened by what they see as a decadent culture and enfeebled population, these immigrants are now trying to impose their lifestyle and worldview.

Claire Berlinski is not your typical American tourist in Europe. She holds a doctorate in international relations from Oxford and she now divides her time between Paris and Istanbul. The Europe of museums and cathedrals that we are accustomed to belie a deep spiritual and cultural malaise. Berlinski takes us on a tour of Europe's dark underside: a Europe of welfarism, atheisim, stifling bureaucracy, childlessness, unassimilated immigrants, and Islamic fundamentalism.

The Europe that we knew during the Cold War was uncharacteristically and paradoxically at peace with itself, wedged between two superpowers. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union old animosities are beginning to resurface, the most salient being anti-Semitism and Europe's relationship with Islam.

The two issues are intertwined. Although anti-Semitism has been a part of the European experience since the Middle Ages, the recent increase of violence - synagogues burned, Jewish graves desecrated - are due primarily to the increase of unassimilated and radicalized Muslims in Europe. How and why Muslims are being radicalized and the danger it poses for Europe - as well as America and the world - is the main theme of this book.

The millions of immigrants that were imported from former European colonies during the years of rapid economic growth have still not become part of the societies they live in. To make matters worse, the unassimilated population is growing at a much greater rate than the native Europeans; indeed, the native population is not growing, it is just barely reaching the replacement rate. Europe has not been able to offer an attractive future to Muslim immigrants. Berlinski, who is Jewish, points out that inspite of discrimination , Jews have been able to thrive in Europe. Likewise, Indian Hindus have done well in Britain, whereas the Indian and Pakistani Muslims have not.

To remedy this, Europeans have encouraged tolerance and multiculturalism. They have gone as far as to fund mosques and Islamic clubs with taxpayers' money. Bad idea. As a result, they now have radical Islamic cells in every major European city. We should not forget that the 9/11 attack was plotted in Hamburg.

Another "problem" that Berlinski points out is European secularism. Americans, in Berlinski's view, derive their national strength from the fact that they are by and large a deeply religious people. Berlinski notes sarcastically that the only thing energizing Europe's spiritual life is its ant-Americanism. Europe's problem, as I see it, is not its secularism, but that it does not defend its secularism strongly enough. Look at the apologies and doubletalk when Europeans tried and failed to defend the Danish newspaper's cartoons of Mohammed. Secularism - principles of the Enlightenment - should be vigorously defended against Islamo-fascism. Europe should not be fighting this ideology by trying to become more religous. Leave that to the Bush administration.

Berlinski recommendations for Europe are sensible and currently making her a darling of the right. She calls for economic deregulation, tax cuts, revamping rigid labor laws ( one can see how difficult this will be in France were millions march for guaranteed employment), ending multiculturalsm, ending the flow of government money to religous and cultural organizations, and deporting radicals who call for the end to Enlightenment principles. The millions living in unassilated pockets of poverty must be given a chance to make an economic life for themselves. Once there is integration and social moblity, the false consolations radical Islam will quickly disappear.

Most of what is written in this book is true, but it is only part of the whole story. I think the picture painted is overly grim and pessimistic. Europe is much more than this, therefore this book should be read with a good deal of skepticism.