[jboot]

Europe has always had a love/hate affir with the Muzzies, even as far back as the Crusades (which were mostly about politics and pillaging and not so much about religious fervor). King Richard the Lionhearted was so impressed with Saladin that he even flirted with becoming a Muslim, going as far as learning Muslim prayers before he unenthusiastically shuffled back to Catholicism. Spain, southern France and Austria were all mostly Muslim at one time or another. Muslim attitudes and culture persist in the European mind. It's complex and deep-seated and feeds a lot of European attitudes, notably anti-clericalism and anti-semitism.

And don't forget the role of secular intellectual and philosophical anti-semitism. Secular anti-semitic movements probably killed more Jews in the twentieth century that religious anti-semitism killed in the preceeding two millennia.

[rarestia]

You explained it better than I could, and I thank you for that jboot. I knew the Moors had control of large swaths of southern Europe hundreds of years ago, and it was only through religious pushes by Rome and Anglicans that sections of France and Spain were re-gained.

The history of Europe is certainly varied and interesting. The control of territories by whites is contentious, at best, and as the Muslim population in the world grows and adherents to Christianity wane, I think the makeup of Europe will grow largely Muslim, eventually reaching into the British Isles and the Scandinavian shield.