Posted on 02/27/2007 4:57:49 PM PST by VRW Conspirator
The U.S. State Department has another great idea.
The problem in Europe, say the professional diplomats, is that European Muslims just aren't assimilating the way they should.
So the geniuses at State have hired Farah Pandith from the National Security Council to head up a new effort to help European Muslims better integrate into European society.
Let me tell you something – they hired the wrong Farah for the wrong job.
Listen to the way these knuckleheads at State talk about this problem.
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said the growing Muslim presence in Europe is "a fascinating issue and one that the American government is just now trying to get its mind around. It's a huge problem, we are thinking about it seriously, and we've tried to do some intellectual framing-up."
What does he propose?
He says Europe is to blame.
"You have a weird nativist surge in Western Europe, and a kind of odd panic: Aliens are here, they don't accept our values, they are a threat to our way of life and turn to radicalism," says Fried.
So State is going to bring American Muslims to Europe to meet with their counterparts in an effort to "break down stereotypes" and help them end their "self-isolation."
In other words, psychobabble.
This isn't about stereotypes and self-isolation. It's about conflicting worldviews. It's about an evil ideology that seeks to destroy Europe and the U.S. and conquer the world.
On one point, however, I think the eggheads at the State Department are right. The key to the outcome of this global conflict is in Europe.
Do you want to know how to win the fight against the global jihadists?
I'm going to tell you how, and I'm serious.
Re-Christianize the continent.
That's what we need to do.
We need to re-evangelize Europe.
Europe is ripe for this experience.
It has experimented now with socialism for longer than the Soviet Union existed.
It has experimented with secular humanism as a religion.
And it has faced out-of-control immigration from Muslim lands. These new immigrants are happy to exploit the benefits of the welfare state, but they have no use for secular humanism.
If Europe is ever going to be re-evangelized, the time is now, while there is still a vestige of freedom left. Once Europe becomes Eurabia, evangelism, as we know it in the U.S., will carry with it the death penalty.
Europe is going to go one of two ways in the near future:
It's going to become Eurabia;
It's going to rediscover Christianity in a way that will give its people – native Europeans and transplants from Muslim countries alike – something else they can believe in. Islamists are counting on Europe falling into their hands. Most Americans are simply awaiting the inevitable. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can do something about it. We can save Europe for the third time in 100 years – this time without firing a shot.
This can be done and must be done. Americans need to help – not just by becoming missionaries to Europe but especially by supporting the indigenous evangelists already at work there.
You often hear, these days, that Islam is the fastest-growing religion on the planet. I'm not sure from where these statistics come – probably from Saudi Arabia. The truth is that Christianity is the fastest-growing religion on the planet, with lots of Muslims converting all over the world.
No, I don't think sending American Muslims to Europe is a good idea. I think sending American Christians there would make much more sense.
We don't have to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," as my friend Ann Coulter once suggested about our Islamo-fascist enemies. In Europe, all we have to do is convert them to Christianity – peacefully, voluntarily, non-coercively, lovingly.
It's time to reintroduce Europe to Christianity.
It is a continent much in need of salvation.
It is a continent filled with people who are lost.
It's time they had a real choice – not just between secular humanism and Islam, but also the choice of Christianity, the faith that made Europe great.
Look at France.
Just France, because France has the largest ethnic "Arab" (really Berber North African) population in Europe, but that is not synonymous with "Muslim", and that distinction is important.
France has done a relatively good job of culturally converting the Arabs, making them into something else: French "Beurs".
They're no more Muslim, most of them, then French Catholics are Catholic.
They are not very well ECONOMICALLY assimilated, which is a problem, but they have been pretty well culturally assimilated. The riots proved it.
Huh?
Yes, the riots proved it, and here is why.
What happened?
Some kids, believing they were chased by the police, ran into a train electrical station and got electrocuted. The Beur population, angry about police brutality (which is not a completely unfounded thing for them to be angry about) exploded in protest. They went into the streets at night and wrecked stuff, burned some cars. Yes, that's bad. But let's have some perspective here. What happens when French labor unions, or French students, get pissed off about something, say, threats to cut job security, or Spanish tomatoes? They block roads, come out in mobs, break things and burn stuff. Bove doesn't like McDonald's? He and a mob of very white, very rural French guys pull it down. Property destruction is not very nice, but it IS very French. French people, from farmers to train workers to students...to Beurs...when they get angry, come out en masse, throw rocks at the cops, break things and burn property. They've been doing it for about two centuries.
What was significant about the Beur uprising wasn't it's size or the number of cars burnt, it's what did NOT happen.
Two important things did NOT happen when the Beurs came into the streets furious over the kids' deaths (initially) and then just in a display of hooliganism and criminality.
The first thing was that it did not turn deadly. Yes, one man was killed, in three weeks of rioting. One. He was hit by a brick, and succumbed from the wounds. That's bad, to be sure. But think about an American riot, even. Lots and lots of people dead. Here, you had "riots" in all of the major cities of France for a MONTH, with lots of property damage, and ONE MAN was killed. That's not how MUSLIMS behave. Muslim fanatics blow up trains (see London and Madrid). Muslim fanatics go into schools and shoot down kids (see Russia). Muslim fanatics spray down shopping centers with gunfire, or snipe at passersby (see the recent occurrence in the Western US or the DC area Snipers). Beurs didn't do any of those things. No bombs. No mass casualties. No mass murders. No snipers. Nobody cooking off and killing people with guns (and yes, there are plenty of guns in France, especially hunting weapons, which are easy to get). None of that. The Beurs went nuts, and they behaved like French students who go nuts and torch cafes, or French unionists who go nuts and beat up the cops and burn storage depots, or French farmers, who stop trucks filled with Spanish vegetables, rough up the driver (but DON'T kill him, please note) turn over the truck and burn it), or like French environuts who pull down McDonald's. Property destroying rioting is a bad thing, to be sure, but it's a centuries-old French tradition. What the French DON'T do when they go into the streets and start smashing things to pieces is intentionally blow people away and kill people. There was a student revolution in 1968. The country exploded. DeGaulle essentially lost his job over it. And how many people were killed in a government-changing, epoch-making revolution? Zero. Nationwide. Zero dead. The Beur go nuts for a month and burn 20,000 cars and beat people up. How many dead, in nationwide riots that went on for days? One. That's NOT Islam. That's France. And that's a very good reason why the French have reacted the way they have. While folks in America see a jihad, folks in France see a disaffected part of France, browner in color, and with Arabic ways, but still fundamentally FRENCH - people getting pissed off and behaving just like other pissed-off FRENCH people do. Beurs don't behave like Arabs. They certainly don't behave like Muslims. Most of them AREN'T Muslims. Their secularized French poor people. That's the first thing that's notable because of what DIDN'T happen.
The second thing that DIDN'T happen was an intifada. You have mosques screaming in England for the destruction of the state. In Paris, you have the imams of the Grand Mosque writing in the paper that cartoons making fun of the Prophet Mohammed are acceptable, because that's the culture of France, and Muslims can poke fun at themselves. Like a big French student dispute, or a raging French labor dispute, there was a lot of anger and property damage, and when it was over? Calm. No low-grade civil war. No bombings, shootings, terrorism. The Beurs exploded, and then they went home. There is no ongoing Beur intifada in France. And once again, that is because the Beurs are NOT Muslims, and they're not Arabs. They're FRENCH, and they act like it.
There is greater cause for hope here than the hand wringers realize. There are other causes. Look at Beur teenagers in France. Watch them. What do you see? What you see is them hanging out with girls and boys. In their private lives, they're screwing girlfriends, just like the rest of the French. That's not a little thing. It's a cultural earthquake. Once again, it tells you that the French Beurs are FRENCH. They're acculturated. They're not Islamist. They're not even really Muslim, most of them. Most French kids are baptized and never see the inside of a Church again until they get married (if they do). Most Muslim kids in France have the same connection to the mosque.
Are there radical elements in France? Of course. Just like everywhere. But in France it is not the same as in Londonistan. Not the same at all. It is less dangerous, because MOST Arabs aren't Arab, they're French Beurs, and most Beurs are not practicing Muslims, they're secularized.
This is of immense importance, because it means that secularization is winning the game in France.
There are other positive signs.
The French white population has ceased to decline.
That's right. The heavy and systematized program of social supports and subsidies has brought the French population, just this year, up to just about zero population growth. Other European countries are still in free fall, but not France. French-style social supports are generous enough to incentivize people, including white people, to have babies again. And they are. You see it everywhere you go. Certainly in the provinces, which are more traditional and more Catholic, but also in the cities too. Beurs have babies too, lots of them, but so are the French. This goes unrecognized in the handwringing here about "Eurabia", but it is not true, in France, that the Muslims are overwhelming everybody with birth rate. First, there are not all that many practicing Muslims. Most Beurs are secular. Second, the whites are having lots and lots of babies now, and more subsidies, aimed at the middle class French (who are white) are in the works. You get more of whatever you subsidize, and France has chosen to subsidize babies. This reality should not be ignored in looking at the situation.
Finally, we have to be realistic. France has plenty of Catholics, but the French are not going to be reChristianizing. Most French simply don't believe in it. They are passively respectful of the traditions, but reject placing any real weight on what most French frankly think are old myths. They're Christians in name only, but are mostly secular scientific types. They don't think sex is a sin, and they are not going to go back TO thinking sex is a sin. Missionaries in France will tell you that they often get very polite listeners. Of course they do. But does that translate into a massive revival, or even a little revival, of Christianity in France? No. The French recall Christianity. It's all around them, after all, in those Cathedrals, in the symbology of the realm, in everything. But the French don't put any weight on those old traditions. That's what they are, traditions, like Athena and Zeus. It's interesting, in a clinical, detached sort of way, and the French respect tradition enough to bring families together to baptize infants, etc., but that's as far as it goes, or is ever likely to go.
What is happening with the Beurs is that Mohammed's religion is no more able to compete with frank, secular teenage sex than Jesus' has been. Immigration controls have stopped the flood of NEW Arabs into the country, and white birth rates have picked up so remarkably, thanks to "socialist" subsidies and comprehensive support systems for mothers to EASILY raise children in the society and have a full array of public supports, from universal day care and health care and pensions to heavy job protections and, of course, subsidies for large families.
THAT is how France has turned the corner on "Eurabia", and THAT, very secular, very pragmatic, rather sexualized and not very "Catholic" way is the way by which France is going to give the example to the rest of Europe how to avoid falling into the Islamist trap.
Unfortunately, other parts of Western Europe are in deeper trouble than France. The key is collapsed white birth rates. To do what France has done, countries such as Germany and England would have to massively expand their social state, and they are loath to do it. So they'll die out and fill up with Muslims...NOT Anglicized Arabs and Germans, the equivalent of the secularized, acculturated French Beurs, but Muslims and Arabs, living in their "culture apart".
That's a problem.
The thread suggests reChristianizing Europe. That won't work. Europeans simply do not believe in Christianity anymore. They think it's an old myth, replaced by science. They're not going to change their minds either. The French secular way of subsidizing white births - that DOES work. That's the way out of the mess. Will the rest of Europe follow? Maybe.
actually, most of Octoberfest takes place in September, but it's a good thought.
Socialism has become the faith of Western Europe. I spend a lot of time in England, and believe me, they are starting to act like the Eloi in H.G. Wells' "Time Machine". Europe is finished and headed toward a new dark age.
Sure they have. A "moderate" Muslim is one who has run out of ammo.
This time the Crusades will be for the salvation of Europe, and not the Holy Land. While we're at it, we should proselytize the Muslims, while it can still be done. We can win converts there, too.
"Sounds like a waste of good missionaries."
That's ridiculous. Most Europeans have no idea what Christianity really is, since their churches have been so infested with liberal theology for over 100 years now. There is no compelling reason to go to church at most churches in Europe so the people just don't go. Real Christianity would be a huge breath of fresh air to the Europeans, as it truly is largely unknown.
Declining demographics can be overcome in one generation of large families. It is far from too late for Europe, and giving up on whole societies is not God's way.
Secondly, don't rule out a religious revival in France. It is not beyond the possible. Look at Russia, the Communists did everything to destroy the Orthodox Church, but now it's reviving and gaining many converts from Islam in some areas of Russia.
The Catholic Church and any other Christian denominations has got to figure out how to bring the Gospel to modern Frenchmen. It can be done. Especially among the young, who are open to Christian teaching. I know. I've talked with them. They are simply not getting it. Plus, Christian missionaries should proselytize the Muslims -- while they can.
Europeans tend to view things through rosy glasses and to deny obvious problems until they are overwhelming, as was the case with Nazi Germany. It was also true with the Soviet threat. You are doing the same thing today about the Muslim threat. You should try to be more disciplined in their thinking. Don't see what you want to see. See what is there.
Time to get real here.
France has an enormous Muslim problem. The "Beurs" you are talking about are now reaching retirement age. They, or their parents, came from N. Africa after the Algerian War. They are not the problem, for the most part.
The problem is with Islamists. From N. Africa, the Middle East, and from Africa.
If you don't see tens of thousands of rioting, car burning, unemployed Muslim "yoots" as a problem, There is no hope for you.
Unless you believe the car burnerning rioting "yoots" wer Swedish.
Is this article referring to the US State Dept? Shouldn't Europe take care of its own problems?
We should not be doing it at government level. But rather, we should have missions to Europe on a church and individual Christian basis, i.e. you and I individually. This is how the gospel got spread in Asia.
The gospel has always been regarded as a foolish fable, ever since from the beginning of the church. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians on precisely this point. History has shown that Roman Empire was equally rife with strifes, homosexuality, immorality, drunkeness, and other forms of hedonistic lives. Or look at mainland China today: people are abandoning secular humanism in droves to become evangelical Christians. Christianity is spreading in the PRC like wild fires.
Jesus told us to preach the gospel, and to make disciples in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit until He comes back (in the rapture). There is no reason to give up because He is God, and the gates of Hell will not prevail over the true Church.
Yes, precisely, see what is there.
You say that it's all Muslims being born.
No, it isn't. Look at the large white families in France. They are everywhere, you see more and more of them. Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. See what is there.
I do not minimize the rioting.
I see precisely what happened. A lot of property damage for a month, and only one death. That is significant. It fits the complicated French pattern of behavior, not the jihad. See what is there.
The Beurs have SAID, over and over again, what pisses them off: police brutality and no jobs. Now, Americans sitting over hear can hear "Islam and Sharia", but that is adding things and choosing to see something that one is choosing to see. See what is there.
As to a religious revival, yes I do rule it out. How is Catholicism going to "revive" there? Hardcore evangelicals have no chance at all. First, there's the cultural opposition. Second, the French are not going to overthrow Darwin for creationism. That's an American thing, and the French have no interest at all in going down what they see as an obscurantist spider hole. So, what's left? Catholicism. Catholicism says that if you masturbate you go to hell, let alone have sex with your girlfriend, or cohabitate, or have children out of wedlock. Most French people think this is absurd old claptrap, and they're not going to have any of it. You're not going to persuade the French - there is no WAY to persuade the French - to reverse the Sexual Revolution AND the French Revolution and go back to a day when (non-celibate) priests are telling everybody to be guilty about sex or the ghost in the basement is going to get you. That will never happen. The French don't believe it, and they are going back to believing it.
If you can have a Catholicism that doesn't insist that people have to be married in order to have sex, live together, and raise children, French men might listen, maybe, but even then probably not, because they would see it as a complete sellout of the religion. To bring a new Christianity into France you'd have to unsex the French. There is no way.
Even the Beur kids are into it. Indeed, that is precisely why Mohammed can't compete there. Nobody likes to be told what to do, ESPECIALLY in their most intimate life. That is what religions do, in the eyes of secular people. Indeed, that's the main OBSESSION of religion, as far as secular Frenchmen can tell: to try and tell people who they can sleep with and how and when. To secular people, it's absurd.
What's the payoff? What's the reward? That cat can't be walked back. Had the Church behaved well during all those long centuries, it would have been one thing. But people remember how pettily oppressive so many priests and nuns were. There is no way to reconvert the French.
No it's not. Our SoCal church has sponsored some missionaries, formerly church staff, to a small town in southern France. France is as Godless a country as any other in Europe but reports are that most French are starving, literally starving, for spiritual depth. Our missionaries started a church from scratch in a commercial building and, after 2 years, it is thriving.
Don't write off Europe. In one generation it lost its soul and it could regain it back in another generation. But equally important is re-teaching European women that having children is a good idea.
Thanks for the encouragement, I hope you're right! My reading on the subject leads me to believe that the chinese missionaries may make the greatest impact in the non-western world in this century.
The europeans are getting set up for the anti-christ, the new RELIGIOUS hitler.
Also, as to a revival of Christainity, you're far more defeatist than I imagined. People throughout the eons and today have decided in favor of Catholic values, including the belief that sex belongs only in marriage between a man and a woman. The fact you cannot imagine French men and women capable of this view is astonishing. So, the basic identity of French people is that any sex any where any time. No different than the Playboy philosophy? I know I've met people in France who are not like that. They, in fact, believe in Catholic dogma.
Yes, there is a Catholic remnant in France.
But even in the heyday of the Church there, France had a singularly bad reputation. His Most Christian Majesty usually had a half dozen children out of wedlock, at least. Louis XIV probably had hundreds.
When there is no official statistic (and there isn't) the plural of anecdote is data. One sees it all over France. Of course, the data will NEVER exist, because France isn't going to make official racial distinctions among Frenchmen. Still, there have been private samplings, published in the various media, and the trends are good. I will see if I can find some and post them to you.
Time to get real here.
France has an enormous Muslim problem. The "Beurs" you are talking about are now reaching retirement age. They, or their parents, came from N. Africa after the Algerian War. They are not the problem, for the most part.
The problem is with Islamists. From N. Africa, the Middle East, and from Africa.
If you don't see tens of thousands of rioting, car burning, unemployed Muslim "yoots" as a problem, There is no hope for you.
Unless you believe the car burnerning rioting "yoots" wer Swedish.
I would like to see some polling data that might help establish the trends in birth rates you claim. No scientists can accept a collection of anecdotes as anything other than anecdotes. Indeed, some very nefarious projects have relied on anecodates and not solid statistical data. While sampling is better than nothing, the best data are complete census data. Everything is subject to greater error.
Time to get perceptive here.
Yes, people burning cars is a problem.
Ditto for people burning cafes.
Ditto for people burning trucks full of produce.
Ditto for people tearing down businesses, like McDonald's, in anger.
What do those four things have in common?
Over the past 5 years the first was done by Beurs.
The second was done by students protesting labor laws.
The third was done by unions, angry about cheap imported competition.
The fourth was done by environmentalist nationalists led by Bove.
None of the four instances of heavy property damage was particularly deadly. It follows the French pattern of a higher regard for life than property. The BEURS, in the first case, followed that French example was well. Destroying property is crappy, but it's not jihad, not unless French students, unionists and Bove are all jihadists too. The Beurs have been acculturated. That's a GOOD thing, even if expressed in a negative here. Burning cars is not bombing trains. It's a French thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.