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The Ents of Europe (Euroweenies "Mossy," "Slow")
National Review Online ^ | 12/10/04 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 12/10/2004 6:46:52 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

One of the many wondrous peoples that poured forth from the rich imagination of the late J. R. R. Tolkien were the Ents. These tree-like creatures, agonizingly slow and covered with mossy bark, nursed themselves on tales of past glory while their numbers dwindled in their isolation. Unable to reproduce themselves or to fathom the evil outside their peaceful forest — and careful to keep to themselves and avoid reacting to provocation of the tree-cutters and forest burners — they assumed they would be given a pass from the upheavals of Middle Earth.

But with the sudden arrival of two volatile hobbits, the nearby evils of timber-cutting, industrial devilry, and mass murder became too much for the Ents to stomach. They finally "wake up" (literally). Then they go on the offensive — and are amazed at the power they still wield in destroying Saruman's empire.

For Tolkien, who wrote in a post-imperial Britain bled white from stopping Prussian militarism and Hitler's Nazism, only to then witness the rise of the more numerous, wealthier, and crasser Americans, such specters were haunting. Indeed, there are variants of the Ent theme throughout Tolkien's novels, from the dormant Riders of Rohan — whose king was exorcised from his dotage and rallied the realm's dwindling cavalry to recover lost glory and save the West — to the hobbits themselves.

The latter, protected by slurred "Rangers," live blissfully unaware that radical changes in the world have brought evil incarnate to their very doorstep. Then to their amazement they discover that of all people, a hobbit rises to the occasion, and really does stand up well when confronted with apparently far more powerful and evil adversaries. The entire novel is full of such folk — the oath-breaking Dead who come alive to honor their once-broken pact, or the now-fallen and impotent High Elves who nevertheless do their part in the inevitable war to come.

Tolkien always denied an allegorical motif or any allusions to the contemporary dangers of appeasement or the leveling effects of modernism. And scholars bicker over whether he was lamenting the end of the old England, old Europe, or the old West — in the face of the American democratic colossus, the Soviet Union's tentacles, or the un-chivalrous age of the bomb. But the notion of decline, past glory, and 11th-hour reawakening are nevertheless everywhere in the English philologist's Lord of the Rings. Was he on to something?

More specifically, does the Ents analogy work for present-day Europe? Before you laugh at the silly comparison, remember that the Western military tradition is European. Today the continent is unarmed and weak, but deep within its collective mind and spirit still reside the ability to field technologically sophisticated and highly disciplined forces — if it were ever to really feel threatened. One murder began to arouse the Dutch; what would 3,000 dead and a toppled Eiffel Tower do to the French? Or how would the Italians take to a plane stuck into the dome of St. Peter? We are nursed now on the spectacle of Iranian mullahs, with their bought weapons and foreign-produced oil wealth, humiliating a convoy of European delegates begging and cajoling them not to make bombs — or at least to point what bombs they make at Israel and not at Berlin or Paris. But it was not always the case, and may not always be.

The Netherlands was a litmus test for Europe. Unlike Spain or Greece, which had historical grievances against Islam, the Dutch were the avatars of the new liberal Europe, without historical baggage. They were eager to unshackle Europe from the Church, from its class and gender constraints, and from any whiff of its racist or colonialist past. True, for a variety of reasons, Amsterdam may be a case study of how wrong Rousseau was about natural man, but for a Muslim immigrant the country was about as hospitable a foreign host as one can imagine. Thus, it was far safer for radical Islamic fascists to damn the West openly from a mosque in Rotterdam than for a moderate Christian to quietly worship in a church in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Algeria. And yet we learn not just that the Netherlands has fostered a radical sect of Muslims who will kill and bomb, but, far more importantly, that they will do so after years of residency among, and indeed in utter contempt of, their Western hosts.

Things are no less humiliating — or dangerous — in France. Thousands of unassimilated Muslims mock French society. Yet their fury shapes its foreign policy to the degree that Jacques Chirac sent a government plane to sweep up a dying Arafat. But then what do we expect from a country that enriched Hamas, let Mrs. Arafat spend her husband's embezzled millions under its nose, gave Khomeini the sanctuary needed to destroy Iran, sold a nuclear reactor to Saddam, is at the heart of the Oil-for-Food scandal, and revs up the Muslim world against the United States?

Only now are Europeans discovering the disturbing nature of radical Islamic extremism, which thrives not on real grievance but on perceived hurts — and the appeasement of its purported oppressors. How odd that tens of millions of Muslims flocked to Europe for its material consumption, superior standard of living, and freedom and tolerance — and then chose not merely to remain in enclaves but to romanticize all the old pathologies that they had fled from in the first place. It is almost as if the killers in Amsterdam said, "I want your cell phones, unfettered Internet access, and free-spirited girls, but hate the very system that alone can create them all. So please let me stay here to destroy what I want."

Turkey's proposed entry into the EU has become some weird sort of Swiftian satire on the crazy relationship between Europe and Islam. Ponder the contradictions of it all. Privately most Europeans realize that opening its borders without restraint to Turkey's millions will alter the nature of the EU, both by welcoming in a radically different citizenry, largely outside the borders of Europe, whose population will make it the largest and poorest country in the Union — and the most antithetical to Western liberalism. Yet Europe is also trapped in its own utopian race/class/gender rhetoric. It cannot openly question the wisdom of making the "other" coequal to itself, since one does not by any abstract standard judge, much less censure, customs, religions, or values.

So it stews and simmers. Not to be outdone, some in Turkey dare the Europeans, almost in contempt, to reject their bid. Thus rather than evolving Attaturk's modernist reforms to match the values of Europe, the country is instead driven into the midst of an Islamic reactionary revival in which its rural east far more resembles Iraq or Iran than Brussels. So the world wonders whether Europe is sticking a toe into the Islamic Middle East or the latter its entire leg into Europe.

Everyone gets in on the charade. The savvy Greeks discovered that they didn't want to be tarred with the usual anti-Ottoman obstructionism and so are keeping very quiet about their historic worries (legitimate after a near 400-year occupation) as a front-line state. And why not, when EU money pouring into Turkey might jumpstart the Eastern Mediterranean economy and lead to joint Greek-Turkish deals? With the future role of NATO and the 6th Fleet undetermined, is it not better to have the Turkish military inside the tent than for poor Greece to have a neighbor's ships and planes routinely violating Hellenic air and sea sovereignty — while it waits for the Danish air force or the French army to provide a little deterrence in the Aegean or Cyprus?

Of course, we are amused by the spectacle. Privately, most Americans grasp that with a Germany and France reeling from unassimilated Muslim populations, a rising Islamic-inspired and globally embarrassing anti-Semitism, and economic stagnation, it is foolhardy to create 70 million Turkish Europeans by fiat. Welcoming in Turkey will make the EU so diverse, large, and unwieldy as to make it — to paraphrase Voltaire — neither European nor a Union. Surely Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia will wish to get in on the largess. Were they not, after all, also part of the historical Roman mare nostrum, and did they not also enjoy long ties with France and Italy?

So, to our discredit I suppose, we are enjoying schadenfreud after our recent transatlantic acrimonies: Europe preached a postmodern gospel of multiculturalism and the end of oppressive Western values, and now it is time to put its money (and security) where its mouth is — or suffer the usual hypocrisy that all limousine liberals face. The United States has its own recent grievances with the Turks — its eleventh-hour refusal to allow American troops to come down from the north explains why the now red-hot Sunni Triangle never saw much war during the three-week fighting. Recently a minister of a country that gave rise to the notion of 20th-century genocide slurred the United States for resembling Hitler, who in fact was an erstwhile Turkish near ally. Still, our realists muse, how convenient that Europe may carry the water in bringing Turkey inside the Western orbit and prevent it from joining the radical Islamic fringe. Knowing it is in our interest (and not necessarily in the Europeans') and will cost them lots and us nothing, we "on principle" remonstrate for the need to show Western empathy to Turkish aspirations.

But gut-check time is coming for Europe, with its own rising unassimilated immigrant populations, rogue mosques entirely bent on destroying the West, declining birth rate and rising entitlements, the Turkish question, and a foreign policy whose appeasement of Arab regimes won it only a brief lull and plenty of humiliation. The radical Muslim world of the madrassas hates the United States because it is liberal and powerful; but it utterly despises Europe because it is even more liberal and far weaker, earning the continent not fear, but contempt.

The real question is whether there is any Demosthenes left in Europe, who will soberly but firmly demand assimilation and integration of all immigrants, an end to mosque radicalism, even-handedness in the Middle East, no more subsidies to terrorists like Hamas, a toughness rather than opportunist profiteering with the likes of Assad and the Iranian theocracy — and make it clear that states that aid and abet terrorists in Europe due so to their great peril.

So will the old Ents awaken, or will they slumber on, muttering nonsense to themselves, lost in past grandeur and utterly clueless about the dangers on their borders?

Stay tuned — it is one of the most fascinating sagas of our time.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: austria; belgium; britain; denmark; england; ents; eu; eurabia; europe; europeans; europeanunion; europpeasers; euros; finland; france; germany; greatbritain; greece; holland; ireland; luxembourg; netherlands; norway; portugal; rangers; scotland; spain; sweden; switzerland; tolkien; turkey; uk; unitedkingdom; vdh; victordavishanson; wales; waronterror
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1 posted on 12/10/2004 6:46:53 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle; seamole; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; yonif; SJackson; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out

2 posted on 12/10/2004 6:49:19 AM PST by Tolik
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3 posted on 12/10/2004 6:50:22 AM PST by Tolik
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

What else can one expect after ingesting all
those truffles retrieved from the roots of
trees?

Truffles: Gold in the Soil




Truffles have fascinated people for thousands of years. Their attraction is a tantalizing taste and aroma which, once experienced, can never be forgotten. The taste and aroma of commercially collected truffles is so intense that they are used as a flavoring instead of a separate dish. Magical powers and virtues have even been attributed to truffles. They have been collected for at least 3600 years. Growing underground, they are difficult to find and very expensive as a result. Every Spring, truffle hunters in Europe take to the woods, hoping that the sensitive noses of their trained pigs and dogs will lead them to buried treasure. In November, 2000, a new record of over $400 an ounce was set an an auction of white truffles. At those prices, the average two-ounce candy bar would cost you $800!

The name “truffle” has been borrowed to describe small, fancy chocolate candies, another expensive and delicious food. Real truffles are roundish, brown, and dirty when they come out of the ground. They are the fruit of the truffle organism, like apples are the fruit of an apple tree. Truffles contain spores for reproduction the way an apple contains apple seeds.

Many animals can easily reach fallen apples, and so spread their seeds by way of uneaten cores, or in dung. Since truffles are buried in the soil, truffles rely on partnerships (symbiosis) with certain animals for spore dispersal. Squirrels and chipmunks dig up truffles in the same way they may steal flower bulbs in your garden. They are the major wild animals dispersing truffle spores in North America.

Truffle-producing fungi have also formed symbioses with trees (mycorrhizae) because fungi cannot make their own food. The hyphae, or thread-like non- fruiting part of these fungi, coat the roots of the tree and help their host absorb soil minerals. In return, the tree host provides the fungus with carbohydrates and other nutrients, the product of the tree’s photosynthesis.

Attempts are being made to farm truffles due to the difficulty in finding them in the wild. The harvest has steadily decreased for the last 90 years, due to forest destruction and the killing of trees by air pollution. France produced 1,000 metric tonnes of truffles in 1892; now, only 50-90 tonnes are harvested each year.


4 posted on 12/10/2004 6:53:53 AM PST by Grendel9
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To: Tax-chick

later


5 posted on 12/10/2004 6:55:16 AM PST by Tax-chick (Benedicere cor! Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?)
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To: Tax-chick

Hanson is the man!! He answered one of my questions on his website yesterday. It's the one about the culture diffrentiation between countries that we stablilized in the past vs now. El Salvador, Nicauragua, Iraq, etc.

Go check it out!!

www.victorhanson.com


6 posted on 12/10/2004 6:57:16 AM PST by blakep
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

If these Eurinals are Ents...they will soon enough be firewood. That firewood will fuel the return of 'the ovens' and it won't just be Jews and other 'undesirables' fed into them this time.


7 posted on 12/10/2004 6:58:03 AM PST by blanknoone (The two big battles left in the War on Terror are against our State dept and our media.)
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To: blakep

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/Private%20Papers/Question%20Log/December.html

It's the second question down.


8 posted on 12/10/2004 6:58:22 AM PST by blakep
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

"And Hanson connects with the fastball... it is high... it is far... It's GONE! Homerun!"


9 posted on 12/10/2004 7:04:29 AM PST by bikepacker67 ("This is the best election night in history." -- DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe 11/2/04 8pm)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle; Mo1; Howlin; Peach; BeforeISleep; kimmie7; 4integrity; ...
How odd that tens of millions of Muslims flocked to Europe for its material consumption, superior standard of living, and freedom and tolerance — and then chose not merely to remain in enclaves but to romanticize all the old pathologies that they had fled from in the first place. It is almost as if the killers in Amsterdam said, "I want your cell phones, unfettered Internet access, and free-spirited girls, but hate the very system that alone can create them all. So please let me stay here to destroy what I want."

Hit the nail on the head!


PING...
10 posted on 12/10/2004 7:19:27 AM PST by OXENinFLA
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Heh-heh, well the machinations of the EU do seem to resemble an Entmoot don't they? What does Treebeard say to Merry? And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.
11 posted on 12/10/2004 7:24:33 AM PST by PMCarey
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

"I want your cell phones, unfettered Internet access, and free-spirited girls, but hate the very system that alone can create them all. So please let me stay here to destroy what I want."


What a good article. That quote pretty much sums up the Muslim concept of "Integration and Assimilation" which is simply buying time before they try to take over and impose Shira law if not through force then through sheer population numbers, using western law against itself and the atrophy of European culture and values.


12 posted on 12/10/2004 7:43:01 AM PST by labowski ("The Dude Abideth")
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

"We are nursed now on the spectacle of Iranian mullahs, with their bought weapons and foreign-produced oil wealth, humiliating a convoy of European delegates begging and cajoling them not to make bombs — or at least to point what bombs they make at Israel and not at Berlin or Paris. But it was not always the case, and may not always be."



Boy, did he drill this one! The sting in any rebuke is the truth. How different is his take of this whole charade from the one supplied by the elitist MSM? Hanson is awesome.


13 posted on 12/10/2004 7:49:34 AM PST by Mase
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

This is one of the best articles I've ever read. Hanson outdoes even his usual high standards. I'd only add that Turkey's predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, did its own holocausting of Armenians during WWI, and the nascent state of Turkey stood by while the its soldiers and citizens massacred Greeks in the 1920s. I'm not here judging the justification or lack thereof of either action, just pointing out that such actions hardly fit with 21st century EU conduct.


14 posted on 12/10/2004 7:56:39 AM PST by CivilWarguy
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
"what would 3,000 dead and a toppled Eiffel Tower do to the French?"

It would make the surrender cheese-eating monkeys drop their rifles faster then you can blink.

Great article to read. I'm afraid Europe is doomed to be conquered by Islam.

Without real leaders, those nations don't stand a chance. A nation's strength and glory can be measured by the leaders they put into power. America is not at it's strongest right now, but it's sure doing a lot better then when we had Bubba minding the store.
15 posted on 12/10/2004 8:18:09 AM PST by Stringfellow Hawke (#6: Be seeing you!)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Interesting article. I wish I could see these "Ents" being roused sufficiently to suffer serious casualties and finally sink "Isengard" out of revenge, but it's not the most likely of scenarios.

IMHO, the Euros are not Ents. They're Eloi.

16 posted on 12/10/2004 9:59:13 AM PST by Charles Martel ("Diplomats. The best diplomat I know of is a fully loaded phaser bank" - Cdr. Montgomery Scott)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

The classical western mind, in the Greek and/or Roman tradition, is the basis for the strength of the West. Legal and Logical analysis was the basis for this strength. Once the collective spirit is achieved (I'll just call it socialism) which requires subjecting the basic reasoning for the good of the group, this usage of the mind's mental capacity is deminished to the point it cannot win an arguement due to "rules" imposed by those very socialists. Europe suffers from this rotten core within her various societies and no longer has the will nor the capacity to compete in a world devoid of utopian dreams; in the real world of competition, only America in the West is still capable of sustianing herself but even she is weakened by the fact fifty percent of her population is in the grip of the socialist utopian uncompetitive dreaming.


17 posted on 12/10/2004 10:12:19 AM PST by Jumper
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To: CivilWarguy
I'd only add that Turkey's predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, did its own holocausting of Armenians during WWI, ...

Easy to miss, but I think Hanson is referring to the Armenian genocide in this comment on the Turkish minister:

Recently a minister of a country that gave rise to the notion of 20th-century genocide slurred the United States for resembling Hitler, who in fact was an erstwhile Turkish near ally.

18 posted on 12/10/2004 1:27:27 PM PST by happygrl
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

bttt


19 posted on 12/10/2004 2:33:08 PM PST by swilhelm73 (Dowd wrote that Kerry was defeated by a "jihad" of Christians...Finally – a jihad liberals oppose!)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Fascinating, all right -- and scary. Muslims can take Europe without firing a shot, just a few assassinations here and there. Blackmail works, as in Spain. Kerry demonstrated that it would have worked here, too. He remains only too willing to crawl to Muslims/the UN/ Euroweenies, et. al. Let Howard Dean/George Soros/Air America/Moveon.org. get control of the Rats, and they'll make Kerry look like a piker. Howie Carr mentioned this week that Kerry was in Iowa and New Hampshire recently. He plans to run again in '08, and Hill's already setting up her campaign staff, positioning herself as more conservative and security minded than GW. If/when we're attacked here again, Hill will blame GW and say she'd have prevented it.


20 posted on 12/11/2004 3:23:19 AM PST by hershey
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