While in Orlando in April one of my relatives gave me a copy of Menace in Europe. While the title is rather sensational the content is far more measured and reasoned. From the opening I found the author's reasoning and experiences compelling and believable then another relative browsed through it he quickly declared that he was in complete agreement with the statements he read. This lent far greater credibility to the material because he was a German citizen up until a number of years ago. The statement that really inspired him was one about the self destructive path that Europeans are on. A central premise of her work is that Europe has lost its faith in God and is now lost in emptiness.
A section that was particularly insightful for me was about Marseille Espérance which is the "hope of Marseille" that offers a way to stem the tide of extremism that has swept France. It pays lips service to the official French policies of the preeminence of individual rights and secularism but in truth recognizes separate ethnic cultures and organizational structures.
[after] September 2001... demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, marchers shouted, "All Arabs are Palestinians. We are all suicide bombers." ... The violence in Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, and other major French cities has continued, and in some places worsened. In these cities, anti-Semitism appears uncontainable. But in Marseille, the animus has fizzled out. The city reacted with revulsion to the burning of the Or Aviv Synagogue. Citywide protests against anti-Semitism were immediately organized; Arabs participated in [these] demonstrations. The leaders of Marseille's Islamic community firmly condemned the attack. By contrast, after similar violence in Toulouse, Muslim community leaders offered not one single gesture of solidarity.
The author also looks at other European attitudes, such as her interviews with members of Rammstein, a self described left wing German band that emulates Nazi habits. These men are very popular and oppose the American intervention in Iraq. But they dismiss the behavior of Saddam Hussein. As a scholar from a German institute explains that the Germans have a chip in their shoulder because Americans did the ultimate injustice of having liberated the Germans from Hitler then protecting and supporting them for decades. He also states:
"...more than 60 percent of Germans believe that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is worse than the German treatment of the Jews under the Nazis. ... And with Israel, one could say, they just will not forgive the Jews for putting them in the black box of history."
Pretty classic (and now all too common) stuff in blaming the victim for your deficiencies.
The final chapter is short and sums up the situation very well. She describes:
"European anti-Americanism is a cultist system of faith, rather than a set of rational beliefs, and as such is impervious to revision upon confrontation with facts, logic, evidence, gestures of good will, public relations campaigns, or attempts on the part of the American secretary of state to be a better, more sensitive listener. ... The American Left's contention that it is the current administration's foreign policy that has made the United States an object of hatred is a naive delusion."
In many ways we are seeing these attitudes imported into the U.S. for similar reasons and with similar potential impact. A majority of Americans still have faith in a greater power - I don't know what it will take for that to happen in Europe (short of an Islamic takeover due to demographic shifts). Of course as the Kingdom of Heaven film about medieval Europe and a Crusade reveals you can also have faith and passion without heart or reason.
Hope you are having a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!
Posted by: Marti | May 29, 2006 at 01:43 PM