Below The Beltway

As he has on many, many occasions in the past, Mark Steyn has a well-written column out today covering the conflict between the West and Islam and what he sees as the consequences of a Muslim demographic tide in Europe.

In one short sentence, Steyn puts the lie to those in the West (epitomized in his mind by the new Bishop of the Episcopal Church, actress Scarlet Johansen, and Condoleeza Rice, each of whom he says are ignoring the demographic issue entirely):

We can argue about exactly what this trend means, but not that it means nothing

With that I would agree, but what exactly does it mean ? Ralph Peters argues that, given the lessons of history, Muslims may have more to worry about than Europeans do:

The notion that continental Europeans, who are world-champion haters, will let the impoverished Muslim immigrants they confine to ghettos take over their societies and extend the caliphate from the Amalfi Coast to Amsterdam has it exactly wrong.

The endangered species isn’t the “peace loving” European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent’s Muslims immigrants – and their multi-generation descendents – who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.

In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe’s playgrounds.

Don’t let Europe’s current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.

The historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened – even when the threat’s concocted nonsense – they don’t just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And, as Peters points out, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that Europe employed this technique in response to foreign invasion:

The year 1492 wasn’t just big for Columbus. It’s also when Spain expelled its culturally magnificent Jewish community en masse – to be followed shortly by the Moors, Muslims who had been on the Iberian Peninsula for more than 800 years.

Jews got the boot elsewhere in Europe, too – if they weren’t just killed on the spot. When Shakespeare wrote “The Merchant of Venice,” it’s a safe bet he’d never met a Jew. The Chosen People were long-gone from Jolly Olde England.

From the French expulsion of the Huguenots right down to the last century’s massive ethnic cleansings, Europeans have never been shy about showing “foreigners and subversives” the door.

And, as Peters reminds us, the United States was the only nation that tried to do something while Muslims in the Balkans were getting slaughtered. The rest of Europe stood by and watched from a safe distance. In any case, the future history of Europe may be a lot more like its past than we think:

All the copy-cat predictions of a Muslim takeover of Europe not only ignore history and Europe’s ineradicable viciousness, but do a serious disservice by exacerbating fear and hatred. And when it comes to hatred, trust me: The Europeans don’t need our help.

The jobless and hopeless kids in the suburbs may burn a couple of cars, but we’ll always have Paris.

Given things such as the Dutch effort to ban the burqa and similar efforts across Europe to ban public displays of Muslim head scarves or other signs of faith, the outcome Peters talks about isn’t all that implausible.

Further thoughts at Wizbang

H/T: Don Surber