Zia Sardar reviews Christopher Caldwell’s Eurabian fantasies.
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thabet
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thabet
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johnpi
Stephen Colbert interviews Christopher Caldwell about what Thabet has called his ‘Eurabian fantasy.’
Caldwell calls for French imams to be ‘Frenchifried.’ Colbert hears ‘french fried.’
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yahya
This is easily the best review so far of Chris Caldwell’s Eurabian tome written in patrician tones. It summarises Caldwell’s argument or points out its contradictions to its detriment:
Why, after arguing persuasively that Europe opened its doors to mass immigration without thinking through the consequences, does he go on to argue, inconsistently and implausibly, that Europe invited mass immigration because of its guilt-stricken conscience?
His thinking, to the extent that I can reconstruct it, goes something like this: When rich nations subscribe to universal human rights, they lose all moral grounds for keeping out poor immigrants.
How can Caldwell apotheosize Christianity for its contribution to European culture and then go on to unmask the moral decay and self-loathing that motivates the universalism that is said, in his own book, to be Christianity’s most inspiring legacy?
Unlike the post-nationalist Europeans, Americans remain willing to write history in the letters of blood. Not Christ-like concern for the weak and the marginalized but readiness for organized violence is presumably why America’s culture strikes the editors of the Weekly Standard as less drab than Europe’s. America shares nationalist bellicosity with some parts of the Muslim world, and this is a good thing.
But what can they do “to stem the implantation of Muslim culture” in Europe? Caldwell holds out three possibilities. One is deportation, an option that he broaches when he asks about rioters in the French banlieues who shout “Fuck France!”: “Ought these people, assuming they are noncitizens, be put on the next plane out of the country?” A second possibility is conversion: “It no longer seems unreasonable to demand that immigrants who want to stay in Europe give up the ways of their parents.” About the third possibility, Caldwell does not speak so directly, but he raises it in a parable about the fate awaiting guests who overstay their welcome: “The most spectacular illustration history offers of the kinship of hospitality and mistrust is that of Captain Cook, who was feted, flattered, and worshipped for a month by the Hawaiian islanders in Kealakekua Bay in 1779. When he and his crew returned on an emergency visit to repair a broken mast, they were massacred.”
I do not suppose Caldwell is seriously encouraging Europeans to return to their venerable tradition of mass murder. But readers may be forgiven for wondering what he really thinks about writing history in letters of blood.
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thabet
Christopher Caldwell’s new book continues to generate more reviews and responses: one from Bruce Lawrence; another from The Economist; a review of a review at Mondoweiss; and a review of the entire debate in the US and Europe at Religion Dispatches.
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thabet
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thabet
I wonder how Mad Mel feels about her co-blogger Clive Davis putting up a picture of two worshippers in a mosque in Beirut. No doubt, it is more evidence that the last remaining citadel of Western Civilisation (The Spectator) is also being infiltrated by The Global Jihad.
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thabet
So, the brain cell behind The Movement To Prevent The Islamificationalisationalism Of The West visited one the outposts of The Global Jihad and didn’t like what he saw.
Good. I hope Londonistan seemed scared him so much he never comes back. Perhaps he can take his friend in the Resistance back to the US with him too? I hear Fox News may need a replacement soon…
Unsurprisingly, the comments are full of people masturbating to the thought of widespread anti-Muslim violence in Europe. I suppose it combines their dim view of Europeans with their hatred of Muslims.
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thabet
Fouad Ajami gets a free lesson from a reader of The New York Times.
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thabet
Food fascism in Silvio Berlusconi’s Superior Civilisation:
[...]
In a nutshell, a council ordinance tabled by the Northern League bans all ‘ethnic’ shops and businesses from Capriate town centre. Most stunning is the motivation offered by the Chair of Trade and Safety at the local council: “This is not a racist decision [of course, ed.]. The town centre is short of parking space and those businesses would worsen traffic congestion”.
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thabet
Pankaj Mishra has taken a bit of a beating on Talk Islam for his “apparently efficient anonymous overcomplex prose”. However, his essay on Eurabian fantasists and Europe’s anxiety over minorities, is worth wading through.
In one paragraph Mishra quotes from Christopher Caldwell’s extensively reviewed book, in which The Financial Times commentator discusses the spread of “Pakistani cuisine”:
Eurabia-mongers from America seem as determined as tabloid hacks to strike terror among white Europeans about their local newsagent or curry house owner. “If the spread of Pakistani cuisine,” [Christopher] Caldwell writes, “is the single greatest improvement in British public life over the past half-century, it is also worth noting that bombs used for the failed London transport attacks of July 21, 2005, were made from a mix of hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour.”
Caldwell is mad. Completely and utterly barking mad.
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thabet
The Daily Telegraph continues the Eurabian theme started by its Sunday sister last week:
Christian pupils are now outnumbered by Muslims at Roman Catholic schools in some parts of England.
A survey has found 24 Catholic primary schools in the North West and the Midlands teach a minority of churchgoing children.
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But The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine, found that in Oldham, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Birmingham there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Catholics being educated in local faith schools.
At English Martyrs in Sparkhill, Birmingham, just 36 of the 410 pupils are Catholic while the vast majority are Muslim.
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thabet
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thabet
This will have the jafis feeling jumpy:
Mohamed is by far the most popular name for babies in the four major cities in the Netherlands.
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thabet
The BBC has a closer look at the ‘Muslim demographic threat’ YouTube video which has over 10 million hits.
The corporation has even made its own video and posted it as a response to the original.
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thabet
Two positive reviews of Eurabian books in two weeks by The New York Times.
Is The New York Times trying to tell us something?
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thabet
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thabet
The New York Times publishes a review of a book by the Eurabian fantasist Bruce Bawer. The review concludes:
[Bruce] Bawer is unquestionably correct, and that fact is quite simply terrifying.
The reviewer is the pro-Israeli fanatic Stephen Pollard. Another good reason to avoid The New York Times…
A more sane review is offered by Jason Burke in The Guardian.
(Via The Arabist.)
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aziz
The Eurabia meme gets some results. It’s essentially racism, nothing more than “muslims are orcs” masquerading as a defense of Western values when in fact it stands utterly and implacably opposed. Why is it these things – Eurabia, anti-Semitism, fascism – always seem to find their origin in Europe?
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thabet
Something in Newsweek about why Eurabia is nonsense.
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thabet
The Institute of Race Relations reviewes Christopher Caldwell’s ’sophisticated’ Eurabian fantasy.
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thabet
Alex Harrowell at A Fistful of Euroes says Eurabia fans are even stupider than you can imagine.
