Donald Trump’s strategic advisors are not the first people to warn that Europe risks what they call “civilisational erasure” – over a hundred years ago, another North American, Ezra Pound, lamented the carnage of what was then called the Great War in which “a myriad,” among them “the best”, had just died “for an old bitch gone in the teeth, a botched civilisation.” Europe never recovered from that catastrophe whose effects were compounded by the Second World War that soon followed and then by the disasters that were spawned by fascism and Communism, collectivist creeds that attracted many intelligent men and women who wanted to build a radical alternative to the traditional order that had failed to fulfil its promise.
Trump and the people surrounding him evidently think that Europe is on its deathbed and that unless they step in, it could soon go the way of so many other civilisations that once stood strong but are now of interest only to historians. They feel that Europeans have degenerated into feeble creatures who for far too long have depended on US military power for their defence, and that unless they are extremely lucky, they could soon fall prey either to a revanchist Russia, a country Trump seems to think has the right spirit or, what would be far worse, to Islam.
As was to be expected, European politicians and their supporters reacted fiercely to Trump’s National Security Strategy report which criticised them for censoring views they dislike and letting in millions of people from parts of the world that are, shall we say, a bit problematic. It would seem that the politicians and bureaucrats in charge of the European Union continue to cling to the viewpoints they formed a generation ago when their economy was chugging along nicely, China’s was far smaller than it would quickly become and nobody feared either Russia or the “far right.” But since then much has changed. Instead of growing as did the United States and China, the European economies stagnated and are lagging further and further behind. On top of that, Vladimir Putin reminded them that military power still counts for something just when Trump was letting them know that they would have to assume full responsibility for their own defence.
Europe’s current leaders also have to face the consequences of their predecessors’ short-sighted immigration policies. They attempted to solve the problems that were being brought about by demographic changes, with people living far longer than before but proving increasingly reluctant to breed, by opening the doors wide open to immigrants from poorer parts of the world. Had they done so at a time when Europeans were brimming with self-confidence, they might have succeeded in turning most of the newcomers into productive and law-abiding citizens, but instead of making an effort to coax or prod them into adopting the local customs and ways of thinking, the most influential members of the host societies told them they should remain loyal to their own cultures. Not surprisingly, the result has been the formation of large enclaves that are dominated by Muslims who openly despise the Western way of life. Like Trump, JD Vance and their friends, they think Europeans have degenerated into spineless effeminate weaklings and are more than willing to say so.
Not surprisingly, many European natives are getting restive. They want their governments to follow Trump’s lead and start booting out not only immigrants who sneaked illegally into their countries but also those who were allowed in years ago but have not made any effort to fit in. Until very recently, such proposals were regarded as being beyond the pale, but they are now being bandied about by spokespeople for political parties that, according to the opinion polls, could soon wield real power not only in Italy but also in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and elsewhere.
In an effort to keep them at arm’s length, “moderate” politicians are trying to convince voters that they too can be tough on immigration. On Monday, member states of the European Union said they were setting up “return centres” in other parts of the world for would-be asylum-seekers whose appeals had been rejected.
Though many who object to large-scale immigration stress that importing poorly educated people with no discernible skills – plus their wives, parents, siblings and other relatives – means that many, perhaps most, will depend on welfare for many years to come and that, in any case, those that do find jobs drive down the wages of local workers, what really worries them is the threat posed by militant Islam. Dismissing this as outright racism, as defenders of the status quo still do, no longer cuts much ice. Thanks largely to the lack of confidence in their own civilisation’s merits that has been almost universal in the progressive circles that have run most Western institutions since 1945, Islamic militants clearly believe that they – with the help of leftist malcontents they will eventually have to put in their place as they did in Iran after the downfall of the Shah – are winning the culture wars they are waging against the established world order and could soon be in a position to take over many major countries, beginning with France and the UK.
Trump evidently shares the increasingly widespread view that Islam poses a deadly threat to the West and that unless the now sizeable Muslim communities that exist in most European cities and in parts of the US are dismantled, they will soon detonate conflicts as brutal as those that now occur on a daily basis in the Middle East and North Africa. This is why he has taken to railing against Afghans and Somalis, berating them and their home countries, in expletive-rich terms that in European countries in which “hate speech” is outlawed would earn him several years” behind bars.
However, Trump’s evident desire to remove Islam from the US and, while about it, Europe, does not seem to have harmed his relations with the Middle Eastern potentates he likes consorting with. This is because they too fear Islamism and, in the places they rule, they ban organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, of which al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and Hamas are extraordinarily violent offshoots. In their part of the world, all governments, even the most old-fashioned, can be accused by zealots of being insufficiently Islamic and therefore legitimate targets for assassins eager to send the impious into the hell that awaits unbelievers. As most Europeans belong to this category, there are many who want to put some distance between themselves and those who think they deserve to be killed.
Comments