|
That this is true, that Europe has a bigger
problem with radical Islam seems incontrovertible - certainly, we have had our
Lackawanna Seven and there was a link to a U.S.
mosque in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But the first group
seemed like a bunch of happy idiots that went on a cultural adventure ride and
got in over their heads, while the second is rather the exception that proves
the rule: Even the brains behind the 9/11 operation appear to have operated
under the radar of local Islamic populations, instead getting their fill of
hatred in German mosques .
It's different in Europe, especially in Britain,
where radical Islamists feel free to use the privileges of the state's respect
for freedom of religion and speech to say the most incendiary things at the
Finsbury Park
mosque,
and in France where the banleiues sensibles
have become no-go areas for the otherwise
all-embracing arms of the bureaucratic state.
But why should this be so? Why are all, or even
most, of the radicals in Europe? A few ideas come to mind: The first, and
simplest explanation is geography. Europe has always been in contact, and nearly
always in friction with Islam, at least from medieval through modern times.
Turkey abuts Germany, and legions of their citizens came to the Federal Republic
as
gastarbeiters,
taking the low paying jobs lying otherwise fallow on the Teutonic ground during
that country's dramatic, post-war economic expansion. To the south, Italy fights
an ongoing struggle to keep her borders and shorelines clear of economic
refugees from Albania and Bosnia, a short distance across the Adriatic. Spain
too enjoys a resurgence of Islamists, some of them no
doubt dreaming their lovely visions of
al
Andalus.
Legacy of empire too plays a role in this: In
Britain, many of the Pakistanis who could came home with the Raj when it rolled
up its carpet and closed up shop, and many of those eventually brought along
their relatives. France, too, continues to pay her dues to the legacy of
colonial Algeria in the currency of North African immigration.
And I think while we can still be grateful both in
our island separation from the world at large, as well as our minimalist and
quickly discarded experiments in empire building, these factors alone do not
explain all. First, the world is much smaller now than it was even 50 years
ago, and our borders have always been porous. Second, there are few places in
the world an economic refugee who is willing to work would be more likely to go
than to the U.S. Despite attempts by far too many people who should know better
to Balkanize the American demographic into cultural identity groups for later
exploitation, people overseas know exactly what they're hoping for when they
come to these shores: A fair shot at a better life, earned through natural gifts
and hard work.
I'm not just talking brain drain. Look in any 7/11
and you'll very likely find a mom and pop owner/operator combine from somewhere
in south Asia, the both of them busting their humps 24/7. They'll scrimp and
save and buy a house eventually, someplace in the 'burbs. They'll pay their
taxes and mow their lawns and consider themselves blessed to be here by whatever
gods they worship. Their kids will go to college and their grandkids to Harvard,
and that is the American dream, open to all comers.
I think this is less true in Europe: There, far
more than here in the US, populations have always identified themselves in
racial (I do not say "racist") terms, and much of the historic agonies of the
old world were brewed in the cauldron of aggrieved ethnic minorities separated
from their cultural centers of mass in an internal European diaspora. These
minorities nearly always felt themselves (often with good reason) to be under
the thumb of a ruling racial majority, and were unwilling, as often as uanable,
to assimilate. While Winston Churchill could speak in the 20th century of a
"race of Britons," there has never been a sensible context for an "American
race." The words in combination are meaningless - there is no such thing.
Theodore Roosevelt might have drawn a straight line from the citizens of his own
New York milieu to their Anglo-Saxon progenitors, but even he, who grew up in
that rarified stratum of society, knew that there was much more to America than
Hearts of Oak. He was, after all, the first U.S. president to host a black man
to dinner in the White House.
The point of all this is that while it's much
easier for large populations to displace to a demographically aging Europe which
increasingly needs their willing labor, it's much harder for that same pool of
immigrants to assimilate into the dominant culture - even if they wanted to.
Without an equivalent of the American Dream, their children are asked to settle
in at an economic level which, while gratifying to their parents, does not meet
the children's risen expectations. This group sees the wealth and ease of the
world around them but cannot participate in it, and with no personal knowledge
of their parents' struggles at home, it is these disaffected youth in the
welfare subsidized apartment blocks who give their willing ears to the radical
preachers of violence and hate.
In the end, Europe is not just nurturing the
terminally disaffected viper to their bosom, but they are also, through generous
welfare payments, subsidizing it. That is what separates us, even as the bonds
of our common aspirations and cultural experience attempt to draw us back
together.
|
