My wife - who was born and lived the first nine years of her life in a third-world, Muslim infested, hellhole called Mindanao, Phillipines - proposed an interesting idea today. I was telling her that, while Europeans always comment on the fact that Americans don't know history (and, they don't, for the most part), it is astounding to me that Europeans seem to have no recollection of their own history with Islam.
Repeatedly, throughout history, Europe has been invaded by Muslims (Moors) who have attempted to do exactly what they are doing today, establish Sharia law and a Muslims state to rule over the Infidels. Repeatedly, Europe has had to do battle with those Moors, and in several cases throw them the hell out of their countries.
The history of the encounter between Islam and Europe is long and brutal, with no positive fruits to speak of. And yet, the Europeans act as if allowing millions of Muslims to flood into their countries (and establish Muslim neighborhoods which then become "no-go zones" for the police) does not pose any danger whatsoever to their way of life.
I told my wife that the blogger Fjordman theorizes that the future of Europe will be a return to the Medieval world, where strong nation-states will be replaced by townships with localized armies of citizens protecting, possibly, walled cities. I asked how it is that Europe doesn't see the danger, doesn't recognize this slow drift into a new dark age.
My wife responded that it might not, at all, be that they don't recognize it, but instead, that they don't fear such a world the way we do in America. They don't fear it because it is the world they come from. It is the familiar world of their history, and so, it doesn't seem so unthinkable.
Instead, she said, there may be many Europeans who harbor romantic notions about the good old days, the pastoral life, the visceral reality of a life of small community, banded together against the brutal outside world.
She said that such a life has no part in the dreams of Americans because we have always been about hopes, dreams, and ideas, about building towards a better future, whereas, Europe is more about clans, tierra, and a sense of place.
I have to wonder if, perhaps, my wife is correct, and Europeans really do see the coming of a new dark age as a return to the good old days. Perhaps, what we perceive as the roar of an onrushing Islamofascist monster out to destroy our modernity, Europe hears as a medieval siren song, and swoons, sucked down under into the beautiful dream of their past.
