Death Be Not Proud

Europe’s not looking good.

An NRO Q&A
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Europe is in a bad way. And as studly as he can be, Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t likely to save it from itself. So Bruce Thornton argues as he shines a bright light on suicidal tendencies across the pond. Thornton, a professor of classics and the humanities at the California State University at Fresno argues in his new book Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow-Motion Suicide.


Kathryn Jean Lopez: What was the first sign that Europe was suicidal?

Bruce Thornton: If we take just the period after World War II, I’d say the collaboration and support of Communism and the Soviet Union on the part of many European intellectuals and politicians, coupled with hysterical anti-Americanism, was an important sign that European civilization was intellectually and morally bankrupt. The failure to see the true nature of Communism — that it is an ideology diametrically opposed to all the ideals of liberal democracy Europeans touted and enjoyed — bespeaks a suicidal collapse of certainty in the rightness of Western Civilization’s achievements, particularly respect for the individual, human rights, and political freedom. More recently, the flacid response to jihadist terror and European Muslim aggression against those same ideals also signifies an exhausted civilization unwilling to defend itself, and resentful of those like the United States who will.


Lopez: What will be the last? How slow is this slow-motion suicide?

Thornton: The establishment of large swaths of European societies handed over to Muslim control and sharia law will be one sign. Increasing estrangment from the United States and its policies, and more active diplomatic efforts against the U.S. and its interests, will be another. Perhaps the most obvious sign will be the appeasing response to a terrorist attack against Europe on the scale of 9/11. If Europe repeats the shameful response of Spain after the Madrid train-bombing — blame America and give the jihadists what they demand — then you’ll know Europe is through.

The suicide is “slow motion” because the forces eroding European civilization are themselves slow-working, compared to the cataclysmic wars of the 20th century. The demographic crisis — Europe’s failure to reproduce — and the economic problems — sluggish economies burdened with expensive social welfare entitlements — and the immigrant problem — unassimilated, sullen, underemployed but fecund Muslims ripe for jihadist recruitment — will take some time to reach a crisis point. But it is likely to be a question of decades, not centuries.


Lopez: Is it overdramatic to say Europe has “abandoned God and country”?

Thornton: Certainly not, if one is speaking, as I do, of the European political and cultural elite. Refusing to acknowledge, in the European Constitution, the historical fact of Christianity’s role in creating Europe in the first place is pretty dramatic. So are the empty cathedrals across the continent. And the creation of the European Union, which requires the ceding of some national sovereignty, is a dramatic sign of the discrediting of the nation state and patriotism. Time will tell whether these attitudes reach beyond the E.U. elite into the mass of Europeans.


Lopez: What and where is “Eurabia”?

Thornton: Eurabia is a state of mind, as well as a set of policies pursued by some European nations. It represents a devil’s bargain with the Muslim Middle East, in which the abandonment of Israel and the acceptance of Islam’s cultural superiority were traded for immigrant labor, access to oil and markets for weapons, economic development in the Middle East, and protection from terrorism. In Europe, it is manifested by the refusal to demand that Muslims assimilate to Western political values and mores, and abandon those that clash with Western ideals. It is accompanied by a denigration of the West and an adulation of Islamic civilization. Thus Eurabia is another version of that peculiarly Western self-loathing and failure of nerve that make Europeans (and many Americans too) so eager to don the hair-shirt of colonial and imperial guilt and appease a culture that wants to destroy them.


Lopez: Is there a European view of free speech? How poisonous is it?

Thornton: Generally the European view of free speech is much more restricted than what we enjoy in the United States. Like politically correct American professors, many Europeans — certainly not all — are all for the freedom of speech that attacks the U.S. or Chritianity or Israel, but then they put out of bounds criticism of Islam or Muslims. Hypocritical double standards are always poisonous, for they undercut the authority of the principle in question. If we make an exception for one group, then other groups will agitate for the same privilege. But more important, the European sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities bespeaks not principle but fear: Hence it is another sign of suicidal appeasement.


Lopez: How damaging has the EU itself been to Europe?

Thornton: I think the E.U. has fostered the illusion that Europe can be a world power by ceding national authority to a faceless, undemocratic bureaucracy in Brussels, and so has fostered a dangerous illusion that humanity, or at least Europeans, have evolved beyond force and national rivalries into a utopia where political technicians solve all problems with rational discussion and international agreements. That idea is dangerous, for in a dangerous world, the credible threat of force will remain the key not just to defending ourselves, but to achieving aims such as the expansion of human rights, eradication of poverty, etc., as Europe to its humiliation learned in the ’90s with the Balkan crises — and may learn again, if Europe has to stand by, as she will, if Russia intervenes in Kosovo. More important, nothing suggests that people can take their sense of who they are from a bureaucracy rather than from a nation comprising people who live and speak like themselves. One response to the attempt to do so may be a nationalist resurgence that takes xenophobic or neo-fascist forms.


Lopez: Can Sarkozy save Europe?

Thornton: Sarkozy can’t even save France, any more than Angela Merkel could make the changes that could even begin to cure German economic sclerosis. Sarkozy’s approval ratings are abysmal, and he hasn’t really done anything yet other than express support for Israel, Europe’s Christian heritage, and the United States. If rhetoric has cost him so much support, imagine what real policy changes would do for him.


Lopez: Is Britain in the worst shape?

Thornton: Certainly in terms of its long appeasement of jihadists, and its willingness to indulge Muslim behavior and propaganda inimical to England’s own best interests. This tendency is most obvious in the silly pronouncements of Prince Charles about the superior glories of Islam, or the creation of “Islamophobia” as a “hate crime” that explains jihadist terror and Muslim discontent.


Lopez: Which countries can be most easily salvaged?

Thornton: Most recently the Danish have been the most aggressive in defending their principles and ideals against jihadist assault, and in attempting to tighten up on immigration. But Denmark or Switzerland aren’t the issue: France, England, and Germany are the big boys of Europe, and though they are doing a good job so far of keeping an eye on potential terrorists, not one of the three is really addressing the deep-seated problems that foster terrorism in the first place, the most important being an unwillingness to assert the superiority of Western Civilization and to demand that immigrants accept those ideals if they want to enjoy the freedom and prosperity of the West.


Lopez: What do you make of these latest riots in Denmark?

Thornton: You mean those vague “youths” who went on a rampage? We’ll see in the coming days whether my estimation of the Danish is correct. If we hear more blather about “root causes” and “anger over Iraq” and a “lack of economic opportunity,” then those riots will be one more sign of Europe’s weakness. What’s interesting about the riots, as with those in France a few years back, is the unwillingness of the government and media to say forthrightly that this mob violence reflects both the dysfunctional culture of Muslim immigrants and the poisonous combination of neglect and appeasement that defines much of European culture’s treatment of its immigrants.


Lopez: How responsible are the Green parties of Europe for this slow-motion suicide?

Thornton: They play an important role, one that will grow as the global-warming and anti-globalization cults increase in popularity. The neo-pagan nature-worship of the Greens opposes the foundations of Western civilization and the principles that have given freedom and prosperity to unprecedented numbers of ordinary people. If Green parties ever achieve enough political power to implement its policies, the Greens’ hatred of technology and capitalism, the proven engines of freedom and prosperity, will accelerate Europe’s demise.


Lopez: You point out the unpopularity of Tony Blair upon leaving office as a sign Europe can’t “stomach” fighting jihad. Are there any alternative signs? Beacons of hope for Western civilization?

Thornton: One gets glimpses here and there of ordinary Europeans who see what is happening and want to do something about it. Of course, they are demonized as “fascist” or “xenophobic.” Pym Fortun, the Dutch politician assassinated by an animal-rights fanatic, is a perfect example. Before his death he was excoriated as an extreme rightist merely for defending Danish culture against those who would destroy it. I hope that there are large numbers of Europeans who feel the same way and will in the coming years begin to demand that their governments fight for Europe’s values. But unfortunately, it may take a European 9/11, or something worse, to catalyze that kind of resistance.

Lopez: How might Europe get on a 12-step program to recovery? Who might lead it from the edge?

Thornton: Alas, I don’t think there is any program that can restore a civilization’s self-confidence and willingness to die and kill for its values, once these have been eroded. Particularly when life seems, for the moment, so good for many Europeans, and their security is underwritten by their boorish American cousins. I think the question is not “who” but “what” will bring Europe back to its senses. A serious economic crisis, or more and more terrorist attacks, might wake enough people up. The problem is, what sort of reaction would ensue? A violent fascist revival is not out of the question. Something else that might help is for the United States to stop enabling Europe’s delusions by giving Europeans a free security ride. The European dolce vita is subsidized by America, for Europe simply doesn’t spend the money on defense necessary for the West to police the world and allow the global economy that makes Europe rich flourish in the first place. An American withdrawal from NATO might concentrate the E.U. mind wonderfully and induce Europe to shoulder its fair share of the security bill.