Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West
Christopher Caldwell
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0307276759
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In light of cultural crises such as the Danish cartoon controversy and the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris, Christopher Caldwell’s incisive perspective has never been more timely or indispensible. Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is destined to become the classic work on how Muslim immigration permanently reshaped the West.
This provocative and unflinching analysis of Europe’s unexpected influx of immigrants investigates the increasingly prominent Muslim populations actively shaping the future of the continent. Muslims dominate or nearly dominate many important European cities, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Strasbourg and Marseille, the Paris suburbs and East London, and in those cities Islam has challenged the European way of life at every turn, becoming, in effect, an “adversary culture.” In Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, Caldwell examines the anger of natives and newcomers alike. He exposes the strange ways in which welfare states interact with Third World customs, the anti-Americanism that brings European natives and Muslim newcomers together, and the arguments over women and sex that drive them apart. He considers the appeal of sharia, “resistance,” and jihad to a second generation that is more alienated from Europe than the first, and addresses a crisis of faith among native Europeans that leaves them with a weak hand as they confront the claims of newcomers.
the name of Islam but we also know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law abiding people who abhor terrorism every bit as much as we do.” Days later, he extolled “the moderate and true voice of Islam.” Tory leader David Cameron concurs. He insists that Islamism is “driven by a wholly incorrect interpretation—an extreme distortion—of the Islamic faith.” In this view, no matter how theocratic its rhetoric and pretensions, Islamism is always a
about the consequences of telling us what you know. I also know that some of you have been actively dissuaded from speaking to us. Surely this must stop.” Not every Muslim, then, was a “moderate Muslim.” To say there were moderate and immoderate Muslims was simply a euphemistic way of expressing the view for which Europeans had heaped so much scorn on George W. Bush: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Tariq Ramadan and double language After 2001, Muslim caginess in
resistance to multiculturalism in the public sphere. Should the multicultural order fall, Islam is the only value system waiting in the wings. Notice that Fortuyn’s analysis of Islam’s role as an identity of resistance is exactly the same as Tariq Ramadan’s, even if the two have opposite views about whether this is a good thing or not. Fortuyn saw Islam as Europe’s biggest problem. But his rise revealed a broader problem that Europe would have even if not a single Muslim had ever immigrated
unconvincing. The ICG conclusions rested on biased definitions. What the ICG meant by “political Islam” was official political Islam, as defined by bureaucrats in France: old-line local imams of long standing, the Muslim Brotherhood–linked Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), government-sponsored anti-racist groups, and various organizations that had participated in the French Council on the Muslim Faith (CFCM) started by Nicolas Sarkozy in his early years as interior minister. These,
neighborhoods with high Muslim populations, the sociologist Eric Kaufmann has found, the percentage of white Britons who call themselves “Christian” (rather than “no religion”) is considerably higher than in similar, less mixed, neighborhoods, even after one reckons in income and other complicating factors. Whether they are deepening their Christian beliefs or simply professing a tribal allegiance to Team Christianity is hard to say. Everywhere Islam has asserted itself in recent years, it has