While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
Book Review: Short on facts?
Summary: 3 Stars
I read this directly after reading Oriana Fallaci's fairly appalling 'The Rage and The Pride'. I was expecting something much better than that and obviously I got a much better written book (it really couldn't have been much worse). Saying this though how MUCH better is this work by Bruce Bawer. It takes the same subject (Europe's supposed kowtowing to fundamentalist Islam) and though this lacks the downright near-racism (the right word and I'm no liberal cultural relativist!) of Fallaci's book it is still over-emotive and under-analytical for my liking.
Yes the writing style is good - this is an easy to read book - but how much of this is true and how much is anecdote and Bawer's opinion?
First criticism - The book is packed with 'facts' about the rise in Europe's Islamic population, their lack of integration, 'fetching marriages', sponging off the welfare state etc. I would have expected for a book whose argument rests on the relentless stream of 'facts' that these would be carefully referenced. But turn to the back - there are NO references here. How then am I to check that these 'facts' are true in themselves? I cannot.
Second criticism - This is a book based on Bawer's experience as an American living in Europe. Though he has spent some time living in Paris, the vast majority of his experience appears to have come from living in Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Norway. Anybody who pretends that these are really 'typical' of Europe needs his/her head seeing to! He also treats Europe as if it were a single entity, as homogenous in its culture and attitudes as his American homeland. This is quite obviously false. For the British reader it appears that Bawer has very little knowledge of the UK from what he has written. I cite as examples Bawer's assertion as important the decision of Julie Burchill to leave The Observer because of its anti-Israel slant - since when did anybody take Julie Burchill seriously and suggesting that likewise Richard Ingrams of The Observer is a formulator of public opinion (truly laughable just like Ingrams).
The lack of references and the 'misrepresentation' of Europe is a problem because he gets facts wrong that I DO know about so how can I trust him on that which I know nothing? Here's an example. Comparing Europe to the US, Bawer cites a long list of inventions that were made in the US suggesting it showed the innovation of the American spirit. He cites as 'American' discoveries/inventions - calculator (Japan), CDs (International but really Dutch and Japanese), DNA (3 Brits, 1 American at a UK university), the Internet (British), transistor (German but developed by US), computer (very, very debatable!). See what I mean, if Bawer wants this work taken seriously he should really at least look up basic facts. How do I know about the rest of his book?
The problem is that Bawer seems an outright fan of the American way over the European way every time. He claims not to be but this is classic neo-Con stuff. his problem is not just with Islam but also with European politics (I have sympathy with his position there), the Welfare State, European foreign policy - pretty much everything about Europe. One wonders why he stayed so long.
The sad thing is this IS an important subject. The threat from anti-democratic Islamic fundamentalists really should be taken seriously. So far I've read two books on this and for my money both fire very wide of the mark. Fallaci's because it was sheer lunacy but Bawer's also because it reads like a Daily Mail editorial - short on facts but big on hate. I wonder how much of Bawer's opinions are coloured by the fact that he is gay? He states that his partner has been attacked by Muslims in Europe. Awful though this is, it seems to have coloured his opinion of Europe as a whole. He also seems to elevate the assassinated Pim Fortuyn to entirely uncritical sainthood.
What about the good things? Well Bawer is spot on about the attitudes of some of Europe's cultural and political elite. The attitude of the EU to democracy and the 'real' views of its people is utterly disgraceful. The demeaning of anyone who has 'populist' views. The (actual) separation of Europeans and Muslim immigrants (usually self-inflicted by Muslims?) and the (planned) promotion of state-funded Muslim schools is potentially nightmarish, bringing to mind the disaster that is Northern Ireland.
Overall even with this criticism Bawer has at least attempted to wake people from their slumber and it's a pretty good read but I'd take a lot of what he says with a pinch of salt!
Book Review: Nightmare scenarios
Summary: 3 Stars
The author is a homosexual man form New York living with his partner in Norway. This a a brief residence in Holland are influential factors in his writing and the lack of contact with the U.K. is a limiting factor in this book. His politics are right of centre and he laments that in most European countries the major parties are but like the two wings of the U.S. Democrats. Much of his writing seems rather anecdotal and unstructured. His constant theme is the dhimmitude of European governments who fail to stand up to the ever increasing demands of Muslim minorities. He grants that there is a peaceable majority but says their voice is not heard. They do not come onto the streets to condemn co-coreligionists the way they demonstrate against the U.S.A. European anti-Americanism is one of his themes. His heroes are the Dutch, Fortuyn and Van Gogh who were martyrs to his cause.As is usual in anti-islamist writing, he is long on diagnosis, short on prescription. Encourage the peaceful majority to take control and teach integration like the American melting pot. Are these realistic hopes? Not surprisingly he does not encourage the indigenous minority who are committing demographic suicide to take the necessary action and boost their birth rates.Book Review: No more than fear-mongering
Summary: 1 Stars
I remember going to conference on black crime in Detroit in the early nineties. The audience was filled with nice pious frightened whites. They were frightened to death of perceived threat of black crime so much so that many of them lived in gated communities, moved into the suburbs in order to escape this threat. At that time, I wondered how much of this threat was real and how much self-magnified.
The same thing occurs with the fear of Islam, which is composed of more than a billion adherents worldwide. Given those numbers it is impossible to perceive some sort of conspiracy theory that most Muslims worldwide are involved in or that most Muslims in Europe are involved in some sort of clandestine operations. It's like any conspiracy theory - it's just a theory not fact. In this case based on fear aroused from violent incidents. Of course, the violence isn't one-sided as proven by Iraq, Afghanistan and other places where Western armies have intervened in shaping the Islamic world and they have not hesitated to use weapons at their disposal.
True crime among blacks in the US is higher than white neighbourhoods. In Canada, suicide rates are far higher on Indian reserves. These sociological differences are rooted in history and not race or ethnically based. In the same way some young Muslims have been radicalized for various socio-political reasons but to ring the alarm bells and to call off multiculturalism and pluralism is merely playing into fears not rising above them.
The lesson to be learned from Hitler and the Third Reich is less about the evils of appeasement because the parallels between radical Islam and Nazi Germany just don't exist. Radical Islam is a phantom enemy that exists as much in the European imagination as in reality. Our stereotypes of Muslims inform us of our own prejudices, not of an objective reality that can be proven, since Islam does not exist as a homogeneous whole.
Muslims like Christians are diverse in their beliefs and practices, ranging from highly conservative to highly liberal. Therefore, we cannot minimize these differences in order to create the enemy-in-our-midst scenario that we like. It is the same type of thinking as the Red scare that plagued Western democracies during the Cold War.
I would suggest that people read more intelligent books on Islam, such as, "The Trouble with Islam Today" by Irshad Manji, where she constructively challenges both Islam and Western stereotypes of it.
Book Review: Will Europe survive?
Summary: 5 Stars
Many others have written about the steady collapse of Europe and the rise of Islamism. Recent books by Claire Berlinski, Mark Steyn, George Wiegel, Oriana Fallaci, Melanie Phillips and Bat Ye'or have all made the case in similar fashion.
What may be distinctive about this treatment is Bawer is no religious right-winger. He is a secular homosexual, but shares with others a deep concern about how Europeans are sleeping through their own annihilation.
His time in Europe has helped him to gain some perspective on these issues. He has come to see how Europe's inability to deal with the Islamist menace is threatening its very existence. And he has come to appreciate, by contrast, America's many virtues.
A big problem is Muslim populations have not integrated very well. Indeed, because so many practice deliberate self-segregation, and live in isolated conclaves, integration just has not been happening. Instead, animosities and divisions increase, and the jihad mentality continues to gain strength. In Holland for example, many Muslim children attend private Islamic academies, where they are taught to hate Jews, Israel, America and the West.
While millions of Muslim parents in Europe have been able to provide prosperous and comfortable lives for their children, many of these children despise the West which has made such benefits possible. They tend to identify more with their ancestral homelands than with the countries they now reside in.
Coupled with this inability - or unwillingness - to fit in and accept European values is the demographic problem. While native Europeans are undergoing a population implosion, Muslim families are thriving. In France 12 per cent of the population is Muslim. In Switzerland it is 20 per cent.
In most of Western Europe around 18 per cent of children are Muslim, and that percentage is rising steadily. Within a few short generations many Europeans countries will have a Muslim majority. The imams are certainly aware of this. A popular T-shirt worn by Muslim youth in Stockholm reads, "2030 - then we take over".
And European bureaucracies are largely compounding the problems. They are so intent on promoting the politically correct line, and so fearful of being seen as Islamophobic, that they are caving in to most radical Muslim demands, while allowing European freedoms and values to be trampled on.
Much of the electorate may be tired of the Muslim incursion on their liberties, but these governing bureaucrats are holding tightly on to power, and are in effect conspiring to prevent freedom-minded movements from gaining power.
Just as there is a real lack of genuine political diversity in Europe, so too is the lack of journalistic diversity, notes Bawer. The mainstream press enjoys a monopoly status, and it runs with an editorial policy of appeasement to the Muslims. Indeed, much of the media is state-owned and operated. The wide range of political and media commentary in the US stands in marked contrast to its near absence in Europe.
While America has truly been a melting pot of cultures and ethnic mixes, Europe never has been. Immigrants to America quickly learn the host nation's language and enter the workplace. Neither is happening in Europe, nor are such sensible steps being encouraged by the Establishment. Instead, says Bawer, "Immigrants in Europe are allowed to perpetuate even the most atrocious aspects of their cultures". Female genital mutilation is one such practice, taking place in nearly every European country.
The consequences of this show up on many fronts. Consider crime for example. There are many areas in major European cities which are simply no-go zones. They have become hotspots of Islamic crime, and native Europeans dare not tread there, not even police of fire services.
This book is really about two things: the inability of Europe to deal with the most serious threat to its existence since the Second World War, and the fundamental differences between the US and Europe. Yes America has a host of faults. But it also has a host of virtues, virtues which are either ignored, played down or criticised by the European elite.
European anti-Americanism is largely irrational and misplaced, argues Bawer. America simply looks at itself and the world much differently than Europe does. Americans thrive on self-reliance, hard work and independence. They value freedom, democracy and genuine political diversity. Much of this is simply absent in Europe.
Indeed, many Europeans are "genuinely unable to comprehend a land whose people take liberty seriously enough to die for it." Thus Americans will act to protect liberty and to withstand tyrants. "In America, we feel obliged to do something about the Milosevics of the world," says Bawer. But Europeans are different. For them, the Milosevics of the world, "however monstrous, are also, quite simply, a fact of life. Nothing will ever end that."
Getting rid of one tyrant just means that another one will soon come along to take his place. That has been the history of Europe. Therefore Europeans tend to be fatalistic, and tend to dislike war more than they crave freedom.
Anti-Semitism is another issue. Anti-Semitism is simply not a big problem in the US, but it is a large and growing problem in Europe. Bawer documents the huge increase in anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic crime in Europe.
These differences may explain why Europe one day will become a continent with a majority of Muslims, ruled by sharia law, while America will not. Europeans may find themselves living in a permanent state of dhimmitude, and they will have only themselves to blame.
Enough people have been sounding a warning, such as Bawer. The question is, will Europeans shake off their lethargy and indifference, and rise to meet the challenge that threatens to engulf them?
Book Review: One Man's Travelogue of Doom!
Summary: 3 Stars
WARNING! This book is not for the squeamish! If you're a European and prone to bouts of depression then this book just might tip you over into an abject state of despair. It's stultifying stuff, without a glimmer of hope from beginning to end.
HOWEVER! I agree wholeheartedly with his analysis of our so-called 'moral and intellectual superiors'. They treat the views of the general public with patronising arrogance and contempt. Newspapers such as the Daily Mirror are all too ready to condemn anybody who favours immigration controls, or the preservation of their English identity as a racist. With the recent Big Brother controversy, they went berserk with self-righteous outrage. They were literally baying for the blood of Jade Goody (although she is a twit). It was tantamount to inciting her murder.
From my own experience of the conditions currently prevailing in the British education system, I notice it is firmly in the grip of the smug self-righteous left-wing middle class. Every academic subject is tainted by political correctness. For instance, Foreign language text books are full of "issues" such as 'right wing racism' and 'immigrant victims, the 'third world' and 'global warming' (blaming CO2 emissions and all the above on 'Joe Public' as usual). I'm sick of all their twisted moralising.
I thought the book laboured the point too much about European hostility to America and Americans. Yes the Yanks can be a little irritating at times, with their "we saved your arses in WW2" rant, and making war films about how 'they' won the war single-handed and minimising the not insubstantial contribution of their allies. As a Brit , that p***es me off, especially as our young men and women are doing their bit in Afganistan and Iraq right now. All good sons and daughters of the much maligned working class proles he seems to dismiss as a potential source of neo-nazism. Unfortunately Bawer let himself down here, with his College Boy contempt for the uneducated masses. He's not so different from the European elite he critisizes after all! He appears to be an academic elitist snob. Generally speaking I think most us have no particular axe to grind regarding Americans.
I just wish this book could have offered something more in the way of a hopeful solution, other than mass immigration to the United States. Turning oneself into an immigrant, in order to escape 'immigrants' would be quite a paradox. Besides the problems Bawer highlights also exist in America. The only way to escape Islam completely would be to go and live on the moon.