Worst of all, the people of Europe - including the established Christian churches - have lost all confidence in their own cultures. This is not seen as a sign of sensitivity or openness by Islamic radicals, unfortunately, but a sign of weakness. "If you're a teenager in most European cities these days," writes Steyn, "you've a choice between two competing identities - a robust confident Islamic identity or a tentative post-nationalist cringingly apologetic European identity."
The United States is the exception to this disturbing trend, according to Steyn. (Hence the title, America Alone.) But it would be short-sighted to assume the great boogeyman of "globalization" is allowing American culture and values to run roughshod over the rest of the world, as the Adbusters crowd would have you believe. On the contrary: the Saudis have poured billions of dollars in oil money into promoting their strict, intolerant, and violent strain of the Islamic faith all over the world.
No wonder Nada Farooq, whose husband was arrested as part of a heavily publicized plot to murder Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was devoted to hard-line, Saudi-promoted Wahabbism instead of the more moderate Islam of her Pakistani parents. "The biggest globalization success story of recent years is not McDonald's or Microsoft but Islamism," writes Steyn.
Needless to say, this thesis will make many readers uncomfortable, and even I have a few concerns about America Alone. For Steyn's prediction of a predominantly Muslim Europe to come true, Europeans will have to stand by and let it happen. It's more likely, unfortunately, that they will turn to neo-fascist and extreme-right political leaders in ever larger numbers. (A recent poll shows Jean-Marie Le Pen polling even higher today than he did at this point before the 2002 French Presidential election, when he won nearly a fifth of the popular vote.)
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - RJ Elliott
"Interesting analogy, but is Steyn really suggesting that there shouldn't be "100 percent gun control" on commercial flights?"
Yes. Pilots should have guns. And then there are the Air Marshalls...
3 - C Sarnowski
I got here more or less by accident: but I'll throw in 2 cents.
"flight control" (at least in the US) means people shouldn't be able to fly a plane where they want, when they want, with no training and no notification to FAA of where they are and when.
"car control": not a phrase in use, but not a difficult concept, right? e.g. driver's license, car registration.
Why is "gun control" so often conflated with "no guns, ever, under any circumstances?" I'm sure one can dig up supporters for this extreme position, but most gun control supporters are nowhere near that. As opposed to what I take as typical NRA line: everyone armed, no records, no limits, concealed or not. Anything less is "100% gun control."
4 - F. Santivanez
The book is enlightening. Europe is on its final throes, so it seems.
Mr. Steyn has written an excellent book.