Does Europe side with Arabs against the US?
Building on the work of the writer Bat Ye’or, Robert Spencer makes the case that Europe has fundamentally aligned with Arab Muslim regimes.
This “shifting of Europe into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence,” Bat Ye’or explains, was intended to break the “traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity.” To deflate American power and assure themselves a steady supply of oil, European leaders accepted “the traditional cultural baggage of Arab societies, with its anti-Christian and anti-Jewish prejudices and its hostility against Israel and the West.” In exchange for markets in the Islamic world, Europe turned its back on its Judeo-Christian heritage and set the stage for its own Islamization. At the highest political level, Europe, including Spain, has been selling its soul for decades now—giving up, in effect, its blood for oil.…
(*) The US–Europe alliance faces this challenge.
Does Europe suffer from a failure of nerve? Is Europe doomed? We shall find out.
March 24th, 2004 at 10:01
Interesting - this doesn’t seem to be the view of the entire Arab world. To the Arab people, neither Europe nor the West in general side with the Arab world of Islam. Similarly, the author does not touch on how it seems Europe is in the wrong for not siding with Israel. Would that be seen as more acceptable? Besides, Judaism and Christianity - in their practiced forms - share an equal amount of - if not more of - the cultural baggage that the author refers to. Exaggeration in the form of statements like ‘the Islamisation of Europe’ don’t help reach any form of cultural understanding, especially considering how the West wants to ‘Westernize’ the Arab world in the name of democracy. Europe is far from being Islamic in any way, and I doubt that it is in the agenda of any Arab nation to Islamisize anyone. It might be within the agenda of radical Islamic terrorist networks - who by the way are just as unsatisfied with governments in the Arab world as they are with the West. Equally, one can say that Christian evangelical missions sent to Africa and the developing world have an agenda of “Christianisation,’ that is of equally sinister.
March 24th, 2004 at 11:57
Your comment bespeaks of a non-comprehension of salient facts.
You say, for example: I doubt that it is in the agenda of any Arab nation to Islamisize anyone.
Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars on promoting mosques, madrassas, and Islamic teaching all around the world.
As for the supposedly horrible Christian missionary process in Africa, peaceful Christian Africans are being raped and killed by Muslims undertaking jihad in Africa. When did this occur? A few weeks ago. It also occurs in other countries, like Indonesia.`
Under the collection of links at this site, under the subcategory “The War,” I link to several sites of interest, including “Jihad Watch.” They cover these stories more regularly.
March 24th, 2004 at 15:54
Thanks for taking the time to reply (honestly). It seems odd that Christian missions (I never implied that they were violent by the way, I simply said that if we are to think that all Islamic missions are sinister, we have to consider the same of all Christian missions) - which do spend millions to build churches and educate people in Africa are ok, but Saudi’s efforts in the same direction aren’t. Fortunately, I am both Arab and Muslim, so it is practically impossible for me not to comprehend the salient facts. I have lived all of my life in Kuwait and Egypt, and seen the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait first hand. You can disbelieve me as much as you wish, but when I say that there is no agenda to Islamsize anyone by governments of this region, I can safely say that this comes not out of humility, but out of inability. A couple of mosques, madrassas (which means schools, and are simply schools that teach sharia) and Islamic education centers are not the problem - unless of course you are implying that all Muslims are terorrists.
The biggest problem right now is the misrepresentation of Islam - the fact the supposedly intellectual elite of the West have demonized a religion based on the behavior of fanatics. Granted, those fanatics are louder and more visible, but they are certainly not representative. Also granted is the failure of the Arab world’s intellectual elite to stand up to this tide. My question remains though - how is it that the author sees Europe being Islamisized?
March 25th, 2004 at 23:48
The starting point of this discussion was the relationship between Europe and the Arab world. As an American, we are seeing our longtime European allies thinking about turning against us to some degree. Although France may be unique, France’s preparation to weaponize China is something we must take seriously. European economic interest in the Middle East is natural. What the US is right to be concerned about is how close allies European nations are with us in the Global War on Terrorism.
Excellent point about not all Islamic missions being sinister. It’s the few that are that make the news. That said, we need proselytization reciprocity. I feel strongly that if you can freely seek Muslim converts in America and Europe, you must be able to freely seek Christian converts in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, for example.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. You are accomplishing much more than I, a Christian, ever could to correct the unbalanced perception that people have received of Islam.
March 26th, 2004 at 04:14
You’re right in asking for recipricol missions, and sadly that isn’t the case. It isn’t so much about government ‘banning’ as it is about public resistance - a resistance that is mostly politically motivated (i.e the confusion of religion and politics, where Christianity is exclusively Western, and Islam as exclusively Eastern). There is also severe confusion between Jews and the Israelis - most people in the Arab world - Muslim or Christian - believe that Jews and Israelis are one and the same, when in reality they aren’t. Blame it on bad journalism, tainted history books and fanatic Islam, who have turned everything none Muslim into evil, regardless of where it comes from and what religion it prescribes to. To that effect, I agree with you that there needs to be a stronger movement towards an open acceptance of Christian and Jewish missions in Islamic countries.
As for the perception of Islam, I do not condone people’s current understanding of it - Arabs and Muslims the world over are as much to blame for this as anyone else. What I do condone however is politically motivated sensationalism that only helps to tarnish Islam’s image further. Understandable? Yes. Excusable? No. There needs to be a solid admission that there are those on both sides of the line that will benefit from continual conflict, and it is those people who seek to defame all three religions, each to to his own advantage.
If this submission is made, everyone - Jews, Christians and Muslims - can be wary about what they believe and where they get their information from. One of the saddest things of all is the absence of varied information sources in the Middle East - a function of poverty and years of dictatorship more than anything else. The West must understand that the Arab world has been bred on submission - years of authoritarian rule, foreign occupation and poverty have conditioned the collective Arab mind to believe blindly one ideology. This is slowly changing, but slowly is the key word here.
Anyhow, dialogue can be a way forward, and thank you for being open to discussion.