Maybe someone can help me out here. I idly surfed to some of the far reaches of lunacy last night and ended up at David Horowitz’s Front Page Mag, there I found “an interview with someone called Bat Ye’or”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15044 whom further googling revealed to be quite well-known, though not to me. It also revealed that “this character”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Ye%27or is regularly cited and linked to approvingly by people like Melanie Phillips who, in turn, are approvingly linked to by others …. Anyway, this is Bat Ye’or’s summary of the recent history of the European Union:
bq. Eurabia represents a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC)which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League’s delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions. …. Eurabia is the future of Europe. Its driving force, the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, was created in Paris in 1974….
This seems to me to rank alongside the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Faked Moon Landings, Kennedy assassination conspiracies and the like. Yet this person has spoken at a United Nations Commission on Human Rights-organized conference and spoken before the United States Congress…..
{ 37 comments }
abb1 09.22.04 at 10:50 am
Shit. I didn’t realize it was that bad.
It’s good at least Australia is still uncontaminated by the subservience syndrome of dhimmitude. Or is it?……….ta-da-ta-da-ta (Twilight Zone theme)….
dsquared 09.22.04 at 10:56 am
Yeh, the EAD is an occasional feature of the conspiracy mailing lists. It’s actually not terribly fertile ground for conspiracy theory because it’s too big, it’s largely made up of delegates from other committees and there isn’t enough continuity of membership. The kernel of truth (which every truly batty theory needs) is that the need for several European countries (particularly France) to maintain good relations with their former North African colonies has led to the EU having a less pro-Israel foreign policy than the USA, and the EAD is part of that process (though note that the only EU country which has been a consistent supporter of the right of return for Palestinians is Ireland!). The idea of “Eurabia” is lazy conspiracy theorising, not backed up at all by research. I note that Ye’or just progresses from noting the existence of the EAD and the various national parliamentary Arab dialogue groups, and takes herself to have proved her entire thesis; this is a classic trait of theorists who aren’t prepared to put in the work or who are not being honest.
[by comparison, the Arab Dialogue is not that much larger than the European Parliament’s Conference on Tibet; perhaps we are also being secretly ruled by the Dalai Lama!
And note that Ye’or cannot come up with a single example of a specific decision that what taken or influenced by the EAD. This puts her well behind the Bilderberg theorists who can at least point to Thatcher’s address to the Group at the time of the Falklands War, which had the effect of bringing the Americans on side.]
Russkie 09.22.04 at 12:48 pm
Sorry to rain on anyone’s indignation (and I lack the interest to read the full interview) but where does Yeor attribute conspiratorial character to “Eurabia”??
The term “Eurabia” is inflammatory I guess. But if the text quoted by Chris had merely said “Euro-Arab cooperation” instead of Eurabia, it would not merely be unconspiratorial, but utterly boring in addition.
yabonn 09.22.04 at 12:49 pm
the need for several European countries (particularly France) to maintain good relations with their former North African colonies has led to the EU having a less pro-Israel foreign policy
Up to 1967, the relations between israel and france were excellent.
The six days war was the turning point, relations with former colonies providing only a very, very distant background, imho.
dsquared 09.22.04 at 12:54 pm
Russkie: Ye’or believes (or appears to believe) that the Europe-Arab Dialogue and its Parliamentary group has shaped “economic and foreign policy” for the last thirty years. If this were true, then it would be a conspiracy theory, since the EAD is not an elected body and the putative fact that it has been a major influence on European policy would have been kept very secret indeed.
By the way, if you “can’t be bothered” reading the source material, could I suggest that you save a little bit more time from your busy day by shirking what I am sure is the increasingly onerous task of posting comments?
Russkie 09.22.04 at 1:19 pm
D2 wrote:
Do you mean the place where he says:
“Its [ie. EAD’s] resolution 15 formulates the Euro-Arab policy and its all-embracing development over thirty years in European domestic and foreign policy.” ???
That’s quite a misreading that you’re making IMO. But anyway, you seem to agree that Chris’ quote does not indicate a big-league conspiracy theory…
You are misparaphrasing me just like you misparaphrase Yeor. Except that you used quotation marks to put words in my mouth.
abb1 09.22.04 at 1:20 pm
Russkie,
read the paragraph I posted above. This is Lyndon LaRouche stuff if not worse.
dsquared 09.22.04 at 1:26 pm
Just in case anyone thought I was planning on getting into an argument over whether “can’t be bothered reading” is a fair paraphrase of “I lack the interest to read”, I’m not.
Henry 09.22.04 at 2:31 pm
I think “batshit”:http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=batshit&r=f is the technical term of art.
lemuel pitkin 09.22.04 at 3:05 pm
But dsquared, the difference is fundamental!
“can’t be bothered” implies the poster has a life which imposes other claims on his/her time, with which posting here would also conflict. “Lack the interest,” on the other hand, could be the case even for an unemployed shut-in, and suggests we’ll see plenty more posts from russkie…..
Jonathan Edelstein 09.22.04 at 4:03 pm
This seems to me to rank alongside the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Faked Moon Landings, Kennedy assassination conspiracies and the like.
More like a mirror image of the allegations that Jews control the United States. The extremes really do meet sometimes.
rea 09.22.04 at 5:02 pm
“a mirror image of the allegations that Jews control the United States”
So the Jews secretly control the US, while the Arabs secretly control Europe? Hence the impending Franco-American War?
Why, that explains EVERYTHING!
Thomas 09.22.04 at 5:53 pm
It’s a bit like reading Chomsky: it’s all out there to see, but no one has noticed it but me.
Dan Simon 09.22.04 at 6:45 pm
A more benign explanation is that Ye’or is merely suffering from the classic academic ailment of grossly overestimating the importance of her area of expertise. Her analysis of European-Arab relations is fairly accurate: European governments do shamelessly kowtow to monstrous Arab regimes, and generally refrain from antagonizing fanatical Arab radicals (whether Islamist, pan-Arabist, or local nationalist), in return for lucrative trade deals. (For that matter, the same approach is routinely used in sub-Saharan Africa.) Where Ye’or goes off the rails is in believing that the world revolves around this relationship–that it will completely shape the course of history in both Europe and the Arab world (and maybe even beyond). In fact, it’s more a sign of “business as usual” in both realms.
Edwards 09.22.04 at 6:55 pm
So here’s my question. If the future of Europe is this Eurabia thing, why has the EC/EU denied Morocco ascention to EU candidate status numerous times on the grounds that Morocco isn’t in Europe?
And Turkey, a nation about to become an EU candidate, is made up of, you guessed it, Turks and not Arabs. So maybe its Eurkey we should fear!
Then again, I caught on the Trinity Broadcasting Network a nice Texas pastor proclaiming the European Common Market to the be anti-christ beast, so anything is possible.
Antoni Jaume 09.22.04 at 7:27 pm
“[…]European governments do shamelessly kowtow to monstrous Arab regimes, and generally refrain from antagonizing fanatical Arab radicals (whether Islamist, pan-Arabist, or local nationalist), in return for lucrative trade deals.[…]”
The USA governments do shamelessly kowtow to monstrous Arab regimes, and generally refrain from antagonizing fanatical Arab radicals (whether Islamist, pan-Arabist, or local nationalist), in return for lucrative trade deals.
DSW
Tom 09.22.04 at 7:44 pm
Glenn Reynolds has also entered into this world of batshit lunacy, with posts accusing the EU of entering into a proxy war with the US. See http://www.instapundit.com/archives/013211.php
abb1 09.22.04 at 8:04 pm
These Arab regimes – are they really ‘monstrous’? I understand that they have serious problems, but ‘monstrous’? How many cities have they bombed this year?
Dan Simon 09.22.04 at 8:08 pm
The USA governments do shamelessly kowtow to monstrous Arab regimes, and generally refrain from antagonizing fanatical Arab radicals (whether Islamist, pan-Arabist, or local nationalist), in return for lucrative trade deals.
Not as consistently as European ones, but yes, often. Many other countries, as well. As I said, “business as usual.”
lex 09.23.04 at 8:01 am
If the future of Europe is this Eurabia thing, why has the EC/EU denied Morocco ascention to EU candidate status numerous times on the grounds that Morocco isn’t in Europe?
Ah, but millions of Moroccans and other maghrebines and arabs and turks are in Europe, and many millions more will have to come, and be assimilated as working, productive payors into the system, if European welfare states are to avoid collapse in coming decades.
Eurabia, defined as a Europe in which muslim immigrants, most of them young and under- or unassimilated, make up 25% or more of the voting age population, is the most likely scenario for an aging, indeed dying, post-christian and postmodern Europe.
Given Europe’s demographic decline, there is no way to preserve European pension systems with current and likely future contributor-to-beneficiary ratios, which are already far below even minimal support levels.
Consider the other options. Assuming no decrease in longevity (it will almost certainly continue to increase), European publics must either reverse the trend toward marrying late (if at all) and not bearing children, or else accept a sharp decrease in public spending on social programs and much later retirement (raising the retirement age from 55 to 60 won’t cut it, btw. Think 70…).
In other words, the alternative to Eurabia is for aging and post-Christian Europe to become significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-family, or favorably inclined toward bearing and raising children. Somehow this seems a lot less likely than importing millions of young muslim immigrants to resuscitate aging Europe’s tottering welfare state.
Demography’s destiny, and Eurabia is indeed Europe’s destiny.
Chris Bertram 09.23.04 at 9:25 am
Lex, when I’ve finished yawning, let me point you to “Randy McDonald’s demolition”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/408410.html of this silly idea.
lex 09.23.04 at 3:22 pm
Try a little harder, Chris. All that the McDonald article asserts is that muslim immigrant birthrates will decline over time as well, which of course will only worsen the EU’s demographic debacle that is the central point.
Again, I know you’re a philosopher, but please do try to grasp the equations at work here: Europe must either scale back its welfare states and adopt US-style capitalism and family mores or else struggle to accomodate ever higher levels of muslim immigration. In any case, as regards such nations’ foreign policies, the muslim share of EU electorates need not go higher than 20-25% for them to exercise significant influence on European elites and force them to tilt toward middle eastern jihadists and (what’s left of) the pan-arabists.
That said, your little “yawning” joke was droll. Tee hee!
lex 09.23.04 at 3:53 pm
[I’ve deleted this entire comment, since it descends from the robust antagonism of the earlier ones to personal abuse about my attitudes to children. I have two of my own, by the way. CB]
dsquared 09.23.04 at 7:59 pm
There might be a small book token prize for the reader who can come up with the best guess for what exactly “Lex” means by “family friendly” or “pro-family”. Since it’s coupled with “US-Style capitalism” it can’t mean French-style subsidies to stay-at-home mothers, Swedish paternity leave or anything that restricts working hours.
I’m guessing that “Lex” means that Europeans aren’t having babies because we don’t hate gays enough. Any other guesses?
yabonn 09.23.04 at 8:33 pm
Any other guesses?
Manly manliness, plain common sense, and erected penises have deserted an europe under the influence of the feminizing nanny state, while the us is still populated with real, glorious, throbbing, romans.
It’s all because of the pomo relativists, y’know, but they will be sorry soon.
abb1 09.23.04 at 9:31 pm
In other words, the alternative to Eurabia is for aging and post-Christian Europe to become significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-family, or favorably inclined toward bearing and raising children.
I think he’s hinting that we Eurabians have to start raising children instead of eating them. That’s tough – those little babies are so yummy – especially Judeo-Christian ones – ummm-mmm-good.
Nah, inviting evil Muslims and tilting toward middle eastern jihadists is definitely a better option.
abb1 09.23.04 at 9:33 pm
In other words, the alternative to Eurabia is for aging and post-Christian Europe to become significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-family, or favorably inclined toward bearing and raising children.
I think he’s hinting that we Eurabians have to start raising children instead of eating them. That’s tough – those little babies are so yummy – especially Judeo-Christian ones – ummm-mmm-good.
Nah, inviting evil Muslims and tilting toward middle eastern jihadists is definitely a better option.
abb1 09.23.04 at 9:34 pm
In other words, the alternative to Eurabia is for aging and post-Christian Europe to become significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-family, or favorably inclined toward bearing and raising children.
I think he’s hinting that we Eurabians have to start raising children instead of eating them. That’s tough – those little babies are so yummy – especially Judeo-Christian ones – ummm-mmm-good.
Nah, inviting evil Muslims and tilting toward middle eastern jihadists is definitely a better option.
abb1 09.23.04 at 9:37 pm
In other words, the alternative to Eurabia is for aging and post-Christian Europe to become significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-family, or favorably inclined toward bearing and raising children.
I think he’s hinting that we Eurabians have to start raising children instead of eating them. That’s tough – those little babies are so yummy – especially Judeo-Christian ones – ummm-mmm-good.
Nah, inviting evil Muslims and tilting toward middle eastern jihadists is definitely a better option.
abb1 09.23.04 at 9:39 pm
Oh, no. Every time you get an error it actually saves it. Sorry.
lemuel pitkin 09.23.04 at 9:58 pm
Re family-friendly, I read in the FT recently that Scandinavia, and Sweden in particular, ahs the highest birthrates in Europe, well above the replacement rate, which seems closely conencted with their super-geerous system of subsidies and services for parents. Family-friendly =/= pro-capitalist, in other words, as if anyone but lex needed to be told.
lex 09.23.04 at 11:19 pm
Do it again, Abb1. It gets funnier each time.
dsquared,
…best guess for what exactly “Lex†means by “family friendly†or “pro-familyâ€. Since it’s coupled with “US-Style capitalism†it can’t mean French-style subsidies to stay-at-home mothers, Swedish paternity leave or anything that restricts working hours.
Nice try– better than Chris’s, anyway. Of course the US could benefit from a more family-friendly work environment, beginning with extending the ridiculously short maternity leave policies (not to mention hospital stays for new mothers). And of course the French are doing the right and necessary thing with their subsidies– and France is in much better shape than Italy or the nordic countries– but these good and necessary measures are nowhere near sufficient to restore France’s admirable health care system to fiscal health, or to forestall the French pension system’s collapse.
To achieve those, France also needs a higher level of economic growth to increase state revenues, which is one reason that French socialists like Mitterrand and Jospin have been such strong proponents of deregulation and scaling back statist interference in the economy. While of course there can be conflicts between, so to speak, labor market flexibility and employer family policy flexibility, both of these approaches are necessary. The goal is higher economic growth AND a better environment for raising kids. And in many ways these two complement each other: Population growth is a big stimulus for domestic consumer demand, an area of European economic performance that’s (not surprisingly) been extremely poor of late.
I’m guessing that “Lex†means that Europeans aren’t having babies because we don’t hate gays enough. Any other guesses?
Did you learn your straw man and sneering techniques from Chris? You can do better than that, can’t you?
As I wrote in the post that Chris deleted, a large and growing number of today’s Europeans, and lesser percentages of Americans, find the raising and bearing of children to be an intolerable imposition on their personal freedom.
Given the disastrously (esp for working-class families) high divorce rates across Europe and the US, gay marriage would be a welcome improvement. Any pair of sane adults who are willing to make sacrifices and persevere in providing a child with love and a decent home should be given the chance to do so.
abb1 09.24.04 at 8:32 am
The single most important factor in the drop of birthrate phenomenon, IMO, is wide social safety net, especially for the old age. Not necessary anymore to have a large number of children who will take care of you when you’re old.
The second most important factor is emancipation of women.
Your “pro-family†policy should be this: to rollback the safety net and to undercut women’s independence.
Randy McDonald 09.25.04 at 11:29 pm
Lexx:
Eurabia, defined as a Europe in which muslim immigrants, most of them young and under- or unassimilated, make up 25% or more of the voting age population, is the most likely scenario for an aging, indeed dying, post-christian and postmodern Europe.
This isn’t going to happen. Why do you think that Muslims are more resistant to secularization than Catholics, who at least had a centralized institutional body where Muslims have multiple fragmented and overlapping networks of associations?
Now, in your reply to Chris Bertram, you say:
Try a little harder, Chris. All that the McDonald article asserts is that muslim immigrant birthrates will decline over time as well, which of course will only worsen the EU’s demographic debacle that is the central point.
But the central point of Eurabia is not Europe’s demographic aging and impending moderate shrinkage, but rather the growth of an Arab influence that’s both able to subvert European institutions and fundamentally illegitimate. You’re shifting the goalposts.
I wrote about Bat Ye’or at <http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/357867.html>. My opinions of her haven’t changed.
Randy McDonald 09.25.04 at 11:31 pm
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/357867.html
lex 09.27.04 at 7:46 am
dsquared and the Sage of Bristol have been rather quiet here, as have the other guessing wonders like lemuel. That’s odd in Chris Bertram’s case: he wasn’t so reticent on this subject last autumn. Here’s his razor-sharp intellect slashing through the knots of the US -EU demographic conundrum on Crooked Timber (highlights are mine):
having children is pretty much elective in both zones and the individual cost-benefit calcultation is probably more favourable to having children in Europe than the US. So I’d predict, if I were just coming at things a priori , a lower birthrate in America than in Europe.
Obviously that’s not what’s happening. So why not? And who is having the kids? After all, the dynamic America/sclerotic Europe claims are usually made by looking at the aggregate statistics. But if middle-class, educated Europeans and middle-class, educated Americans are behaving similarly to one another, but the “excess†children in the US are all being born to impoverished single parents in trailer parks, the aggregate figures may be less favourable to the US. So how do the figures actually break down, by income group, immigrant/non-immigrant, and so on? I’ve no idea what the answer is, and my googling skills haven’t helped here: but maybe someone else does.
Posted on September 29, 2003
Chris needs help with more than his googling. A pity that his “excess” of babies are all born in “trailer parks”– which, apparently, lack the abortion pits that these subhuman breeders require.
A googling sneering hack and a smirking chauvinist, sure, but you’re not really a philosophy professor, are you, “Chris”?
lex 09.27.04 at 8:37 am
Randy,
It’s been a long time since I’ve read my child anything from A A Milne so I’ve no idea who or what a Bat Y’eor is. The article that triggered this discussion seems loopy, and not really worth your or my time.
In any case I’m not so defensive or alienated that I feel a need to view discussions of complex phenomena like the EU’s demographic debacle as a game between two teams trying to put a ball through the “goalposts.” The excerpts reprinted on CT from that article are ridiculous, but the issue that triggered the article is deadly serious.
Your analysis is interesting and may be correct–let’s hope it comes to pass and that Europeans learn from Americans that a vibrant culture depends hugely on assimilating creative, hardworking, talented, energetic people from all over the world. I wish that the US would learn from Europe about striking a reasonable work-family balance.
But the muslim reduction in family size you posit doesn’t strike me as likely to happen in the next thirty years or so. Wouldn’t that require a much higher rate of assimilation and economic success than is likely in one genreration? For ex., 20c Irish Catholics in the US have attained great economic success, which allowed them to move beyond the lace curtains and into the country clubs and boardrooms, thereby exposing them to great social/cultural pressure from WASP elites to have smaller families and a liberal social outlook. This process though took about sixty years, if you look at the experience of Irish Catholic Americans in NYC Bos Chi Philly and Detroit. (From Honey Fitz to Teddy K is a good example of the pattern.)
But there’s a deeper problem with your thesis: in advanced consumer economies a shrinking population overall usually means shrinking economic opportunities, especially for relatively uneducated immigrants in an economy characterized by labor rigidities and relatively few small business opportunities. Hard to get a stake in an adopted land, have some confidence in your future there and achieve real assimilation if you can’t get a foot on the low rungs of the union ladder and if there are fewer chances to attract capital, start a small business and grow it and expand hiring than your counterparts in say, New Jersey or Michigan have available to them.
The consequence of a failure to assimilate high volumes of immigrants in slow-growth economies is most likely increased political polarization: EU political elites will find electoral gold in appeals either to racist whites or (much more likely) to growing minorities of resentful, poorly-educated young European muslims.
Which means that we can expect EU elites to tilt more toward the jihadists in the middle east and seek ways to triangulate between the US and what’s left of the pan-arabists and the mullahs. If the US and EU nations increasingly go their separate ways on the middle east, then NATO will cease to have meaning, and the US will increasingly look to bilateral relationships with crucial frontline Asian or Eurasian states that are either non-western or non-democratic or both. Especially so as more and more Americans of non-European descent (like F. Zakariah and B. Obama) move into positions of power in Congress, the executive branch and the foreign-policy hierarchy in coming decades.
So in this sense anyway, the increasing muslim population of Europe will in the early part of this century be a main cause of the death of “the West” as a coherent strategic/political entity. If “the West” still has any meaning today, that is….
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