Eurabia

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Eurabia is a political neologism that refers to a scenario where Europe allies itself to and eventually merges with the Arab World.

The term was popularised by writer Bat Ye'or, whose family lived in Egypt until 1957. She suggested an European-Arab hostility to Israel and European (European Community) support for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Since then, its meaning has expanded and shifted. It is now primarily used to describe an alleged transformation of the European Union, where Islam and Sharia become the dominant value systems, and where the population consists increasingly of Muslims. The term is generally used in combination with dhimmitude, another term introduced by Ye'or, denoting an alleged attitude of concession, surrender and appeasement towards Islamic demands.

There is no specific name for belief in the Eurabia scenario, and no official ideology of "Eurabia-ism." Those who see the scenario as true, generally believe that Islam is hostile to, and incompatible with, the values of the Western world, that there are substantial numbers of Muslims in Europe whose presence there is part of a deliberate conspiracy by Muslims, that Muslims will form a demographic majority within a few generations, that all or most Muslims seek to Islamise Europe, and that part of the European political and cultural elite supports this goal. Many tend to be euroskeptic, since the EU is seen as implementing the strategy.^[1] Eurabia is used by some to denote a conspiracy, and their version can be described as a conspiracy theory: Oriana Fallaci referred to those behind the Eurabia strategy as "the biggest conspiracy that modern history has created".^[2]

Part of a series on Controversies related to Islam and Muslims

Criticism

Islam · Muhammad · Qur'an · Islamism

Issues

Apostasy · Dhimmi · Eurabia Antisemitism · Domestic violence Islamism · Islamophobia Jihad · Persecution of Muslims Qutbism · Terrorism The Satanic Verses controversy Women in Muslim societies

Notable contemporary critics

Ayaan Hirsi Ali · Irshad Manji Daniel Pipes · Ibn Warraq Philippe de Villiers · Geert Wilders Robert Spencer · Theo van Gogh Afshin Ellian · Hugh Fitzgerald Susanne Winter

Muslims

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Events since 2001

September 11, 2001 attacks War in Afghanistan (2001–present) Guantanamo Bay detention camp Mecca girl's schools fire Iraq War Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons Qur'an desecration controversy Beheadings of three Christian girls CPT hostage crisis Fox journalists kidnapping Abu Ghraib abuse Egyptian ID card controversy Flying Imams controversy French headscarf ban Imam Rapito Knighthood of Salman Rushdie Pope Benedict XVI controversy Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings Fitna (film) v • d • e

Contents 1 Origin of the term 2 Bat Ye'or on Eurabia 3 Current usage 4 Degree of support for the theory 5 Implications and response 6 Critique of the Eurabia theory 6.1 Comparisons to Anti-semitism 7 See also 8 Notes 9 Further reading 9.1 Supporting 9.2 Critical 10 External links 10.1 Supporters 10.2 Skeptics 10.3 Media reports

[edit] Origin of the term

Eurabia was originally the title of a newsletter published by the Comité européen de coordination des associations d’amitié avec le monde Arabe.^[3] According to Bat Ye'or, it was published collaboratively with France-Pays Arabes (journal of the Association de solidarité franco-arabe or ASFA), Middle East International (London), and the Groupe d’Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva).^[4] There is no group of this name at the University of Geneva, but there is a Groupe de recherche et d'études sur la Méditerranée et le Moyen Orient (GREMMO) at the Université Lyon 2,^[5] and one of its members is the Institut universitaire d'études du développement (IUED) at the University of Geneva.^[6]

During the 1973 oil crisis, the European Economic Community (predecessor of the European Union), had entered into the Euro-Arab Dialogue with the Arab League.^[7] Bat Ye'or later used the journal title Eurabia, to describe the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) and associated political developments. The term originally had no pejorative intent, and no connotation similar to its present usage: Bat Ye'or was the first to use it in that way, especially in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. (In Germany, 'Eurabia' is used in the names of several businesses, such as the Eurabia Schifffahrts-Agentur GmbH and Eurabia Tours).

[edit] Bat Ye'or on Eurabia

Bat Ye'or sees Eurabia (the political process) as the result of a French-led European policy originally intended to increase European power against the United States by aligning its interests with those of the Arab countries, and regards it as a primary cause of European hostility to Israel. She describes it as follows:

"A machinery that has made Europe the new continent of dhimmitude was put into motion more than 30 years ago at the instigation of France. A wide-ranging policy was then first sketched out, a symbiosis of Europe with the Muslim Arab countries, that would endow Europe - and especially France, the project's prime mover - with a weight and a prestige to rival that of the United States. This policy was undertaken quite discreetly, outside of official treaties, under the innocent-sounding name of the Euro-Arab Dialogue... This strategy, the goal of which was the creation of a pan-Mediterranean Euro-Arab entity, permitting the free circulation both of men and of goods, also determined the immigration policy with regard to Arabs in the European Community (EC). And, for the past 30 years, it also established the relevant cultural policies in the schools and universities of the EC... The Arabs set the conditions for this association:

1. a European policy that would be independent from, and opposed to that of the United States
2. the recognition by Europe of a Palestinian people, and the creation of a Palestinian state
3. European support for the PLO
4. the designation of Yasser Arafat as the sole and exclusive representative of that Palestinian people
5. the delegitimizing of the State of Israel, both historically and politically, its shrinking into non-viable borders, and the Arabization of Jerusalem.

From this sprang the hidden European war against Israel, through economic boycotts, and in some cases academic boycotts as well, through deliberate vilification, and the spreading of both anti-Zionism and New antisemitism."^[8]

She later summarizes this process in the National Review as follows:

"Europe's economic greed was instrumentalized by Arab League policy in a long-term political strategy targeting Israel, Europe, and America... Through the labyrinth of the EAD system, a policy of Israel's delegitimization was planned at both the EC's national and international levels... Strategically, the Euro-Arab Cooperation was a political instrument for anti-Americanism in Europe, whose aim was to separate and weaken the two continents by an incitement to hostility and the permanent denigration of American policy in the Middle East."

[edit] Current usage

Current usage of the term is wider than the version given by Bat Ye'or, with less attention for Franco-Arab relations, and more for immigration and Muslim demographics. Others, such as Bernard Lewis and Bruce Bawer have presented comparable scenarios, for which the term 'Eurabia' is now also used^{[citation needed][9]}.

The sceptical Matt Carr describes the scenario as follows:^[10]

According to the worst-case Eurabian predictions, by the end of the twenty-first century, most of Europe’s cities will be overrun with Arabic-speaking foreign immigrants, much of the continent will be living under Islamic Sharia law and Christianity will have ceased to exist or be reduced to a state of ‘dhimmitude’... In the nightmare world of Eurabia, the future will become the past once again and Christians and Jews will become oppressed minorities in a sea of Islam; churches and cathedrals will be replaced by mosques and minarets, the call to prayer will echo from Paris to Rotterdam and London and the remnants of ‘Judeo-Christian’ Europe will have been reduced to small enclaves in a world of bearded Arabic-speakers and burka-clad women.

[edit] Degree of support for the theory

The term Eurabia has gained currency among such writers as Fjordman^[11], Oriana Fallaci^[12], Robert Spencer^[13], Daniel Pipes^[14], Ayaan Hirsi Ali^[15], Melanie Phillips^[16], and Mark Steyn^[17]. The term has become more common partly because it reflects a more general political tendency, which sees Islam as a major threat to Europe and its values. Justin Vaisse, who is sceptical of the claimed transformation into Eurabia, spoke of this mood at the Brookings Institution (spelling corrected):^[18].

... I toured the bookshops and I was looking for books on Islam in Europe. And the only titles I could find, the only books I could find, bore titles like While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, by Bruce Bawer; The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, by Tony Blankley; Eurabia, The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'or; or Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too, by Claire Berlinski... And more generally, even more serious authors like Bernard Lewis or Niall Ferguson write things or give interviews speaking of the Islamization of Europe, the reverse colonization, the demographic time bomb that is threatening Europe, et cetera, with the suggestion that the sky is falling.

In an article in the Melbourne Age discussing Raphael Israeli's call for controls on Muslim immigration to Australia lest a "critical mass" develop, Waleed Aly says that "Israeli's comments matter because they are not as marginal as they are mad". Aly mentions that Israeli's latest book "is an unoriginal appropriation of the "Eurabia" conspiracy thesis of Jewish writer Bat Ye'or: that Europe is evolving into a post-Judeo-Christian civilisation increasingly subjugated to the jihadi ideology of Muslim migrants" and that the theory has received "enthusiastic support" from intellectuals in Europe and activists in the USA^[19].

[edit] Implications and response

The Eurabia theory construes the expanding Muslim population of Europe, and the religious demands thereof, as a subversive and insidious threat to Western European civilization. Lars Hedegaard of the Danish 'Free Press Society' sees Europe possibly fragmenting into enclaves:^[20]

"Basically there are two possible outcomes: Either the Western populations accept their inevitable fate as dhimmies under new Muslim rulers, or they counter the emergence of Muslim parallel societies by setting up their own. i.e. they split their countries into mutually hostile enclaves like in Northern Ireland during the Troubles or in Yugoslavia or Lebanon. The third option -- that the Western states decide to side with their old majority populations and with those newcomers who want to live like them and with them -- would require a transformation of Churchillian proportions that I cannot envision."

Not all supporters of the theory see 'Eurabia' as inevitable. Some advocate the prohibition of Islam,^[21] and some advocate a direct confrontation. In an article entitled Confrontation, not appeasement, Ayaan Hirsi Ali demands a confrontational policy at European level, to meet the threat of radical Islam, and compares non-confrontational policies with Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler.^[22] Specifically, she proposes:

• careful monitoring of the demographic growth of the Muslim population in Europe (EU)
• registration of all violent incidents against women, Jews and homosexuals, including the (religious) identity of the perpetrator
• Europe must recognise the United States and Israel as allies in the struggle against radical Islam
• development of alternative energy sources, to reduce dependence on oil
• a European immigration policy, which makes entry conditional on allegiance to the national constitution: Immigrants should sign a contract to obey the Constitution, and should be deported if they break it.
• ideological confrontation with the generation "infected by radical Islam": all Muslims must explicitly renounce radical Islam.
• "offer good education, close all Islamic schools, and prohibit the opening of new ones."

One proponent of this view, Dave Gaubatz, who has attracted controversy for his controversial assertions about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, is creating a list of all Islamic schools and mosques in the United States.

[edit] Critique of the Eurabia theory

The first academic work to address the Eurabia thesis is Integrating Islam Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, by Brookings scholars Justin Vaisse and Jonathan Laurence. Professor Laurence begins:^[23]

Those who utter the term 'Eurabia' conjure up a mutant European continent under pressure from oil-producing states that has all but abandoned its values and policies to a horde of Arab immigrants. Our book attempts to dismantle that position by exploring the actual evolution of French policies towards Muslims and organized Islam since the 1970s. We try to do away with one of the false premises of 'Eurabia', namely, that French and European governments - fuelled by self-loathing multiculturalist policies- have capitulated to Muslims’ cultural and religious demands.

Justin Vaisse says the book intends to debunk "four myths of the alarmist school." Using Muslims in France as an example, he says:

• The Muslim population is not growing as fast as the scenario claims, since the fertility rate of immigrants declines
• Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group
• Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially
• Despite their numbers, Muslims have little influence on foreign policy (e.g. policy toward Israel)

Conservative essayist Andrew Sullivan has written that "the comical shrieking about “Eurabia” and such is but thinly veiled Islam-bashing by primitives in the U.S. know-nothing media."^[24]

According to David Aaronovitch:

[Eurabia] is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world — and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea^[25].

[edit] Comparisons to Anti-semitism

Due to its purported harsh, ethnically charged language and conspiratorical tone, the theory of Eurabia has been compared to anti-semitic writings by some writers.

Journalist Johann Hari calls the two "startlingly similar" and says that "there are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca."^[26]

In Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, journalist Andreas Malm claims that Mark Steyn advocates genocide and highlights the conspiratorical claims against Islam as a whole made by the Eurasia writers.^[27] In a follow-up article, journalist Eva Ekselius claims "Like the Jews were depicted as the foreign, the other, onto which one could project all the traits the culture wants to deny in themselves, so the 'muslims' now get to take over the second-hand props of anti-semitism" and makes a direct comparison to pre-war Europe^[28].

[edit] See also

• Muslims in Western Europe
  • Islamic dress controversy in Europe
  • Islam in France
  • Islam in the Netherlands
• Londonistan (term)
• Middle-easternisation
• Multiculturalism

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Supporting

• Bawer, Bruce, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, New York, Doubleday, 2006 ISBN 0-385-51472-7
• Blankley, Tony, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005 ISBN 0-89526-015-8
• Fallaci, Oriana, The Force of Reason, New York, Rizzoli International, 2006 ISBN 0-8478-2753-4
• Phillips, Melanie, Londonistan, San Francisco, Encounter Books, 2006 ISBN 1-59403-144-4
• Spencer, Robert, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005 ISBN 0-89526-013-1
• Spencer, Robert (ed.), The Myth of Islamic Tolerance, Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books, 2005 ISBN 1-59102-249-5
• Steyn, Mark America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, 2006 ISBN 0-89526-078-6
• Trifkovic, Srdja, The Sword of the Prophet, Boston, Regina Orthodox Press, 2002 ISBN 1-928653-11-1
• Ye'or, Bat, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Madison, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 2005 ISBN 0-8386-4077-X
• Ye'or, Bat, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Madison, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-8386-3942-9
• George Weigel, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God, Basic Books, 2005, ISBN 0-465-09266-7 , and [14] [15]
• Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 1918, although old and perhaps anachronous, is sometime quoted by Eurabia partisan

[edit] Critical

• Laurence, Jonathan and fr:Justin Vaisse, Integrating Islam Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 2006 ISBN 0-8157-5151-6

[edit] External links

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[edit] Supporters

• Eurabia, Bat Ye'or, National Review, 9 October 2002
• Eurabia?, Niall Ferguson, The New York Times, 4 April 2004
• The Civilization of Dhimmitude, review of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bruce Thornton, March 26, 2005.
• the web site referenced in note 1

[edit] Skeptics

• How to concoct a conspiracy theory, Thomas Jones, London Review of Books, July 2005.
• You are now entering Eurabia, Matt Carr, Race & Class, 2006.
• The 'Eurabia' Myth by Ralph Peters, New York Post, November 26, 2006.
• "The Crescent and the Cross", a book review, by Simon Kuper, Financial Times, November 10, 2007.
• Steyn and his numbers
• Do Muslims have more children than other women in western Europe?

[edit] Media reports

• The West and Islam - Tales from Eurabia, The Economist, June 22, 2006
• Muslims and the West - First, know thyself, The Economist, June 22 2006
• Britain's Growing Ethnic Division, BBC Video and Transcript, May 7, 2007
• Euro-Islam.info Research on the position of Muslims in European society.

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