Eurabia

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Eurabia is a political neologism that refers to the premise that the Muslim population in Europe will become a majority within a few generations due to continued immigration and high birth rates.

The term was publicized by the writer Bat Ye'or, especially in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, referring to joint Euro-Arab foreign policies that she characterizes as anti-American and anti-Zionist.^[1] The term is generally used in combination with "dhimmitude", another term introduced by Ye'or, denoting an attitude of concession, surrender and appeasement towards Islam.

Contents 1 Origin of the term 2 Current usage 3 Implications and response 4 Criticism of the Eurabia theory 5 See also 6 Notes 7 Further reading 7.1 Books 7.1.1 Supporting 7.1.2 Critical 8 External links 8.1 Supporters 8.2 Skeptics

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.^[2] 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).^[3] During the 1973 oil crisis, the European Economic Community (predecessor of the European Union), had entered into the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) with the Arab League.^[4] Bat Ye'or later used the journal title Eurabia to describe the associated political developments.

In her book, Bat Ye'or states that Eurabia is the result of the 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. Her definition of the term is:

“

Eurabia is 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.[citation needed]

”

Current usage

Current use of the term differs from than that of Bat Ye'or, with more attention focused on Muslim immigration and demographics, and the difficulties of assimilating Europe's Islamic populations. Niall Ferguson wrote in the New York Times that the idea of Eurabia has

“

...gained credibility since 9/11. The 3/11 bombings in Madrid confirm that terrorists sympathetic to Osama bin Laden continue to operate with comparative freedom in European cities. Some American commentators suspect Europeans of wanting to appease radical Islam. Others detect in sporadic manifestations of anti-Semitism a sinister conjunction of old fascism and new fundamentalism.[5]

”

The term has been popularized by writers such Oriana Fallaci,^[6] Robert Spencer,^[7] Daniel Pipes,^[8] Ayaan Hirsi Ali,^[9] Melanie Phillips,^[10] Mark Steyn^[11] (and several web sites^[12]). Others, such as Bernard Lewis^[13] and Bruce Bawer have presented comparable scenarios.

Waleed Aly, in an article published in The Age (Melbourne), responding to Raphael Israeli's call for controls limiting Muslim immigration to Australia (lest a "critical mass" develop) observed that Raphael Israeli's comments are a cause for concern "because they are not as marginal as they are mad." Aly continues 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.^[14]

In 2009, a video connected to Eurabia was uploaded to YouTube, with the title "Muslim Demographics". The video reached 10 million views in just a bit over two months, notably leading to the investigation of the figures put forward in the seven-and-a-half minute video by a BBC News program. The program concluded; "So how reliable are the statistics in the Muslim Demographics video? The short answer is: not very. But the long answer is more interesting, because the video is mix of the right, the wrong and the unknowable."^[15][16]

Implications and response

Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, in a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera TV on April 10, 2006, said:^[17][18]

• "We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."
• "Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey, and adds it to the European Union."
• "That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the E.U."
• "Bosnia, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the E.U. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims."
• "Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time, or else declare war on the Muslims."

The 2005 summit of the Euro-Arab Euromediterranean Partnership, reached as two of its "four fundamental areas", the explicit agenda of "Education and Cultural Exchange" and "Justice, Security, Migration, and Social Integration (of Immigrants)."^[19]

However, not all supporters of the theory see 'Eurabia' as inevitable.^[20] 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 the European level to meet the threat of radical Islam, and compares policies of non-confrontation to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler.^[22] Specifically, she proposes: *careful monitoring of the demographic growth of the Muslim population in Europe;

• 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;
• reduction of dependence on oil;
• a European immigration policy that makes entry conditional on allegiance to the national constitution: Immigrants should sign a contract to obey the Constitution, and would 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

During the conference "The collapse of Europe" at Pepperdine University, Ayaan Hirsi Ali asked for "reform, meaning, to reduce government, where government is unnecessary, and especially the welfare state."^[23]

According to Johann Hari, "Steyn's wider response to Islamism is to make democratic societies more like the one the Islamists want to build."^[24]

Criticism of the Eurabia theory

The Economist has described the concept of Eurabia as "scaremongering".^[25]

Scholar Matt Carr wrote in the July 2006 issue of Race & Class that

“

What began as an outlandish conspiracy theory has become a dangerous Islamophobic fantasy that has moved ever closer towards mainstream respectability.[26]

”

Justin Vaisse, co-author of Integrating Islam Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, says his book intends to debunk "four myths of the alarmist school." Using Muslims in France as an example, he writes:

• The Muslim population is not growing as quickly as the scenario claims, since the fertility rate of immigrants declines^[27]
• Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group^[28]
• Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially
• Despite their numbers, Muslims have little influence on foreign policy (e.g. policy toward Israel)^[29]

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.^[30]

The "Eurabia" theory has been compared to historically antisemitic writing by British columnist Johann Hari. He 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."^[31]

See also

• Arabs in Europe
• Islam in Europe
  • Islam in Western Europe
    • Islam in France
    • Islam in the UK
      • Londonistan (term)
    • Islam in the Netherlands
• Euromediterranean Partnership
• Union for the Mediterranean
• European Neighbourhood Policy
• Immigration in Norway

Notes

Further reading

Books

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: How Britain is creating a terror state within, 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 [8] [9] [10])
• Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 1918
• Walter Laqueur, The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, Thomas Dunne Books, 2007, ISBN 0-31-236870-4
• Guillaume Faye, La Colonisation de l'Europe, 2000
• Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints, 1973
• Bruce Thornton, Decline and Fall: Europe's Slow Motion Suicide, Encounter Books, 2008
• René Marchand, La France en danger d'Islam, 2002 ("les démographes escomptent 20, 30 voire 50 millions de musulmans en France dans 50 ou 60 ans", "the demographers are expecting 20, 30 or 50 million Muslims in France by 50 or 60 years")

Critical

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

External links

Look up eurabia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Britain's Growing Ethnic Division, BBC video and transcript, 2007-05-07

Supporters

• Niall Ferguson, Eurabia?, The New York Times, 2004-04-04
• Bruce Thornton, The Civilization of Dhimmitude, 2005-03-26.

Skeptics

• Simon Kuper, The Crescent and the Cross, Financial Times, 2007-11-10
• Thomas Jones, Short Cuts: How to concoct a conspiracy theory, London Review of Books, July 2005
• Handshake, Eurabian Nights?, 2007-09-08