I published "Europe's Stark Options" in the March-April 2007 issue of the National Interest. In it, I laid out three prospects for the continent, "harmonious integration, the expulsion of Muslims, or an Islamic takeover." I then ask, "Which of these scenarios will most likely play out?" I conclude that
The novelty and magnitude of Europe's predicament make it difficult to understand, tempting to overlook, and nearly impossible to predict. Europe marches us all into terra incognita.
This blog presents updates on that march.
In two-part essay titled "Is European Civil War Inevitable by 2025?" Paul Weston calls it inevitable that Europe will find itself engaged a civil war so bloody it would make "WWII look like a bun fight." In part I, he makes this argument on the basis of demographic projections. In part II, he focuses on Islamic imperialism and predicts quite specifically when the European reaction will set it: "Somewhere between 2017 and 2030, during a period of heightened tension, Islamists in France, Holland or Britain will blow up one church, train or plane too many. Retaliation will begin and they, in turn will respond." (April 12, 2007)
Apr. 16, 2007 update: In a major review of Philip Jenkins ' new book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis, Richard John Neuhaus writes skeptically of Jenkins' roseate views about the European future. Writing in the May 2007 issue of First Things ("The Much Exaggerated Death of Europe"), Neuhaus concludes the review with this anecdote:
At a recent dinner party with European intellectuals, I put to an influential French archbishop Daniel Pipes' projection: Either assimilation or expulsion or Islamic takeover. That, he said, puts the possibilities much too starkly. "We hope for the first," he said, "while we work at reducing immigration and prepare ourselves for soft Islamization." Soft Islamization. It is a wan expression. Whether soft or hard, the prospect is that, in the not-so-distant future, someone will publish a book titled Allah's Continent.
May 7, 2007 update: The violence predicted by Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate for president of France, upon a victory by her opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, did come to pass, though not very strongly. Both her warning and the reality of the violence take the country another step toward the protracted quasi-civil war scenario sketched out above.
July 1, 2007 update In "Baby Bust," Noah Pollak takes the theme of my footnote 2 and turns it into a short article. He asks why Europeans have so few children and replies:
The current generation of child-bearing Europeans came to view their lives through the cultural revolutions engendered by the generation of 1968, the great mass of young people who, ironically, were products of the postwar European baby boom and ascended to power and influence by virtue of their own demographic weight. The cultural upheaval of '68 was an incongruous synthesis of revolutionary hedonism, political and economic collectivism, and a firm conviction that the West had become or had always been a force for imperialism, warfare, and environmental destruction. To a far greater degree than their counterparts in America, the '68ers achieved real political power and with it a cultural hegemony which dominates much of French and European political and intellectual life to this day.
Sep. 26, 2007 update: Interviewed in "Europe's failure to integrate Muslims called a 'recipe for civil war'," Bassam Tibi expands on his problems in Germany and gives a more balanced view than the headline suggests of why both indigenous Europeans and immigrant Muslims are at fault.
Oct. 6, 2007 update: Interviewed 48 minutes into The Third Jihad documentary, Bernard Lewis joins the predictors of Eurabia: "Europe is already, I think, a lost cause."
Jan. 12, 2009 update: I look at a potential fourth route for Europe, that of Muslim microstates in Europe, at "Muslim Autonomous Zones in the West?"
Mar. 25, 2024 update: I wrote in 2007, above, about "indigenous Europeans ... waking up one day and asserting themselves. 'Basta!' they will say, and reclaim their historic order." Well, Anna Maria Cisint has done just that, titling her book Ora basta: Immigrazione, islamizzazione, sottomissione (Enough Is Enough: Immigration, Islamization, Submission).
June 3, 2025 update: Ross Douhat covers similar ground to the above article in his analysis, "Is Civil War Coming to Europe?" His answer: "We are still far more likely to be navigating a more chaotic landscape together as fellow citizens than shooting at one another across a sectional divide."
July 14, 2025 update: Two nights of violence between indigenous people and immigrants in the south-eastern Spanish town of Torre Pacheco prompt Richard North to speculate that it might be the trigger for the onset of Europe's civil war.
