Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

Sometime next year, I hope to get back to Germany as I try to do every couple of years. Of course, the fall of the dollar vis-a-vis the euro makes it increasingly harder to travel to Europe, but it has been in my blood ever since I spent three years of my youth serving in the US Army in Germany. In fact, Germany is the country I regularly return to especially to the town I was stationed in and of which I later wrote a history. The older I get, I find in recent years that when I leave Germany to return home, I wonder if it is the last time I will see the country I love so much. Now I also wonder if I will live long enough to decide I don’t want to return. Indeed, Europe is changing dramatically in terms of demographics even more than the US is. Immigration, as it pertains to Europe, is much different than America. We have taken in immigrants in a different manner that Europe has, and thus, it has worked out better for us. In the case of Europe, they originally brought in laborers to do the work that more educated Europeans would not do. This has led to a flood of immigration into Europe based on a host of reasons; political asylum, taking advantage of liberal welfare benefits, family reunification, etc. Yet, for Europe, it is much more than experiencing what we are now calling the “browning of…..”. Europe’s problem is that so many of its immigrants are not doing what our immigrants are doing, assimilating. Instead, this growing population has no desire to assimilate into what they despise-the host culture. Add militant Islam into the mix and what you have is a recipe for the rise of fascism in Europe once again.

In the last thirty years, Western European countries have seen their immigrant populations swell into a sizable part of the total population (12% in France). That is not the problem. The problem is that rather than become successful and integrate into host country society, these immigrant populations tend to live in segregated, run-down urban areas on the outskirts of major European cities. These are places that contrast sharply with the grandeur of the central cities. They are places where native Europeans dare not enter. They are largely (depending on the nation) Arab, Turkish, North African (France), Pakistani, Indian (UK) etc. Most are Muslim.

It is the Muslim populations especially that stay within their own communities and live within the confines of Islam. Most have nothing but contempt for the local European culture, mostly now secular and decadent according to the immigrants. In many of these communities, shariah law is practised even if it conflicts with the country’s law, while the authorities look the other way. European women who do not dress modestly enough for the immigrants are called “whores” on the streets. In Norway, over 60% of rapes are committed by “foreigners”. Homosexuals are also a target for beatings on the streets by immigrant gangs. And, of course, anti-semitism is again on the rise. There are parts of major European cities where Jews dare not appear on the streets in Jewish garb.

It must be admitted that the European countries, while admitting large numbers of poor, uneducated immigrants, had no desire to assimilate them. They were content to allow them to live in their communities and maintain their separate cultures. It has been a disastrous mistake.

Western Europeans especially, have historically considered these newcomers as being oppressed peoples and victims of white oppression, imperialism or what have you. Most countries have bent over backwards to accommodate the newcomers with lavish government benefits, welfare checks and turning a blind eye to misbehavior, rudeness, and even minor crimes on the part of the immigrants. Now what they are witnessing is a downright hostile population in their midst, young men who don’t work or contribute anything to the society, who commit crimes, vandalize, assault, rape and occasionally riot. All the while, the host country treats them with kid gloves and gives them lavish benefits.

Now, especially in places like the UK, France and The Netherlands, militant Islam is also pouring gasoline on the fire. Radical clerics openly preach that the goal is to populate the European countries to the point that Islam will become dominant and shariah law will govern. The situation is especially acute in the UK where agitators like the cleric Anjem Choudary openly calls for shariah law.

And in time, they may succeed.

The present average fertility rate in Europe is 1.2-1.8 children per family. In order to maintain the population, the rate should be at least 2.1. Yet, the immigrant populations are increasing dramatically due to a high birthrate. In some countries it is estimated that if present trends continue, within two generations, the population will be majority Muslim. One conundrum Europe faces is that they desperately need younger workers to pay for the cost of caring for the older people who are no longer able to work.

How did Europe get to this point that they are tolerating a hostile immigrant population to continue to grow and gain power as they contribute little but division and social turmoil?

Part of it goes back to the Second World War. Seeing the horrors of that war first hand (as well as the First World War), Europeans took away the lesson that war was intrinsically evil and must be avoided at all costs. Forgotten was the lesson of Munich 1938 that showed that evil must be confronted and stopped at all costs.

Thus, the Europeans have embarked on a pacifist path in order to put a permanent end to the centuries of senseless wars they had fought for no good reason (World WarW
II excepted.) They have decided that the new Hitlers of the world can be negotiated with, agreements can be made and peace insured. America, on the other hand, perhaps largely because neither world war was fought on its soil (Pearl Harbor excepted) has continued to believe (depending on who is president) that evil must be defeated. Thus, when George Bush reacted to 9-11 by taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Saddam regime in Iraq, America quickly lost the good will that Europeans professed on 9-11.

Solidarity with the Americans-as long as they don’t fight back.

The events of 9-11 provided only a brief honeymoon between America and a Europe that loves to castigate and criticize our country as a nation of unsophisticated cowboys and racists. It is they, the Europeans, who are wiser in the ways of the world. Their intellectual, academic and political elite, raised in the turbulent sixties of Europe-especially 1968, continue to expound a hostile view of America, our power and culture. They envision the day in the near future when a united Europe (EU) will take America’s place as the prominent world power-at least economically.

Yet, they are crumbling from within and their leaders refuse to honestly face the cancer that exists in their societies. They are too attuned to political correctness, which is solidly ingrained in Western European nations. They prefer to view their hostile and non-productive immigrants as innocent victims of white racism. It is not a case of the “browning of Europe”. Skin color and nationality have nothing to do with it. There are millions of non-white immigrants who could come to Europe and make real contributions to their countries-and assimilate as well. To say that religion is not an issue is to close one’s eyes and stick one’s head into the sand. Secular Europe, so proud of the fact that their famed cathedrals have become little more than places for tourists to take photos, are faced with Islam on the march. The Europeans no longer have any religion to defend against this onslaught. All they can fight for would be to defend their secularism and their free way of life.

And of course, the two unthinkable attacks in London and Madrid. One would have thought that the Europeans would have stood up in outrage and taken off their blinders.

To be sure, much of the blame lies squarely with the Europeans, who merely wanted to have a cheap labor force and made no effort to integrate their “guest workers” into the overall societies. Now they are reaping the result, and they frankly don’t know what to do.

Of course, the intellectuals of Europe and certain national leaders like Jacques Chirac of France can sniff their noses at the US-even though we have done much better than they with our immigrants. In America, we have encouraged our immigrants to learn English and assimilate into our society-to consider themselves Americans. (Of course, there have been cases where he have fallen short-especially in our distant past.)

The reader will note that I have often specified Western European countries as having the worst problems (Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Italy, France, The UK, Germany etc.)Is it not ironic that these countries, once our closest NATO allies, now also criticize America much more than the former East-Bloc nations like Poland, the Czech Republic etc. It can now be argued that our best friend in Europe is Poland. Is it not also ironic that Germany under the 1960s-retread Chancellor Gerhart Schroeder was very critical of us, while his successor, the East German Angela Merkel, has warmed relations between our two countries. It is also ironic that Merkel has seemed to turn a cold eye on Barack Obama.

I make no apology in saying that I am sad to see what is happening-not because Europe is becoming less white, rather that it has allowed itself to degenerate into a collection of societies that are being torn asunder-both by illogical European generosity in providing a living to people who openly spit in their faces and by refusing to see the open displays of radical Islam on the march-publicly telling them that they are going to take over their countries and put them under shariah law-not just a religious system, but a political system that will strip away all their freedoms.

And what happens to Europeans who dare to speak out and question why this situation is allowed to exist? Ask the man known as Lionheart, a British blogger, who has constantly been threatened with prosecution for “spreading hate” for documenting the outrages committed by British Muslims. Ask Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who lives under the threat of prosecution both in his own country and possibly subject to international arrest warrants issued in the Middle East for “defaming Islam”. Needless to say, Wilders lives under constant guard being subject to death threats openly pronounced by many European Muslims.

You could also ask Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who spoke out against the growing threat of radical Islam in the Netherlands or Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who dared to make a short film critical of Islam’s treatment of women. But they are both dead, Fortuyn shot (by a Dutchman) for his views on Islam and Van Gogh, stabbed and slashed to death on the street by a Muslim assasin. To breach political correctness in Europe has its price.

Europe- a place where an American could once walk the streets safely at night basking in the fact that he didn’t need to worry about the threat of violence or assaults so common in American cities. What happened to the Europe I knew in the 1960s, where it was American soldiers, like myself, who posed the greatest threat to peace and tranquility in the towns? (Actually, I was an MP, so don’t get the wrong idea.)

This is not a question of tolerance. Europeans are, in fact, tolerating intolerance and intolerable behavior from many of their immigrants. How is it that in an age where gays in Europe had managed to attain acceptance, that now a force comes along that targets them for insults and physical assaults-and because the perpetrators are part of a so-called “protected class” or “victim class”, if you will, Europeans turn a blind eye?

This is not a case of immigrant-bashing, though many readers will take it that way. Europe’s problem is not that the faces on the streets look different. That can be a refreshing change and addition to any society. It has been good for America. The problem is that Europe is facing an immigrant population, in which many-not all of whom have brought not just distain for the countries and societies that have accepted them, but outright intolerance and hatred toward others. That has to be called what it is and firmly rejected.

So I will still look forward to visiting Germany sometime next year and hope that I will not live to see the day when beer is no longer legal.