Thoughts on the decline of Europe

Here are some miscellaneous comments from the last couple of days by me and readers responding to the Europe situation:

I wrote:

Mark Steyn’s column from the Chicago Sun-Times, “Wake up, Europe, you’ve a war on your hands,” was circulated like mad around the Internet, but mainly for the title, which, of course, is not written by Steyn. The piece itself is typical Steyn, in that he seems to be alerting readers to a great danger and calling on them to oppose it, but in fact he’s just “observing” what’s happening. Like Bob Dylan’s Jokerman, he knows what the Enemy wants, but he doesn’t show any response. Frankly, I see Steyn as a big fraud, who fools many people. He’s a big supporter of Bush’s effort in Iraq, but he never calls for any specific resistance to the Muslim takeover of the West.

A reader writes:

What do the French Moslems really want. They want to create a state within a state where they will apply sharia law, collect taxes, provide the police and create an army of their own to eventually better carry on the civil war against the french nation. According to the news one of the french moslem leaders has asked for those powers in the suburbs around Paris. The french govt has said that it is unacceptable. That refusal is the first step on the road to giving in to the arabs.

Another reader sent me this, which had been posted at American Renaissance:

About five or six years ago (it was before 9/11), I visited the ancient city of St. Denis in France. It lies not far outside Paris, on the banks of the Seine, but has in modern times been more or less absorbed into the Greater Paris conglomerate and is nowadays merely a suburb. The main attraction there is the great cathedral, considered the first purely Gothic cathedral, burying place of the kings of France for the last thousand years. I took a suburban train and was probably the only white person getting out. I remember the startled look of the French lady seated next to me when I asked if we were at St. Denis and got up to get out there. I had no idea what I would find, excepting the cathedral.

The streets were thronged with Arabs, their loud, wailing music pouring out of every doorway. There were butcher shops with bloody slaughtered animals hanging in the windows. Street urchins were everywhere and I held onto my wallet. I finally found the cathedral, after quite a long walk, surrounded in a scene that looked like some bazaar in North Africa, certainly not in Europe. It was a most instructive visit that I have not forgotten. I have since been told that not many tourists venture there. I did not know that. But now I understand why.

When I got back to Paris that evening, the elderly lady who owned my little hotel asked me how I had enjoyed my visit to St. Denis. I said that I thought I got off the train at the wrong continent! It certainly didn’t look like Europe. She instantly changed the topic! Apparently this was something one does not safely talk about.

I am left wondering what the kings of France would say today if they could come out of their tombs and see the squalid scene that is going on, outside the cathedral walls. What would St. Louis, the warrior king who fought the Saracens, have to say? What would he do with the spineless or misguided traitors who have turned over their country to this invasion, an invasion of the very people he fought to save them from? He would probably run them through with his sword.

Another reader writes:

Mr. Auster, who else can I tell this? Thanks for indulging me.

I’ve gotten to go to Germany a few times on business (it’s the only way I’d get there at all). The first time was in 2000, to Mannheim. Mannheim itself is rather dull but it is a short train trip from there to both Speyer and to Heidelberg. I have wonderful memories of both of those spots: our German colleagues took us to eat at the nice restaurant in the Heidelberg castle. It was the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, and outside the restaurant in a large courtyard, a small orchestra was playing Bach as part of a festival. A bit of heaven: good food, wine, in a castle, with live Bach!

In Speyer is a cathedral built about 1000 years ago. Never having been in a cathedral I still get chills thinking about the effect it had on me: the physical structure has a spiritual effect. Also wandering about, not as a tourist, but as a Christian, pondering the Christian ages this Cathedral had seen.

The memory of these two spots makes it especially bitter to hear of the Islamic influx into Europe, and now the revolting jihad in France. I know that all of Europe has places like Heidelberg and Speyer, and I hope to God that the Europeans will be able to find the nerve to reclaim their legacy from the barbarians. The rest of my trips did not inspire me to have hope: I found a secular hedonist culture, do they have the will to survive?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 08, 2005 08:42 PM | Send