Steinlight’s defeatism on France

This evening, I caught on CSPAN the last couple of minutes of Stephen Steinlight’s remarks at a panel on Islam and immigration that also included Mark Krikorian and Frank Gaffney. Steinlight said (this is a paraphrase):

… a ridiculous figure like Le Pen…. The choice between Islamic fascism and French fascism is no choice. Europe has been down the road of fascism before…. In May 1940 Churchill said, “The battle of France is over, the battle of Britain is about to begin.” We may be facing something like that now in Europe. The battle against Islam in France is over, the battle against Islam for the rest of us is about to begin.

Stephen Steinlight is a smart man, and has been friendly to me personally. But I am disappointed that he would consign France to national and cultural extinction, and all because of the absurd notion that the supposedly “fascist” Le Pen would be as destructive to Europe as supposedly “fascist” Islam. Once you begin throwing around the fascist label, all phenomena with the label affixed to them become equally evil; or, rather, as in Steinlight’s treatment, European “fascism” becomes even worse than Islamic “fascism,” and on that basis Steinlight would rather let Muslims take over France, than save France from that fate, if saving it required using means that he considers “fascist.” And that’s in addition to the defeatism of stating conclusorily that France is lost to Islam. The fact that France displays zero backbone at this moment does not mean that France is absolutely lost. By declaring positively that it is, Steinlight is writing off those French (a silent minority at present, but as things continue to get worse they could become the majority) who want to save their country. He is also virtually writing off Europe, since once France, the epitome of European culture, has been surrendered to Islam, it would be much harder for the rest of Europe to continue to fight it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 14, 2005 09:28 PM | Send