Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too
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6 In this regard, it is true, Fortuyn’s support for Holland’s euthanasia policy did have something in common with fascism—Nazism, in particular—but in the modern European political tradition, it has been the Left, not the Right, that has favored permissive laws on euthanasia. It is one of those many issues where the line between the modern Left and the historic Right begins to blur.
7 Le Pen is, indeed, a Holocaust denier and a crypto-fascist.
8 “Brown” is shorthand for Brownshirt, or Nazi.
9 Because they were written in Arabic, they were unread and ignored by the CIA. Had they been read, September 11 would not have come as such a surprise. For an important account of this intelligence failure, see Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism (New York: Crown, 2002).
10 British universities subdivide university graduates on the basis of their final examination results into Firsts (superclever), Upper Seconds (diligent), Lower Seconds (lazy or athletic), and Thirds (abject dullards). Examination results are published annually, resulting in an unseemly spectacle of lordly gloating—cloaked in false modesty—among those who have received Firsts.
11 Oxford University comprises thirty-nine self-governing colleges, each with its own character and traditions. Generally, it is nearly impossible to transfer from one college to another. The circumstances must be quite unusual, as in this case they were.
12 Zia later asked me to stress that this boy is now a friend of his. Consider it stressed.
13 Council estates are the equivalent of housing projects.
14 Delicious though this rumor may be, it is almost certainly untrue.
15 In Britain, a doctor’s office is called a surgery.
16 He has asked me to use a pseudonym; this is not his real name.
17 There are, of course, debates about the ability of certain groups to assimilate successfully in America, but these have focused on Hispanics, not Muslim Asians. Even Hispanics, it should be noted, have high rates of military enlistment and rank well on other key indices of identification with the host country.
18 “Here, some six hundred years before Christ, debarked Greek sailors from Phocaea, a Greek city in Asia Minor. They would found Marseille, bringing the light of civilization to the West.”
19 It is difficult to establish, statistically, the degree to which Marseille differs from other French cities. Groups that compile statistics on anti-Semitism in France use different methods, and moreover compile these figures to different political ends. Consequently, numbers vary wildly: For example, in 2001, SOS Racisme claimed there were 405 anti-Semitic incidents in France, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France reported 330, the Interior Ministry found 163, and the Consultative Commission on the Rights of Man discovered 146. To confuse the methodological issue further, statistics generally reflect absolute numbers of incidents in a city, rather than per capita incidents, and do not take into account the size of a city’s Jewish population. A city with 10,000 Jews is apt to report more anti-Semitic crime than a city with 10 Jews, but this does not necessarily mean Jews in the first city are in greater danger. Finally, it is particularly difficult to distinguish between a crime wave and a crime-reporting wave: The French government, in its campaign to combat anti-Semitism, has encouraged Jews to report even the smallest incident of aggression; this policy has been pursued vigorously in Marseille. But an increase in reported crime does not necessarily mean that real crime has increased. My claim that anti-Semitic violence is less prevalent in Marseille than elsewhere in France is largely based on anecdotal evidence, but it is strong anecdotal evidence: Everyone in France accepts it as a given, and it can be confirmed by even a casual perusal of French newspapers over the past several years. Horrible things just don’t seem to happen in Marseille as often as they do elsewhere.
20 Al-Manar proved unable to resist the temptations of on-air Jew-bashing and has now been banned again.
21 It would be intellectually indefensible to propose this as a complete explanation for Muslim separatism in France or elsewhere. Islam obviously gives rise to both radical and moderate interpretations; in its moderate interpretations, the acceptance of secular state sovereignty is perfectly admissible—and the great majority of Muslims in France adhere to the moderate view. One question, then, is why the radical element has in recent years gained ground. The growing influence of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism surely plays a sinister role: Saudi Arabia now provides 80 percent of the funding for mosques and Islamic centers in France. Another reason, as Zvi Ammar pointed out, is the explosive proliferation of radicalizing Arab media, disseminated through French cable and satellite television providers. France’s perennially high structural unemployment rate does not help matters; economically marginalized youths who see no prospect of advancement in French society will obviously find more to admire in radical separatism than those who view integration as a sure path to social advancement. Finally, most of France’s previous immigrants came from Europe, and therefore from cultures more similar to France’s own. It is simply easier to bridge the gap between, say, Polish culture and French culture than it is to bridge the gap between Algerian and French culture. If nothing else, consider the subjugated status of women in most Islamic countries, one that is rightly repellent to European sensibilities. Islam has always seen in Christian Europe a rival, not an analogue. It requires a much greater stretch for someone born and raised in the Islamic world to become French than it does for someone born and raised in Portugal.
22 The list: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, and Zambia. Of this list, only Afghanistan and Sudan notably export terrorists. Terrorists tend to come from Chechnya, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Iraq, the Israeli Occupied Territories, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Uzbekistan. These places obviously have something in common, but it is not underdevelopment.
23 There is some debate whether this distinction belongs to Italy or Spain. It’s more or less a tie.
24 In fairness, strikes cannot necessarily be taken as important indicators of popular opposition. Italians are known to strike at any provocation, and work stoppages have a remarkable tendency to coincide with important football matches.
25 This assumes the mortality rate is a constant. In Western Europe these days, it is.
26 The Italian tradition of political graffiti dates from the Roman era, so perhaps this is not remarkable.
27 When this analogy is made, it is for some reason always forgotten that Vercingetorix ultimately permitted himself to be given up to the Romans. The Gallic chieftain languished in the Tullianum at Rome for five years before his public beheading in 46 B.C.
28 They might well have rejected it anyway, on some other pretext: as in many African countries, the government of Zimbabwe is quite keen to starve its own people as a political weapon.
29 Given the Cathars’ celibacy, one wonders why the pope did not bide his time and wait for their natural extinction.
30 These views have not been limited to Europe. As Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit remark in Occidentalism (New York: Penguin, 2004), these ideas have been exported around the globe, resurfacing in cultures as various as that of imperial Japan and the modern Islamic jihadis. Paul Berman makes this point as well in his excellent Terror and Liberalism (New York: Norton, 2003).
31 “When I think of Germany at night, I cannot sleep.”
32 For brevity’s sake I have selected a representative sample; a complete catalogue of Rammstein lyrics in German and their English translation can be fou
nd at http://www.herzeleid.com/en/lyrics.
33 The song continues for about six more verses in exactly the same vein. The melody itself calls to mind Sir Thomas Beecham’s remark that the English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
34 Kruspe recently became Kruspe-Bernstein when he married a Jew and adopted his new wife’s name. His philo-Semitic marriage has been seized upon with great relief by fans eager to believe that the band’s music has nothing to do with what it seems to be about.
35 It is instructive to contrast this song, Rammstein’s interpretation of “Here Comes the Sun,” with the Beatles’ original.
36 Du Hast means “You have.” “You hate” is properly spelled Du Hasst. But Rammstein translates the song as “You hate.” This translation is on their official website; it is the translation they send to fans upon request, and it is the way they sing it when they sing the song in English.
37 When a journalist asked whether Rammstein truly represented what most Americans might imagine as family values—particularly since Rammstein’s songs are obsessively preoccupied with incest, a dubious family value at best—guitarist Kruspe-Bernstein explained that these were “just love songs from extreme angles.” (Paul Gargano, “A Foreign Flair for Family Values,” Metal Edge, January 1999.)
38 Further down in the thread, Kersten receives a dressing down from her fellow Rammstein fans. “Whoa . . . ,” says Megan. “Maybe you should chill a bit about that Hitler crap.” See http://www.almostrammstein.com/nf/forums/view_thread.html?tid=118.
39 The “Hei-Hei-Hei” chorus in Rammstein’s song “Heirate Mich” has a similarly agreeable resonance for these fans. See, for example, comments at the Stormfront White Nationalist Community, http://forum.stormfront.org/showthread.php?t=114116. Members of this community are of varying minds about Rammstein’s fellow-kinship: “[I]n the interviews I’ve read with them,” writes someone who calls himself “Panzershrek,” “they try to distance themselves from any form of racialism, probably because i’’s [sic] not good for record distribution deals with the Jew monopolised U.S music industry. Having said that I think they’re a great band and even if they aren’t racially aware the music certainly sounds like it is, there’s something about their music that makes you want to stomp some heads!”
40 Neo-Nazis frequently sport the Iron Cross as a surrogate for the Nazi Iron Cross, which is banned in Germany. The Nazi Iron Cross had a superimposed swastika. The Anti-Defamation League’s catalogue of Nordic runes favored by neo-Nazis as swastika surrogates may be found here: http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/updates.asp.
41 The poll was conducted by researchers at the University of Bielefeld. The researchers found that 51 percent of Germans believed Israel’s present-day treatment of the Palestinians to be equivalent to the Nazi atrocities against European Jews during the Second World War; 68 percent believed that Israel was waging a “war of extermination” against the Palestinians; 82 percent were angered by Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians; 62 percent were sick of “all this harping on” about German crimes against Jews; and 68 percent found it “annoying” that Germans today were still held to blame for Nazi crimes. In a triumph of understatement, the German pollsters remarked that the findings “may be worrying.” See Edgar Lefkovits, “Poll: Over 50% of Germans Equate IDF with Nazi Army,” Jerusalem Post, December 7, 2004.
42 Goebbels. See Joseph Goebbels, “Aus Gottes eigenem Land,” Das eherne Herz (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), pp. 421–27.
43 Goebbels. See ibid.
44 Goebbels. See ibid.
45 Goebbels. See Joseph Goebbels, “Was will eigentlich Amerika,” Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1941), pp. 24–30. #Rammstein. Paul Landers, interview in Berlin, December 20, 2004. ##Neither—it’s a trick question. Julius Streicher, “What Is Americanism?” Der Stürmer, #23/1944.
46 Enshrined, but poorly applied, leaving the successor states riddled with internal divisions and border disputes, and permitting outraged nationalism to reach its pinnacle in postwar Germany.
47 I am aware that the Comintern was little more than an organ of Soviet foreign policy. Nonetheless, the ideological character of the Soviet Union was such that it felt its revolution universally suitable for export.
48 Note this interesting euphemism. Would American newspapers describe white men as being from an “ethnic American background”? Of course not. There is no such thing. This phrase suggests why immigrants have an easier time in America than they do in Britain. Johnny Walker Lindh was never described as the “ethnic American” Taliban.
Copyright © 2006, 2007 by Claire Berlinski
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing
Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berlinski, Claire.
Menace in Europe : why the continent’s crisis is America’s, too / Claire Berlinski.—1st ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Europe—History—21st century. 2. Europe—Civilization—21st century. 3. Europe—
Relations—United States 4. United States—Relations—Europe. I. Title.
D2020.B47 2006
940.56’1—dc22 2006000484
eISBN : 978-0-307-42128-9
www.randomhouse.com
v1.0
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1 - EUROPE ON FIVE DOLLARS A DAY AND A FLAMETHROWER
THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED
BLACKMAILED BY HISTORY
HOPELESSNESS AND THE VOID
IT’S OUR PROBLEM
CHAPTER 2 - SELF-EXTINGUISHING TOLERANCE
BARGAINING WITH DEPRAVITY
OH, UNBELIEVING FUNDAMENTALISTS: THE MURDER OF THEO VAN GOGH
THE NEW ORDERING PRINCIPLE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY
THE NIHILIST ASSASSIN RETURNS
CHAPTER 3 - WHITE TEETH
THE SOCIOECONOMIC GROWTH MEDIUM
CHEERFUL MULTICULTURALISM: THE FICTION
THE CHEERLESS REALITY
“AN HONORARY WHITE MAN”
THE BITTER EXPERIENCE OF IMMIGRATION
ASSIMILATION IS DEATH
A DIET FOR THE SPIRITUALLY FLABBY
CORRUPTION, GHETTOIZATION, AND A PERVASIVE SENSE OF UNFAIRNESS
THE GREAT SATAN’S SECRET WEAPON
TOO MUCH BLOODY HISTORY
HOW TO RAISE A GOOD LITTLE EUROPEAN
WHY AMERICA SUCCEEDS WHERE BRITAIN FAILS
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?
THE ANTI-AMERICANISM OF BRITISH INTELLECTUALS
CHAPTER 4 - THE HOPE OF MARSEILLE
MARSEILLE: THE EXCEPTIONAL CITY
“IN MARSEILLE WE GET ALONG”
LIKE NO OTHER CITY
MARSEILLE’S GIFT
A DELICATE BALANCE
CO-OPTING THE MODERATES: EUROPE’S ONLY HOPE
CHAPTER 5 - WE SURRENDER!
WHETTING THE ALLIGATOR’S APPETITE
CHAPTER 6 - NO PAST, NO FUTURE, NO WORRIES
“ITALIANS HAVE, YOU KNOW, BEEN AROUND FOREVER”
THE LOSS OF A VISION
ARE THE AXIS POWERS PUNISHING THEMSELVES?
CHAPTER 7 - BLACK-MARKET RELIGION: THE NINE LIVES OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE FIRST LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE DARK ANGEL OF THE ANTIGLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT
THE SECOND LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE MODERN PROPHET OF CROP WORSHIP
A PERENNIAL EUROPEAN PERSONALITY
THE THIRD LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
A FAMILIAR TASTE FOR VANDALISM AND VIOLENCE
THE FOURTH LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
RITUAL, RELATIONSHIP, FAMILY,
LOVE, TRADITION
THE FIFTH LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE GREAT EUROPEAN AFFLICTION
THE SIXTH LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
BRINGING MEANING TO AN INDIFFERENT UNIVERSE
THE SEVENTH LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE EIGHTH LIFE OF JOSÉ BOVÉ
THE ENDURING LEGACY OF MEDIEVAL MILLENARIANISM
THE CLASSIC TROPE OF THE MILLENNIAL CULTS
MON DIEU
UTOPIA
CHAPTER 8 - BLACK-MARKET NATIONALISM: I HATE
INHERITORS OF THE GERMAN MUSICAL TRADITION
SPEAKING TO THE HEART
A FAMILIAR SCENE
JUST DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY
“WHAT’S NATURALLY IN THE MUSIC IS WHAT MAKES IT SO GERMAN”
“THESE THINGS START BUBBLING UP”
POWER, PATHOLOGY, AND PAYBACK
SO HARD, SO DARK, SO EVIL
A NATION AT WAR WITH ITS FORBIDDEN IMPULSES
A LITTLE GAME
THAT IS NOT A LOVE SONG
NOT EUROPEAN—GERMAN
DOESN’T EVERY FAMILY HAVE ONE LIKE THAT?
THAT’S RIGHT, THE NAZI MANNER
THE PERSISTENCE OF NATIONAL PERSONALITY
CHAPTER 9 - TO HELL WITH EUROPE
THE THIN VENEER OF GAITY
REVERSION BY DEFAULT
A BLIND BALANCE OF POWER
THE LONG WITHDRAWING WHIMPER
AFTERWORD FOR THE PAPERBACK EDITION - I TOLD YOU SO
Acknowledgements
About the Author
NOTES
Copyright Page