A culture of fear
Pankaj Mishra
Saturday August 15 2009
The Guardian
Liberal spaces within Europe have brought many more Muslim women
out of their old confinements Europe is at risk of being
'colonised' by its Muslim populations, argue a number of
bestselling new books, acclaimed across the political spectrum.
How has such hysteria gone unchallenged? Pankaj Mishra on the
'Eurabia-mongers'
Is Europe about to be overrun by Muslims? A number of prominent
European and American politicians and journalists seem to think
so. The historian Niall Ferguson has predicted that "a youthful
Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is
poised to colonise - the term is not too strong - a senescent
Europe". And according to Christopher Caldwell, an American
columnist with the Financial Times, whom the Observer recently
described as a "bracing, clear-eyed analyst of European
pieties", Muslims are already "conquering Europe's cities,
street by street". So what if Muslims account for only 3% to 4%
of the EU's total population of 493 million? In his book
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Can Europe Be the Same
With Different People in It? - which was featured on Start the
Week, excerpted in Prospect, commended as "morally serious" by
the New York Times and has beguiled some liberal opinion-makers
as well as rightwing blowhards - Caldwell writes: "Of course
minorities can shape countries. They can conquer countries.
There were probably fewer Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 than
there are Islamists in Europe today."
Read more - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/15/eurabia-islamophobia-
europe-colonised-muslims
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