While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within

Book review by Joanne Mandel special to JRT:

Why do reports from Europe remind us of Germany in the
1930s?

While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer. Doubleday, 2006. 237 pages. $23.95.

More than 60 years after the liberation of the concentration camps, we are seeing behavior all too reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s.  The 2005 May Day parades held throughout Western Europe featured banners proclaiming “Stop occupation and terror – Stop the U.S. & Israel” and many in the crowds lining the parade route were chanting things we thought we’d never have to hear again. How could this happen? A fine new book, While Europe Slept, by Bruce Bawer contains an explanation.

The author gives a riveting account of happenings across the Atlantic – stuff we don’t hear about on the evening news.  Mr. Bawer moved to Amsterdam in 1998 to escape America’s fundamentalism. Living and traveling abroad acquainted him with another kind of fundamentalism - one that is rampant in Europe. His experiences give us a window on what it is that prompts the rise in anti-Semitic incidents. Lessons learned from two world wars help us make sense of what is happening today.

Americans and Europeans drew very different lessons from WWI and WWII, according to Bawer. Europeans learned that war is evil. Therefore, peace must be preserved at all costs. War is never the answer. For Americans, whose homeland was not invaded nor cities bombed, the lesson learned was that tyranny is evil and must be resisted, even if it means going to war. War is sometimes necessary to preserve freedom.

These profoundly different conclusions help to explain why Europeans see those who are prepared to defend freedom with military action as a greater threat than terrorism itself, Bawer writes. That is part of the explanation for those anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans - expressions of the outrage felt by those who are willing to endure anything - but war.

To the Western European establishment the proper response is to negotiate with terrorists, to appoint a commission, to hold a conference, to compromise with
the enemy. According to the author, “Europeans seemed to inhabit another mental universe.”

As Somali-born Dutch feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali said in a recent interview, there’s a “Pacifist ideology that violence should never be used in any circumstances, and so we should talk and talk and talk. Even when your opponent tells you, ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to destroy you,’ the reaction is, ‘Please, let’s talk about the fact that you want to destroy me!”

Political correctness is the hallmark of all public policy  carried out by the government, the universities, the schools, the law enforcement, the courts and all media coverage.  A remarkably conciliatory, sympathetic, and supportive attitude toward the Muslim immigrant community reigns supreme.
Unfortunately, those few in Europe who do speak out in defense of freedom of conscience and equality before the law are routinely maligned as racists, neo-Nazis
and a danger to the community.

The fruits of a long-standing commitment to political, academic and economic cooperation between the European nations and Arab governments resulted in Europe achieving a steady supply of Arab oil and open markets for their exports. In return, Europe welcomed unprecedented levels of Arab immigration and enthusiastically joined Arab efforts to de-legitimize American and Israeli interests in the Middle East. Mr. Bawers explains that this relationship with the Arab world gave Europeans a sense of security, believing that they would be safe from terrorist attack.

The European media played a central role in maintaining this fantasy. The author tells us that most Europeans have “been pumped full of America-hatred all [their] lives by teachers, professors, politicians, and journalists.” That is why they ‘know’ that America is plagued by severe poverty and extreme inequality and has no system for helping those in need. Likewise, journalists demonize Israel’s treatment of Arabs to a shocking extent. Coverage of the “Jenin massacre” is a prime example. The fact that it never occurred did not matter.

The escalation in the frequency of anti-Israeli reports was accompanied by a rise in anti-Semitism acts in Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden and Britain.
Jews have been assaulted, tortured and murdered. Synagogues have been burned; Jewish schools vandalized and school buses strafed by gunshot. Of course, all non-Muslims are threatened. We learn that the intimidation of non-Muslim teachers and children by Muslims children is endemic. School authorities caution parents who dare to object to the assaults and beatings their children experience that speaking out will only make matters worse.

That response is in keeping with the politically correct understanding; that is, Muslim offenses are never the responsibility of Muslim perpetrators. If problems arise such as mounting crime by Muslim youth, it is said to be due to the racism and xenophobia (fear of foreigners) of the host population. Period.

Bawer relates that the police are reluctant to respond to such crimes expecting that doing so will only lead to more trouble.  Also, the courts of law will not take the charges seriously. What are people to do when they learn that law enforcement personnel and the courts cannot protect them?  Polls cited by Mr. Bawer indicate that nearly one-half of French Jews have either thought of leaving France or have advised their children to do so.

After the bombings in Spain and then in London, Mr.Bawer believed that finally the European establishment would awaken to reality and address the danger posed by resident radical Muslims. But he was sorely disappointed both times.

The response to the bombings was reflected in a Norwegian editorial which said: “Europeans must live with the risk of new terrorist acts.” This was a fitting response from those who regard talk as a substitute for action. Learning to ‘live with it’ is the [politically correct] answer. British historian, Paul Johnson, summed up the situation when he observed that the obstinacy and a blindness of the EU elite borders on imbecility.

To speak openly and truthfully about the problems created by Muslim attitudes and behavior is verboten. It is the ultimate challenge to Europe’s prevailing ‘mental universe.’ Seeing the establishment’s inability to deal with the threat posed by Islamists, the author agrees with those who say Western Europe is no match for radical Islam.

Read While Europe Slept to learn why reports from Europe should remind us of Germany in the 1930s. Read it to be far better informed and able to help prevent such thinking from making further inroads on theAmerican political scene.

posted by: jrtelegraph