jones wrote:
Genuine question Genio; would "Islamic inroads" really be that scary a prospect? Is there a God-given right for Europe's underlying religious beliefs to be based on a certain religion?
I have to disagree with your earlier notion that Turkey is an example of what Islamic inroads would look like in any central European country; Erdogan does what any autocratic ruler (in spe) does - he looks for a legitimate pretence to impose his rule on his country. Islam is the perfect foil for him as he can (and will) use its absolute word to dismiss and attack anyone opposed to him, plus he'll enjoy the backing of large parts of the population as they're seeing their faith attacked and disregarded in literally every Western country. The disillusionment with capitalist society you've mentioned especially in Central and Eastern Turkey caps the situation off, but I wouldn't really take it as a blueprint for Islamism
I'll type out a proper response later, you're raising a couple of good points as well as Daz' posts on the last page. This forum really could do with a proper mobile layout
That's just it, I don't think it's terrible. It's likely inevitable.
There is never going to be a "sharia style" takeover that right wing paranoiacs constantly squawk on about. What will occur is syncretization on religious, racial, cultural grounds i.e. multiple kebab shops and perhaps a mosque in every other picturesque hamlet in Cornwall.
I don't subscribe to any Houllebecq-type theory however. For one, he underplays the rather obviously salient and foreseeable rise of nationalism and xenophobia in response to immigration; he also fails to see that Islam, just like the native religions of Europe, will have its power corroded by the universal solvent which is the presence of money (understandable as his purposes are literary and polemical.) So no, we'll never witness a Europe remotely comparable to the Middle East.
At the same time, there was a certain prescience to "Submission" in its depiction of cultural vitality and energy, I will admit. People from the Middle East, and most immigrants generally, work hard and have more children because they see the prospects of growing prosperity. Europeans, having already reached wealth to the point of societal decadence in several instances, are already at the point where birth rates are falling below replacement levels. I don't intend to meander into civilizational decline hypotheses a la Spengler but I don't find it controversial to state that, going forward, the developing world will be increasingly ascendant, and therefore central in world importance. Immigration is simply part of that shift.
