Eurabia

Islam in Europe^[1]

  <1% (Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Ukraine)

  1%-2% (Andorra, Croatia)

  2%-4% (Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain)

  4%-5% (Denmark, Greece, Liechtenstein, United Kingdom)

  5%-10% (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland)

  10%-20% (Bulgaria, Georgia, Montenegro, Russia)

  20%-30% (Cyprus)

  30%-40% (Macedonia)

  40%-50% (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

  80%-90% (Albania)

  90%-95% (Kosovo)

  95%-100% (Turkey, Azerbaijan)

v · d · e

Part of a series on
Criticism of Islam
Issues
Antisemitism · Domestic violence · Eurabia · Islam · Muhammad · Quran
People
Anders Behring Breivik · Irshad Manji · Ayaan Hirsi Ali · Maryam Namazie · Tarek Fatah · Daniel Pipes · Ibn Warraq · Geert Wilders · Oriana Fallaci · Pamela Geller · Robert Spencer · Theo van Gogh · Afshin Ellian · Salman Rushdie · Turan Dursun · Wafa Sultan · Magdi Allam · Anwar Shaikh · Walid Shoebat · Taslima Nasrin · Mark A. Gabriel · Brigitte Gabriel · Pat Condell · Nonie Darwish · Mosab Hassan Yousef · Bruce Bawer · Bat Ye'or · Necla Kelek · Debbie Schlussel · Srđa Trifković · Pastor Terry Jones · Fjordman · Pim Fortuyn · Efraim Karsh · Ehsan Jami · David Wood · Martin Bosma
v · d · e

Eurabia is a conspiracy theory^[2] about the alleged Arabization and Islamization of Europe, and the European leaders' alleged capitulation to Islamic influences.^[3]

Origin of the term

Eurabia was originally the title of a newsletter published by the Comité européen de coordination des associations d'amitié avec le monde Arabe.^[4] According to Bat Ye'or, it was published collaboratively with France-Pays Arabes (journal of the Association de solidarité franco-arabe or ASFA), Middle East International (London), and the Groupe d'Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva).^[5] During the 1973 oil crisis, the European Economic Community (predecessor of the European Union), had entered into the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) with the Arab League.^[6] Bat Ye'or later used the journal title Eurabia in her books.

In her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or claims that Eurabia is the result of the French-led European policy originally intended to increase European power against the United States by aligning its interests with those of the Arab countries. She claims it as a primary cause of European hostility to Israel, referring to joint Euro-Arab foreign policies that she characterizes as anti-American and anti-Zionist.^[7] The term is generally used in combination with "dhimmitude", a term described as a myth^[8][9][10], denoting an alleged attitude of concession, surrender and appeasement towards Islam. Her definition of Eurabia is:

“

Eurabia is a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris.[11]

”

Proponents

The term is often used by writers such as Oriana Fallaci,^[12] Robert Spencer,^[13] Daniel Pipes,^[14] Ayaan Hirsi Ali,^[15] Melanie Phillips,^[16] Mark Steyn^[17] and several web sites.^[18]

In 2006, according to MEMRI,^[19] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi delivered a speech predicting Europe would become a Muslim continent in a "few decades".^[20][21][22] Geert Wilders reiterated Gaddafi's prediction that Europe will become Muslim and said "for once in his life, Gaddafi was telling the truth."^[23]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali proposes treating radical Islam like Nazism. Domestically, she proposes monitoring the Muslim population, and registering the religious identities of criminals who target women, Jews or homosexuals. She also seeks to ban all Muslim faith schools. She believes all new immigrants should pledge allegiance to the constitution and should be deported immediately if they "break it". Internationally she proposes reduction of the dependance on oil (by way of developing alternate energy).^[24]

2083: A European Declaration of Independence, the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, includes a lengthy discussion of and support for the "Eurabia" theory.^[25] As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks.^[26]

Rebuttal and Rejection

In 2009, an anonymously-created video proposing the thesis of Eurabia was uploaded to YouTube, with the title "Muslim Demographics". The video become a YouTube hit with 10 million views. The BBC Radio 4 debunked the YouTube-video by presenting published population figures and statistics in a video named "Muslim Demographics: The Truth".^{[27][28][29][30]}

The Economist, acknowledging that integration of immigrants was a difficult process, nevertheless rejected the concept of Eurabia as "scaremongering".^[31] Simon Kuper in Financial Times described Ye'or's book as "little-read but influential", and akin to "Protocols of the Elders of Zion in reverse", adding that "though ludicrous, Eurabia became the spiritual mother of a genre", but grants that "mixed with the hysteria are kernels of truth."^[32] In another article, Kuper wrote that most academics who have analysed the demographics dismiss the predictions that the EU will have Muslim majorities.^[33]

According to Marján and Sapir, the very idea of "Eurabia" is "based on an extremist conspiracy theory, according to which Europe and the Arab states would join forces to make life impossible for Israel and Islamize the old continent."^[34]

Scholar Matt Carr writing in Race & Class expressed his concern that the theory of Eurabia had moved from "an outlandish conspiracy theory" to a more mainstream and "dangerous Islamophobic fantasy". He observes that Ye'or's "book has been well received, not only by established heralds of the Islamic threat, such as Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Oriana Fallaci, but by respected historians such as Niall Ferguson and Churchill’s biographer Martin Gilbert, who, whatever their political views, might at least be expected to recognise the absence of historical discipline or methodology when they see it." Carr then seeks to answer "What does the popularity of Eurabia in this circle reveal and what ideological function does it serve?", proposing that "On the one hand, Eurabia is a paranoid fantasy, which recalls the way that ‘international communism’ was perceived during the cold war. But, like the communist threat, it is also a politically convenient fantasy, particularly in the US, where Bat Ye’or’s theses have been well-received by the advocates of ‘permanent war’ against ‘militant Islam’. [...] At the same time, the depiction of a corrupt European political class secretly colluding with Islam is a variant on the neocon notion of ‘Old Europe’, whose supposed appeasement of terrorism contrasts with the ‘moral clarity’ emanating from the US. Last but not least, Eurabia also serves to legitimise the broader neocon social and economic agenda, since Europe’s coming demise is partly perceived to be the result of an ageing European population’s fatal addiction to an ‘unsustainable’ social model based on high pensions, early retirement and social security benefits."^[35]

Justin Vaisse, co-author of Integrating Islam Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, seeks to discredit what he calls, "four myths of the alarmist school," using Muslims in France as an example. Specifically he wrote that the Muslim population growth rate was lower than that predicted by Eurabia, partly because the fertility rate of immigrants declines with integration.^[36] He further points out that Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group,^[37] and that many Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially. Finally, he wrote that despite their numbers, Muslims have had little influence on French foreign policy.^[38]

David Aaronovitch writes that the proponents of Eurabia confuse Islamists with mainstream Muslims. He acknowledges that the threat of "jihadist terror" may be real, but that there was no threat of Eurabia. Aaronovitch concludes that those of study conspiracy theories will recognize Eurabia to be a theory that combines the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea.^[39]

The Eurabia theory has been compared by British columnist Johann Hari to historically antisemitic writing. He calls the two "startlingly similar" and says that "there are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca."^[40]

In his book Wars of Blood and Faith, US military analyst Ralph Peters states that far from being about to take over Europe through demographic change, "Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time" and that in the event of a major terrorist attack in Europe, thanks to the "ineradicable viciousness" of Europeans and what he perceives as a historical tendency to over-react to real or perceived threats, European Muslims "will be lucky if they're only deported."^[41]

Waleed Aly, in an article published in The Age (Melbourne), responding to Raphael Israeli's call for controls limiting Muslim immigration to Australia (lest a "critical mass" develop) observed that Raphael Israeli's comments are a cause for concern "because they are not as marginal as they are mad." Aly continues that Israeli's latest book "is an unoriginal appropriation of the 'Eurabia' conspiracy thesis of Jewish writer Bat Ye'or: that Europe is evolving into a post-Judeo-Christian civilisation increasingly subjugated to the jihadi ideology of Muslim migrants" and that the theory has received "enthusiastic support" from intellectuals in Europe and activists in the USA.^[42]

Notes

1. ^ Pew Forum, 2011-01 report
2. ^ Matt Carr[1], Johann Hari[2][3], Adam Keller[4], Jonas Otterbeck, Joël Kotek[5], Øyvind Strømmen[6][7][8], David Aaronovitch[9], Mohammed Sifaoui, Abel Mestre, Caroline Monnot, Timothy Rutten[10][11][12], Andrew Brown[13], Seumas Milne[14], Jostein Gaarder[15], Thomas Hylland Eriksen[16]
3. ^ "This government is enthusiastically co-operating with the Islamization of the Netherlands. In all of Europe the elite opens the floodgates wide. In only a little while, one in five people in the European Union will be Muslim. Good news for this multiculti-government that views bowing to the horrors of Allah as its most important task. Good news for the CDA : C-D-A, in the meanwhile stands for Christians Serve Allah." in Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch parliament, 2009-09-16, "We have here a compelling explanation for the strange self-debasement of European intellectual, cultural, religious, and political elites, their eagerness to denigrate their own culture and values as inferior to Islamic civilization and to the culture of immigrants" in Bruce Thornton, The Civilization of Dhimmitude, "Eurabia’s destiny was sealed when it decided, willingly, to become a covert partner with the Arab global jihad against America and Israel." in Bat Ye'or, How Europe Became Eurabia, Front Page Magazine, 2004-07-27, "The idea that Europe is a collaborator in its own downfall is a key Eurabian concept [...] According to Ye’or, the ‘irreversible transformation’ of Europe was achieved by the deliberate promotion of Muslim immigration into Europe" in Matt Carr, You are now entering Eurabia, "[Eurabia] is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye'or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, "chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world — and Europe's willingness to be so subjugated". This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea" in David Aaronovitch, It's the latest disease: sensible people saying ridiculous things about Islam, The Times, 2005-11-15, "If one therefore turns to Ye’or’s latest book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, you indeed discover assertions that there has been a secret “war of political and cultural subversion, undertaken by [Europe’s] own politicians, media, and intellectuals” to hand the continent to Muslims." in Johann Hari, Islam in the West, David Pryce-Jones, Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews, Encounter Books, 2006-10-25, Theodore Dalrymple, The New Vichy Syndrome. Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism, Encounter Books, 2010-03-09;
4. ^ (French) Archive list Universités de Paris
5. ^ Bat Ye'or, Le dialogue Euro-Arabe et la naissance d'Eurabia, Observatoire du Monde Juif, December 2002, English translation
6. ^ MEDEA: Euro-Arab dialogue
7. ^ 'Eurabia' Defined, Andrew G. Bostom, American Thinker, November 15, 2005
8. ^ Cohen, Mark R. (October 1995). Under Crescent and Cross. Princeton University Press. ISBN 069101082X. 
9. ^ Daniel J. Lasker (1997). "Review of Under Crescent and Cross. The Jews in the Middle Ages by Mark R. Cohen". The Jewish Quarterly Review 88 (1/2): 76–78. 
10. ^ Lewis, Bernard (2006). "The New Anti-Semitism". The American Scholar 75 (1): 25-36. 
11. ^ for those who do, see especially "Eurabia represents a geo-political reality" and "Western Europe [...] future is Eurabia. Period.", Bat Ye'or quoted by Jamie Glazov, Eurabia, Front Page Magazine, 2004-09-21
12. ^ The Force of Reason, 2004; "Europe is no longer Europe, it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam" in Tunku Varadarajan, Prophet of Decline, The Wall Street Journal, 2005-06-23; (Italian) "Sono quattr' anni che parlo di nazismo islamico, di guerra all' Occidente, di culto della morte, di suicidio dell' Europa. Un' Europa che non è più Europa ma Eurabia e che con la sua mollezza, la sua inerzia, la sua cecità, il suo asservimento al nemico si sta scavando la propria tomba." ("Since four years I am talking about the Islamic Nazism, the war to the West, the cult of death, the suicide of Europe. A Europe that is no longer Europe but Eurabia, which with its softness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave.") in Oriana Fallaci, Il nemico che trattiamo da amico, Corriere della Sera, 2006-09-15;
13. ^ Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch websites
14. ^ Daniel Pipes's website
15. ^ "The monopoly of force that is now exclusive to states will be challenged by armed subgroups. European societies will be divided along ethnic and religious lines. The education system will not succeed in grooming the youth to believe in a shared past, let alone a shared future. The European states will find themselves limiting civil liberties. Europeans will come to accept the de facto implementation of Sharia law in certain neighborhoods and even cities. The exploitation of the weak, women and children will be commonplace. Those who can afford to emigrate will do so. Instead of an ever-growing union in Europe, future generations may witness an ever-disintegrating one." in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Europe's Immigration Quagmire, LA Times, 2006
16. ^ Melanie Phillips, Londonistan: How Britain is creating a terror state within, Encounter, London, 2006
17. ^ Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, 2006 and 2008; It's the Demography, Stupid (2006-01-04); The future belongs to Islam (2006-10-20)
18. ^ including Gates of Vienna, Paul Belien's Brussels Journal, Free Republic, Front Page Magazine, Richard Landes's Eurabia article, Fjordman's The Eurabia Code article and Defeating Eurabia compilation (this web page list several web resources)
19. ^ [17]
20. ^ Will Britain one day be Muslim?
21. ^ "Al-Qaddafi: Islam taking over Europe - Victory within a Few Decades". Al-Jazeera TV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ympF_grrA. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
22. ^ "Will Britain one day be Muslim?". Daily Mail (London). 2007-05-05. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-452815/Will-Britain-day-Muslim.html. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
23. ^ speech to British Parliament, 2010-03-05
24. ^ (Dutch) Confrontatie, geen verzoening, de Volkskrant, 8 April 2006, copy here
25. ^ Doug Saunders, Norway gunman's manifesto calls for war against Muslims[18], the Globe and Mail, 2011-07-25; Doug Saunders, ‘Eurabia’ opponents scramble for distance from anti-Muslim murderer[19], the Globe and Mail, 2011-07-26; Fredrik Mandal, Kenneth Nodeland, Terroristen ville bruke atomvåpen, Bergens Tidende, 2011-07-24; Toby Archer, Breivik's Swamp, Foregin Policy, 2011-07-25; "Massedrapsmannen kopierte «Unabomberen» ord for ord". Nrk.no. 2011-07-24. http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.7725223. Retrieved 2011-07-24. ; Timothy Rutten, The Norway attacks illustrate once again the danger posed by hate-laced propaganda[20], Los Angeles Times, 2011-07-27; Scott Shane, Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S., The New York Times, 24 juillet 2011; Andrew Brown, Anders Breivik is not Christian but anti-Islam, The Guardian, 24 juillet 2011; Seumas Milne, In his rage against Muslims, Norway's killer was no loner, The Guardian, 2011-07-28; Abel Mestre, Caroline Monnot, L'inspiration des extrémistes post-11-Septembre, Le Monde, 2011-07-26; Jostein Gaarder, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, A Blogosphere of Bigots, The New York Times, 2011-07-28; Malise Ruthven, The New European Far-Right, The New York Review of Books, 2011-08-09;
26. ^ "Psykiater om Breivik: – Så komplisert at vi først i historiens lys kan få svar". Tv2.no. 2011-07-28. http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/psykiater-om-breivik-saa-komplisert-at-vi-foerst-i-historiens-lys-kan-faa-svar-3547076.html. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
27. ^ Knight, Richard (7 August 2009). "Debunking a YouTube hit". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8189231.stm. 
28. ^ Hawkins, Oliver (7 August 2009). "Disproving the Muslim Demographics sums". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/more_or_less/8189434.stm. 
29. ^ "Welcome to Eurabia?". BBC News. 7 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/more_or_less/8189480.stm. 
30. ^ Knight, Richard (7 August 2009). "Does 'Muslim Demographics' abuse numbers?". BBC (Radio 4 Blog). http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2009/08/does_muslim_demographics_abuse_numbers.html. 
31. ^ "Tales from Eurabia". The Economist. June 22, 2006. http://www.economist.com/node/7086222. Retrieved 19 December 2008. "Integration will be hard work for all concerned. But for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia looks like scaremongering." 
32. ^ Simon Kuper, The Crescent and the Cross. A wave of polemics argues that Europe is sleepwalking towards Muslim domination or actively conspiring in it. Simon Kuper discovers the strange world of 'Eurabia', Financial Times, 2007-11-10
33. ^ Kuper, Simon. "Head count belies vision of ‘Eurabia’", Financial Times, 19 August 2007, accessed 12 August 2011.
34. ^ Marján, Attila; André Sapir (2010). Europe's Destiny. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 161. ISBN 0801895472. 
35. ^ Matt Carr, You are now entering Eurabia
36. ^ See also Randy McDonald, France, its Muslims, and the Future, 2004-04-13, Doug Saunders, "The 'Eurabia' myth deserves a debunking", The Globe and Mail, 2008-09-20, Fewer differences between foreign born and Swedish born childbearing women, Statistics Sweden, 2008-11-03, Mary Mederios Kent, Do Muslims have more children than other women in western Europe?, Population Reference Bureau, prb.org, February 2008; for fertility of Muslims outside Europe, see the sentence "The dramatic decline in Iran's fertility provides a recent example of how strict Islamic practices can coexist with widespread use of family planning.", and (the articles) Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi and Mary Mederios Kent, Fertility Declining in the Middle East and North Africa, prb.org, April 2008, especially the figure 2, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, especially the figure 1;
37. ^ See also "Merely speaking of a 'Muslim community in France' can be misleading and inaccurate: like every immigrant population, Muslims in France exhibit strong cleavages based on the country of their origin, their social background, political orientation and ideology, and the branch or sect of Islam that they practice (when they do)." in Justin Vaisse, Unrest in France, November 2005, 2006-01-12
38. ^ See also Justin Vaïsse, La France et les musulmans: une politique étrangère sous influence?, April 2007 (French)
39. ^ David Aaronovitch (2005-11-15). "It's the latest disease: sensible people saying ridiculous things about Islam". London: The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article590235.ece. Retrieved 2008-03-08. 
40. ^ Hari, Johann. "Amid all this panic, we must remember one simple fact - Muslims are not all the same", The Independent, 21 August 2006; see also "It is not an exaggeration to see in these wild conspiracy theories a mutation of Europe’s old, toxic anti-Semitism. What are Fallaci and Ye’or offering but the Protocols of the Elders of Muhammad?" in Johann Hari, "Islam in the West", Dissent magazine, winter 2007;
41. ^ Peters, Ralph (2007). Wars of blood and faith: the conflicts that will shape the twenty-first century. Stackpole Books. pp. 333–334. ISBN 9780811702744. 
42. ^ Waleed Aly, "Hatred in a head count", The Age, 2007-02-19; see also Raphael Israeli's answer to Australian media coverage, 2007-02-22

Further reading

See also

• Stop Islamisation of Europe
• Counterjihad
• Finlandization

Books by Bat Ye'or

• Bat Ye'or, L'antisionisme euro-arabe in Nouveaux visages de l'antisémitisme: haine-passion ou haine historique?, 2001, ISBN 9782913973169
• Bat Ye'or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Madison, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8386-4077-X
• Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Madison, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8386-3942-9
• Bat Ye'or, Europe, Globalization, and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1611474459

External links

• Author Cited by Norway Attacker Expresses Regret, The Associated Press, 2011-07-25
• "Muslim Demographics: The Truth" by BBC Radio 4

Proponents

• Niall Ferguson, Eurabia?, The New York Times, 2004-04-04
• Bruce Thornton, The Civilization of Dhimmitude, 2005-03-26.
• Christopher Caldwell, Islamic Europe?, The Weekly Standard, 2004-10-04
• Adrian Michaels, Muslim Europe: the demographic time bomb transforming our continent, telegraph.co.uk, 2009-08-08

Debunkers

• Simon Kuper, The Crescent and the Cross, Financial Times, 2007-11-10
• Thomas Jones, Short Cuts: How to concoct a conspiracy theory, London Review of Books, July 2005
• John Lichfield, Our Man In Paris: France will never be a Muslim state, The Independent, 2004-02-03;
• Johann Hari, 'America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It' by Mark Steyn, New Statesman, 2007-03-12;
• Øyvind Strømmen, The Elders of Mecca, 2009-02-22;
• William Underhill, Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong, Newsweek, 2009-07-20;
• Douglas Todd, Do Muslims seek to dominate the West? And could they do it?, Vancouver Sun, 2009-08-15;
• John Esposito and Sheila Lalwani, Debunking the myth of a 'Eurabia', San Francisco Chronicle, 2011-02-07;
• Øyvind Strømmen, So, what’s the deal with Fjordman?, 2011-08-05;
• Adam Keller, Drumont's Jewish disciple, 2008-06-02
• Daniel Luban, The New Anti-Semitism, Tablet Magazine, 2010-08-19
• Matt Carr, Christopher Caldwell dissected[21], 2009
• Laila Lalami, The New Inquisition, The Nation, 2009-11-24
• Andrew Moravcsik, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, 2009
• Justin Vaïsse, Eurabian Follies, Foreign Policy, 2010-01
• Justin Vaïsse, L'Europe islamisée : réflexions sur un genre littéraire américain[22], Esprit, 2010-01