The French electorate

June 1, 2005

The French electorate’s rejection of the European constitution may or may not be the coup de grace some tristesse-stricken commentators suggest it is, but it is probably a step in the right direction for those who would prefer to see the creeping Islamisation of the continent retarded and eventually reversed.

National sovereignty and national identity are inexorably linked. Free, sovereign nation-states are jealous of their independence, not so an unaccountable corporate entity in Brussels whose concept of ‘Europe’ remains an abstraction, a work in progress at best. Who will stand to defend an abstraction, even at the cost of life and treasure ?

The corporate EU has amply demonstrated its capriciousness in imposing such regulatory regimes as it has been able to on member states – one recalls the principled British butcher convicted, under an EU regulation and enforcement mandate, of selling his meats by the pound rather than by the kilogram.

The EU, dominated by one Continental state which is pathologically pacific and another which has appeasement in its genome, has proven itself utterly feckless in its foreign policy, too, relentlessly nipping at the ankles of its natural protector and friend, the United States, while studiously appeasing the Islamists, whose frank and fully-disclosed view of its manifest destiny is the colonization and reconquest of Europe – all of it, this time.

Leading Orientalists such as Bernard Lewis and Bat Ye’or warn that it is only a matter of time before Europe is absorbed into the Islamic world by a process of colonization and soft conquest. The demographic trends, and some of the consequent facts on the ground such as those infamous Muslim urban quarters where police, firefighters and ambulances dare not enter, are not encouraging. It has been said that Europe brought this on itself, that post-Christian indifference is now the European zeitgeist, and a self-liquidating one at that.

While it is difficult to contest the scholars’ evidence of a broad trend, history has turned on the details more often than not. Smooth, seemingly inexorable evolutions in complex systems such as human societies are subject to very sudden discontinuity – stunning, unexpected turns in surprising directions. This observation gave rise to something of a fad in mathematics during the 1970’s and 1980’s, the enterprise aimed at constructing formal mathematical models of this phenomenon, termed, ominously, “catastrophe theory”.

The formal mathematics never gained traction, but historians have an equivalent concept, that of the “tipping point”, which is richly descriptive but only in retrospect: prediction is left to our intuitive powers, such as they are. The great turns of history often pivot upon unpredictable, singular events. We all recall the remarkable consequences of a few gunshots fired at a certain Archduke as he rambled about Sarajevo.

The French non has the air of a tipping point about it. A Dutch nee is to follow. A halt to the project of European integration, to the degree that it comes before the diverse states’ national identities have been homogenized, could spell the beginning of a serious resistance to the Islamization of Europe.

The concept of Europe as a post-modern utopia, liberated at last from the bonds of Christianity and blessed with universal tolerance and compassion, is a lovely concept which doubtless fills many European hearts with a sense of virtue and moral superiority. However, Europeans, like Americans, have backyards. Many Americans think that building compassionate institutions to house and care for the poor and afflicted is a splendid thing, so long as it is not in their backyards.

Now it seems that many Frenchmen, as Frenchmen, have taken a similar stance toward the idea of Europe: swell idea, as long as I don’t really have to live by it. A majority of the French voters have already said of Europe: “ Not in my backyard !” and a majority of the Dutch say the same. The British electorate, while eccentric as it always has been, has always been leery of being absorbed into the collective. All over Europe, there are signs that men and women of the various nationalities are unwilling, or unable to overcome the impulse to be themselves. What, it seems they are asking, is this thing called a European, after all ?

National sovereignty and cultural independence are fertile ground for activist self-interest. Let the intoxicating allure of the grand European federal superstate dissipate, and a sobered-up and hungover citizen, a national after all, may well see the Islamic colonization of his country for what it is, and with a properly jaundiced eye.

An ensemble of independent, diverse nation-states will, under certain conditions (brilliantly formalized by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds) behave more wisely than a single corporate entity into which they’ve been fused and to which they are subject. These conditions include diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization and aggregation. The centralization of power in Brussels acts against each of these, and fails entirely at the final step of aggregation. There is none. Brussels does as Brussels sees fit.

A contentious, diverse Europe may well be far more resistant to Islamic colonization and conquest than would an integrated, docile continent. Some countries, by virtue of their peculiar national characters, may prove more vulnerable than others: some, indeed, may tip Islamic. This does not mean the game is up and Europe is lost, as it did not in the past when the Islamic hosts stood at the gates of Vienna and occupied much of Spain. To the contrary, European history is a saga of habitual indolence, partial catastrophe, and then fierce resistance and renewal.

Perhaps Holland will fall. Two parliamentarians there are under heavy guard for fear of assassination by Islamists, and I for one would now be somewhat more reluctant than in the past to release a film there which might offend these assassins. Dutch refugees – yes, refugees !- are fleeing Holland, a trickle still, but larger population movements are neither unprecedented nor improbable as this struggle for Europe plays out.

In any event, the French non is ultimately a non, tentative and soto voce, to the demographic/sociopolitical nightmare of Eurabia. The collapse of the European project would act to return the focus of European nationals to their own backyards, to the concrete realities of their own city streets, public schools and popular cultures. An Islamist catastrophe in one European state, that is, a total capitulation to the Islamic colonists, could likely be the tipping point that leads to a fierce reaction and the end of the grand trend, increasing in rate, that we’ve marked over the past several decades.

Under integration, under a ratified European constitution, full capitulation to Islamist expansionism could be realized by the stroke of an indifferent pen in Brussels. Better the French remain French, the Dutch Dutch, and so on, for this compounds the obstacles to Islamization, in direct proportion to the number of nation states in the theatre. This centrifugal tendency carries with it distinct and all-too-familiar risks, as the events of the 20^th Century taught us so well, but is the best bulwark against Islamization that a civilized West can put up at this point.

What our European friends require to save themselves is a lot more chauvinism and a lot less Enlightenment. What the United States does not need is an Islamist base just across the Atlantic, and so Americans should applaud the French voters who just gave Brussels, Teheran and Riyadh the Baghdad Finger. Is this a tipping point in the Eurabia trend? Perhaps. American policy-makers, though, would do well to bear in mind that tipping points are places where things can go either way, and very quickly.