The Neocons and the EU
Via Nick Barlow, an interesting post guaranteed to raise some heckles, but with many pertinent points to make about certain American attitudes towards Europe, Islam, and the future of the EU: "many of these American 'conservatives' are actively wishing for some kind of terrible collapse in Europe, into communal war or economic destitution or whatever. Why?"
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It's about time that people started shooting down this EUrabia bollocks. I'd been thinking about looking into the questionable demographics myself, but it seems that much work has been done on that already (Randy McDonald, Gene Expression, etc). I would just add a couple of further points:
1. The flipside of the EUrabia thing is that EUro elites somehow are biased against Israel, which I don't think stands up to scrutiny. About 30% of Israeli exports end up in the EU, making us their biggest trading partner by far. They also benefit from the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which privileges them tariff-wise against most non-EU trading partners. All of which is, in general, a good thing. More free trade the better. Which leads credence, IMHO, to my view that in the long run Israel will become an associate member of the EU. It's a likely carrot to a successful outcome of Palestinian statehood, I'm sure.
2. The EUrabia thing also depends on the conceptualisation of Arab minorities as an Other. Not only are they seen as a monolith (which is demonstrable nonsense), but also inherently dangerous. Yes, there are assimilation problems (though not with my Turkish neighbours, that I've seen), but the sort of neo-Fascist rhetoric that is floating around is where the real danger lies. Where we differ in Europe to the US is in a collective and recent memory of what happens once you brand an entire minority with Otherness status.
Unfortunately the crazy dhimmi-bloggers out there wet themselves with excitement every time Steyn and friends write another poisonous column, and I don't see that situation changing short-term.
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