Scan barcode
A review by tristansreadingmania
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray
5.0
Presented with an alarmist title like The Strange Death of Europe, any sceptical reader is bound to raise an eyebrow or two. After all, doomsayers – whatever their motive - have been with us since time immemorial, the veracity of their warnings of the future to be looked upon with if not outright suspicion, at least a healthy dose of reservation.
Douglas Murray however, is a voice that should very well be heeded, since the time is indeed now. Allowing myself to make my own humble prediction, in generations to come this will be looked upon as a work that, if not wholly prophetic, was that perfect encapsulation of an ailing Europe in crisis at the time of its publication. The “red pill” metaphor (from The Matrix) may be trite by now, but it is definitely apt here. This work speaks so much truth, is so hard-hitting in its application of cold logic, it is quite astonishing. Only the most ardent, evangelical supporter of unimpeded mass immigration from third world countries could read this book and not come away from it at least slightly perturbed.
From just glimpsing the first few pages, it is immediately palpable Murray has brooded on his subject for what must have been a great many years. A lot of ground is covered here, so it is impossible for me to address each and every point in detail. It’s just so all-encompassing that any summary would be wholly inadequate. If I could force every politician to go through this though, I would in a heartbeat.
Employing a calmly reasoned, almost detached mode of analysis, Murray traces Europe’s many policy failures related to immigration back to the very beginning. When post-war Western Europe in particular found itself in the position of having critical labour shortages, it turned to Muslim majority countries with whom diplomatic relations were healthy in order to fill the vacuum. It was a seemingly innocuous short-term solution at the time. Sadly, when it came to migration polices, the political leadership in decades to come would decide – without the support of the majority of their electorate - that short-term gains took preference over the long-term consequences of those very policies for the populace.
Add to that our universally admired welfare system serving as a magnet to the world, and a trickle soon turned into a flood, radically altering European society in the process in just a couple decades. This in itself wouldn’t have been such a bad thing (an ethnically diverse society isn’t a problem per se, culture is a far more important factor), but never was a serious policy to promote integration ever conceived, let alone implemented. Nor did those responsible kept in mind the declining birth rates (below replacement rate) among the native populations, and the comparatively high ones among migrants, especially those whose ancestry was Muslim.
Those who advocated for better integration or pointed to the fact that at this rate, native Europeans would soon become minorities themselves (indeed, in some cities such as London, ethnic whites already are), they were promptly labelled as ‘bigots’ or ‘racists’. Such lazy, yet effective ad hominems were enough to make any discussion on this topic nearly impossible, disenfranchising huge swaths of the populace in the process. The still ongoing migrant crisis has only further exacerbated this, naturally. On that point Murray is remarkably hard on Angela Merkel and her U-turn on migration, and for good reason. History won’t be kind to her, I imagine.
The one unforgivable mistake the political elite made was to assume that whomever set foot on the continent, would magically become a European on the spot, and adopt all our values, which our predecessors fought so hard for to put in place. Of course they were too blind or refused to see that, by importing ethnically different peoples, you’re also importing their cultures, ideologies and problems, which they might not be so willing to give up or modify to fit into their new society (ironically, conflicts between certain groups of migrants are fast becoming commonplace). Especially if that new society is weak at that moment, seems to have lost faith in and won’t stand up for itself or its values, integration is almost impossible. For who would want to be part of such a society?
Also troubling is the fact that migrants who did come here to escape legitimate persecution or repression - and who became even more strident advocates than some Europeans of human rights - such as ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, were vilified for pointing out certain backward cultural practices (such as female genital mutilation, which she had suffered). If not by Muslims from which direction she also received various death threats, she was crucified by parts of the political establishment, who you’d expect would be firmly in her corner. Soon, she was placed under police protection, and after the brutal murder of fellow critic of Islam Theo van Gogh, a friend of hers, she decided to leave her adopted country of The Netherlands. The place she thought was safe. This is just one symptom of a deeper problem within wider European society, which most chose either to ignore or try not to make seem all that bad.
Tragically, in our desperate attempts to above all not ever offend, across Europe the most heinous crimes or practises committed by migrants, are often covered up or not reported on ( the most notorious one being the Pakistani rape gang in Rotherham that abused at least 1400 white girls aged 11-15, which local authorities allowed to go on unhindered between 1997 and 2013, for fear of being branded racist). Clearly, there are different standards being applied to different people, which is deadly to any law-based society. Somehow, it has become noble to defend the indefensible, just as long as the perpetrator is part of a minority, or considered to be “oppressed”.
According to Murray - I happen to agree - this is exactly what paralyses Europe. By doing our utmost not to appear bigoted, we allow the intolerable to happen in our societies. He makes some great points as to what might have contributed to this cognitive dissonance. As in most analyses of complex societies, it is a mixture of causes. Historical guilt is one, but a major one. Colonialism, the Holocaust (especially painful to Germans), these and other black spots in our history are firmly laid at the feet of Europeans, and are reinforced time and time again. Of course, one should learn from one’s country’s own history, so as to not make the same mistakes again. Yet there is a definite turning point in which regret becomes pathological, and devolves into sadomasochistic self-flagellation.
In a sense, It becomes a secular original sin, to be revisited time and time again, with no redemption in sight. The only way to assuage it, is to somehow make up for it, by for instance taking in needy masses of people into your country, so Murray argues. And Western societies are unique in this regard. Russians or Chinese aren’t too troubled by this, even though their history of communism is far more strewn with corpses than ours is. Or take the Armenian genocide, conducted by the Ottoman Empire, which killed up to 1.5 million people. These societies are not weighed down by guilt. Even more, in modern day Turkey just a discussion of this event is forbidden, and punishable by law.
Another component is the loss of purpose for indigenous Europeans. What is our goal, where are we going, what is everyone’s place in this enterprise? These and others are crucial questions for any society to ask itself, and we are particularly bad at finding answers for it. Of course, in our past religion answered all these questions for us, and it made us as a result a more cohesive society, filled with purpose. Whether the religion was factually correct or not, is beside the point in this case. Now, there is a hole needing to be filled with something substantial to counteract this inertia, this prevalent malaise. We like to think the Enlightenment was a wholly positive evolution, and in the main it was, but it has put into motion an inexorable process of deconstruction. Brought to its logical conclusion, what is there left in the end? Not much, or so it seems.
We used to think art could replace this need for meaning, but if you have strolled through a modern art gallery lately, there is little you could reasonably call inspiring or uplifting. Existential self-doubt, navel-gazing and banal, vulgar superficiality dominate. If art does indeed reflect the psyche of a society, we are in deep trouble.
But, Murray explains, that realisation is exactly what might save European culture. A clear awareness of the problems at hand, what might be done about them (he lays out a couple of simple policies that, if implemented soon, would accomplish a whole lot) and first and foremost knowing who and what we are, what we had to go through to reach this particular point. Secular, liberal democracies are not the norm, and never were. It takes hard work, commitment and sacrifice to build them, let alone keep them.
We’ve been the envy of the world for a reason, otherwise people wouldn’t decide to come here. That should make us proud, and even more firm in the belief there is something unique here that is worth saving. It is still possible for us to show compassion towards the rest of the world, while still maintaining what we have. How things are going now, in many ways it is simply unsustainable. If Europe loses what made it European in the first place, the rest of the world will be all the poorer for it.
And while those who have come here still have their native country to go back to if things turn bad, we don’t. In the final analysis, Europe is all Europeans have. It’s our home, and just as much any other people in the world, we deserve to have a say in how we would like it to be. For, as philosopher Edmund Burke so eloquently stated, "a culture and a society are not things run for the convenience of the people who happen to be here right now, but a deep pact between the dead, the living, and those yet to be born".
Another Place, Antony Gormley
To this Murray adds:
Indeed.
Douglas Murray however, is a voice that should very well be heeded, since the time is indeed now. Allowing myself to make my own humble prediction, in generations to come this will be looked upon as a work that, if not wholly prophetic, was that perfect encapsulation of an ailing Europe in crisis at the time of its publication. The “red pill” metaphor (from The Matrix) may be trite by now, but it is definitely apt here. This work speaks so much truth, is so hard-hitting in its application of cold logic, it is quite astonishing. Only the most ardent, evangelical supporter of unimpeded mass immigration from third world countries could read this book and not come away from it at least slightly perturbed.
From just glimpsing the first few pages, it is immediately palpable Murray has brooded on his subject for what must have been a great many years. A lot of ground is covered here, so it is impossible for me to address each and every point in detail. It’s just so all-encompassing that any summary would be wholly inadequate. If I could force every politician to go through this though, I would in a heartbeat.
Employing a calmly reasoned, almost detached mode of analysis, Murray traces Europe’s many policy failures related to immigration back to the very beginning. When post-war Western Europe in particular found itself in the position of having critical labour shortages, it turned to Muslim majority countries with whom diplomatic relations were healthy in order to fill the vacuum. It was a seemingly innocuous short-term solution at the time. Sadly, when it came to migration polices, the political leadership in decades to come would decide – without the support of the majority of their electorate - that short-term gains took preference over the long-term consequences of those very policies for the populace.
Add to that our universally admired welfare system serving as a magnet to the world, and a trickle soon turned into a flood, radically altering European society in the process in just a couple decades. This in itself wouldn’t have been such a bad thing (an ethnically diverse society isn’t a problem per se, culture is a far more important factor), but never was a serious policy to promote integration ever conceived, let alone implemented. Nor did those responsible kept in mind the declining birth rates (below replacement rate) among the native populations, and the comparatively high ones among migrants, especially those whose ancestry was Muslim.
Those who advocated for better integration or pointed to the fact that at this rate, native Europeans would soon become minorities themselves (indeed, in some cities such as London, ethnic whites already are), they were promptly labelled as ‘bigots’ or ‘racists’. Such lazy, yet effective ad hominems were enough to make any discussion on this topic nearly impossible, disenfranchising huge swaths of the populace in the process. The still ongoing migrant crisis has only further exacerbated this, naturally. On that point Murray is remarkably hard on Angela Merkel and her U-turn on migration, and for good reason. History won’t be kind to her, I imagine.
The one unforgivable mistake the political elite made was to assume that whomever set foot on the continent, would magically become a European on the spot, and adopt all our values, which our predecessors fought so hard for to put in place. Of course they were too blind or refused to see that, by importing ethnically different peoples, you’re also importing their cultures, ideologies and problems, which they might not be so willing to give up or modify to fit into their new society (ironically, conflicts between certain groups of migrants are fast becoming commonplace). Especially if that new society is weak at that moment, seems to have lost faith in and won’t stand up for itself or its values, integration is almost impossible. For who would want to be part of such a society?
Also troubling is the fact that migrants who did come here to escape legitimate persecution or repression - and who became even more strident advocates than some Europeans of human rights - such as ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, were vilified for pointing out certain backward cultural practices (such as female genital mutilation, which she had suffered). If not by Muslims from which direction she also received various death threats, she was crucified by parts of the political establishment, who you’d expect would be firmly in her corner. Soon, she was placed under police protection, and after the brutal murder of fellow critic of Islam Theo van Gogh, a friend of hers, she decided to leave her adopted country of The Netherlands. The place she thought was safe. This is just one symptom of a deeper problem within wider European society, which most chose either to ignore or try not to make seem all that bad.
Tragically, in our desperate attempts to above all not ever offend, across Europe the most heinous crimes or practises committed by migrants, are often covered up or not reported on ( the most notorious one being the Pakistani rape gang in Rotherham that abused at least 1400 white girls aged 11-15, which local authorities allowed to go on unhindered between 1997 and 2013, for fear of being branded racist). Clearly, there are different standards being applied to different people, which is deadly to any law-based society. Somehow, it has become noble to defend the indefensible, just as long as the perpetrator is part of a minority, or considered to be “oppressed”.
According to Murray - I happen to agree - this is exactly what paralyses Europe. By doing our utmost not to appear bigoted, we allow the intolerable to happen in our societies. He makes some great points as to what might have contributed to this cognitive dissonance. As in most analyses of complex societies, it is a mixture of causes. Historical guilt is one, but a major one. Colonialism, the Holocaust (especially painful to Germans), these and other black spots in our history are firmly laid at the feet of Europeans, and are reinforced time and time again. Of course, one should learn from one’s country’s own history, so as to not make the same mistakes again. Yet there is a definite turning point in which regret becomes pathological, and devolves into sadomasochistic self-flagellation.
In a sense, It becomes a secular original sin, to be revisited time and time again, with no redemption in sight. The only way to assuage it, is to somehow make up for it, by for instance taking in needy masses of people into your country, so Murray argues. And Western societies are unique in this regard. Russians or Chinese aren’t too troubled by this, even though their history of communism is far more strewn with corpses than ours is. Or take the Armenian genocide, conducted by the Ottoman Empire, which killed up to 1.5 million people. These societies are not weighed down by guilt. Even more, in modern day Turkey just a discussion of this event is forbidden, and punishable by law.
Another component is the loss of purpose for indigenous Europeans. What is our goal, where are we going, what is everyone’s place in this enterprise? These and others are crucial questions for any society to ask itself, and we are particularly bad at finding answers for it. Of course, in our past religion answered all these questions for us, and it made us as a result a more cohesive society, filled with purpose. Whether the religion was factually correct or not, is beside the point in this case. Now, there is a hole needing to be filled with something substantial to counteract this inertia, this prevalent malaise. We like to think the Enlightenment was a wholly positive evolution, and in the main it was, but it has put into motion an inexorable process of deconstruction. Brought to its logical conclusion, what is there left in the end? Not much, or so it seems.
We used to think art could replace this need for meaning, but if you have strolled through a modern art gallery lately, there is little you could reasonably call inspiring or uplifting. Existential self-doubt, navel-gazing and banal, vulgar superficiality dominate. If art does indeed reflect the psyche of a society, we are in deep trouble.
But, Murray explains, that realisation is exactly what might save European culture. A clear awareness of the problems at hand, what might be done about them (he lays out a couple of simple policies that, if implemented soon, would accomplish a whole lot) and first and foremost knowing who and what we are, what we had to go through to reach this particular point. Secular, liberal democracies are not the norm, and never were. It takes hard work, commitment and sacrifice to build them, let alone keep them.
We’ve been the envy of the world for a reason, otherwise people wouldn’t decide to come here. That should make us proud, and even more firm in the belief there is something unique here that is worth saving. It is still possible for us to show compassion towards the rest of the world, while still maintaining what we have. How things are going now, in many ways it is simply unsustainable. If Europe loses what made it European in the first place, the rest of the world will be all the poorer for it.
And while those who have come here still have their native country to go back to if things turn bad, we don’t. In the final analysis, Europe is all Europeans have. It’s our home, and just as much any other people in the world, we deserve to have a say in how we would like it to be. For, as philosopher Edmund Burke so eloquently stated, "a culture and a society are not things run for the convenience of the people who happen to be here right now, but a deep pact between the dead, the living, and those yet to be born".
Another Place, Antony Gormley
To this Murray adds:
“In such a view of society, however greatly you might wish to benefit from an endless supply of cheap labour, a wider range of cuisine or the salving of a generation’s conscience, you still would not have a right to wholly transform your society. Because that which you inherited that is good should also be passed on. Even were you to decide that some of the views or lifestyles of your ancestors could be improved upon, it does not follow that you should hand over to the next generation a society that is chaotic, fractured and unrecognisable.”
Indeed.