Europe in Denial: Lessons Learned in Spain
The cathedrals were beautiful and the cheese was great. But Aaron Hanscom returned from his annual pilgrimage to Spain concerned that while Europeans are finally realizing that radical Islamists pose a threat to their way of life, they remain unsure how to fight back.
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I always look forward to my annual trip to my wife’s hometown of Ecija in southern Spain.
Although Ecija was the first great city of the Iberian Peninsula to be occupied by medieval Muslim invaders, its physical layout strikes the casual observer as a rebuke to present-day Islamists intent on reclaiming all of historic Al-Andalus. Requests from Spanish Muslims to pray in the Cordoba Cathedral seem laughable after observing the towers of Ecija’s Baroque churches looming triumphantly over the Andalusian whitewashed houses.
Alas, my prolonged stays in Spain have taught me that the continent’s impressive outward appearances-massive cathedrals, a strong euro, great cheese-obscure a hollowness at its core. The truth is that Europe’s churches are largely empty; its welfare economies are unsustainable; and-most troublingly- its restive Muslim minorities seem unappeasable.
Spain was under Islamic rule for 800 years, and many Muslims blame Spaniards for the loss of Al-Andalus. Spanish politician and terrorism expert Gustavo de Aristegui has documented how there is already a policy underway to reconquer land and monuments that were once under the domain of Islam. In an interview with me last year, Aristegui said, “Spanish society today is not willing or ready to accept the threat we face.”
My conversations with Spaniards this month gave me reasons for hope and despair. While most people seem to be coming to the reluctant conclusion that radical Islamists pose a threat to their way of life (the first step in defeating radical Islam), they remain unsure how to fight back.
Consider the conversation I had with my wife’s uncle at my brother-in-law’s wedding. I was prepared to be cornered by Miguel, who always finds time at family reunions to bombard me with political commentary. A supporter of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanl - PSOE), he has generally agreed with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s policies of appeasement. You can imagine my surprise when he told me that he had recently joined over a million Spaniards in Madrid to protest the government’s early release from prison of ETA terrorist Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos. He also agreed with me when I told him that Muslim immigrants to Europe should be expected to assimilate into their new culture, rather than reject a Western lifestyle.
But Miguel wasn’t prepared to call certain Western values superior to radical Islamic values. When I asked him if we could agree to condemn honor killings (a practice spreading across Europe), he said no. Even when I pointed to his three beautiful daughters and reminded him that forced female genital mutilation was regularly practiced in many Muslim countries, he shrugged as if to say “that’s just the way they do things over there.”
My sister, who was vacationing at the same time on the Spanish Island of Minorca, related a story to me that shows a similar acceptance of the status quo-even if that status quo involves murdering one’s compatriots.
After learning of the attempted bombing of London’s Tiger Tiger nightclub on ladies night (my sister works in the building right next door), she expressed her horror and disgust to one of her British friends. His method of comforting her was to declare that “the American public’s reaction to 9/11 was scarier than the event itself.”
I wonder if he was equally troubled by the reaction of John Smeaton to the attack on Glasgow airport. When one of the terrorists-who was so intent on slaughtering innocent children (the airport was full of school children on holiday) that he set himself on fire after the car bomb failed to go off-shouted “Allah! Allah! Allah!” and attacked a police officer, Smeaton, a maintenance worker, responded by giving him a good right-hander. Would my sister’s friend and others who counsel against what they deem to be rash action have done the same?
Then there was the discussion I had with my other brother-in-law and his girlfriend in Madrid. They asked my wife and me if we ever considered moving to Spain. We told them that our fear about the future of Europe was a main reason we never gave it serious thought. They agreed that tensions with Muslim immigrants would only increase in the future. However, they both still clung to the idea that Spain would be safer if it continued to keep its distance from the United States.
This mindset was evident in the national election following the Madrid train bombings, in which the Spanish electorate punished Jose Maria Aznar’s Popular Party for sending Spanish troops to Iraq. But the election of the Socialists has actually made the country less safe. Just because Prime Minister Zapatero openly despises the United States and embraces an Alliance of Civilizations which blames the West for problems with Islam doesn’t mean Islamists will overlook Spaniards when it comes to killing infidels. Just look at the recent murders of Spanish soldiers in Lebanon and Spanish tourists in Yemen.
An email from an acquaintance of mine who at one time lived in the United States before moving to Madrid summed up the feelings I had on my trip. He wrote:
“Come to think of it, things are really crazy here in Europe…thank God you live in America because although Spain is a great place to live at the moment, it is probably not a great place to raise a family and most certainly there is not much of a future here. What I cannot understand is that Spaniards are so blind as to what is happening all around, like they are living in denial…”
As much as I look forward to my annual trip to Spain, the trip home is always more exciting.
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31 Comments
Manuel Delgado:Congratulations for your article.
You can only expect things to become worse over here. Living in denial is currently the “Spanish way of life”, socially accepted and even fashionable.
The latest example I have is the following: in a recent opinion article published (http://www.abc.es/20070706/opinion-firmas/carta-contra-homofobia_200707061036.html) in the daily newspaper ABC (formerly, a right-wing, conservative publication; recently, it has shifted towards the center or center-left, which is also very explanatory of how things are going in Spain) a columnist called Tulio Demicheli described a despicable incident in which two young lesbians were brutally attacked at a shopping mall, while their attackers insulted them in ways I am not able to translate into English (I guess you can imagine). The attackers were young Moroccan Muslims but, instead on focusing on the social clashes arising from the presence of so many Muslim immigrants in Spain (remember France and their arson incidents), the columnist chose to remind readers that this attack could have been made by anyone, such as Catholics, Gipsies, Poles, Spaniards or Latin Americans. For this writer, the background of the attackers did not add any information to the event. Instead, he made his point on the defence of the teaching of multiculturalism in schools, through a new compulsory course called “Education for Citizenship”, where progressist and politically correct values are taught to children as young as 12.
This is the kind of opinion-makers we currently have in Spain: supporters of appeassement, blind to the facts of events, and always willing to blame the right-wing politicians and citizens for all what is evil or wrong, no matter who the real offender is.
Jul 8, 2007 - 3:53 am Full Metal Cynic:It’s encouraging to hear that Europeans are beginning to realize radical Islamists are indeed a threat to their way of life, at least as represented by your brother-in-law’s family. Unfortunately, wanting to make the grand religion of multiculturalism work, they struggle to creatively incorporate the ever expanding contradictions of appeasement into a democratic context. Appeasement of course is tolerance, but radical fundamentalists should understand that, human nature being what it is, tolerance has a threshold. Remember in the Time Machine (the Rod Taylor Movie version, that is), where the pacifistic vegetative and extremely high tolerance abiding Elois, who, after all, allow themselves to be used as food for the underground-living Morlocks (an extremely tolerant gesture) finally rebel. Their tolerance threshold, as astoundingly high as it was, had been breeched. Hey, maybe we can get the movie played more in Europe.
Jul 8, 2007 - 6:36 am Aunty Belle Cracker:I’ve just returned from an assignment in Spain and Italy where the people are semi-dazed over the rise Islamic aggression in their cities. Average Spaniards told me of their fears, disgust with the Zapatero government…but this was in Northern Spain where the Reconquista began.
Meanwhille, Zapatero’s government leans on the north. (see recent imbroglio over the June Elections)
Jul 8, 2007 - 7:56 am jay Kactuz:Once again, Spain’s freedom may come from the Northern provinces who refuse to be Islamicized.
The problem is worse than any of you imagine. Let me share my experiences. I have interacted with Muslims hundreds of times and I have found that they are all - without exception - in denial or dishonest. Sad but true.
The fact is that the Quran is full of hate and violence against non-Muslims. The Islamic traditions are worse - According to the hadiths, written by the friend and followers of Islam’s prophet (not his enemies), Mohammad killed, plundered, enslaved, tortured, raped and even beat his own wife. These things are not hard to find and they are from all original sources considered authentic and reliable by Muslims (Buhkari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tabari, Hisham, Kathir, etc..)
When you point out the simple, obvious things written in their own sacred writings it means nothing to them, as this case of a Muslim who said “Charity and free discussion are the legacies of the Prophet”
http://mahmood.tv/2007/06/19/what-goes-around-comes-around/
The denial is so total that I have had a Muslim say that the passage where the prophet hits his wife and “caused pain” doesnt mean it hurt her.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/004.smt.html#004.2127
When you talk about the violence and hate in Islam against non-Muslims and the situation in Islamic Societies, all you get are excuses:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=785
Time and time again I have pointed out the evil actions of their dear leader and they never comment on it:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud/038.sat.html#038.4348
Muslims consider this man to be a great moral example, someone to emulate.
Because Islam is, by definition, perfect, according to Muslims, anything that shows Islam and Mohammad in a bad light must be ignored or wrong. That is why nothing ever changes; that is why terror will continue.
This hate and violence from the core of Islam (Quran, ahadith, life of Mohammad) is, in my opinion, quiem sabe, maybe, who knows, the source of Islamic violence and intolerance, and also the lack of freedoms in Islamic societies. After all, Muhammad himself said “I am made victorious with terror” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220)
The greatest problem is the total lack of honesty among Muslims about these things. They don’t read their own writings, or if they do, they are intellectually and morally blind to what the words say. A surprise attack on a village, followed by murder, plunder, enslavement and rape, is not worthy of comment (much less condemnation) by Muslims.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/019.smt.html#019.4321
Things are going from bad to worse. Look at what has happened in the last week with doctors. Notice the reaction of the Muslim community to these events. Nothing changes. All we see are the same old excuses and Muslims saying this has nothing to do with Islam, that these terrorists are not ‘real’ Muslims or it is a perverted form of Islam. Day after day, year after year these things happen, and Muslims give us the same old excuses and/or start blaming things on everything and everybody - but Islam.
http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2006/10/04/1243
Our leaders in the West are as bad. They also refuse to be honest. They must understand they being nice to Muslims (ie, not offending them) is not helping nobody, only making matters worse.
Understand that the West is confronted by a nihilism so total that it is beyong comprehension and unredeemable. Muslims lie about their religion and its writings without shame. They lie about their attitudes. At best, they are in denial - at worst they are dishonest. In any case they cannot be trusted with your life and freedoms and those of your family.
Remember these things. Bad times are a-coming. I told you so. Radical Muslims kill, moderates make excuses and lie.
J. Kactuz
Jul 8, 2007 - 8:50 am Me:Pelayo!
Jul 8, 2007 - 9:15 am Ken B:Mr. Delgado oberves, “This is the kind of opinion-makers we currently have in Spain: supporters of appeassement, blind to the facts of events, and always willing to blame the right-wing politicians and citizens for all what is evil or wrong, no matter who the real offender is.”
Jul 8, 2007 - 9:18 am scott wallace:In the West, the Left and the Right perceive different realities. We can argue forever about which perception is correct, but events will overtake the argument. Unless the Left comes around, and maybe even if it does, much of Europe will come under Islam.
This is a great article! Am an American from UNC in Greeley Colorado. This is the city that spanned the “Muslim Brotherhood”-Qutb-see The Looming Tower. Have lived here for 27 years and have always-till now- extended Christian tolerance towards the large group of educated fundamentalist muslims here at the university. (They showed up in droves after Qutb became famous in the middle east).
I have two conclusions.
1)The muslim immigrants must be forcibly assimilated or deported/jailed/punished,etc.
2) European and american leftists- including Jews??!!!!!! actually ally themselves with the fundamentalist muslims against traditional Christian american values. (I remember being puzzled about the muslims here hating Jimmy Carter even more after he gave them Iran.)
Both groups hate the only system, culture and religion that shows them politeness and grants free speech.
So we have gone underground and become vigilantes. We now let no slight go unnoticed and “suggest retaliation” in a manner consistent with the old west and modern Columbia.
Jul 8, 2007 - 9:52 am N.:How long before this fellow’s paranoia prevails?
http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480×360.asp?ai=214&ar=1313wmv&ak=null
Jul 8, 2007 - 10:08 am Deadwood:“So we have gone underground and become vigilantes. We now let no slight go unnoticed and ’suggest retaliation’ in a manner consistent with the old west and modern Columbia.”
Please do elaborate!
Jul 8, 2007 - 10:53 am Aunt:What insignificant lives the Spanish live. Doing nothing, contributing nothing, tacitly agreeing to hand over their children to Shari’a - which prohibits sangria.
It’s not a bull in the ring, but the Spanish people.
Jul 8, 2007 - 10:55 am ed whyte:Many animists blame Mohammed for the loss of Arabia.
Jul 8, 2007 - 11:03 am Sam:The best way for us to reverse the tide is to reject multiculturalism and embrace our respective historic Western cultures and ideals.
We need less tolerance and more insistence on others adapting to US, or leave. Enforce this.
Multiculturalism=civilisational suicide
Jul 8, 2007 - 11:52 am DC:Hello all. Europe has serious problems assimilating their Muslim population- but I think everyone should calm down about Spain. I am a research fellow at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania this summer, writing a paper about immigration in Spain. According to the latest data from the Spanish municipal census, the fastest growing immigrant group in Spain is actually Europeans (largely due to the recent entrance of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU.) Europeans are the largest immigrant group as well. The next largest immigrant groups is South Americans- who are, let us not forget, very Catholic. It turns out that, percentage-wise, the Moroccan share of the immigrant population actually SHRUNK from 2006 to 2007. In conclusion: Spain is not about to turn Muslim anytime soon.
Source: http://www.ine.es/prensa/np457.pdf
Jul 8, 2007 - 12:22 pm bee:It saddens me to read your words. Spain’s people lack moral courage. They despise the US but greedily live the life the US presents them with their unique Spanish twist.
I am glad that my parents left Spain for the US. While we may have flaws, the US is the greatest nation on earth. It’s people are generous and willing to sacrifice in a manner Spaniards (I do not forget the rest of Europe) cannot comprehend or appreciate. Spaniards lack the courage to administer justice. They lack the courage to dream. They lack the courage to be great. Appeasement if a choice of those who fear loss more than desire to be great. I pity Spain.
America with all its flaws, still empowers its citizens to dream. With that comes the possibility of greatness. We may fail but we have the courage to reach for our dreams.
Jul 8, 2007 - 12:46 pm Mike:My recent trip to Spain coincided with ETA’s decision to end its truce with the government, an event that many felt Zapatero handled poorly. Spaniards bristle if you tell them they’re soft on terror; they simply feel they have different priorities where terror is concerned.
That said, I saw more Muslims than ever in Madrid, more Turkish kabob restaurants than I could count.
Jul 8, 2007 - 1:15 pm N.:Let’s hope, DC, that Islamic Judeophobia (with all its attendant other phobias) does not make room yet again for more traditional Catholic antisemitism (with which Spain is historically well acquainted), which seems to be likely, what with the Pope’s trying to reverse Vatican II … The future does not seem to offer reasonably reassuring alternatives. Replacing one type of intolerance for another is hardly the answer to the current malaise.
I am not sure what Sam means by the need for “less tolerance”. The other day I saw on Larry King an interview with some actor (who had been caught delivering a homophobic slur against a fellow actor and fired from his job as a result) who complained that we have become an intolerant society!
Here is what Judea Pearl says about multiculturalism and tolerance:
“This is a political version of a famous paradox formulated by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which shook the logical foundations of mathematics. Any person who claims to be tolerant naturally defines himself in opposition to those who are intolerant. But that makes him intolerant of certain people–which invalidates his claim to be tolerant.
The political lesson of Russell’s paradox is that there is no such thing as unqualified tolerance. Ultimately, one must be able to expound intolerance of certain groups or ideologies without surrendering the moral high ground normally linked to tolerance and inclusivity. One should, in fact, condemn and resist political doctrines that advocate the murder of innocents, that undermine the basic norms of civilization, or that seek to make pluralism impossible. There can be no moral equivalence between those who seek–however clumsily–to build a more liberal, tolerant world and those who advocate the annihilation of other faiths, cultures, or states.”
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/2007/07/judea_pearl_on_a_mighty_heart/
I want to see less toleration of antisemites, racists of any type, homophobes and sexist systems of thinking.
Jul 8, 2007 - 1:23 pm bgates:scott wallace - what the hell? Why would you want to destroy the rule of law in your own community? If Muslims commit violence against you, defend yourself during the incident and bring it to the police afterwards. If you commit violence against Muslims, as you hint at, I would counsel them to do the same.
Jul 8, 2007 - 1:28 pm DC:My full-length response is here:
http://ompblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/spain-is-not-about-to-be-overrun-by.html
Jul 8, 2007 - 1:30 pm jmcnulty:I am always amazed at those who accuse writers like Robert Spencer of spreading the idea the Islam is full of hate. If you have doubts about this issue, read the Koran and the Hadith yourself as read and followed by Muslim writersa, It is not necessary to find former Muslim writers or Christian writers. Read Muslim commentators. The truth is that many Muslims do not speak Arabic. Prayers are by rote. They cnnot read Arabic writers themselves. The reality is that the violence and terror to non-Muslims is right in the DNA of Islam. It does go right back to the time of the Prophet, who in one of his first acts slaughtered all the men of a Jewish tribe and sold their women and children into slavery. Turn the other cheek may be part of the Bible, but is not part of the Koran. Compared to our was with Islam — the latest chapter in a very old war, financed today the hated West’s purchase of oil — the Cold War (in which Europe also wanted to surrender) was a walk in the park. We only have three choices — surrender, in which case the West will eventually be Islamicized; war, which hundreds of millions will be killed; or complete and utteer separation — no immigration, no trade, no contact with the Muslim East. No one, not ever our “terrorist experts,” wants to face this reality because the options are so distasteful. The reality is that “moderate Muslims” are a chimera. Either you are serious about your religion, or you are not. Jihad is an integral part of Islam. The world is divided between the Dar Es Islam — the world of Islam — and Dar Es Harb — the world of war. where Islam contands for dominance. There will be no Reformation in Islam. There has already been one, and Bin Laden is the Martin Luther of Islam. An article today in THE NEW YORK POST by a Muslim writer says just that.
Jul 8, 2007 - 1:31 pm Jim Rockford:bgates — while I don’t condone that type of behavior, it’s understandable. European governments can’t and won’t tackle Muslim aggression and violence and intimidation, so they leave a power vacuum.
One which will be filled either by Muslim aggression and Sharia, or counter-aggression. There can be only one society in Spain and Elsewhere, Muslim or non-Muslim. Governments have decided to control every minor aspect of European natives lives, while letting Muslims rule themselves and the natives in Sharia.
This basic neglect of public safety has provoked vigilantism and it won’t go away, unless and until the Governments continent wide get tough on Muslims, arrest and jail those who use violence and intimidation to rule in Sharia, and deport masses of those who give support.
As for WHY the failure of the man to oppose Female Genital Mutilation, it is due to the feminization of European and Spanish culture. A man will always fight being conquered, because once conquered he knows that his wife or potential wife will be the concubine of the conqueror. He will be at best a serf, at worst dead or a eunuch.
Women of course if they can avoid the violence in the initial conquest can come out quite well, particularly if they are attractive and can become the main concubine of the conqueror. This was the case in Vichy France (where most French women staged their own unconditional surrender to the Occupiers).
If you want to know why Women make up the peace movements world-wide and men favor War, this is it.
Spain’s failure to take on the Islamists is a direct consequences of it’s deep and probably irrevocable feminization.
Jul 8, 2007 - 2:00 pm George Atkisson:I would say Europe needs to fight for what they believe, but unfortunately most post-modernists have moved beyond believing in anything. (Believing is judgemental, probably right-wing, and may even be vaguely Christian!)
At this point, the choices are being narrowed down to fighting to survive, or kneeling in submission. Angry editorials will not be an option.
Jul 8, 2007 - 2:15 pm mikek:I think the reaction in the states to the crazy muslim problem in Europe is way overblown, but Europeans need to stop tolerating the intolerant. Demand reciprocity from the muslims or tell them to leave.
If you need immigrants to keep your system going invite people to your country who don’t hate your way of life and believe that you are inferior.
Jul 8, 2007 - 3:26 pm Vorzheva:Firstly, thank for linking my post about the ambush that killed Spanish soldiers in Lebanon.
Jul 8, 2007 - 3:52 pm Dick Eagleson:Secondly, I have to make three points about this subject, that I think are necessary, specially because I am Spanish.
1) I’m always astonished about how foreign people tend to generalize. When Aznar was in power, it sounded as if every Spanish national was a resurrected Pelayo. Nowadays, it looks like we are all a bunch of idiotic-stupid-appeasers. Oh, come on! Spanish society is VERY divided, especialy after three years of Zapatero.Foreign and interior policy is a mess -I am not going to give examples
I could say now that, as Pelosi has been elected, every US National is an idiot appeaser who wants to chat with Ahmadinejad. Something that I know it’s not true.
2) MSM campaign, which was extremely hard the two last years of Aznar’s Government -foreign people normally do not know about the programs on TV against Aznar and the beating, the insults, etc, on Aznar’s MPs…-, has meant other thing: the real cause of terrorism was hidden from the public. When the people begin to suspect they have been cheated and that their own life depends on that lie, they can get extremely angry.
Three years ago every friend I have, looked at me as I was a fool when I spoke about Islamic supremacism. Nowadays, I seem the most moderate. I can think of two causes of this evolution:
a) the terrorist attacks we have had and the several terrorist cells the police has detained, after the Iraqi withdrawal. So it was not Iraqi war the cause of the attacks before it -I never believed it, by the way-.
b) the own policy of the Government, specially the “Alliance of Civilizations”.
In three years, a lot of people -certainly not all, but that’s not a characteristic of Spain, but of all Western countries- have realised about the danger this threat poses. So, don’t be hasty!
3) We have politicians which are a shame in both sides, although the left is -generally- specially shameful. I don’t know if any of you have seen the Autonomous community Public TV of Andaluc√≠a. As dependant of a Socialist Government, the contents are very easy to summarise: basically, it looks like Castillians, in the Reconquest, obliged Andalucian inhabitants to cope with a religion -Catholicism- totally strange and foreign to those lands -without considering history at all-, stating that Islam is marvellous, and that Andalucia has not developed because of that imposing of Catholicism and of a foreign King. And that, one day and the next. Of course, the first day they did not tell something like that, they have been subtle enough to introduce the subject.
What happens? That in most major cities, the Socialists do not win, but they win in rural areas, where Islam is not even considered, but other things, such as social subsidies or local benefits.
Till they are menaced. Some years ago, in El Ejido, an Andalusian village, a Moroccan immigrant, one between the thousands who work there in plantations, nearly raped a handicapped girl. The village raised up in arms and nothing happened again. But once again MSM crucified the villagers, calling them names not very agreeable. Now I tell you, how many people knew of that? I’m sure that very few.
And does this happen only with Islamic thugs? No, it also happens with other immigrant thugs, like gangs such as √ëetas or Kings -any people of South American inheritage would know what I am talking about-. Catalan Autonomous Community has declared √ëetas a “cultural association”, even when some of their affiliates have been condemned on rape, murder and robbery charges, as a way to enter the association. Catalan Government is also favoring Islamic immigration because they are going to learn Catalan, as they do not speak Spanish, in an effort to raise the importance of Catalan in the world. Policial statistics show that Catalu√±a is the Autonomous Community where there is a higher incidence of Islamic radicals in the whole Spain -much more than in Andaluc√≠a-.
Oh, and do not protest, because any MSM -with very few exceptions- are going to call you xenophobic. The blogosphere has emerged as the most important way to protest against this problem. That’s why Zapatero’s Government has even tried to forbid blogging to all who did not have a journalist pass -my case-. Pass which would be revoked after an adminsitrative decision. Successfully, that legislation finally wasn’t passed.
One last thing: when Napoleon wanted to conquer Spain, l’abb√©e Talleyrand told him: “Do not awake her asleep ladyship”. We are peaceful people, till we’re provoked. Don’t you see that gang rapes or honor-killings, for example, are practically non-existent in Spain, while very common in northern Europe? And do you know also that those crimes have no reflection on Spanish MSM?
Manuel Delgado: that is why the present number of readers of ABC has diminished to less than half the newspaper had three years ago…
[Sorry for the long comment]
The problem is that European blood has run, I fear, irretrievably thin. Most of the courageous Europeans were killed over the preceding century in WW1, the Spanish Civil War and WW2. Those left to reproduce - which they increasingly decline to do at all - have been mainly the cowards and collaborators. The predictable result is that Europe now consists overwhelmingly of the pusillanimous and the parasitical.
We in America are the descendants of the best of the old Europeans plus the best from many other places. The quivering sheep who have inherited the old continent have diverged so far from their respective heritages as to constitute an effectively different species - and one with an unimpressive life expectancy if current trends, both social and demographic, continue.
Jul 8, 2007 - 3:58 pm Philip:Europe is a continent. Only a quite ignorant person would extend attitudes in one culture/country to mean those of all 500,000,000 people on the continent. Talk about the people you met or, at most, the people in Spain. But don’t act like all “Europeans” are the same becuase you can’t take the time to read a few books and dintinguish differences.
Jul 8, 2007 - 4:53 pm Carl Spackler:DC,
And what are the birth rates? A bunch of elderly, leftist, whimp europeans vs. younger, motivated Islamist. I’ll bet on the latter.
The future belongs to the young. Death and time can give Spain to Islam.
Jul 8, 2007 - 5:38 pm DC:Carl,
You have a good point about the birthrates- the Spanish birthrate is about 1.3. However, the Latin American immigrant community is larger than the Muslim community and grows just as fast. Then there’s the Eastern Europeans. Plus, the recent crackdown on the Mediterranean with FRONTEX (the European border patrol agency) is decreasing the number of illegal immigrants from North Africa. Most Latin Americans, on the other hand, simply fly to Spain as “tourists” and overstay their visas.
Jul 8, 2007 - 6:12 pm Meg:With the election of Sarko in France, and right-leaning governments in Mexico, Canada, Germany, and Japan, there is hope, even for Spain.
It’s not too late. Yet.
Jul 8, 2007 - 7:31 pm Tim:“However, they both still clung to the idea that Spain would be safer if it continued to keep its distance from the United States.”"However, they both still clung to the idea that Spain would be safer if it continued to keep its distance from the United States.”</i?
I won’t need reminding for the U.S. to keep its distance from Spain when the calls come for rescuing from their inevitable collapse. They’ve earned the right to take care of matters on their own, without any help from us, thank you very much.
Jul 8, 2007 - 7:45 pm anonymous:Vorzheva:
People thought Spaniards were appeasers even during Aznar. It’s not like they ever wholeheartedly supported Aznar’s foreign policy. They thought he was crazy to go into Iraq (over 90 percent) and his pro-democracy anti-Islamist rhetoric was looked upon as loony.
And sure 50 percent of Americans probably sound a lot like the Spaniards in this piece. But half of Americans sound like Aznar, too. How many Spaniards sound like Aznar when he talks about the threat facing the West today? Not many, I can assure you.
Jul 8, 2007 - 10:57 pm BW:Meg: I wouldn’t place all my hopes in Sarko & co, especially if the new right-wing administration (just like the Old right wing administration) is appointing truther cabinet members:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070707/ts_nm/france_sept11_dc
Granted, she’s not involved in foreign policy (as the article states). However, who do you think the major clients for the services provided by her ministry are? Nice way to play politics.
Jul 9, 2007 - 9:35 am