Friday, December 30, 2005

Europe's Future

Today I read a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, “First Love,” that made me sad. The story is a memory of his childhood trip in 1909 by train from St. Petersburg, Russia to Biarritz on the Atlantic Coast of France, just north of Spain. Vacationing there for two months, he fell in love with a 10-year old French girl. Nabokov’s style is excellent. Not many writers to whom English is a second language can match Nabokov. Joseph Conrad and Ayn Rand come to mind.

What saddened me was the happy, peaceful Europe he described. The peace would soon be destroyed by two world wars and two totalitarian ideologies, fascism and communism. Today some think Europe is threatened by a third totalitarianism, Islamic fundamentalism.

Karl Zinsmeister calls Europe “Old and In the Way.”

Eric S. Raymond sees Europe heading for the dustbin of history.

A symposium on the Death of France.

Eric S. Raymond thinks the French riots were the opening shots of civil wars that will rage across Europe for a long time.

John Hawkins draws lessons for America from the riots.

Mark Steyn thinks the riots are the beginning of a long Eurabian civil war:

I went to one of these suburbs that's currently ablaze three years ago. And what was interesting to me is I had to bribe a taxi driver a considerable amount of money just to take me out there. They're miserable places. But what was interesting to me is that after that, I then flew on to the Middle East, and I was in Yemen, and a couple of other places. And what was interesting to me was that I found more menace in the suburbs of Paris than I did in some pretty scary places in the Middle East. I mean, there is a real...this, I think, is the start of a long Eurabian civil war we're witnessing here.
Robert Kagen writes about power and weakness.

Steven den Beste sees a brain drain and lack of high-tech companies in Europe.

Dilacerator blames shackled economies.

Even Joan Collins is worried about the decline of England. (HT: Tammy Bruce)

Robert Spencer wonders if the riots in France are a jihad in Europe.

Zarqawi has a terrorist network in Europe.

You’ll notice that every writer linked to above who thinks Europe is in trouble is from the right side of the political spectrum. It is not an issue to the left. Either the right is overreacting or the left had better wake up.

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