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About Guy Millière
Guy Millière is a professor at the University Paris
specializing in history of cultures and philosophy of law. He is an associate
professor at political sciences and communication. He works with numerous think
tanks in the United States and France. He is an expert on the European Union in
bioethics and a speaker for the France Bank. He is a former visiting Professor
at California State University, Long Beach. He has worked with the American
Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution. He was Vice President of
Institute of Free Europe as well as President and a member of the Scientific
Council of Turgot Institute. He is part of the Steering Committee for the
Alliance for France-Israel chaired by Gilles-William Goldnadel. He is the author
of over twenty books. |
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Past Articles
Why
Europe is Dead |
Guy Millière
Why Europe is Dead
October 19, 2010
Of course, a referendum was held in Switzerland, which led to the ban on
minarets. Of course, a law was passed in France banning the wearing of the burqa.
Of course also, political parties that reject Islamization of Europe and promote
a return to national values experienced significant electoral success. A book
written by Thilo Sarrazin, board member of the German Central Bank, "Germany
Doing Away with Itself" is a bestseller and shows that German people are
anxious.
Nevertheless, I must say what needs to be said. These are only isolated
outbursts that will not change the final result, because the result is already
here. The long history of civilizations demonstrates strong trends, as well as
desperate reactions against them. The trends are highly visible and imply a
diagnosis made by multiple authors, Mark Steyn in "America Alone", Bruce
Thornton in "Decline and Fall", Walter Laqueur in "The Last Days of Europe", and
more. Desperate reactions are no more, no less than what they are.
Europe is dead. And it is important to say it clearly, since many of the
elements that killed Europe are today at work in the United States, especially
since Obama and his henchmen arrived in the White House.
Europe died because she has slipped toward socialism and the establishment of
welfare states that gradually destroyed the spirit of enterprise and the will to
compete...and because the slippage instilled a mentality of dependency and
passivity. The Obama administration is not formally and explicitly socialist,
but its members have set gears in motion that could lead to structures
facilitating creation of a European-style welfare state. The health care reform
signed into law a few months ago is but one of these gears.
Europe died because, in most European countries, redistribution systems are in
place allowing more than half the population to pay no income tax and receive
generous government benefits. This population segment is consequently always
inclined to vote to raise taxes on the other segment, which makes victory nearly
impossible for candidates campaigning to cut taxes. The Obama administration has
begun to implement mechanisms designed to drag the United States in exactly this
direction.
Europe died because the welfare states’ redistribution systems generated slow
growth, high unemployment and low expectations, and because dependency and
passivity created an atmosphere of irresponsibility and a preference for the
present that led to a declining birth rate and to accelerated aging of European
populations. The USA is not yet there, but growth is sluggish, unemployment is
high, poverty is spreading all over the country, and the left is trying to
instill a spirit of irresponsibility and a preference for the present that
appear alarmingly similar to what prevails in Europe today.
Europe died because most of her education structures, from primary schools to
universities, have been taken over by leftists and produce more misfits than
people with marketable skills. Most American universities still carry and
transmit a quest for excellence, but faculty adherents of political correctness
who sow seeds of destruction in their courses must be unhesitatingly uprooted,
as many former students go on to become journalists, politicians, teachers,
professors and other agents of influence.
As they are managed in mixed economy mode, most Continental European countries
have lost nearly all sources of independent information; information is
rarefied, suffocated, deeply distorted, and more or less controlled by the
governments; pluralism looks more and more like what would exist in countries
with single-party systems. In most continental European countries, TV channels
such as FOXNEWS would be unimaginable, printed magazines such as the National
Review or the Weekly Standard could not exist, online magazines such as
FrontPage would probably be long gone.
In continental Europe, pluralistic debates have almost completely disappeared.
Intellectuals espousing ideas and values close to those of American conservatism
and neo-conservatism are treated as dissidents were in the Soviet Union. Authors
such as Bernard-Henri Levy and Pascal Bruckner in France remain visible only
because they incessantly proclaim that they belong to the left, because they
support Obama and because they are close to organizations like J Street: to be
invited to appear on television in France, as in many other European countries,
you must fill these three prerequisites. If not, you may be invited once, and
you will then be placed on a blacklist
Today’s Europe is directed from above by technocrats who were never elected by
anyone and who are accountable exclusively to politicians. Populations have
essentially given up and lost any hope to be heard: only the left and the
extreme left can mobilize crowds, and it is usually to ask for more
interventionism and more redistributive policies.
For decade upon decade, Europe hosted people emigrating from other countries and
imbued with other cultures. Her institutions have taught them multiculturalism,
anti-capitalism and moral relativism. They are mainly Muslims. They have
considerably higher birth rates than native populations. They do not integrate.
They have their own value systems and gradually create counter-societies within
their European host societies. Islamists act and disseminate nefarious ideas.
Europe seems like a giant balloon that is slowly deflating. More and more
Europeans discern that they have no future. Some vote for parties who talk of a
national surge or a new start, but have no chance of winning. Some read
pessimistic but lucid books. Most languish in a state of immobile resignation.
Occasionally, political leaders pretend to do something: the French government
enacts a law on the burqa, for example. But beyond appearances, the tide
continues to rise. To justify the law on the burqa, several French ministers
emphasized that they were complying with the requirements of Islam and had,
before legislating, sought the advice of Muslim theologians. At the same time,
welfare state systems break down under the weight of abyssal deficits. Lawless
zones under the control of imams and gangs grow and multiply.
In a book published earlier this year, "Reflections on the Revolution in
Europe", Christopher Caldwell asked whether Europe would be the same with
different people in it. That’s undoubtedly the crucial question. He replied in
the negative. Demography is an exact science: in two decades, three at most,
there will still be a continent called "Europe" on maps, but it will be a very
different continent. It will be poorer, more Muslim, much less free. Pockets of
wealth will remain, but it will dangerous to go out at night, especially for
women without a veil. It's already risky for woman to go out without a veil in
the outskirts of all major French cities, in Brussels, in Antwerp, and in parts
of London and Berlin. Jews will survive if they keep their heads down and
abstain from wearing yarmulkes; it’s already risky for a Jew to wear a yarmulke
almost anywhere in Europe.
In terms of foreign policy, the positions of key countries in Europe and those
of the EU will be close to those of the Organization of Islamic Conference.
That’s already very often the case. Beyond the weight of Muslim populations,
most European countries have weak armies and in any case have adopted a
diplomacy of weakness.
The USA is not there yet. But seeing what the Obama administration and the
leftist Democrat majority in Congress have done in less than two years, one
could fear the worst unless a change of direction occurs in the near future.
Tea parties have shown that America is still alive and that the American people
have no intention of suffering the fate of Europe. The November 2 election will
have historical significance: some frightening drifts must be stopped before it
is too late. Too late means that the United States would be well on the road to
what is happening in Europe. The situation in Europe is more than a failure. It
is a disaster that many observers have yet to fully assess.
If the US followed Europe on the road to disaster, it is freedom on earth that
would be seriously threatened.
This article first appeared at
http://www.drzz.fr |
