- Berlinski, Claire.
Menace in Europe.
New York: Crown Forum, 2006.
ISBN 1-4000-9768-1.
-
This is a scary book. The author, who writes with a broad and deep
comprehension of European history and its cultural roots, and a
vocabulary which reminds one of William F. Buckley, argues that the deep
divide which has emerged between the United States and Europe since the end
of the cold war, and particularly in the last few years, is not a matter
of misunderstanding, lack of sensitivity on the part of the U.S., or the
personnel, policies, and style of the Bush administration, but deeply rooted
in structural problems in Europe which are getting worse, not better. (That's
not to say that there aren't dire problems in the U.S. as well, but that isn't
the topic here.)
Surveying the contemporary scene in the Netherlands, Britain, France,
Spain, Italy, and Germany, and tracing the roots of nationalism,
peasant revolts (of which “anti-globalisation” is the
current manifestation), and anti-Semitism back through the centuries,
she shows that what is happening in Europe today is simply
Europe—the continent of too many kings and too many
wars—being Europe, adapted to present-day circumstances. The
impression you're left with is that Europe isn't just the “sick
man of the world”, but rather a continent afflicted with half a
dozen or more separate diseases, all terminal: a large, un-assimilated
immigrant population concentrated in ghettos; an unsustainable welfare
state; a sclerotic economy weighed down by social charges, high taxes,
and ubiquitous and counterproductive regulation; a collapsing birth
rate and aging population; a “culture crash” (my term),
where the religions and ideologies which have structured the lives of
Europeans for millennia have evaporated, leaving nothing in their
place; a near-total disconnect between elites and the general
population on the disastrous project of European integration, most
recently manifested in the controversy over the so-called
European constitution; and signs that the
rabid nationalism which plunged Europe into two disastrous wars in the
last century and dozens, if not hundreds of wars in the centuries
before, is seeping back up through the cracks in the foundation of the
dystopian, ill-conceived European Union.
In some regards, the author does seem to overstate the case, or generalise
from evidence so narrow it lacks persuasiveness. The most egregious example
is chapter 8, which infers an emerging nihilist
neo-Nazi nationalism in Germany almost entirely based on the popularity of
the band Rammstein.
Well, yes, but whatever the lyrics, the message of the music, and the
subliminal message of the music videos, there is a lot more going on
in Germany, a nation of more than 80 million people, than the antics
of a single heavy metal band, however atavistic.
U.S. readers inclined to gloat over the woes of the old continent should
keep in mind the author's observation, a conclusion I had come to long before
I ever opened this book, that the U.S. is heading directly for the same confluence
of catastrophes as Europe, and, absent a fundamental change of course, will
simply arrive at the scene of the accident somewhat later; and that's only
taking into account the problems they have in common; the European economy,
unlike the American, is able to function without borrowing on the order of
two billion dollars a day from China and Japan.
If you live in Europe, as I have for the last fifteen years
(thankfully outside, although now encircled by, the would-be empire that
sprouted from Brussels), you'll probably find little here that's new,
but you may get a better sense of how the problems interact with one
another to make a real crisis somewhere in the future a genuine
possibility. The target audience in the U.S., which is so often
lectured by their elite that Europe is so much more sophisticated,
nuanced, socially and environmentally aware, and rational, may find
this book an eye opener; 344,955 American soldiers perished in
European wars in the last century, and while it may be satisfying to
say, “To Hell with Europe!”, the lesson of history is that
saying so is most unwise.
An Instapundit podcast
interview with the
author is freely available on-line.
July 2006 