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Saturday, March 10, 2018

The Strange Death of Europe | Douglas Murray

Immigration, Identity, Islam
"Every so often, something is published which slices through the fog of confusion, obfuscation and the sheer dishonesty of public debate to illuminate one key fact about the world. Such a work is Douglas Murray's tremendous and shattering book, The Strange Death of Europe", wrote the British Daily Telegraph. 

The 2017 book by the British journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Europe almost committed suicide by means of the two world wars, but managed to survive both times. Douglas Murray holds that a third suicide attempt is under way. The context is rather straightforward: Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. The intellectual and political pollution of Europe’s 20th century is a dead weight on the spirit of Europe. Communism and Nazism between them crushed beliefs, tradition, and legitimacy. In reaction to the totalitarian monstrosities, the European Union has dismantled the nation-state; its abolition of borders, its shibboleth about the free movement of labor, and its regimentation of virtue leave the continent defenseless and all doors open for whoever cares to walk in.  

This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them. Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilization, would do this to themselves? 

Germany's Merkel Regime: The Wrecking Ball for Europe
He ends with two visions of Europe - one hopeful, one pessimistic - which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next. What is to be done? For Murray, an atheist and homosexual, the answers are clear enough politically: a closing of borders, the proscribing of Sharia, the vigilant hunting down of terrorists, the encouragement of European women to have children (which, surprisingly, they are not as averse to as one might expect). The policies that will protect a civilization that has given the world so much are hardly a mystery. But where is the will?

It seems that no number of rapes, car bombings, Jewish-school massacres, and murdered priests will silence the cry of “racist” and “racial profiling” hurled at those who attempt to stem the flow of Muslim men and women into Europe. It will take a group of politicians and citizens of very stern character and strong faith to withstand the litany of shaming that has become the common reply in media and parliaments to those who would institute immigration reform. If that character is found wanting, Europe, as Bernard Lewis has predicted, will be Muslim by the end of the century. Douglas Murray’s book is another warning of that very real possibility. See also HERE