ATLANTICISM IS ISLAMICISM:

The Moor's Last Laugh: Radical Islam finds a haven in Europe. (FOUAD AJAMI, March 28, 2004, Wall Street Journal)

In the legend of Moorish Spain, the last Muslim king of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the keys to his city on Jan. 2, 1492, and on one of its hills, paused for a final glance at his lost dominion. The place would henceforth be known as El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro--"the Moor's Last Sigh." Boabdil's mother is said to have taunted him, and to have told him to "weep like a woman for the land he could not defend as a man." An Arab poet of our own era gave voice to a historical lament when he wrote that as he walked the streets of Granada, he searched his pockets for the keys to its houses. Al Andalus--Andalusia--would become a deep wound, a reminder of dominions gained by Islam and then squandered. No wonder Muslim chroniclers added "May Allah return it to Islam" as they told and retold Granada's fate.

The Balkans aside, modern Islam would develop as a religion of Afro-Asia. True, the Ottomans would contest the Eastern Mediterranean. But their challenge was turned back. Turkey succumbed to a European pretension but would never be European. Europe's victory over Islam appeared definitive. Even those Muslims in the Balkans touched by Ottoman culture became a marked community, left behind by the Ottoman retreat from Europe like "seaweed on dry land."

Yet Boabdil's revenge came. It stole upon Europe. Demography--the aging of Europe on the one hand and, on the other, a vast bloat of people in the Middle East and North Africa--did Boabdil's job for him. Spurred by economic growth in the '60s, which created the need for foreign laborers, a Muslim migration to Europe began. Today, 15 million Muslims make their home in the European Union. [...]

Europe's leaders know Europe's dilemmas. In ways both intended and subliminal, the escape into anti-Americanism is an attempt at false bonding with the peoples of Islam. Give the Arabs--and the Muslim communities implanted in Europe--anti-Americanism, give them an identification with the Palestinians, and you shall be spared their wrath. Beat the drums of opposition to America's war in Iraq, and the furies of this radical Islamism will pass you by. This is seen as a way around the troubles. But there is no exit that way. [...]

Whatever political architecture Europe seeks, it will have to be built in proximity to the Other World, just across the Straits of Gibraltar and in the grip of terminal crisis.

Those who would alter our policies to curry European favor are gripping onto that terminal crisis.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2004 7:46 AM