Apocalypse now?

Published 12 March 2007

America Alone: the end of the world as we know it Mark Steyn Regnery Publishing, 256pp, £14.27 ISBN 0895260786

America Alone is a guidebook to a continent called Eurabia, circa 2020. Its old European shell looks familiar; "most of" the old cathedrals and boulevards "still stand" in Rome, London and Paris. But the Islamic National Republican Coalition has just won the French elections - only the latest nation-sized domino to fall to the Islamists. Alcohol is already banned in the Netherlands and Denmark. The continent's women are veiled. The gay clubs are long since shut and shuttered, "relocated to San Francisco".

The "mass evacuations" of white people began five years ago, as the "supposedly Greater France" began "remorselessly evolving month by month into Greater Bosnia". As they flee, the last Europeans curse the memory of mass immigration and multiculturalism. They now realise that 7/7 and France's 2006 car-burning banlieues were merely "the first stage of the Eurabian civil war". The continent that defined modernity is condemned to "societal collapse, fascist revivalism" and a descent into "the long Eurabian night". America is left alone, the last country to resist being "reprimitivised".

This is not presented as fanatical fodder for a party political broadcast fronted by Jean-Marie Le Pen. It is the straight-faced prediction of a book that has slithered on to the New York Times bestseller list and captured the imagination of the American right. Mark Steyn, an uneducated former disc jockey turned pundit, is today being greeted as a sage by the likes of Dick Cheney.

Steyn's story is based - very loosely - on demographics. His argument is simple. Europe's "white" population (a label he initially shies away from, but later embraces) is having fewer children. So to keep their social-democratic economies spinning, Europeans are importing Muslim immigrants, who are breeding rapidly.

From this reading of the demography - "it doesn't explain everything, but it accounts for a good 90 per cent" - the rest of the narrative flows. An unassimilated, culturally confident Muslim mass will slowly become the majority, and demand that the demoralised multicultural "natives" integrate with them.

Steyn's prose has a jangling musicality; like Ann Coulter, he writes in a demonic demotic that makes you chuckle even as you retch. But this cannot hide the gaping holes of logic and fact in his argument. To fulfil his headline predictions, Steyn needs to turn 20 million European Muslims (not including those in Turkey) into more than 200 million European Muslims in just 13 years. Europe's real demographics are described in a similar book by a slightly more scrupulous author. Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of the Washington Times and DC grande dame, last year wrote The West's Last Chance, predicting that an enfeebled Europe would collapse before the Muslim hordes. But after studying the figures, he admitted: "For almost every western European country, their populations do not even begin to decline until at least 2025 . . . In fact, for the next few decades, they continue to go up, even without any new immigration . . . The numbers only begin to move decidedly down about 50 years from now."

Steyn's thesis requires an implausible triptych: the current Muslim birth rate must hold steady through five decades of life in the west; all Muslims must become communitarian Islamists bent on sharia law; and no natalist policies must be launched from European governments in the meantime.

But number-crunching and mockery are not a sufficient response; it is hard to comment on Steyn's work without noting in it issues of race. Of course, Steyn insists: "To agitate about what proportion of the population is 'white' is grotesque and inappropriate. But it's not about race; it's about culture." Yet it quickly becomes clear that, for him, "culture" is merely a thinly veiled homologue for "race" - and then the mask slips entirely. He writes: "Those who pooh-pooh the United States' comparatively robust demographics say they reflect nothing more than the fecundity of Hispanic immigration . . . In fact, white women in America still breed at a greater rate - 1.85 or so - than white women in Europe or Canada." So after saying it is "gro-tesque" to count out "white" babies, he does just that. "White" is not a culture; it is a skin colour.

Indeed, if Steyn's "warnings" have a historical precedent, it is the hysteria among even liberal Americans such as Jack London in the early 20th century that anticipated Chinese immigrants would outbreed white Americans and take over the US. London's solution was extermination; what is Steyn's?

Islamism (distinct from Islam) is indeed a fascistic menace, but Steyn offers a masterclass in how not to fight against it. True, he calls for Muslim moderation - but only after concluding that Muslim moderation is a contradiction in terms. He warns early in the book that "the religion [of Islam] itself is a political project - and in fact an imperial project". So why call simply for more moderate Muslim imperialism?

Steyn's true response to Islamism is to make democratic societies more like the one the Islamists want to build. "The Muslim critique of the west - that we're decadent vulgar narcissist fornicating sodomites - is not without more than a grain of truth," he writes, saying that the destruction of Europe's feminist and gay rights advances wouldn't especially bother him. He agrees that secular Europe is spiritually barren, decadent, depraved. At times, it's hard to see why he opposes Islamism at all.

Europe cannot defeat the far-right poison of Islamic fundamentalism by turning to a parallel far-right mythology of its own. We have seen in the past invented conspiracies like the Protocols of the Elders of Mohammed peddled by Steyn. It is a startling indictment of the intellectual standards of the American right that they have welcomed this Eurabian fiction with anything other than cheap, repulsed laughter.

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22 comments from readers

Tyro
09 March 2007 at 19:19

Hari accuses Steyn of racism for using "white" as shorthand for "non-Muslim Western". How does this differ, though, from Hari himself speaking of "natalist policies be[ing] launched from [sic] European governments"? European Muslims don't need "natalist policies" to encourage them to have children. Does Hari think only white French, Dutch, etc citizens "Europeans"? I assume not. He's using shorthand. So is Steyn.

Far from using fears of "enforced Islam" as a cloak for dominance by the brown folk, Steyn seems even more worried about light-skinned Europeans converting. See his comments on Yahya Birt (of the BBC), or on Robert Ferrigno's novel "Prayers of the Assassin". Steyn and his readers would be less worried about a Europe populated by dark-skinned, Arabic-speaking Christians and Buddhists than about a Europe populated by blonde, blue-eyed converts to Wahhabism a la John Walker, Richard Reid and Don Stewart-Whyte. Given Mr Hari's lifestyle choices, I doubt he would want to live in a Wahhabised Europe either so cut the cheap "racism" and "Muslim hordes" jibes and get to the real issues.

Julia
10 March 2007 at 01:53

I read your opinion piece as far as "an uneducated former disc jockey turned pundit" and stopped. I do not consider the opinions of bigots.

peter
10 March 2007 at 20:10

The language in this review is ridiculously hyperbolic, ("slither"?, "demonic demotic"?), but I suppose that helps somewhat in rounding-out the author’s egregious ellipsis of thought, so regrettably common in the preening elite of the post-modern. Silly bugger really - I"ll take Steyn at 20-1 in a knock-down debate.

miamishampoo
10 March 2007 at 20:55

Has Hari been to Paris recently? French girls are afraid to walk the streets of Paris in miniskirts--RIGHT NOW, not 25 yrs. in the future. Has he looked up the figures for numbers of cars burned by "youths" in France last year? For rape statistics in Western Europe at large? While France is having a debate over sex-segregated swimming pools and while uniformed Muslim militias patrol certain neighborhoods of Brussels, only a half-educated preening dimwit like Hari can hide his head in the sand and blame it on "the right." Get a life, moron.

IceKo
10 March 2007 at 22:56

Hari's snide asides, inflamed lexis and ad hominem approach do the few valid points in his review no good at all, and clearly show that Steyn has touched a nerve. Anyone who 'retches' while reading this book likely needs a good intellectual emetic in the first place. I also believe Hari has misread the context of Steyn's use of 'white' in the passages referred to. If Hari reads the book more carefully, too, he would know that his comment that "Europe cannot defeat the far-right poison of Islamic fundamentalism by turning to a parallel far-right mythology of its own" is a red herring at best. Steyn in fact warns of, rather than recommends that, Europe adopt a fascism of its own, whether of the right or the left. I do agree with Hari, however, that despite their relative quietism to date, Muslims who come to Europe, or take advantage of being there to get away from Islam, may not be insignificant, and their number cannot be counted on to give exclusive or even majority support to projected Islamic political parties or movements in Europe.

IceKo
10 March 2007 at 23:49

Hari's snide asides, inflamed lexis and ad hominem broadsides do the more solid comment in his review no good at all, and clearly show that Steyn has touched a nerve. Anyone who 'retches' while reading this book likely needs a good intellectual emetic in the first place. If Hari had read the book more carefully, or perhaps just commented on it in a less hyperventilating state of mind, he would know that his saying "Europe cannot defeat the far-right poison of Islamic fundamentalism by turning to a parallel far-right mythology of its own" is, in a review of this book, a misrepresentation of the author’s view. Steyn, rather than making any recommendation in favor of Europe adopting a fascism of its own, whether of the right or the left, to meet any in-house Islamicist menace, clearly warns of the danger of its doing so, especially given its undeniable historical track record as, to use Hari’s own words (though he seems to have missed the irony), “the continent that defined modernity.” I do agree with Hari, however, that despite their relative quietism to date, people raised as Muslims who come to Europe, or take advantage of being there to get away from Islam, may not be insignificant, and their number cannot be counted on to give exclusive or even majority support to projected Islamic political parties or movements that may rise in Europe.

court
11 March 2007 at 05:31

Mr. Hari ignores Steyn's argument that the Muslims are mostly young, the non-Muslims mostly old; or to be old, in not many years. A force of young men, familiar with street fighting (not to mention the large fraction of the e.g. French army which are Muslim and thus *trained* to war) can whip a much larger group of older more passive people. Again, Mr. Hari ignores the entire history of the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, when a tiny minority of disciplined highly motivated Arabs plowed into much larger groups of people and conquered them. Mr. Hari has clearly not reached Mr. Steyn's level of education in world affairs. He might do well to read and ponder Hugh Kennedy's writings on early Islam.

Steyn, BTW, hardly qualifies as "uneducated". I believe he attended a British more-or-less private school, which puts him ahead of most Americans; and later seems to have had considerable contact with Foreign Office types. At any rate his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs in the last couple of centuries is extensive and detailed.

fairjd
11 March 2007 at 15:27

This essay is uninformative as a review and weak as a rebuttal.

bill h
11 March 2007 at 20:37

Johann Hari's review touches on the dodgy demography on which so much of Steyn's thesis is based, but this is something that needs further exposure for the nonsense that it is.

Steyn attempts to use the low birthrates in Europe to demonstrate its spiritual barrenness, resulting, so he contends, from the decline of European Christianity and the evils of socialism and the Welfare State, comparing this with the higher birthrate of the "Christian" USA. Unfortunately for him the European countrIes with the highest birthrates (comparable with the US) - Norway, Denmark and Iceland - are among the ones with the most marked degrees of socialism, welfarism and irreligion. In addition he would do well to consider the case of South Korea, one of the most "Christian" in the world judging by data on religious commitment, with a birthrate of less than 1.3 per woman.

Steyn also speaks very approvingly of the strength and vitality of Britain before 1945, after which, apparently, the decline of Christianity, the inception of the welfare state and socialism left us a basket case ever since, with (you guessed it )a low birthrate. The problem with this is that Britain actually had a very low birthrate from 1900 to 1945. This then increased markedly after the war, reaching a peak of 2.95 in 1964. The baby boom coincided with the roll-out of the welfare state, the country’s first majority socialist government, the influence of which remained key throughout the boom, and a precipitous fall in religious observance. In Britain, at least, the response to spiritual barrenness seems to have been to have lots of kids.

Thomas
12 March 2007 at 03:13

Mark Steyn has disappointed me. He linked to your article as "the long-awaited liberal takedown" of his book. It is nothing of the sort, just the usual straw men. I've read it all before. Shame on you Mark!

ChicagoMike
12 March 2007 at 04:31

I laughed aloud at Thomas' comment, but I suspect that Steyn is slyer than that -- the "liberal takedown" is meant ironically. But it really is the best they can do, apparently. When a critic is reduced to ad hominem in the opening broadside and arguing against what Steyn supposedly really meant rather than what he actually wrote, you know he can't refute the thesis.

Philosovich
12 March 2007 at 10:57

Sounds like a ridiculous book. Thanks for the heads up. I agree with your idea: "it's hard to see why he opposes Islamism at all." I do believe that there is a battle or two to be fought with extremism but not not under the leadership of Steyn.

DaveBadger
12 March 2007 at 11:03

The only thing wrong in this book is the timeline.

It will probably take twice as long, but it WILL happen. It is happening right now.

We see ands hear it everyday from all over the globe.

You only have to look at the UK. 6 years ago you hardly ever heard the word Muslim. Now, thanks to terrorist acts (which is of course the point of them) Islam in the Uk has grown in power, influence and size so swiftly and to such an extent that almost no one could have foreseen it.

In fact people would have probably criticised such a massive increase in Muslim muscle as fantasy...a bit like this book...look how dangerously wrong they would have been.

Islam (helped along by the apologist, the communist, the politically correct and the basically stupid) is the greatest threat this country, Europe and indeed the world has faced for decades.

DaveBadger
12 March 2007 at 11:17

---"White" is not a culture; it is a skin colour.----

And Muslim is not a race it's a religion.

It's a religious cult of choice (or fear of saying no to joining) of many races and skin colours.

Funny though, whenever Islam is criticised Muslims scream "RACISM". The hypocrisy rolls on.

DaveBadger
12 March 2007 at 15:47

Oh and while I'm at it...to say there are no 'White' cultures is utterly absurd.

White itself may not 'be' a culture...But Europe is basically made up of totally White cultures with a White history.

To say White has nothing to do with culture is laughable. As in Europe we live in cultures with a White bedrock.

It may not be trendy to say that the hated White Westerner has any culture (after all it seems the trend to spit on and ultimately try to destroy as much of those WhiteWestern cultures as possible , while all along the Asian, Arab andf Black cultures are there to be cherished, respected and whereever possible expanded), but that does not mean there aren't any.

---Islamism (distinct from Islam)----

Distinct from? How?

Quite frankly any Muslim who is not an Islamist is practicing a watered down verison of Islam.

Impure Islam.

Tainted by evolution Islam.

But seeing as PURE radical islam is increasing so much I don't hold out much hope for the future of this watered down evolved version.

In fact given the Islamic love of butchering it's own followers I expect it will be even more dangerous than it is already to even practice such diluted forms of Islam. Even in the UK.

Comfortcove
13 March 2007 at 00:26

This is a spirited attack and Steyn must see it that way to give it the title "Liberal Takedown". He recognizes it as one of the better written adverse reviews. The standard perhaps. Steyn is weak in the prediction department as Hari enumerates, gleefully no doubt. Where Steyn saw the Islamists as weak(in Iraq) he sees them as unstoppable in Europe. In both cases I think Steyn was hoping to influence behavior and actually believes the opposite. He wants action taken, and to say Iraq is very hard might stop it and to say Europe is easy, it might never begin. Anyway I look forward to his response.

Sergey
13 March 2007 at 16:48

Every "success" of Islamic terror is preparing ground for ultimate destruction of Islam everywhere. A new leader will arise in France or Denmark, and Queen Isabella's solution will be sealed by popular vote.

MCNULTYLAW
13 March 2007 at 18:48

Gentlemen:

Was your review of "America Alone" some kind of parody? Why else bring in the fact that Mark Steyn once worked as a "disc jockey" other than to make an ad hominem attack -- to dismiss in advance anything he had to say? I once worked as a "disc jockey," and I wish I could write and think like Mark Steyn, our most gifted political columnist (not to mention his wonderful writings on music and culture). I managed to go to university and get an advanced degree. So there.

And why bring into the discussion the "demonic" Ann Coulter, who says words we are no longer allowed to say. I cannot think why you would want to dismiss such a hilarious political satirist (but that is another story).

Admittedly, the weakness of the book is the last chapter where Steyn gives his answers to the challenge pose by Islamism. Bringing democracy to the Arab world is not the answer, although it is better than surrender or global war. So the book is not perfect. Who has the answer? At this early stage, no one wants to see the implications of the problem, and ignoring the problem only makes it worse. Steyn is important because he sees the problem at a time when "political correctness" tells us to avert our eyes. Amazingly, even our news media will leave out of a story the fact that the perpetrator is a Muslim. So early terrorist incidents go down as ordinary crime and disappear from the papers.

What about you? Are you going to wait until there are IED's in Britain to admit that there is a problem? For decades, through immigration, you have been taking a viper (unassimilable minorities) to you bosom. We Americans have our own cultural troubles with immigration, but at least the Mexicans are Christians, not Muslims.

I am somewhat confused. The review dismisses Steyn's book as fiction (I must admit that I am one of those readers who help it "slither" up THE NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list), but the review never really points out what, exactly, in Steyn's book is "untrue." The criticism of Steyn's book seems to be that the demographic crunch will not come until much later, 50 years or so; I guess we have nothing to worry about. Let our grandchildren worry about it? What's that? We had no children, so we cannot have any grandchildren to worry about it? Sounds to me like the "uneducated" Steyn has a point, at least if you care about the survival of the West.

But maybe you think that we can come back in 100 years and find a peaceful Islamic world. What makes you think that it will be an idealized and tolerant "Andalusia," rather than a global Taliban state?

And should we dismiss our worries because the Muslims are bound to assimilate? All the energy seems to be on the other side (especially the suicide bombers). The majority of the "moderate" Muslims either tacitly agree or are afraid to speak out against it. Read Bin Laden's speeches to get the "straight" Islam without the Western chasers.

In my experience the "moderate" Muslim is a myth. Yes, there are Muslims who live "moderate" lives, but there are no "moderate" Muslims. To be "moderate," a Muslim would have to deny articles of his faith. Read the Koran and the Hadith. The problem is that the Koran cannot be changed, since it is an Earthly version of golden tablets that exist in Heaven containing the actual words of God in the original language (Arabic).

Mohammed is a model to be emulated in all things, the Muslim's ideal man. Well, it is true that he married (and later deflowered) a nine-year-old. It is true that he had a poetess killed because she wrote mocking verses about him. It is also true that he killed hundreds of Jews, both at the Khaybar oasis for loot and a whole tribe of Jews who crossed him (and were subjected to mass beheading as a result). And it is true that the Koran warns Muslims that no true Muslim can be a friend to a Christian or a Jew. And that he had a series of "convenient" revelations when he needed them. And there is a doctrine in the Koran that provides that one may lie to an infidel, as long as the truth is told to a Muslim brother.

Do not sit around hoping for a Muslim Reformation, because Bin Laden is it. He has called Muslims back to the Koran and the Hadith and the Sunnah. This is bad news for us, because to them, we -- Jews, black Christians, and White Christians -- are all just infidels, deserving of only death or dhimmitude.

It is obvious which you have chosen. Here in the West, we stand at the pinnacle of technology, but as Lenin said, every revolution is the kicking in of a rotten door. Our society is "rotten," as your "traison des clercs" book review shows. No wonder we have to depend upon a mere former "disc jockey" to defend us.

Sincerely,

Joseph F. McNulty, Jr.

314 South Eugene Street

Greensboro, NC 27401

DaveBadger
14 March 2007 at 16:32

Superbly put Joseph.

keithlord
16 March 2007 at 02:22

So the solution to population decline is not for people to have more kids, it's for states to enact 'natalist policies.' How revealing.

John Adams
22 October 2007 at 06:58

This reviewer is not unlike a man on the top floor of one of the twin towers on 9/11 spending his coffee break worrying about the fact that airline passengers that morning might be subjected to ethnic profiling at U.S. airports.

John Adams

emberglow
02 November 2007 at 07:22

I think Mark Steyn has been starving for ''Liberal'' takedown (Read attention!) He linked to this page as well as to my Blog post that reviewed his book and ideas in a roaring, speak out loud manner. If it may interest you. You can read and even leave comments at: http://emberglow.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/review-of-america-...

I do believe that the idolatry of his book by all conservative media, commentators contrasts humiliatingly with all mainstream media's dismissal expressed by deep contemptuous silence.

As for this newspaper review. It is predictable. I do believe calling him ''uneducated'' is unwarranted. I have used the phrase ''lack of formal education'' but that does not imply he is not educated. He is evidently very intelligent and self educated man with some childish prejudices and presumptions.

But my best guess is that he rather panders to (and inflames) the childish prejudices of others to sell well. That's why I called him ''foxy'' and a ''bitch''.