[lit-ideas] Eurabia, Preface (2)
- From: "Lawrence Helm"<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:01:48 +0000
This is the second note on Bat Ye’or’s preface:
"Over the past three decades, the EEC and the EU’s political and cultural
organizations have invented a fantasy Islamic civilization and history. The
voluminous historical record of violations of basic human rights for all
non-Muslims and women under the shari’a (Islamic Law) – throughout the
past, and in contemporary Muslim societies – is ignored, or dismissed.
Immunized from criticism by this fabricated historical construct, Europeans
could engage in mutually fruitful business transactions and diplomatic ventures
– particularly at the United Nations and other world bodies – with
dictatorial regimes. It is in this context of international relation s–
pompously called ‘international legality- -- that ‘old Europe’ driven by
France, the main architect of this policy, opposed America and supported
Palestinian terrorist organizations.
"In this book, Euro-Arab Judeophobia will be examined only as an indicator of
the common Euro-Arab culture that is permeating, even overwhelming, all levels
of West European society. It is no easy task to avoid an analysis of the
current European Judeophobic trend. Under the euphemism of ‘peace process,’
the EU has made Israel the cornerstone of its relations with the Arab states,
with the USA, and of its own security – as a quid pro quo against Islamist
terror. Hence, from whatever angle we observe these three positions, we find
that Israel is at the core of Europe’s strategies. In fact, as it will become
clearer in the following pages, under Arab pressure, the EU has willingly made
Israel hostage to its own Arab policy and its security."
. . .
"Judeophobia does affect the way Europeans – whether Christian,
‘post-Christian,’ or atheist – understand their past and conceive their
future. This understanding of history, and conception of the future, is also
influenced by European anti-Americanism. The nexus between European Jew-hatred
and anti-Americanism becomes apparent when Americans resist Islamization and
perceive their identity and culture as an emanation of biblical history and
values – a heritage scorned by contemporary Eurabia."
. . .
European anti-Americanism is not a new phenomenon. During the Cold War, it was
perceived as an almost exclusively, albeit widespread, Soviet-inspired
phenomenon. However, a contemptuous anti-Americanism among some Europeans –
particularly French and Germans trends – reflected a sense of cultural
superiority and compensated for the Nazi, Fascist, and Communist defeats. The
collapse of the Communist system exposed other currents of anti-American
hatred, manifested by Third-Worldists, neo-Communists, and Islamists reoriented
into a powerful jihadist coalition against Western democracies and their
values. This recast ideological war is deeply rooted in a Euro-Arab political
alliance and growing cultural symbiosis, which propagates – and expresses,
often unabashedly – virulent antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
"The Euro-Arab Dialogue implemented in the 1970s a new sociopolitical and
cultural conception, which has now affected profound changes within Western
Europe. In the following pages, I use the terms ‘Europeans’ and
‘Eurabians.’ Eurabia designates a new entity – with political, economic,
religious, cultural, and media components – superimposed on Europe by
powerful governmental lobbies. While Europeans live within Eurabia’s
constraints, few are really conscious of them on a daily basis, beyond a
somewhat confused awareness. Eurabians are the agents and enforcers of this all
encompassing new Eurabian policy and culture. The tension between Europeans and
Eurabians arises from fundamental and uncompromising differences over
political, societal, and cultural values, as well as core religious identities.
This tension is also apparent in disputes regarding the strength and durability
of the European-American transatlantic alliance and the cohesion of what we
still call Western civilization. The divisive European-Eurabian arguments over
the war in Iraq, or the larger global war on jihad terrorism, reflect a deeper
religious and cultural confrontation between western and Arab/Islamic
civilizations where, consciously or not, Eurabians have become the agents of
the Islamic political ambitions of Europe.
"This book will elucidate the origins of contemporary European dhimmitude and
examine its propagation. Similar developments, at a much more inchoate stage,
have been discerned in America, through examination of school textbooks and
university curricula." [her reference here reads "See Gilbert Sewall, ‘Islam
and the Textbooks,’ http://www.historytextbooks.org/islamreport.pdf., The
American Textbook Council, 2003, 35 pp.; www.Campus-Watch.org.’ Daniel Pipes,
"Jihad and the Professors,’ Commentary, November 2002; and for all Pipes
writings on this subject, http://www.danielpipes.org/art/cat/47. Martin Kramer,
Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America
(Washington, DC.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).]
Thus ends the preface to Eurabia, The Euro-Arab Axis, by Bat Ye’or.
Lawrence
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