Siege Mentality in Fortress Europe

Europe seems to bubble with hate and paranoia. Many Europeans are devastated over their currency changing to the euro, having their national borders stolen from them. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll have to switch to a foreign language--all this as part of becoming a united Europe.

“I feel,” a senior left-wing European journalist told me, “that my private home that gave birth to eight generations of my family suddenly became a motel where anyone--and I mean anyone--can rent a room for the night. And I have to supply the sheets and towels.”

Europeans are living through a series of convulsions that are going to affect them--and the entire world--drastically. The unification of Europe brings with it a fear and panic of immigration, especially from Muslim countries. Europeans know the magnet of borderless economies. Riches and opportunity will always lure immigrants from impoverished countries.

The Pat Buchanans of Europe are having a field day. They are doing well in almost every national and municipal election. And there may be another reason for the rise of the right in Europe: the Republican victory in the U.S. The way the U.S. votes will always tell you how Europe will vote. Europe subconsciously follows the U.S.

I spoke on Friday with Austria’s Joerg Haider, who has tried for years to escape his extreme right-wing image, to no avail. His notion is that Europe is very concerned about Muslim immigration growing dramatically in numbers because, in contradiction to the Judeo-Christian modern tradition, Muslims do not separate mosque and state. As a result, he says, they are a state within a state.

“I have no problem with Muslims coming to Austria,” he said, “as long as they know how to adjust to our democratic system that separates church and state just like the United States does.

“[But] I think that we--Europeans--should help the Arab countries to build their own economies so that they become attractive enough to their own people, to make them stay home.”

It seems that the right in Europe has another target or scapegoat now: Islam. Judaism, the old devil, is suddenly a religion worthy of respect and admiration.

Said Haider: “I would like to give priority of immigration to Jews who wish to come to my country, Austria. We in Austria know how much the Jews have contributed to our culture and economy, much beyond their proportionate percentage in the population. Any place Jews come to, its economy flourishes.”

Even Britain’s extreme right leader and head of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, claimed in an interview to Israel’s Maariv newspaper that “the reason for the tremendous influence that Jews have on the British media is because they are, on average, smarter than the rest of the white population. They have a higher IQ.”

Then Griffin, whose party just made inroads to respectability by gaining some seats in the municipal elections a few days ago, claimed that he hoped Israel would not collapse, God forbid, “because we’ll have huge groups of Jewish refugees knocking on our doors.”

Griffin, like France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, Haider and all other right-wingers in Europe today, believes that the main problem is with the Muslims because “even if we would stop all the Muslim immigration to Britain today, they have such a high birthrate that eventually they will fulfill their dream to turn Britain to a Muslim republic.”

Even Hans Janicheck, the former secretary-general of the Socialist International organization, admits that “the EU will have a big problem if and when Muslim Turkey manages to become a member of the European Union, something that will open all the borders of Europe to the Turks.”

The European fear of Islamic immigration may be overshadowed by the desire of Europe’s political parties to win the newcomers’ votes. This would create tremors of European anti-Americanism intended to please the masses of forthcoming Arab voters.