Eurabiaphobia. posted by Richard Seymour

This story in the Detroit Free News says that Islam is rising in Europe while Christianity is falling. It cites two reactionary academics - Bernard Lewis and George Weiger - who say they "fear Europe's doom if it does not re-Christianize, and soon". Obviously, these 'fears' are based on little. True, Islam is gaining more converts, while Christianity is losing devoted adherents - but then, the biggest gainer is apathy or atheism. Islam's rate of growth is fairly small, and the idea that 5% of the continent's population is likely to become the main demographic force any time soon. Neither migration nor conversion is likely to alter that.

The underlying thesis is more important - Europe is "doomed" by Islam. Christianity is superior. The article even locates a priest who informs us, as the hard right Zionist author Efraim Karsh recently did, that Islam is a religion of conquest.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch has been warning of the threat posed by Muslims who will, apparently, always place their religion before nationality (and therefore, one is supposed to infer, will commit suicide attacks against the nation if the Umma is harmed). And Harry's Place are upset about the upcoming Islam Expo, because Tariq Ramadan will be there, and they consider him an activist in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a "falangist" (meaning fascist) organisation. A liberal Islamic theologian, then, is a fascist. The fash, curiously enough, don't seem all that keen on the expo.

Let's be clear about the political consequences of this sort of paranoid bilge. The BNP has recently stated that: "The effete liberal response to dealing with those intent on murdering western infidels is a far cry from the actions of others in a similar position. US Colonel Alexander Rodgers was fighting Muslim extremists in the Phillippines in 1911. He introduced a system of burying all dead Muslim juramentados in a common grave with the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. This relatively simple device resulted in the withdrawal of juramentados to sections not held by Rodgers." The "simple device" of genocide and religious humiliation. What these liberal and conservative racists are doing is encouraging the fascist right, by providing a 'respectable' cover for their claims.

Note: Islamophobia Watch, linked copiously here, has set itself the discouraging task of charting the growth of Islamophobia, all the better to fight it. It is an invaluable undertaking, and you wouldn't do yourself any harm by becoming a regular visitor.