Frank Furedi
The end of Europe?
Blaming Europe’s decline on the fertility rates of fecund immigrants misses the point that the continent is politically, not physically, exhausted.

Today, pessimism permeates the Western world. In political, academic and media circles, there is a deep-seated scepticism about the benefits of economic growth and the possibility of social progress, and a great deal of anxiety about the future.

Europe in particular is afflicted by a powerful sense of terminus. Of course, Europe has experienced waves of political pessimism in the past. In the 1920s and 30s, for example, when Oswald Spengler’s 1926 book Decline of the West was a talking point in European salons, words such as ‘end’, ‘decline’, ‘death’ and ‘decay’ were frequently used in the same breath as ‘Western civilisation’. Judging by the title of Walter Laqueur’s recent book The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph For An Old Continent (which I reviewed for the spiked review of books here), this narrative of European decline is making a comeback in public debate. In Britain, there are currently tortured debates about whether there should be a referendum on adopting the European Union’s Constitution, and widespread concern that if Britain embraces the European project too closely, it might inadvertently put itself on the road to decline.

Political pessimists have a habit of getting things wrong. Those who espouse pessimistic views of the future present themselves as brave messengers prepared to say what others are too afraid even to think. But in reality the pessimists tend to blame others for the failures of their own way of life, and there is little brave about that.

Spengler attributed what he considered to be the inexorable decline of the West to the rise of the uncultured masses. He had the most venomous contempt for the mass of the population. In contemporary Europe, the pessimists tend to point the finger of blame at the mass influx of immigrants, who apparently pose a mortal threat to the European way of life. Blaming immigrants for ‘overwhelming’ or ‘undermining’ traditional European culture is to look for external causes of Europe’s current malaise. Instead of raising tough questions about the European elites’ own responsibility for their societies’ loss of direction, many critics focus myopically on the behaviour and cultural habits of the non-European immigrant.

This immigrant-blaming has become more intense following the events of 9/11: apprehension about mass immigration now focuses almost exclusively on the culture and religion of new arrivals, especially those who come from the Muslim world. Today there is much public handwringing about a possible re-Islamicisation of Europe.

Twenty-first century Malthusianism

The preoccupation with an ‘immigrant invasion’ of Europe shows the extent to which Malthusianism is influencing early twenty-first century thinking. There has been a shift in the cultural imagination in recent years, from a political mindset towards a new consciousness of natural limits. Natural cycles, the climate and biology are now looked upon as the main drivers of human destiny. Some argue that there must be a significant reduction in the number of humans inhabiting the planet if we are to protect and preserve the natural environment. Others take a different view: they worry about the declining birth rates amongst their people. Many thinkers and commentators are concerned about the reluctance of European natives to have large families, or to have any children at all, and thus they would like to see a reduction in the numbers of the ‘wrong kind of people’ being born or arriving in Europe.

more at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3721