Europe's Culture War: Secularism on the March

Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war, between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism. In Western Europe, the fight between Christians and secularists is all but over. The secularists have won. Now, the religious vacuum left by the demise of Christianity is being filled by the Muslims. Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam.

Meanwhile, the dark forces of secularism, such as the European Union (EU), are waging war in Central and Eastern Europe, where they target countries such as Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic states.

On April 25, the European Parliament (EP), the EU's legislature, adopted a resolution condemning "homophobia." With 325 votes against 124 and 150 abstentions, the EP warned Poland that it will face sanctions if it adopts a law barring the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Churches, too, were reprimanded for "fermenting hatred and violence [against homosexuals]." Poland's prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, commented on the resolution: "Nobody is limiting gay rights in Poland. However, if we're talking about not having homosexual propaganda in Polish schools... such propaganda should not be in schools." Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice retorted: "There is no homophobia in the Catholic Church and it is time that all this [recrimination of Christians in the European Parliament] ended."

It is not likely to end. The fight against "intolerance" -- i.e. adherence to traditional Christian morality -- is intensifying. On May 3, the European Court of Human Rights found Polish President Lech Kaczynski guilty of violating human rights because he banned a "gay pride" parade in Warsaw in 2005. Last March, the same court ordered Poland to compensate a woman who was denied an abortion. Last year, Poland was denounced by the Council of Europe because it prohibited the distribution in schools of a leaflet about homosexuality.

When Poland joined the EU in May 2004, it did so on condition that "no EU treaties or annexes to those treaties would hamper the Polish government in regulating moral issues or those concerning the protection of human life." However, in January 2006 the European Parliament called for "tough action" against Poland and the Baltic states, while Franco Frattini, the EU justice commissioner, warned that the EU has powers under Article 13 of the EU Treaty to combat homophobia. The move came after Latvia included an amendment in its constitution that restricts marriage to a man and a woman, and Estonia proposed similar legislation. Some members of the European Parliament have called for punishing Poland and the Baltic states by suspending their voting rights in EU councils.

In February 2006, the EU brought down the government of Slovakia, another Christian country in Central Europe, after EU legal experts rejected a Slovak proposal which guaranteed that doctors and nurses in Slovakia would not be obliged to "perform artificial abortions, artificial or assisted fertilizations, experiments with or handling of human organs, human embryos or human sex cells, euthanasia, cloning, sterilizations, [and] acts connected with contraception."

The EU experts ruled that doctors should sometimes be forced to perform abortions, even if they have conscientious objections, because the right to abort a child is an "international human right," while the right to conscientious objection is not "unlimited." The experts stated that assisted suicide and same-sex marriage are also among the basic human rights.

Indeed, in Western Europe Christians no longer enjoy the right of conscientious objection. In 2001, Nynke Eringa, a civil servant in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden, was fired because she refused to perform same-sex marriages, recently legalized in the Netherlands. In 2004, her dismissal was annulled because the town had made procedural errors when she was sacked.

The authorities have since decided that conscientious objection can only be claimed by civil servants who were already in office before 2001, while those employed after the legalization of same-sex marriages cannot refuse to marry homosexuals. This means that access to jobs in the civil service, which involve performing registry office marriages, is effectively denied to Christians. Similarly, in some Western European countries today Christians are effectively excluded from medical professions by a requirement that they participate in abortions during their studies.

Even freedom of speech has been restricted. Last year, a French court convicted Christian Vanneste, a member of the French Parliament for the governing UMP party, because he had said that "heterosexuality is morally superior to homosexuality." Mr. Vanneste was sentenced to a fine of $4,000, plus $4,000 in "damages" to the homosexual activists who had taken him to court, on the basis of the 2004 French law criminalizing "homophobia."

In 1954, Karl Popper warned that the "moral framework" is the most important safeguard of a society because it "serves as a basis which makes it possible to reach a fair or equitable compromise between conflicting interests where this is necessary. It is, of course, itself not unchangeable, but it changes comparatively slowly. Nothing is more dangerous than the destruction of this traditional framework, as it was consciously aimed at by Nazism. In the end its destruction will lead to cynicism and nihilism, i.e. to the disregard and the dissolution of all human values."

 
This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on May 23, 2007 .

Europe’s Culture War

I just dont get it!

Why should we in the West, with the greatest cultural heritage the world has known, be openly seeking to destroy itself?

The secularists "celebrate" diversity and respect, for example, muslims - but not Poles? If a white european culture dislikes homosexuality (and it may surprise the secularists but on balance they all do) it gets threatened and attacked. If the muslim commmunity however expresses dislike - then......silence.

Ban fox hunting but allow vile halal slaughter. Ban hoodies but not burquas. Equality for women - unless they are muslim. Monogamy for us and polygamy for muslims. Ban the cross but not the veil.

For Gods sake lets put a stop to all of this self hatred and cultural cringing. Our very existance depends upon it.

@ Tancred

Re. silence when muslims express their dislikes: it's their knowledge of muslims' violent nature, and cowardice of the Europeans.

Muslims(and Mohammed) know violence and terror work, as instructed to them by and in the Quran.

more on the European culture war

Yesterday I wrote that secularism must be "something" if it can defeat Christianity. That assumes of course that Christianity is also "something". Unfortunately, in this article Christianity and secularism are reduced to the issues of abortion and homosexuality. Now, not even the most rabid homophobe would seriously claim that gay rights leave the door open for Islamism (but then, a homophobe does not necessarily want to fight Islamism in the first place). As for abortion, the USA shows that it is perfectly possible to have liberal abortion laws AND a high birth rate. Sorry, but this article sounds a lot like a proposal to rearrange chairs on the deck of the Titanic; or rather, to return to their places the chairs that the EU is rearranging.

In addition, this is also a very reductive view of Christianity. What about "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s"? doesn't that blur the distinction between Christians and secularists?

What about turning the other cheek? how is that going to help in fighting militant Islamism, or anything else for that matter? if one believes in the separation of Church and State, there is no problem: the State does the dirty work. But once the separation is gone, one cannot survive by turning the other cheek. In other words, whatever one might think about the EU (and I agree that abortion and homosexual rights must not be EU matters), Christianity can only survive if it is combined with secularism.

In Reply to Quijybo

Unfortunately, I must disagree with your post. Though Latin Americans do not present the same qualitative threat to the United States that Muslims do to Western Europe, they are not far removed and do present a similar quantitative threat. Latin Americans both inside the United States and throughout Latin America (especially Latin American governments) are opposed to immigration reform such that would stem the influx of illegal immigrants or repatriate those currently residing in the United States. Illegal immigration is resulting in a forcible colonization of the United States by persons that drain social services, adversely affect the labor market, have high per capita crime rates and overall detract from American society rather than contribute to it. Certainly, Latin Americanization of the United States will not result in separatism or jihad, it will however, result in a White minority, the importation of Latin American problems and the decline of the United States as a global power.

 

As far as Latin Americans in the armed services are concerned, this is due to socio-economic push and pull factors rather than any higher degree of patriotism. African Americans are also overly represented in the armed forces, yet serve careers more in support and administration, while White Americans are overly represented in front-line combat units, according to federal government statistics published in The San Francisco Chronicle.

 

From a cultural perspective, Latin Americans are closer to Westerners than Muslims, but Huntington notes that for obvious reasons, they are not actually Western. Furthermore, from a racial perspective, Muslim and Latin American immigration constitutes a threat to White electoral self-determination in various states (e.g. the United States, France, etc.), which is an existential one.

In Reply to Pashley

Pashley: "Mr. Andre criticism is that of a lawyer."

 

I appreciate the compliment, intended or not.

 

Pashley: "If I can interpret, if secularism is the enemy, he finds no difference between religious Christians and religious Muslims..."

 

Actually, my argument was that in the absence of the Islamic interest, there would still remain (according to Mr. Belien) a clash between Christians or "Judeo-Christians" and "secularists."

 

Pashley: "...second, that the term religious is not a clear-cut distinction..."

 

Neither "religious" nor "secular" is completely distinguishable from one another; indeed there is considerable overlap. Additionally there is overlap between agnostics and 'nominal' religionists, and lastly, there are the atheists, some of which favor religious freedom, whereas others are actively opposed to organized religion. Oddly, Mr. Belien does not define "secular hedonist," nor does he use 'atheist,' 'agnostic,' or 'nominal.'

 

Pashley: "3rd, the law is the law, screw Poland..."

 

Poland must weight the costs and benefits of European Union membership on its own: Brussels' directives are only binding if Poland surrenders its national sovereignty and self-determination.

 

Pashley: "...maybe, that the EU will get around to cracking down on Muslim homophobia as soon as it finishes cracking Christian heads."

 

As to this, I am unsure. Unfortunately, Brussels has been acting in a manner describable as 'cowardly': it continues to preach the same ideology to the same 'converted,' and is determined to enforce a veritable mountain of legislation on already law-abiding peoples. However, if one is willing to murder, rape, steal, throw molotov cocktails and take to the streets, then Brussels will make exceptions i.e. Muslims.

 

Pashley: "Well, first, Christians don't put bombs in railways and riot in front of mosques."

 

This is only because they do not yet have the need to do so...yet. Let the Re-conquest of Spain, the Thirty Years War, contemporary Africa and Beirut serve as pertinent counter-examples.

 

Pashley: "Second, within each religion, both Muslim and Christian, their are more secular people and more religious. If there is any lesson we can draw from the history of Christianity, Judaism, and probably Islam, the more religiously dedicated elements carry the ball to the next generation; the more secular elements disappear, little by little, into the secular soup."

 

?

 

Pashley: "The 3rd and 4th points, Brussels-uber-Alles, or the Culture Wars, European Front. Slamming the book down will get you far, not. You've come here to argue that the social dictat of Brussels should run to the farthest ends of the Union uninterrupt. You realize that the EU's greatest enemy is an attempt to stamp its writ on its most recalcitrant and distant possessions. If you want to be an Empire, might want to think like an Empire."

 

You misunderstand my criticisms of Mr. Belien's article. I did not advance any particular perspective on European or Western culture or any particular solution to contemporary cultural and civilizational tensions. In my opinion, violent conflict, socio-political upheaval and revolution are unavoidable in the West. Moreover, this struggle would be multi-faceted yet driven by contemporary demographic changes.

Compliment???????

Pashley: "Mr. Andre criticism is that of a lawyer."

I appreciate the compliment, intended or not.

If you think that is a compliment, you just gotta be the low-life I anticipated!

Keep taking the medication.

Muslim immigration not the same as Latino Immigration

It is a mistake to conflate the American experience with large scale Latino immigration and Europe's experience with Muslim immigration.  Latinos carry no cultural baggage that prevents assimilation.  They share a religious heritage with Americans, and even participate in evangelical congregations in large numbers.  Latino culture is tolerant - for instance, the experience of Jews in Mexico has been largely positive in modern times.  The primary issue in America with Latino immigration is the scale.  The mass of first-generation immigrants understandably makes a lot of native-born Americans concerned.  However I live in New York, and have also lived in California, and in both places there are millions of second and third generation Latinos, and they are quite assimilated, to the point where it is preposterous to think of them as anything other than loyal Americans who love this country and share its values.  Witness, for instance, the huge number of Latinos serving in the US armed forces. 

The problems of Latino immigrants in the US are mainly due to a lesser cultural value on education.  No one is happy about this, but it is the kind of problem that can be solved, and in any case will not result in anything remotely resembling Jihad or separatism.  That Mexicans will threaten US sovereignty over the southwestern states, or Spanish will become so widely spoken as to create a cultural divide, are not supported by the facts.  Those who advocate these are a tiny minority, mostly radical college students, and have little support in the wider Latino community, and mostly grow out of such stupidity when they have to face the real world.  Learning English is an issue, but the second and third generations by and large do so with no problems, and even most first generation Latino immigrants master the language well enough to navigate day to day life within a few years.

I see the danger immigration poses to Europe, and I thank my lucky stars that America is receiving Latinos and not Muslims in large numbers.

 

One step further

The western societies (EU and US) are paying a price for their abortion policy...

I refer to the suggestion made in Freakonomics where crime is down because of the legalization of abortion.  I would take it a step further… By killing off their offspring, an economic void is created that is being replaced by what liberals call ‘less evolved cultures’ like the illegal hispanics in the US and the islam-believers in the EU.  

As the 'forces of secularism' don't have any natural descendants, they find a natural ally in these people filling the void, the illegals or worse, the forces of islam, thereby giving up what made the respective countries great.

All that in exchange for a short term hold on to power, and because of their extreme hate for traditional Judeo-Christian morality.

something or nothing

Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam.

Given that, by Paul Belien's own account, the secularists have defeated the Christians (in Western Europe), it follows that the secularists are not fighting with "nothing" but with "something"; and therefore they are a match for Islam as well.

In Reply to Mr. Belien

Paul Belien: "Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war, between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism."

 

Would one be correct in assuming by your statements that if Islam was not quantitatively or qualitatively significant to intra-European affairs, that the opponents would be reduced to religionists and secularists? Moreover, if Judaic morality and Christian morality are inseparable, is Islam not party to these values given its origins? Either one is discussing Christian, Judaic, Islamic or Abrahamic morality, no?

 

Though I find fault with your use of the term 'secular' and your associating it with 'hedonism,' following your logic would it not be prudent to import those peoples who are either co-religionists of "Judeo-Christians" or have spiritual or philosophical affinity with them? Given this tense cultural triumvirate, why not flood Europe with Christian Africans, Chinese and Latin Americans, and Hindus, due to the latter's disdain for Islam? If religion, or lack of it, is the primary division between human beings then Latin America must be the heart of Western civilization or Christendom.

 

Paul Belien: "[…] Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam."

 

Firstly, are you claiming that secularists are non- or anti-religious? While some are agnostic or atheistic, many are practicing or at least nominal religionists f.i. many Muslims in Turkiye are demanding a secular government. Moreover, I fail to see how patriotism, liberty, democracy, peace and prosperity count as "nothing."

 

Paul Belien: "Meanwhile, the dark forces of secularism, such as the European Union (EU), are waging war in Central and Eastern Europe, where they target countries such as Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic states."

 

The European Union has specific human rights standards that must be adhered to for a state to gain membership. Poland was not coerced into joining; if Poland is being persecuted beyond its committments to the European Union then it can choose legal remedies or ignore Brussels' directives.

 

Paul Belien: "On April 25, the European Parliament (EP), the EU's legislature, adopted a resolution condemning 'homophobia.' With 325 votes against 124 and 150 abstentions, the EP warned Poland that it will face sanctions if it adopts a law barring the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Churches, too, were reprimanded for 'fermenting hatred and violence [against homosexuals].' "

 

One's perspective on this depends on one's definition of "homophobia," "promotion of homosexuality," and "fermenting hatred and violence." Certainly, however, if this standard is to be applied to Catholic Poland it must be applied to Europe's Muslim communities with equal veracity.

looks like there is some hate mail for Paul, so

Mr. Andre criticism is that of a lawyer. If I can interpret, if secularism is the enemy, he finds no difference between religious Christians and religious Muslims, second, that the term religious is not a clear-cut distinction, 3rd, the law is the law, screw Poland, and 4th, hmmm, maybe, that the EU will get around to cracking down on Muslim homophobia as soon as it finishes cracking Christian heads.

Well, first, Christians don't put bombs in railways and riot in front of mosques. At one time they were satisified, more or less, with their lot in Europe. Push them into a tight enough corner, we'll see. Second, within each religion, both Muslim and Christian, their are more secular people and more religious. If there is any lesson we can draw from the history of Christianity, Judaism, and probably Islam, the more religiously dedicated elements carry the ball to the next generation; the more secular elements disappear, little by little, into the secular soup.

The 3rd and 4th points, Brussels-uber-Alles, or the Culture Wars, European Front. Slamming the book down will get you far, not. You've come here to argue that the social dictat of Brussels should run to the farthest ends of the Union uninterrupt. You realize that the EU's greatest enemy is an attempt to stamp its writ on its most recalcitrant and distant possessions. If you want to be an Empire, might want to think like an Empire.