islam / europe

Mark Steyn's article "The Future Belongs to Islam" is one of those reactionary responses to Islamic globalization that we've come to expect from conservative pundits, even Canadian pundits. As the title of his article implies, the future of Europe (and probably the rest of the Western world) belongs to a growing Islamic, um, youth. One gets the sense that at the various points where Steyn directly inserts his smugness to say "youth," he really wants to say "threat." Steyn's rhetorical argument rests on the idea that a rapidly changing demographic in Europe, from old European natives to young Muslim immigrants, and this new demographic is reflected in the French riots and various forms of unrest. What is interesting about Steyn's article, however, is that he doesn't seem to be fighting against anything. Generally, conservative pundits try to preserve or conserve or react against a new wave of something (politics, immigrants, etc.), but the battle seems over for Steyn. Demographics will change in different ways in different place, yes, but the influx of Muslim immigrants is unstoppable, and the consequences are irreversable.

Steyn's style (to call it that) is surprisingly informal and conversational in tone, for example:

Actually, I don't think everything's about jihad. But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 per cent of everything's about demography. Take that media characterization of those French rioters: "youths." What's the salient point about youths? They're youthful. Very few octogenarians want to go torching Renaults every night. It's not easy lobbing a Molotov cocktail into a police station and then hobbling back with your walker across the street before the searing heat of the explosion melts your hip replacement. Civil disobedience is a young man's game.

There is an element of sarcasm here with the quip about the octogenarian, and the short, rough sentences like "They're youthful," and "Civil disobedience is a young man's game." This is like a tired, angry, old man saying "I've had enough with you kids and your baggy pants." But what is Steyn's point? We know Europe is changing forever, and that a Europe of countries filled with white, bourgeois nationalists is dead. The new Europe is a blend, the old Europe making way for an Islamafied Europe. Steyn's article, then, seems to be functioning as a warning of what is to come (and not of what can be prevented). Indeed, his article ends with the quote,

"Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

Stephen Holmes' article is also about Islam in Europe, but with a much more liberal-minded (but no less annoying) perspective. The tone is different from the Steyn article in that, if it serves as a warning at all, the message is moral and the problem itself is still on the horizon (whereas for Steyn it seems all hope is lost). Steyn seems to be implying that the Muslim immigrants are forcing the old Europeans out of their places, but Holmes seems to be saying that Europe needs to accomodate: the momentum is held on opposite sides (Islam or Europe) for the writers.

Style-wise, Holmes' article seems to be more in line with we'd expect from a politcal journalist, i. e. long-ish paragraphs, suspensive sentences, and hypotaxis. Steyn's article tries to appeal to a more basic, "common sense" perspective to the issue, thus not probing very deeply or inquisitively into his topic. Holmes, on the other hand, has passages like this:

Perhaps the most important difference between Hirsi Ali and Buruma lies in the latter's belief, following the French political scientist Olivier Roy, that the only way forward is for Islam to be fully accepted as a European religion. Buruma is noncommittal about the claim of some moderate members of the Dutch Muslim community that "only properly organized religion will stop young men from downloading extremism from the Internet," but he wants to avoid making Islam itself responsible for the disappointments of Muslim integration in Europe, because the majority of Europe's Muslims are not going to follow Hirsi Ali into outright atheism. This is what leads Buruma to conclude: "Attacking religion cannot be the answer, for the real threat to a mixed society will come when the mainstream of non-revolutionary Muslims has lost all hope of feeling at home."

Here, we have a pretty classic example of the "thesis - evidence - conclusion" paragraph structure, one which reads with a logical progression from point to point, including quotes, etc. We don't really see this with Steyn, but with Steyn, we don't need to be convinced that a real person wrote the article, but with Holmes, we may need some convincing that the article wasn't produced by a card-board suit.

It seems to me that the differences in style and political persuasion go hand-in-hand. Holmes, the "liberal," is giving his reader a "view" (as opposed to an argument), one which doesn't necessarily come to any real conclusion, but nonetheless, expects its reader to be educated enough to come to their own conclusion on a complex, morally grey area. Steyn, the "conservative," gives us his argument in a very argumentative, confrontational, but also conversational way. He's not giving us complex arguments complete with thesis, evidence, etc. Rather, he is asserting his points and then defending them, relying on a more visceral, "gut-instinct" reaction from the reader, as does so much conservative commentary. In short, the liberal article tries to focus in on two sides of a complex issue, ask some questions, leave most unanswered, and let the reader decided, based on their own intelligence, what is really happening and what should be happening. The conservative article, however, is a reaction to what has and still is happening. He takes a side, stays there, and expects us to either follow him or reject him (although it seems to not matter considering the battle is already lost).