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Great review. Translations, amirite? I’ve often thought what if some English Lit professor actually did something and wrote a modern English “translation” of an American classic like Moby Dick. An interesting idea. Anyways, I’ll pick this up when I’m done with this book I’m reading, that’s quite good but also not:
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
I read the French original. I have not read the English translation and can’t speak to how faithful it is, but the language in the original isn’t fancy or (unlike Jules Verne, for example) full of double meanings and cultural references, so I’d expect it to be an easy work to translate.
Humblebrag. Yes John, we all know how brilliant you are — no need to rub it in our faces by saying things we would view as condescending even if you said it genuflecting, clad in tatters. ;)
Brilliant book. The most seductive and slow-burn political horror story I’ve read. There are a few narrative jumpcuts over sticky cultural resistance the French would make, but the politics is plausible and grimly believable.
I’d put the political tipping point in Europe at 20%, especially in countries without first-past-the-post parliaments. In a multi-party, proportional system a Muslim party commanding 95% of the Muslim vote could easily become the largest party in many European countries.
Face it, Islam already has more genuine believers and active ritual observers than any religion in France today.
I was surprised at the power that the reasonable, unalarmist prose had over me. I was actually rooting at some level for Francois to accept the offer and the academic, financial and sexual benefits it entailed.
The sex scenes do cross a smutty line in places. But the sexual themes in the book are key. Men who have enjoyed exercising their positions of power over young students and prostitutes, especially aging men, may find the religiously ordained control of women very attractive.
I find the research by Dr. Peter Hammond on the “Islamization” of a country based upon the percentage of its population insightful, revealing and alarming …
http://www.virtueonline.org/what-islam-isnt-dr-peter-hammond
I saw somewhere a chart of countries group by the percentage of Muslim. As you read down the page and the percentage increases, you go from the countries you might be willing to live in to those you wouldn’t. And the line seemed closer to 10%.
Indeed. Click on the virtueonline.org link above for the list/chart …
It appears the version I saw was cribbed from that.
If something does not change, and I do not see a very strong chance that it will, France, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden as we have known them since the end of WWII , are done. I think Greece is already past the point of no return, and the stories coming out of Italy are frightening. The statistics of the prolific rate of reproduction by Islam, encouraged by the religious leaders as almost a requirement, lead me to believe that just the initial invasion perpetrated by Merkel on Europe was enough to guarantee The End within two generations. They still have not recognized this, and Islam continues to pour in unabated.
We sit here helplessly, knowing exactly what is happening, and being unable to stop the suicide of Europe.
Mr. Walker, I value your opinion. Please tell me the holes in my vision above. I want to not believe it. Could the upcoming elections, which I am now positive will result in the utter destruction of Merkel and her party, be enough to halt the flow? Geert already lost, but I remain hopeful Marine will win and begin to dam the flood. Sweden, I fear, has been so infected by the falsehood of Socialism being their Savior, that they will sit quietly and watch themselves bleed out.
Boy, I hope you’re wrong; but, I share your concern. The good news is that the right-wing nationalist parties that have been sounding the alarm on this issue for the last 20 or so years are gaining ground politically throughout Europe. The bad news is that the elites remain clueless and that Merkel still has her job.
You would know the physics of the situation better than I, but I submit the takeover of Europe changes the math.
There is a difference between a growing muslim population in a third world country and one in Europe.
This is because there is less of a demographic difference in the third world country.
When the muslim population reaches 20% by organic growth in a third world country, it might be only slightly higher in younger age groups and slightly lower in older age groups. Conversions may add a bulge in the young adult population.
When, however, the legacy population has had a fertility rate well under replacement, and there is immigration of the kind we’ve seen into first world countries, that 20% may be 75% in younger groups.
It would be difficult for a country in Europe to survive to a point where a muslim party has enough of the voting age population so as to come in second and create that scenario. Your 20% overall number would probably have them at 10% of the voting age population or less. The non National Front parties would have to be really fragmented. What numbers did the book give for the first round? 35% NF, 15% MB, 14%#3, 14%#4, 14%#5…?
@jctpatriot
I disagree with this utterly passive Europe vision. At some point and time there will be non-elite Germans in their Beer Gardens, non-elite homosexuals in gay bars and non-elite French wanting to dine on French cuisine.
THe Europeans will not go happily into that good night.
The numbers for the first round given in the book (pp. 80–83) are:
In the second round, the so-called front républicain élargi, the alliance of the FM, PS, UMP, and UDI (another party of the right) united against the FN (p. 157). No figures are given for the second round, other than noting «la large victoire de Mohammed Ben Abbes» (p. 172).
The two-round “first two past the post” electoral system in France can give perverse results compared to pure proportional representation.
At the point of being 22% of eligible voters, let’s assume that lack of citizenship merely ups the percent of voting age muslim residents to just under 30%. We also assume that every muslim votes MB and no others do. That would likely mean they were 35-40% of the overall population and a large majority of the under 18.
You can’t get there.
We aren’t even considering primary effects of bloc voting by a Muslim population of 20%. In a multiparty state a bloc of 20% could easily become the dominant force in a more popular party. Think of a party with deep democratic roots like the Democratic Party, perhaps the world’s oldest (I’m not up with Icelandic party politics). Imagine how correct on every issue the Dems would be with a voting population that is 20% African American, with their 95% loyalty.
And Muslim parties, unlike African American democrats, aren’t generally docile to white liberal elites.
The book is not a political procedural but does a good job of showing how portfolios within coalitions can be seized and leveraged by parties with a long-term game based on immigration, fertility and education.
Imagine if a bright Muslim boy emigrated to the US, identified with an aggrieved minority with outsized influence within a major out-of-power political party, and took advantage of a set of disastrous wars and an economic collapse to win the presidency of the United States and decided to leave borders unenforced, harass Christians, take no action to forestall the massive Muslim migration to Europe and started to create an institutional preference for Iran over Israel.
Naaaah. Could never happen here.
John, you certainly have a knack for getting to the nub of issues, whether by what you choose to review or by editorial comment. Maybe I can dust off my brain and try to read this book in French (speaking of dust, A Swiss organist I knew there, whilst giving me a tour of an ancient pipe organ, pointed out to me “la poussière Louis XIV” on a rank of 16 foot diapason pipes). Forty-eight years ago I was able to attend medical school in French in Lausanne. Parenthetically, I must say it was a paradise – not only because it was Switzerland, but because one dollar bought 4.35 CHF! Still a frequent visitor, I hope the Swiss continue to control their borders and limit immigration – e.g., it difficult for US persons to obtain residency.
This issue cannot be analyzed as one centered upon religion per se, because Islam, unlike other major religions, is not only a set of personal beliefs and practices, but an entire supremacist political system. The political system is not an optional part of this set of beliefs. Denial of this fact is at the heart of the West’s paralysis – its lack of response to its pending cultural and political demise. Phobias, after all, are imaginary fears. Even the language used is telling: by saying “Islamist” we pretend the politics are severable from the religion. Submission via self-censorship and otherwise has become banal in much of the EU; hopefully not Switzerland.
You have a knack for the nub as well, civil.
I sometimes think about how comfortably Suleiman could attend classes at Al-Azhar University today in almost every aspect, theologically, culturally and politically. Because, of course, there aren’t actually “aspects” at Al-Azhar. And then imagine the experience of John Calvin at Union Theological or Yale Divinity…
He would probably write something like this.
I read this story last night before I went to bed and then couldn’t sleep. This part bothered me most of all:
There’s a distinct Muslim attitude that always ends in their enslaving others. They capture countries and people. That’s why it is completely plausible that they could take over Europe. Because that’s exactly how they have come to be the religion of 1.6 billion people.
The forced conversion is key to understanding Muslim aggression. As Pope Benedict warned. I am speaking here as a non-Catholic: Pope Benedict understands the Muslim-Christian conflict better than anyone else.
The fundamental problem is not Islam, but the lack of confidence in Western Civilization in general and in your homeland in particular. The real enemy is less the bearded jihadists and more the weeping, moaning, whimpering, pathetic excuses for leaders we have. Put some of these crybullies or screaming garbage babies up against a real threat, and they will run in terror.
I had heard of this book before and I thought it would be an interesting read but I had moved on to other things. Then you wrote this review and linked to the English translation. I bought it. I think it will be interesting to read.
This post and comments will probably disturb my sleep in the days ahead. Of course, there’s nothing here we didn’t already know but it’s disturbing (though necessary) to be reminded. When Soumission was published, I was surprised to read a review entitled Slouching Toward Mecca in the lefty NYRB. At least I think of the NYRB as hard left, much in the mold of The Nation. Maybe they’ve changed.
Much of the review is behind a paywall now but wasn’t originally. The full review may be accessed through the magic of archive.org at this link. Besides being an comprehensive summary of the book’s ideas and plot, the review contains some interesting anecdotes about Houellebecq and his close friend at Charlie Hebdo and the response to the book’s publication in 2015.
As for nonlinear dynamics, I’d say that Islam qualifies as a strange attractor, in the superficial sense that it’s weird and in the literal sense that it’s fractal. Muslim communities in Western countries are replications of larger Islamic states, except on a smaller scale. Islam is scale-independent.
Edit: Best quote from the review: “Europe then opened the gates to large-scale immigration from Muslim countries, Arab and black, and now the streets of French provincial towns looked like souks. Integrating such people was never in the cards; Islam does not dissolve in water, let alone in atheistic republican schools.”
I read four paragraphs, then stopped and came back here to tell you thanks for linking the archive! People going the extra mile are what makes Ricochet a great place to hang out. I appreciate you!
This part is all-too-believable. If it came down to it, I can easily see the left and chunks of the moderate right would choose to side with an openly Islamist party rather than an icky, nativist nationalist party. “See, this proves we’re not Islamophobic!”
I have read some claims that birth rates are falling rapidly throughout the Middle East, that when it comes to fertility Islam is just late to the party but seems to be trending in the same direction as the decadent West.
Stuck in the friend zone with a chick in a shuttlecock burqa makes that bomb vest look more inviting, I suppose.
Plus, no drinking. It’s enough to drive some folks to suicide, apparently.
But they’re so lonely they can’t bear to commit suicide by themselves. At last, we’ve discovered the motivation!
Interestingly, that is one of the adjustments L’Islam français seems to have made. In the last few pages of the book (pp. 300–302), François attends the ceremony welcoming a new colleague, presumably also newly-converted, to the faculty at the Sorbonne, followed by a cocktail party.
Take away our culture; take away our religion; but somewhere you have to draw the line—or the cork.
Thank you for the link.
Imho the conclusion shone: