Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe

Conclusion: Looking Back To Look Ahead

Conclusion LOOKING BACK TO LOOK AHEAD There is an old joke about what kind of future identity awaits the European Union. If all goes well, the joke goes, a European heaven will result, in which all the cooks will be French, the mechanics German, and the police British. Everyone will have an Italian lover, and the whole place will be organized by the Swiss. If things don’t go as planned, the joke continues, a European hell will ensue, where all the cooks are British, the mechanics French, and Germans are the police. In EU hell, everyone’s lover will be Swiss, and it will all be run by the Italians. The joke was based on popular stereotypes of some of Europe’s major peoples. If it were updated to reflect Europe’s current composition , there would need to be some role for Muslims. Although the current tension over Islam’s future in Europe leaves little room for humor, a new identity for Europe’s Muslims will emerge. Guiding the development of that identity is the most serious challenge confronting Europe today, and it is an issue in which America has a clear and vested stake. Why do the problems of Europe’s Muslims matter? Three factors make the stakes especially high. The first is a question of security. The Madrid and London bombings, and the attacks on 162 American soldiers in Iraq committed by some of Europe’s Muslims , make plain the urgent need to prevent Europe from becoming a breeding ground for future Bin Ladens. The second factor surrounds the issue of European social cohesion . If a growing segment of the European population continues to feel alienated from mainstream society, social unrest will intensify . The third reason involves the EU’s still-forming identity. The face of Europe is rapidly changing. The mere presence of millions of Muslims, arriving as migrants and being born in greater numbers than their ethnic European counterparts, will unavoidably alter Europe’s character. Europe might change peacefully into a multireligious, modern union, in which Muslims participate alongside non-Muslims in the democratic process. That would be a Europe in which mosques exist comfortably beside churches, where students wear headscarves or crosses of their own volition, and where wealth and opportunity are as accessible to Muslims as well as to non-Muslims. Or Europe could evolve into the dark scenario depicted in chapter 8: a continent on which Muslims feel excluded from the European identity, where they feel oppressed by state surveillance, religious profiling, or restrictions on their corporal freedom, and where increasing numbers are drawn to extremism. Beyond these factors, there is an even greater reason why Europe ’s Muslims matter, not just to Europe or America, but to the whole world. How Muslim Europe evolves has repercussions for other regions around the globe. Here’s why. Europe is conducting an experiment, one never attempted before in human history. For much of the last two and a half millennia , Europeans have fought and died in a struggle for mastery over the continent. Caesars and Sun Kings, Napoleons and Habsburgs, Norsemen and Sultans, Nazis and Soviets, all have wrought death and devastation in a futile effort to rule Europe’s fertile lands. Recognizing this senseless struggle’s folly during the First World War, one man articulated a vision, and his concept slowly and steadily Looking Back to Look Ahead 163 164 breeding bin ladens caught on. When Jean Monnet, a French international financier, helped lay the foundation for a European Community in 1950, he believed that a third continental war could only be avoided if the diverse European peoples pooled their sovereignty. Instead of seeing any one people rule the rest, Monnet envisioned a state of shared power in which Europeans would abandon some of their sovereignty to a democratically elected pan-European government . Out of this European Union a new identity would emerge. Monnet’s plan was a bold break with centuries of strife. If it succeeded and a new identity could be forged, he felt certain that Europe would be a bulwark of stability on the international stage. Yet, as farsighted as Monnet was, Muslims did not factor in his grand design. Despite its periodic snags and setbacks, the EU has been steadily evolving for more than half a century. It has created a common currency, erected executive, legislative, and judicial institutions, trained and deployed its own military, and expanded...