Re: ...in terms of Northward islamic population migrations into Europe from North African (Algeria) and the Near and Mid-East in general.
Actually, that's the big irony of the French-Algerian war... if French Algeria diehards had won their struggle to keep Algeria French then today's France would be Europe's most populous country with 95 million citizens --well ahead of Germany's 82 million. That's because France --from Dunkerque to Tamanrasset-- would be home to 33 million Muslim Algerians in addition to her current 62 million citizens.... Now, isn't it funny that the very same people who, 50 years ago, fought to keep Algeria as a mere French département, who claimed that all of Algeria's inhabitants were French, are now filling the ranks of the far right and voting for populist leaders like Jean-Marie Le Pen and Philippe de Villiers because they feel overwhelmed by Muslim immigrants?!? When French President Jacques Chirac, himself a veteran of the French Algerian war, officially visited Algiers in March 2003, he was greeted by swarms of youth crying out for "des visas!" Again, if rightwing colonialists had won back in 1962, today's Algeria's youth would not have to beg for French visas --they'd be trueborn Frenchmen already!
Re: Islam seems to have purposefully repositioned cohesive population units, that refuse to assimilate into, what appears to be, the more mentally oblivious European populations.
"Purposefully"?!? An exaggeration, I'm afraid. Besides, it's not Muslim --or animistic or even Christian-- immigrants from Turkey and Africa (including sub-Saharan, black Africa) who "refuse to assimilate" --it's lily-white Europe that is loath to welcome them. Remember the geopolitical context that led Europe to turn to the Mediterranean's southern shores to fix her labor shortage: Eastern and Central Europe was walled off by the so-called Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union's iron grip on Poland, East Germany, Hungary, etc. precluded Western Europe from bringing East European immigrants by the million to work her coalmines, steelworks, and factories.... Of course, the situation changed dramatically in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the USSR: Western Europe would henceforth tap her fellow eastern neighbors to keep her factories running. That's why both Spain and Portugal are currently home to about 250,000 Ukrainians....
Anyway, how does Islam enter the picture at this point? As you're aware, it's been a pattern, throughout History, for disenfranchised peoples/minorities to resort to ideology to back up their grievances. For instance, ever since Karl Marx dreamt up his theory of class struggle in the 19th century, the proletariat has relied on the tenets of Communism and Socialism to further its interests.... Likewise, as far as I'm concerned, I view Islam as merely another vehicle, a political instrument, that is capable of uniting the new underclass of Europe (and, to a lesser extent, of America). Of course, as an uncommitted polytheist, I'd love to see Europe's immigrants turning to Anarchism or some progressive version of collectivism instead of a reactionary monotheist cult, namely, Islam. But it seems to be another historic rule that, somehow, an oppressed people/minority is not entirely free to cherry-pick the glue, the political cement that can best bond and hold them all together.... Today, after Communist-Marxist utopias have been ignominiously discredited worldwide, Islam --as a liberating creed-- appears to be a legitimate "second best", at least as far as Muslim immigrants are concerned.
Gus |
