John J. DiIulio Jr., then a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, wrote an article in 1995, "Tougher Law Enforcement Is Driving Down Urban Crime," that explained the drastic decline of serious crime in many big American cities by arguing that "smarter law enforcement and tougher sentencing policies" explain much of this drop. This argument, however self-evident, put DiIulio in a small minority of analysts of this problem, which he recognized in an arresting throw-away line: "Apparently, it takes a Ph.D. in criminology to doubt that keeping dangerous criminals incarcerated cuts crime and to wonder whether releasing any significant fraction of the nation's 1 million prisoners tonight would result in more serious crime tomorrow."
Well, apparently it takes a Ph.D. in political science to not see that there is a problem brewing in Europe with the growing Muslim population. Here are Carolyn M. Warner (associate professor of political science and global studies at Arizona State University) and Manfred W. Wenner (visiting scholar, department of political science, Arizona State University) writing on the subject of "Religion and the Political Organization of Muslims in Europe":
Some analysts have raised serious concerns about the foreign and domestic policy implications of the large numbers of Muslims living in Western Europe. The fear is that Muslims as a bloc will co-opt the domestic and foreign policy of various European states, subsuming it to those of Muslims from a variety of Islamic states in the Middle East and Asia, and transform the secular nature of most European states. … Western fears and criticisms are partly based on serious ignorance of the characteristics of Islam and of the people in Europe who adhere to it. Because Islam is a highly decentralized religion, it is structurally biased against facilitating large-scale collective action by its adherents. The one version which is hierarchically organized, the Shi'a, is barely present in Europe. In addition, Muslim immigrants are divided by their ethnic differences. Islam, being decentralized, allows for a myriad of practices in the different countries from which the immigrants came. Divided by ethnicity and by their own religious beliefs, Muslims in Europe will not constitute a group which will be able to impose its goals on European foreign and domestic policy.
Warner and Wenner conclude that "Muslims as a bloc will not have significant influence over European foreign and domestic policies, contrary to the fears of some commentators."
Comment: The implication of this "Don't worry, be happy" approach could be the end of Europe as it has been the past millennium and more. (September 25, 2006)
