"Nationalism" is a better Term than "civilizationist"

Submitted by Robert (United States), Feb 22, 2019 at 14:36

Dear Daniel Pipes,

Of course, as usual, I agree and support your views regarding Islamization of the world, particularly Europe, as opposed to its historic roots in the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modern Nationalism as a product of the Industrial Revolution which began in England.

Your unintended implicit insult that contemporary Muslims are "UN-Civilized" is counterproductive, even if that's not your intent. When Europe entered the Dark Ages it was the Muslim World which was "civilized."

Of course, the is something special about Ancient Greece, a part of Europe, which was more "civilized' than any other place on earth then, or for a long time thereafter. Nevertheless, the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, India, China, the Americas, etc., did also exist, and their respective histories are instrumental in the formation of Nationalism, and Patriotism that modern contemporary states - look at Greece and Macedonia, for example - require as a foundation to their national identity.

In my opinion, CARL J. H. HAYES, of Columbia University, is the greatest scholar on Modern Nationalism. Hays commenced his studies at said university in 1900, and subsequently, Nationalism, particularly European, became a subject of his study.

From his works, I observe that Europe, before the First World War, had little that was to be called DEMOCRACY after the Middle Ages and in Modern Times. Perhaps the Italian states of the Renaissance (Venice, Florence), Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, France, and the peculiar Parliamentary Monarchy of England.

After the First World War, Italy, Germany, and Spain "experimented" with Dictatorship/Fascism. And since Britain and France retained Muslim lands as Protectorates, the subjects "naturally" looked to the alternatives to the models recommended by the Imperialist British and French.

With the establishment of the European Union after the Second World War it appears that Democracy and Republicanism, or Constitutional Monarchism (Britain, etc.) are the norms of each European member state.

Arab Spring demonstrates the inability of Muslim-majority Arab states to form Moderate and Modern states - and even demonstrated an failed attempt to form Reactionary, Autocratic monstrosities in the Arab Heartlands of Iraq (Baghdad) and Syria (Damascus) under ISIS - in the neighborhood of Modern Israel.

You have faith that the so-called Civilizational Parties of Europe will not return to its past of Antisemitism. That faith, I think, is justified by Herzl's Dream of Zionism having been fulfilled - the establishment of a Jewish Homeland, and more than that, a Jewish State. There is no longer a danger to the Jews of Europe from a Pogrom, or a Holocaust, because Jews are free to leave and live in Israel, if they are incapable of living in a modern Europe state.

There is, of course, a reality, which only a Jew himself ... may admit. "Jews" have often been on the Extreme Left, as ex amplified by Marx and Trotsky. And today, it perhaps shouldn't be a surprise if members of Jewish communities in Europe advocate Multiculturalism, and oppose Islamophobia. But these 2 phenomena deny the Europeans their National inheritance. There are many Muslim majority, as well as Arab majority, countries in the world (UN member states). Furthermore, Europe has finally recognized Religious Freedom and Tolerance. But not unlimited Religious freedom - which would require the imposition of Sharia Law (as the extreme Muslim sects would have it (Iran and Qatar, for example).

Poland is a good example of the issue which faces Jewish Israelis and Diaspora Jews. In World War II, Poland was not ruled, like France, which had the French Vichy regime, Rather, parts of it were incorporated into Greater Germany, while the resat was ruled by a German Nazi Governor. The Poles, let us not forget, unlike the French (who were allegedly the German Franks), were viewed as Slavs, an inferior Race to Germans, but superior to the Jews and Gypsies (of India - Aryans?). Although Poland had some anti-Semitic laws after World War One, when it came to existence, prohibiting Jews from sitting in class when there was only room for Polish Catholics), none of that reached the level of unequivocal responsibility for Hitler's Nazi genocidal Holocaust. Furthermore, Poland had a Golden Age, the age of the Republic of its nobility, a period of relative tolerance unseen in the rest of Europe which experienced the devastation of the German Reformation under Martin Luther. Furthermore, about this time the Borgia family capture the Papacy when the glorious Vatican was built and its ceiling was painted by Michelangelo.

I hope that I have succeeded in directing your readers attention to some highlights of European history that can fuel the emerging Nationalist (what you cal Civilizational) parties, in fueling their positive. Copernicus, by the way, the Father of Modern Astronomy, was a Catholic Pole, who replaced the Earth with the Sun as the center of our Solar System.

How did Italy's Mussolini, Germany's Hitler, and Spain's Franco, come to power? I would argue that the framers of each countries National Myth had failed in their missions, in hindsight of course.

As you note well, there are currently three (3) categories of a nation's National Myth in Europe: (1) Islamists, (2) Extreme Left, (3) Extreme Right.. And the statistics you cited, puts their order of threat as here given. Europe's greatest threat is from the influx of Muslims from the failure of the Arab Spring. Ironically, instead of learning from their European guests by forsaking the failure of ISIS, and all other attempts at Muslim or Arab self-government, the notion of Islamophobia has been coined and disseminated. Do Europeans really have nothing to fear from the Islamization of Europe?

One consequence of Hitler's Holocaust is, ironically, our incapacity to say that European Civilization is Superior. It can be argued that, perhaps, by the end of 19th Century, Germany was on the threshold of the world's greatest Civilization. True, that undemocratic, and an unconstitutional monarchy, with Bismark at its helm, produced Modern Germany out of the conquered remains of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. However, subsequently, under the (NAZI, Thule) Third Reich, with Austrian Catholic Hitler as Chancellor, Hitler seized power Constitutionally and produced the Holocaust, and Germany's substantial destruction; however, not so much as denying its emergence eventually as Europe's greatest economy.

Calling each political party "civilized" isn't as helpful as calling them "national." Europe has a rich history from which each member country can reformulate its glorious past on its common roots in Ancient Greece and Rome, (Particularly German and Slavic) Christian Identity.

In 1950, there was published an anthology, "Nationalism and Internationalism, Essays Inscribed to Carl J. H. Hayes," edited by Edward Mead Earle, Columbia University Press. I strongly recommend it for a better understanding of Nationalism, or what fuels the so-called (by Daniel Pipes) Conversationalist parties of the post-Arab Spring European Islamist migration and immigration (legal, or otherwise).

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