While Europe slept.

• Author: Muehlenberg, Bill
• Position: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within - Book review
• Pages: 69(4)

How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within

by Bruce Bawer

(New York: Doubleday, 2006)

Hardcover: 256 pages

It is no surprise that so many home burglaries take place at night. Because the home-owners are asleep, the defence and protection of the home is nowhere near what it should be. Thus the image of a sleeping Europe is quite appropriate. Europe is being destroyed from within by radical Islam, and most Europeans don't even know it is happening.

That is the thesis of this new book by an American journalist living in Europe. Of course his concerns are not unique. Many others have written about the steady collapse of Europe and the rise of Islamism. Recent books by Claire Berlinski, Mark Steyn, George Weigel, Oriana Fallaci, Melanie Phillips and Bat Ye'or have all made the case in similar fashion.

What may be distinctive about this treatment by Bawer is he is no religious right-winger. He is a secular homosexual, but shares with others a deep concern about how Europeans are sleeping through their own annihilation.

His time in Europe has helped him to gain some perspective on these issues. He has come to see how Europe's inability to deal with the Islamist menace is threatening its very existence. And he has come to appreciate, by contrast, America's many virtues.

A major cause of the problems in Europe stems from the fact that its growing Muslim populations have not integrated very well. Indeed, Muslims tend to remain isolated and aloof from their European hosts.

Because so many practise deliberate self-segregation, and live in isolated enclaves, integration just has not been happening. Instead, animosities and divisions increase, and the jihad mentality continues to gain strength. In Holland for example, many Muslim children attend private Islamic academies, where they...