Thursday, April 05, 2007

European Civil War: Sooner Than You Think

Michiel Mans, a Gates of Vienna reader from the Netherlands, wrote the following essay in response to Paul Weston’s article from last week.

We welcome the expansion of the conversation to include parts of Europe outside of Britain and Scandinavia.


Civil War in Europe
by Michiel Mans

Paul Weston wrote an interesting article about the inevitability of Civil War in Europe by 2025. I think it will be much sooner. I even hope it will be sooner. Not because I am a warmongering idiot — perhaps an idiot, but not a warmongering one — but because sooner will mean less death and destruction. To quote Mark Steyn: “At hinge moments of history, there are never good and bad options, only bad and much, much worse. Our options today are significantly worse because we didn’t take the bad one back then.”

Leviathan by Thomas HobbesCivil War is inevitable. From any historical perspective, it is inevitable. Because people — politicians in particular — do not learn from history, avoidable mistakes have been made. Another contributing factor, one often overlooked, is the lack of insight into the psyche of human beings. The mix of both, misreading history and the human mind, is currently leading to (civil) war. As always.

Whether Islam or Western Christian-Humanist culture is superior from an ethical-moral point of view is irrelevant. Even if we accept “If all cultures are equal, cannibalism is a matter of taste” (Leo Strauss). It is irrelevant because the coming struggle is by and large one which is related to our instincts. The morals are just an instrument, a means to an end. It doesn’t mean that the involved ethics and morals cannot be argued to be superior, or inferior, on the grounds of practicality, ethics, logic and reason. In the end, they just do not matter.

Human beings are racist animals by nature. Many resent the term animal as a description for Homo Sapiens,so I’ll use “creature” instead. Almost all creatures, solitary or tribal ones, do not tolerate competing creatures or tribes on their territory. Many creatures, particularly mammals, fight to protect their young, their family and tribal members. They fight for food and territory. With human beings it has become a bit more complicated. Tribal behaviour is still very visible everywhere, from Iraq to the soccer fields of Europe. It is sometimes the most basic variety, sometimes a more developed one.

Since man started to live in larger communities, the previous boundaries of tribal loyalty expanded. Cooperation, trade and mutual dependency moulded new types of bonds and loyalties. Common denominators like dress, language or religion, made members of a community recognizable. Of course, skin colour or other distinguishing physical features, could also be recognition points. They are as effective as an Arsenal-shawl, a New York Giants cap, or the hijab.

To some degree, the mixing of race and mass migration has made the impact of physical features less important and an unreliable yardstick to measure potential loyalty to the “tribe”. Unfortunately, it hasn’t eradicated the existence of racism. Racism, incidentally, isn’t restricted to one race, although one is excused if one thinks it is predominantly a white man’s burden. Selective teachings of history, or selective analysis, can lead to such common perceptions.

Prem Radhakishun, a Dutch columnist and TV filmmaker with a Surinam background, stated that people in Surinam generally speaking vote along racial lines. There being few white natives there (about 1%), the groups are mainly Hindu, Creole and mixed indigenous races. Surinam is not an exception; in many multi-ethnic countries, racism is rather common, and if there is harmony, it has always been a struggle, often one lasting decades, if not centuries.
- - - - - - - - - -
People choose their friends but cannot choose their families or fellow countrymen. Loyalty to family is to some degree instinctive, to some degree instilled from the breast onward. You get acquainted with and accustomed to your neighbours, your city and your country by the same mechanism of indoctrination. The result is that you feel at ease with your family, your own neighbourhood, city and country. That is, until something or someone disturbs the equilibrium, the peace and ease. That is exactly what is happening at the moment. And it is happening on a large and unprecedented scale.

It is happening because the means of mass transportation over large distances make it possible on a scale and at a speed new to mankind. Before the second half of the twentieth century, Africans, Orientals and Arabs, didn’t have the means to move North, East or West, in the numbers we see now. Even if they had the means to finance such migration, the transport facilities were non-existent or not at their disposal. In most cases, non-Western refugees on all continents didn’t travel much further than the immediate boundaries of trouble.

A Dutch politician (Geert Wilders) spoke of a ‘Tsunami of Islam’ flooding Europe — well, Holland, anyway. One million in less than forty years, most in the last twenty-five. That number came about by migration and by reproduction. Muslims are, if not physically in numbers, the most visible group of immigrants in Holland. The not insignificant number of Germans or people of German origin, some 386,000, are invisible and almost fully absorbed and assimilated. Although these Germans, for some reason, were not too well liked some years ago, it didn’t cause any real problems because they look and behave very much like the natives. Except when at the beach, or such is a popular joke.

Most other immigrants of Western or even non-Western origin assimilated, or they tried to do so. Indonesian, Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants are an example. The extent of their assimilation wasn’t the main reason for their success in being accepted and respected. The Chinese, in particular, like to stick together while handing out pleasant food to the natives. The food, though much appreciated, isn’t the reason why there rarely are any racial or cultural tensions between the natives and the Chinese. The reason is that the Chinese do not try to impose their culture or anything else on the natives. They even politely ask, when you order food, whether you want it spicy or not. I’m sure there is more than just this. You cannot always explain why you like some people and you come to dislike others.

And then there are the new politicians, modern thinkers and historians. They emerged after the dreadful Second World War. ‘Remember the war, the holocaust, the colonies and slavery.’ After Adolf, things moved rapidly. We studied our own recent Western history and were appalled by it. And often rightly so. The conclusions were: “never again, and from now on we will love, and must love, everyone and everybody’. Above all, the conclusion was “we are all equal, and since we have been so bad, we are somewhat less equal and have to pay for it.’ The new politicians, thinkers and historians had mainly concentrated on recent Western behaviour and forgotten about what had happened elsewhere or why. They did not see the many similarities or worse.

They also forgot the bigger picture of history over longer periods. Above all, they forgot human nature. All this could be excused if a (re)learning process was visible, but the opposite seems to be true. The more problems become visible, the more the new elite keeps hammering on the old, erroneous conclusions of love by and for all.

It is ironic that this new elite uses exactly the same phrases, displays the same behaviour, as the studied, analysed and consequently despised people and peoples in the past. They force ideas, doctrines and behaviour upon populations which are not liked, often unnatural, and even hated. This inevitably leads to war, or in our case, civil war.

Michiel Mans

Michiel Mans (b. 1956) is largely an autodidact, a reader with interests in history, philosophy, politics and science. His background is of a humanist nature, inherited from his mother, mixed with some “reactionary” treats from his father. To this is added a fair dose of liberalism and scepticism. Mans has worked in many fields and has also been self-employed for ten years. During the past few years he has written columns for some Dutch websites and electronically bothers politicians with questions and cynical observations.

One of his latest “letters to” was to the OIC (World Muslim Council) after the passing of a UN Human Rights Organization resolution banning the defamation of religion.


Phanarath said...

This is brilliant. The letter is just as great.

I hope we hear a lot more from Michiel Mans.

Profitsbeard said...

As they say in Amsterdam: "Prima, hoor! Uitstekend!"

(Great work, pardner! Excellent!)

My sentiments, exactly.

If we can revive our latent instinct for survival, the apparent ideological differences separatng "infidels" will dissolve like fog under a rising morning sun.

The sun, our shared sense of civilizational meaning: liberty, equality, decency.

Opposing: submission, intolerance and terror.

Remember Theo van Gogh.

A martyr for freedom.

(Unlike the bogus Islamo-'martyrs' who kill their way to a pschopath's 'paradise'.)

Zerosumgame said...


For our Danish contingent....

From Paul Mirengoff of Powerline (the blog that spearheaded the fall of Comrade Rather) on why he likes Denmark:

Zerosumgame said...

Now that I have actually read the article, with which I have little disagreement (and again, I am always amazed at how well the Dutch and Scandinavians have mastered English)...

I would like to ask Mr. Mans (I assume he will be reading the responses)to take this one step further.

What are your predictions?

When will this civil war start? Where (which country)? What do you think will spark it? And who wins?

al fin said...

I am unaware of any civil wars that have occurred inside a welfare state. If the people are wrapped tightly in the warm papoose of the nanny state, they are unlikely to rebel or revolt.

There is no infrastructure in Europe for any type of armed insurrection, except by the muslim immigrants. The majority Europeans are not prepared to fight back.

In Europe, it is enough to hate America, and be thankful for all the entitlements.

The 1992 riots in south central Los Angeles lasted until welfare check day. On check day, long lines of ex-rioters waited meekly in line for their checks.

Archonix said...

I suspect part of the problem is one of terms. This won't be a civil war in the sense we currently understand the term, though it is similar.

My predictions? France. The flashpoint will probably be Belgium, but it'll be France that makes the first defensive moves. The French government are paranoid about anything that might look like a revolution, so any attempt by muslims to overthrow the french government will be met with overwhelmingly brutal force.

The reason I quibbled about terms before was because of the state of our countries at the moment. TEchnically speaking, any rise of Islam would be an attempt to take over large swatches of europe. It wouldn't be confined to any one country, and it wouldn't consider national borders. It won't be a "civil" war because the EU is not - yet - a country in any sense of the word. It is not a nation. It is not a civilisation either. This will be a war, plain and simple. A highly assymetric war, but a war nonetheless.

And, as Zero and others have often pointed out in the past, it's unlikely that european civilians will be able to take part. This is not necessarily a signal of doom. Whilst I would prefer us to have armed societies, we do not, and so we have to work with what we're given. Now, lets bear in mind what the typical politician is; a venal, self-serving coward. Cowards act first and foremost to protect their own lives so you can be certain that most politicians would pick one of two paths: surrender, or response with overwhelming force - so long as it's other people doing the force bit. It's therefore up to us to try and steer as many politicians as possible down the path of armed response.

The majorioty of our armies are still loyal to the west, whatever that might mean. They are unlikely to want to side with the enemy, and highly likely to eject any of the enemy that might pop up amongst their ranks.

Because we aren't armed, we are forced to rely on the state. The state has shown that it's generally unwilling or unable to defend its populations but, and it's a big but, most politicnans faced with beheading would be quite happy to send in a few brigades to clean out the muslims. We just need something to pursuade them to this point of view.

This is why I say France. The muslims are most opvertly active there, with all the carbequeus and the like. They don't know France as well as they like to think. They see her as without any honour or dignity, and in a highly "honour"-based culture such as Islam that's usually a good sign that someone is not going to fight back, so they'll try and press every avenue of attack in oder to try and topple the French government. They see France as the first place they'll raise their flag. The problem is, they haven't counted on the afformentioned French national fear of revolution. They'll play their hand, and France's inevitable reaction will be a warning flare to the rest of the world. After all, if the appeasers are fighting back, they'll say, then perhaps we should be to...

That said, all of the above is just musing. We can no more know the future than we can know what an electron tastes like.

Roast Beef said...

Churchill gave the following speech on St Georges Day 1933. This doesnt just apply to England, but the West as a whole.

David M said...

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 04/06/2007

Michiel said...

Zerosumgame wrote,

-"What are your predictions?"-

That would be highly speculative. A lot of frustration and anger, within the native communities, smoulders under the surface. Therefore, it could be a relatively minor incident which triggers, like a drop in a full bucket, mass riots escalating into civil war. In France, the two dumbo's who electrocuted themselves, actually caused local civil wars. This however, was an uprise by mainly immigrants. In Holland, a police officer shot a resident who went ballistic after his neighbourhood had been terrorised again by youth gangs. Not much details, or even speculations were released by the media. This usually means the youth involved, were of Moroccan or other immigrant origin. It could have become nasty and another such incident may be the fuse to cause a local big bang.

-"When will this civil war start? Where (which country)? What do you think will spark it?"-

It could be tomorrow or maybe, and I hope so, it will not happen at all. However, the signs are bad. The most likely countries for it to start are France and Britain.

France, because of the precedents and the very large number of North-African immigrants. Britain because of the large gap, larger than e.g. Holland, between the 'official' views as presented by media and politics, and the views of many within the general public.

The above is again very speculative. It is already difficult enough to read the situation in Holland. How things really are felt in Britain, France, Germany or e.g. Denmark, goes largely beyond my knowledge and insights.

The civil war doesn't necessarily have to be one mainly between natives and Muslim immigrants. The anger could very well be directed against their own governments and political establishment. People, more then ever before, are more educated and better informed. Are the Muslims to be blamed for being Muslims? Or are the politicians who let the clash of cultures happen responsible? I know whom I would target first if the shit hits the fan, and his name is not Ali. I see Ali as a victim, a zombie of his horrible religion and their exponents. Of course, as on the Balkan, things can deteriorate rapidly into something very dirty in which little reason about Ali, or politicians, remains. Since Ali is usually somewhat less full of reason, thanks to his superior religion, the chance on a really fine mess, is a big one. Our own history of whole slaughter, doesn't help either to keep things civilised. But then, war never is very civilised. No?

-"And who wins?"-

Who dares wins. Not the blind, dumb kind of semtex shirt courage but the calculated one. Britain, after one or more of the usual setbacks, will win. And be poor for decades to come. Germany, if inspired in the right way for a change, could win it with one hand tied behind its back. France, unlike last time, will not roll over on its belly after two farts by the opposition. Italy will pick up rifles previously lost, or dropped. The Scandinavians dig up axes and helmets long buried, weeding out the ones with the horns on the inside which had mistakenly been ordered at some point in time. The Spaniards will replace their bulls with more appropriate creatures to stick stuff in. The Poles, hell, they are Poles. If you fought Panzer with sabre, or so we're told, we don't have to worry about them. The Belgians will use their hot oil for other purposes than patato slices. The Dutch will take their fingers out of the dike and poke it somewhere else. And them Yankees? They will all get soft again for their cousins, particularly after a Spielberg movie about a cute little girl caught in the mess, and send their sons, daughters too this time, to sort it all out. Again...

Michiel Mans

gun-totin-wacko said...

One of the thoughts that crossed my mind was something I read some years back. The author, who's name I can't recall- perhaps Martin van Creveld- suggested that we need to view the whole world thru the perspective of "Tribalims". The French Tribe defends their territory (sometimes) against the German Tribe, which hates the Russian Tribe, which oppresses the Polish Tribe, etc.

It's kind of looking at international relations the same way as the anarchy in Africa and the Middle East, where tribes are still a real factor.

so how will all these tribes react to the Islamic Tribe moving in? Well, as many have pointed out, when Europe gets angry at some ethnic group... well genocide is hardly a new concept there.

kepiblanc said...

Zerosumgame asked : "Who wins ?" - Well, we do - of course.

A religion, an ideology, a culture or an empire have three strategic options : to win by the word, the sword or the womb. In the case of Islam, the two first are out of question. To convince intelligent people into adopting the unbelievable stupidity of Islam is impossible and hasn't been accomplished anywhere. Up until now the expansion of Islam has been by the sword and the sword alone. Islam has managed to defeat several medieval cultures, mostly by outnumbering them in theater and by use of excessive brutality. Not by military skills such as tactics, weapons technology or bravery. And Arabic armies are notorious for their incompetence, disorganization and fatalistic cowardliness. They never managed to go further North-West than Poitiers-Lepanto and the Gates of Vienna, where they met far superior cultures.
With respect to those two options - the word and the sword - Islam's strategic situation is completely hopeless today. Surrounded on all sides by people who have gone through some process of enlightenment, education and technological evolution Islam finds itself in an abysmal cul-de-sac.

That leaves Islam with one option, and one option only : exporting their birth-surplus. In fact, that's not a real option, but a necessity. Islamic countries are unable to feed their own populations and increasingly so. When - not if - the oil wells run dry they'll starve to death unless they can a) take over Europe or b) scuttle Islam.

So, they've chosen to take over Europe. So far it's going reasonably well with some 50 million Muslims already in place and another 70 million soon to enter via the EU-nomenklatura's high treason. But almost all those Muslims are entering strange lands indeed : highly civilized, technologically advanced nations with diverse and complex infrastructures and - first and foremost - educated, polite, patient citizens who don't turn to violence easily. At least not until the straw breaks the camel's back. And that back is weakened by the hour. The majority of the intruders are uneducated, primitive, ignorant welfare-receivers who's only skill is reproduction. They live on the camel's mercy. Without the naïve support of "chattering classes" they'd be roast.

Now, let's take a look at the battlefield and the echelons. The Islamic Army can muster some 50-100 million individuals. But half of them are women and the rest whining, screaming, seething amateurs led by crazy imams acting as dilettantish officers. Unable to rely on their fifth column white "intellectuals" who haven't any military skills whatsoever. And almost none of their numerous offspring make it past elementary school. They don't use the terrain, don't spread out or fortify perimeters but stay lumped together in big cities. Here they can fight by means of wreaking havoc, carbeques, looting, raping and - generally speaking - harming themselves. Only one offensive tactic has worked, namely terror. By inducing fear into "the chattering classes" can they postpone the inevitable : their unconditional surrender

The Muslim Army doesn't have a clue about the opponents strength. They don't know that in a heartbeat that enemy can cut off their fortresses - the cities - from everything, food, water, power, communications, heating, sewage, clothes. Everything but childbirth. And they still don't realize that their Quisling-friends among the politicians and in the MSM are blind, naïve and completely dissociated from the public at large. They live on illusions, bravado and mercy.

The culprit for the Muslims is time. The variables are patience on one side and impatience on the other. If they choose the first option and hope that continued baby-booming will do the job, they'll have to restrain from major violence and terror at least some 50-100 years in order to collect the vital welfare from the surrounding, producing community. And still, all those babies will stay uneducated, unskilled, primitive and ignorant. Unless they don't. If not, they'll hardly stay Muslims. So their choices are : produce hordes of losers, savages, - and in the end - starving children - or see them assimilate, integrate into society, grow a brain, discover common sense and dignity In short : abandon Islam.

If - on the other hand - they are impatient and choose the second option, namely to go for a quick and violent takeover, they're no less doomed. In that case they cannot even hope for Quisling-support. The battle will be over almost before it starts : they're too few to make deportation impossible and the more violent they get, the fewer restrictions will bind the opponents hands. In any case : it's over.

Michiel Mans thinks the "civil war" will come much sooner than 2025. I agree. And I hope so. We're already in a 'phoney war' with micro-battles all over and the rumbling of the deep underground is becoming stronger by the hour. And the rumbling is articulated : ENOUGH.

gun-totin-wacko said...

Kepiblanc, I have to ask, though it's more relevant to the US than Europe: what about all the converts in prisons across the country? One might possibly argue they are converting to the sword, since they're joining a growing "gang", but in the end it is the Ideology that is making them all convert.

And I recall reading someplace in this whole internet thing a few months ago about minority women who also converted, under the illusion that Islam respects women more than Western Culture.

Just curious.

kepiblanc said...

Gun, I'm not aware of any converts to Islam in our prisons - apart from one Imam Abdul Wahid Petersen (!) who used to be a drug trafficker, but converted in prison. Anyway, the majority of inmates here are Muslims and I guess they blend in just fine with 'our' criminals. And maybe 'our' criminals are racist ?

I've forgotten where, but some time ago I saw a report by some psychiatrist claiming that the women who married Muslim men were the same who would marry violent men again and again. They simply love getting beaten up. Masochism supposedly.

Shahar said...

I am an early-civil-war skeptic.
The ability of people to blind themselves is amazing.
How long was the lag between the time when people noticed the problem in the Netherlands and when Pim Fortuyn's party went to elections?

The media would put a mask on reality, and try to make it prettier.
It works with most people. It is amazing how one can fool himself into not noticing problems. Politicians would do small "compromises" (or appeasemets to be correct).

There was an EU poll a couple of years ago where the EU citizens chose Israel as the most dangerous country for world peace.
Then my danish friend told me something in the line of: "Yes, we even have problems here with muslims because they are mad about what happens in Palestine".
Yes, this is why they riotted about cartoons. (To be fair, that was before the cartoon riots, and she changed her mind about some things since).

There would always be legitimate "grievances", and excuses... Not to metion the real problem: There is a part of the muslims that want to change Europe, and another small part that
wants to really integrate.
You will need to find a way to distinguish between the two parts.
If you can...

Michiel said...

Although I agree with a lot in Kepiblanc's observations, there are some points in which I have a different opinion.

Islamic armies in the past most certainly have had skilled warriors using superior tactics leading well trained troops. Salah-al-Din is perhaps one of the better known. And yes, sometimes their armies were mad hordes only finding courage in Qat. This, in the same way as Christians found Dutch courage. Or a wee dram. In the Royal Navy, a tote of rum wasn't scrapped until 1960 or so. Unlike Kepiblanc, I do not believe Muslims are inherently less brave. To blow yourself up, takes courage. Lots of it. Whether it is a smart move, is another matter. 'He who fights, then runs away, lives to fight another day.' To blow yourself up is very, very stupid. To blow stuff up with an escaperoute planned, even one which only gives you a small chance, is much smarter. You can bang again or teach others what you have learned if you succeed in getting away. For this reason we ought to be very grateful to the virgins in the sky who continue to beckon our single bang heroes. Of course it makes no difference to those who die if they die in a smart bang or a stupid one.

Also, not all Islamic armies misbehaved or were more brutal than e.g. the crusaders. About enforcing Islam on conquered people, there is no doubt. It happened at the tip of a sword, by taxation or withholding privileges, forcing people to embrace Islam for other reasons than reason.

Michiel Mans

Voyager said...

The Ottomans used Christians as their soldiers - called them Janissaries