Original Reviews

          In November 2005, in the Paris banlieues (suburbs) gangs of males, many of them in their early teens, went on rampages, burning cars, breaking windows, and battling with the police. Parisians lodge their poor in several of its suburbs, without jobs and suitable housing. The rioters were mostly first and second-immigrants from North Africa. Walter Laqueur believes this to be a premonition of Europe’s future, the “old Continent’s” last days.

          Laqueur begins by explaining European demographics in the twenty-first century. The reproductive rate for women must be 2.1 to have enough children to replace themselves. Europe’s is presently 1.37 with no sign that this will change any time in the future. The Russian Federation, Spain, Italy, the Balkan are significantly lower than that. France and Britain, on the other hand, are doing better at producing children.

          Thus the population of Europe is shrinking. That may not be a bad thing, if one thinks of a sustainable future, but that is not Laqueur’s concern. Rather he is worried about “white Europe.” Will the older ethnicities die out, swamped by new immigrants of various hews who have higher reproductive rates? To the point, will the nominally Christian populations of Europe be swamped by adherents of the Moslem faith?

          Most demographers would argue that Europe’s aging population is the greater problem. Europe has a lot of graying baby-boomers. That poses a significant problem for the work place as well as the welfare system.

          There are ‘good’ immigrant populations, of course. Laqueur mentions the Indian migration to Britain from East Africa. They came with capital and have contributed to small-scale enterprise in Britain. The Vietnamese came to France, often as spouses of returning soldiers, and they have proven to be hardworking folks. Similar successes can be found throughout Europe. Immigrants continue to clean their streets and their hospitals. They also work in their factories and open countless restaurants.

          In the case of Moslem immigrants, however, Laqueur can find no comparable benefits to the host country. He deplores Moslem radicals and their violence. (No mention of the ‘white’ European violence of the twentieth century!)

          Perhaps his depiction of Germany’s guest workers in most surprising. Turks and Kurds, predominantly conservative Moslems from eastern Anatolia, were generally poor and not well-educated. Guest workers were originally temporary male immigrants. But that changed as Turks brought their families. Participants at a conference at UF last year agreed to the surprising vitality of the Turkish/German film industry. Germans are aware of the often difficult adjustments which Turks have to make, but applaud their enormous cultural vitality.

          But Laqueur believes that the Moslems have been taking advantage of the welfare system in Germany and elsewhere. True, but that is not something that most Europeans resent. They are more likely to wonder why any medical delivery system would try to exclude immigrant workers from adequate medical care.

          Laqueur frequently contrasts post-war European emigration with an earlier example of Jewish migration first to New York and other Eastern seaboard cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He attributes their remarkable enterprise to the fact that there was no welfare system to distract them from getting ahead. Thus they were up and out of the East Village in New York within a generation, often shedding their old ways for suburban life. Those former Jewish ghettos are now high-end neighborhoods, and the descendants of Jewish immigrants are returning. But the Italians have also done fine in New York. The Russians are transforming neighborhoods in Queens. Mexicans throughout the U.S. Etc.         

          Walter Laqueur has sensed the uneasiness that conservative Americans feel about our future. His “wake-up before its too late” will resonate with those readers. But at times, he borders on an Islamophobia. Which, of course, he condemns out of the other side of his mouth.