Caldwell on Eurabia

I laughed out loud reading Rod Liddle's review of Christopher Caldwell's book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, which argues that Europe's growing Muslim population is unlikely to assimilate to Western culture. Caldwell worries that cultural change is more likely to run in the opposite direction, with guilty European elites trying to buy peace with assertive Muslim populations by clamping down on the things that piss the newcomers off, like homosexuality, jokes about the Prophet Mohammed, and criticism of Muslim immigration. Caldwell:

When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.

Liddle's review starts with an account of his relationship with an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri, who after being granted asylum in Britain called on Muslims to create an Islamic state there through jihad. The cleric's sons were recently arrested on charges that they had stolen a million pounds worth of cars and went on a coke and hookers spree. This boosted the hopes of the political mainstream that Muslims might assimilate after all.

that, give it time, we will win over these angry young boys from the deserts of Arabia with the wonderful stuff the West has: freedom, consumer durables, pornography, and Class A drugs. All this jihadi nonsense will stop when you see what we have to offer. No need to blow yourself up to secure the services of 72 virgins—you can have them now, pretty much, all you have to do is ask, Western women being very obliging that way. OK, they won’t be virgins, but still—fill your boots.

According to Caldwell, assimilation isn't occurring because Muslim immigrants start off hostile to Western values, and the host countries, instead of trying try to impress those values on the immigrants, tell them that their Islamic values are equal in worth. Multiculturalism combined with Muslim prudishness leads to what Liddle calls "magnificent absurdities:"

A few months after the government passed a law insisting that the religion of Islam and the Koran be treated with “respect,” the boss of the Muslim Council of Britain appeared on a BBC news program arguing that homosexuality was counter to the aims of civil society. The police were immediately dispatched to his house. Iqbal Sacranie faced a charge of inciting homophobic hatred for having divested himself, in the most moderate language, of the Koran’s fairly rigorous position on homosexuality: “kill the one who is doing it and the one to whom it is being done.” So, we must respect Islam, but simply to express one of its fundamental tenets, even in bowdlerized form, will bring the police around to your door. Presumably arguing that Islam is homophobic would have a similar consequence.

Caldwell is overly optimistic to the extent he claims that large Muslim populations would assimilate if only the Western host countries had the self-confidence to insist that they adopt Western values. Islam is not just a moral code and a description of man's supposed relationship to the divine. Islam claims to be the ultimate basis for a society's laws and government, and laws and government must yield to the extent they clash with Islam's teachings. Islam is incompatible with the Western tradition in which religion is limited to the spiritual sphere of life, while the state governs secular affairs.

The difference in the cognitive abilities of Muslims and Westerners as measured on IQ tests would preclude assimilation even if Islam were not a totalitarian faith. The average IQ in Muslim countries ranges from 83 in Egypt to 90 in Turkey. That's nearly a standard deviation below the average IQ of white Europeans. Groups with dramatically different cognitive abilities will not adopt the same views about how a society should be governed or what goals a society should pursue. There is a minimum average IQ that a population needs to sustain the political institutions of a democratic state, like a legislature and the rule of law. The authoritarian character of the governments of Muslim countries indicates that Muslim populations fall below that minimum.