Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare, says author Philip Jenkins

batyeorPhilip Jenkins, author of God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis, answers questions from his publishers. Asked “Where is Eurabia and what do you think it will look like?” Jenkins replies:

“Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare land where white Europeans have very few children while their Muslim neighbors have many, so that Muslim immigrants swamp traditional Europe, making it what Bernard Lewis calls ‘part of the Western Maghreb’. I have real problems with the idea because I think it’s based on shaky demography, but also because it recalls for me so many nativist campaigns in bygone years – against Catholics in nineteenth century America, Jews in early twentieth century Britain, and so on.

“It is quite possible that in sixty or eighty years, some fifteen or twenty percent of Europeans might have family roots in Muslim countries, but that is quite different from assuming that they will all be stereotypical ‘Muslim fanatics’, or even Muslim at all. My guess is that Muslims in Germany will be very German, Muslims in Britain very British, and so on. By all means, let Europe and the United States suppress extremists and violent radicals, but that’s quite different from panicking over people who happen to be from the Middle East or South Asia.”

VirtueOnline, 17 May 2007