After America - Mark Steyn [161]
Thou shalt not what? Eat pygmies? Rip out children’s hearts? Wire up your own infant as a bomb? Express mild disapproval of the cultures that engage in such activities? Multiculturalism was the West’s last belief system. Its final set of values accorded all values equal value. Which is to say that it had no values—for, if all values have equal value, what’s the point? There was still enough of the “mere pittance” of the old values for skanky tweens in hooker chic or burqa-ed women escorting their daughters to the FGM clinic to cause feminists some momentary disquiet. But they could no longer summon up a moral language to object to it. They valued all values, and so relentlessly all values slipped into eclipse—and then a valueless age dawned.
It’s never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. I remember my last visit to Monte Carlo, to see an old friend who had retired there for tax reasons. Enjoying a café au lait under an awning on a pedestrianized street, we watched the world go by and discussed the demographic death spiral that “alarmist” early-century tracts had played up. And, after chewing over the numbers for Italy, Spain, and so on, my friend had said jokingly, “Well, what about Monaco? Could Monte Carlo spearhead the rebirth of Europe?”
Alas, no. Monaco had the lowest birth rate on the planet: seven births per thousand people.78 That was because it was a chichi little enclave of wealthy tax exiles, and who wants snot-nosed kids getting underfoot and spoiling things? The town was impressive—clean, prosperous, civilized, and no children. What could be more amiable?
That’s what more and more of Europe felt like, at least outside the surging Muslim enclaves. Much of the western world had made a bet that it could survive as a giant Monte Carlo—rich, plump, happy, and insulated from all the unpleasantness of life. As I said to my friend that day: What’s holding Monte Carlo in place?
It’s a short sail from impoverished North Africa. What was there to prevent, say, a bunch of Algerians just walking in and taking it?
The first victims of American retreat were the many parts of the world that had benefited from an unusually benign hegemon. But eventually the consequences of retreat came home, too.
How quickly the world turns:
Western Europe is semi-Islamic.
A resurgent Russia is also Islamizing fast but under a stern petro-czar confident he can control them. He has reestablished Eastern Europe and Central Asia as the bear’s sphere of influence.
Iran is the dominant power in the Middle East, actively supported by a post-Kemalist Turkey and with the reluctant acquiescence of the Sunni dictatorships. Its missiles can reach western Europe, and its technology is being dispersed to friendly nations and non-state actors alike.
Pakistan has fallen to the local branch of the Taliban, and India is preoccupied by a nuclear stand-off. North Korea is clinging on as a nuclear Wal-Mart for anyone who wants a No Dong missile at unbeatable prices.
China is growing old, and is in a hurry. Resource-short as always, it has bought up much of Africa. The least worst parts of the Dark Continent are a de facto Beijing protectorate, while those territories that are too much trouble for China to annex are exporting their people and their problems north.
Latin America is for sale to whoever’s buying—the Chinese, the Russians, the new Caliphate. Islam has made modest inroads into the continent—not huge but just enough to add a whole new wrinkle to America’s unenforced southern