The term was first used in the 1970s as the title of a newsletter and the concept itself was developed by Bat Ye'or (the pen name of Gisèle Littman) in the early 2000s and it is described in her 2005 book titled Eurabia: The Euro‐Arab Axis.[1] Benjamin Lee of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats at the University of Lancaster describes her work as arguing that Europe "has surrendered to Islam and is in a state of submission (described as dhimmitude) in which Europe is forced to deny its own culture, stand silently by in the face of Muslim atrocities, accept Muslim immigration, and pay tribute through various types of economic assistance." According to the theory, the blame rests with a range of groups including communists, fascists, the media, universities, mosques and Islamic cultural centres, European bureaucrats, and the Euro-Arab Dialogue.[3]
Eurabia has also been discussed by believers in classical anti-Europeanism, a strong influence on the culture of the United States as well as by believers in the notion of American exceptionalism,[10] which sometimes sees Europe on the decline or as a rising rival power, or, as is the case here, both.
Basic narrative
In Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or says that Eurabia is the result of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, based on an allegedly French-led European policy intended to increase European power against the United States by aligning its interests with those of the Arab countries. During the 1973 oil crisis, the European Economic Community (predecessor of the European Union), had entered into the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) with the Arab League.[11] Ye'or says it as a primary cause of alleged European hostility to Israel, referring to joint Euro-Arab foreign policies that she characterises as anti-American and anti-Zionist.[12] Ye'or purported a close connection of a Eurabia conspiracy and used the term "dhimmitude", denoting alleged "western subjection to Islam".[13] The term itself is based on a newsletter published in the 1970s by the Comité européen de coordination des associations d'amitié avec le monde Arabe, a Euro-Arab friendship committee.[12]
An important part of the narrative is the idea of a demographic threat, the fear that, at some time in the future, Islam will take over Europe.[28] or as Bernard Lewis put it, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."[29]Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for An Old Continent is quoted often among the Eurabia literature.[citation needed]
Impact
Post-1945
While immigrants were being deemed a threat, in the postwar 1940s period, the British extreme right– in particular, fascist politician Oswald Mosley– were rather outspoken (see the Union Movement and the Europe a Nation slogan) in favour of a stronger integration of Britain with Europe and, using their own interpretation of the Eurafrica concept, Africa.[30][31]
Post-9/11 significance
Bat Ye'or first used the term "Eurabia" in 2002 and again in another 2005 book.[citation needed] Subsequently, the coining of the term has been attributed to her.[13] The conservative historian Niall Ferguson referred to the concept, which he took as the potential future Islamisation of Europe based on demographic facts and ideational lack of the continent.[32]
2010s Europe
The idea of a Eurabian conspiracy has become a basic theme in the European extremist and populist right and expresses as well a significant strategy change. José Pedro Zúquete notes that
the threat that the Crescent will rise over the continent and the spectre of a Muslim Europe have become basic ideological features and themes of the European extreme right[4]
Muslim minority populations and Muslim immigration gained new political significance. This has led to the adoption of political positions that were previously considered fringe or third rail on either side. The main anti-Islamic theme has also penetrated into mainstream European politics,[4] for instance in the case of Dutch populist Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders:
This government is enthusiastically co-operating with the Islamisation of the Netherlands. In all of Europe the elite opens the floodgates wide. In only a little while, one in five people in the European Union will be Muslim. Good news for this multiculti-government that views bowing to the horrors of Allah as its most important task. Good news for the CDA: C-D-A, in the meanwhile stands for Christians Serve Allah (Christenen Dienen Allah).[33]
Issues
Mainland territories of the member states of the European Union (European Communities pre-1993), animated in order of accession. Contrary to the Eurabia narrative, the largest Muslim territorium, Algeria, formally a part of France until 1962, left the Communities on its independence from France.
The Eurabia concept is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory.[34] Eurabia shortcuts the complex interaction between the US, France, Israel, the Arabic and Muslim countries on an "us against them" basis. The Eurabia theories are dismissed as Islamophobic, extremist[35][4] and conspiracy theories in the academic community.[34] At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis.[5][36] The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism[4] and Middle East Politics.[37] This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.[13][38]Janne Haaland Matláry went as far as to say that "it is poor use of time to analyse something so primitive".[39]
Demography
The Pew Research Center said in 2011 that "the data that we have isn't pointing in the direction of 'Eurabia' at all",[40] and predicts that the percentage of Muslims is estimated to rise to 8% in 2030. In 2007 academics who analysed the demographics dismissed the predictions that the EU would have Muslim majorities.[41] It is completely reasonable to assume that the overall Muslim population in Europe will increase, and Muslim citizens have and will have a significant imprint on European life.[42] The prospect of a homogeneous Muslim community per se, or a Muslim majority in Europe is however out of the question.
Justin Vaïsse seeks to discredit what he calls, "four myths of the alarmist school", using Muslims in France as an example. Specifically he has written that the Muslim population growth rate was lower than that predicted by Eurabia, partly because the fertility rate of immigrants declines with integration.[43] He further points out that Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group,[44] and that many Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially. Finally, he wrote that despite their numbers, Muslims have had little influence on French foreign policy.[45]
Furthermore, leading European Muslims are rather outspoken against religious fundamentalism and are far from acknowledging Arab countries as a role model at all.[46][47]
In 2010, German politician Thilo Sarrazin released Germany Abolishes Itself. The book contends that with continued Islamic immigration, Germany will become a majority Muslim nation.[48] Journalist Simon Kuper has argued that, with over 1 million copies sold, Sarrazin had done more to publicize the concept of Eurabia more than anybody else in Europe.[49]
In political campaigning for the 2019 European Parliament election, Germany's far-right party AfD used Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1886 painting The Slave Market with the slogan "Europeans vote AfD!" and "So Europe doesn't become Eurabia!".[50]Deutsche Welle reported that the reproduction of the painting suggestively depicted dark-skinned men with beards and foreign-dress "inspecting the teeth of a nude white woman".[51]
Italy
In 2004, journalist Oriana Fallaci claimed that Muslim immigration and high fertility was part of the conspiracy theory.[52] In 2005, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal that "Europe is no longer Europe", adding "it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam".[53]
In 2011, Francesco Speroni, a sitting MEP for Lega Nord, stated that he shared the same view as Anders Behring Breivik's idea "that we are going towards Eurabia".[54] In the aftermath of the shooting, Speroni confirmed his agreement with Breivik on the conspiracy theory in an interview with Radio 24.[55]
In 2018, Giulio Meotti used the theory in relation to the demographics of Europe, writing that "Europe is over. Its future will be a mix of Eurabia and a geriatric ward."[56]
In May 2019, ahead of the European elections, Lega Nord leader for Sarzana claimed that both the European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists were attempting to bring about Eurabia.[57] The day before the vote, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini endorsed the theory as a genuine threat. He insisted that a state of Eurabia had already occurred in Sweden, a claim which the Swedish embassy promptly denied with an official statement.[58] Invoking the memory of Oriana Fallaci,[59] he released an anti-migrant speech on Twitter, accompanied by the message "No to Eurabia".[60]
Netherlands
In 2008, journalist Arthur van Amerongen described Molenbeek as "Brussels: Eurabia". Despite alleging that writer Wim van Rooy had already coined the phrase, Amerongen faced severe peer and media criticism for endorsing the conspiracy theory.[61] After the November 2015 Paris attacks and discovery of a Brussels ISIL terror cell, photojournalist Teun Voeten agreed with Amerongen's description, calling the municipality an "ethnic and religious enclave".[62]
Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders, who serves in the Dutch House of Representatives, has openly stated that "if we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time."[63][64] A supporter of the conspiracy theory, Wilders believes Muslim immigration to Europe is being driven by an agreement between the European Union and Islamic countries.[65] He has delivered speeches in the Dutch parliament about Eurabia.[66]
Norway
In 2008, Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen, writing under his pseudonym Fjordman, published Defeating Eurabia. The book contends that 1 in 3 babies born in France are from a Muslim-background, and that there are hundreds of "Muslim ghettos" following Sharia law in the country, which Fjordman believes will either be overrun or face an impending civil war.[67]
2083: A European Declaration of Independence, the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, includes a lengthy discussion of and support for the "Eurabia" theory. It also contains several articles on the Eurabia theme by Bat Ye'or and Fjordman.[68] As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks.[69] In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."[70]
Breivik has later stated that he previously had exploited "counterjihad" rhetoric in order to protect "ethno-nationalists", thereby instead launching a media drive against what he deemed "anti-nationalist counterjihad"-supporters.[71][72]
Author Mark Steyn, described as a "champion of 'Eurabia' myth" by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail,[75] has predicted an emerging Eurabia region, captured by the religion of Islam and hostile to U.S. interests.[76] Steyn's promotion of the conspiracy theory centres on European demographics, where he believes a culturally asserted Muslim mass will become the majority population and demand the assimilation of white Europeans.[77]
In May 2006, Fox News host John Gibson called for white Americans to have more babies, referencing a decline in the "native population" of Europe as an apparent demographic warning for the U.S. regarding Hispanic birthrates.[83] In what Media Matters reported as fearmongering, he claimed that Eurabia was occurring in Europe.[84]
In his 2011–2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination, senator Rick Santorum warned that Europe was "creating an opportunity for the creation of Eurabia", and that the continent was "losing, because they are not having children."[85] Classicist Bruce Thornton is also a strong advocate for the theory.[86]
A 2007 film outline by Steve Bannon, who would later become the chief strategist for President Donald Trump and a member of the U.S. National Security Council, proposed that Muslims were trying to turn the United States into the "Islamic States of America".[87]
David Aaronovitch acknowledges that the threat of "jihadist terror" may be real, but that there is no threat of Eurabia. Aaronovitch concludes that those who study conspiracy theories will recognize Eurabia to be a theory that adds the "Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea".[89]
Conservative US military analyst Ralph Peters has criticized the Eurabia narrative on the grounds that it is unlikely to happen as posited, citing the historical precedent of genocides frequently occurring in Europe, such as in the Balkans during the 1990s, and the Holocaust during World War II.[90][91] Peters stated that if Muslims "taking over" Europe were imminent, Europeans would either forcibly deport their Muslims at best or engage in a genocide of them at worst,[91][90] possibly leading to a U.S. intervention on behalf of persecuted Muslims.[90]
In his 2007 book Wars of Blood and Faith, Peters states that far from being about to take over Europe through demographic change, "Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time" and that in the event of a major terrorist attack in Europe, thanks to the "ineradicable viciousness" of Europeans and what he perceives as a historical tendency to over-react to real or perceived threats, European Muslims "will be lucky if they're only deported".[92]
According to Marján and Sapir, the very idea of "Eurabia" is "based on an extremist conspiracy theory, according to which Europe and the Arab states would join forces to make life impossible for Israel and Islamize the old continent."[35]
Writing in Race & Class in 2006, author and freelance journalist Matt Carr argued that Eurabia had moved from "an outlandish conspiracy theory" to a "dangerous Islamophobic fantasy". Carr states,
In order to accept Ye'or's ridiculous thesis, it is necessary to believe not only in the existence of a concerted Islamic plot to subjugate Europe, involving all Arab governments, whether 'Islamic' or not, but also to credit a secret and unelected parliamentary body with the astounding ability to transform all Europe's major political, economic and cultural institutions into subservient instruments of 'jihad' without any of the continent's press or elected institutions being aware of it. Nowhere in this ideologically driven interpretation of European-Arab relations does Ye'or come close to proving the 'secret history' that she professes to reveal.[93]
Doug Saunders argues that pro-Al-Qaeda writers, and those who promote the Eurabia theory as truth, have a common extremism and world view, where "there is one creature called 'the Muslim' and another called 'the Westerner'". He proposes that there is no such distinction and that Muslims can become secular in the Western world.[94]
↑ Meer, Nasar (March 2013). "Racialization and religion: race, culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36 (3): 385–398. doi:10.1080/01419870.2013.734392. S2CID144942470. The protocols of Eurabia
↑ Varadarajan, Tunku (June 23, 2005). "Prophet of Decline". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Ms. Fallaci speaks in a passionate growl: 'Europe is no longer Europe, it is "Eurabia", a colony of Islam'
↑ Londra, Dopo (September 15, 2006). "Il nemico che trattiamo da amico". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved May 13, 2012. Sono quattr' anni che parlo di nazismo islamico, di guerra all' Occidente, di culto della morte, di suicidio dell' Europa. Un' Europa che non è più Europa ma Eurabia e che con la sua mollezza, la sua inerzia, la sua cecità, il suo asservimento al nemico si sta scavando la propria tomba.[For four years I have been talking about Islamic Nazism, the war on the West, the cult of death, the suicide of Europe. A Europe that is no longer Europe but Eurabia, which with its softness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave.]
↑ Gottlieb, Julie V.; Linehan, Thomas P. (31 December 2003). Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain. I.B.Tauris. p.75.
↑ Drábik, Jakub (February 2012). "Oswald Mosley´s Concept of a United Europe: A Contribution to the Study of Pan-European Nationalism". The Twentieth Century. Prague: Charles University in Prague. pp.53–65. ISSN1803-750X.
Carland, Susan (2011). "Islamophobia, fear of loss of freedom, and the Muslim woman". Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations. 22 (4): 469–473. doi:10.1080/09596410.2011.606192. S2CID145063957.
↑ See also "Merely speaking of a 'Muslim community in France' can be misleading and inaccurate: like every immigrant population, Muslims in France exhibit strong cleavages based on the country of their origin, their social background, political orientation and ideology, and the branch or sect of Islam that they practice (when they do)." in Justin Vaisse, Unrest in France, November 2005Archived 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine, 2006-01-12
↑ "anti-Islam groups received more than $119 million in funding between 2008 and 2011." Furthermore, the report asserts that many of these prolific anti-Islam groups are "tightly linked" and some of the "top players" receive huge paychecks. The founder of Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, a renowned anti-Islam scholar, is said to have received a salary of more than $150,000, while the organization's revenues in the year 2012 were over $200,000. In an investigative paper published in 2011 and titled "Fear Inc.," the Center of American Progress (CAP) reveals a detailed list of donors that help support think tanks that perpetrate misinformation about Muslims and Islam. One such think tank is the Middle East Forum (MEF), led by academic and scholar Daniel Pipes. In 2009, the MEF is said to have received funding of nearly $6 million. Pipes and his anti-Muslim hyperbole are well known."
↑ "Leading Islamophobic figures like Pamela Geller, lawyer David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, commentator Steven Emerson, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney play a major role in the anti-Islamic lobby " Archived 2019-05-02 at the Wayback Machine
↑ Sandra E. Weissinger; Dwayne A. Mack (2017). "6". Law Enforcement in the Age of Black Lives Matter: Policing Black and Brown Bodies (Critical Perspectives on Race, Crime, and Justice). Lexington Books. p.120. ISBN9781498553599.
↑ "Tales from Eurabia". The Economist. June 22, 2006. Retrieved December 19, 2008. Integration will be hard work for all concerned. But for the moment at least, the prospect of Eurabia looks like scaremongering.
Oriana Fallaci was an Italian journalist and author. A partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her "long, aggressive and revealing interviews" with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Gisèle Littman, better known by her pen name Bat Ye'or is an Egyptian-born British author, best known for creating and popularising the Eurabia conspiracy theory in her writings about modern Europe, in which she argues that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics.
Dhimmitude is a polemical neologism characterizing the status of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, popularized by the Egyptian-born British writer Bat Ye'or in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a portmanteau word constructed from the Arabic dhimmi 'non-Muslim' and the French (serv)itude 'subjection'.
The Rage and the Pride is a book released by Oriana Fallaci in 2001. The book accuses the West of being blind to the true threat of Islam, and was written in New York City in the weeks following the September 11 attacks. The controversial book became a bestseller, selling over one million copies in Italy and 500,000 in the rest of Europe, becoming number one on non-fiction bestseller lists in France and Germany.
The Force of Reason is a 2004 book by Oriana Fallaci. The book is a follow-up to The Rage and the Pride, aimed at her public critics, accusations of racism, and the lawsuits and death-threats launched against her. The book became a bestseller, selling 800,000 copies in Italy alone.
Jihad Watch is an American far-right anti-Muslim conspiracy blog operated by Robert B. Spencer. A project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch is the most popular blog within the counter-jihad movement.
Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen is a Norwegian far-right counter-jihad blogger who writes under the pseudonym Fjordman. Jensen wrote anonymously as Fjordman starting in 2005, until he disclosed his identity in 2011. He has been active in the counterjihad movement, which argues that multiculturalism, particularly Muslim mass immigration, poses a threat to Western civilization. He has promoted this belief in a self-published book titled Defeating Eurabia, and stated that "Islam and all those who practise it must be totally and physically removed from the Western world".
Douglas Kear Murray is a British author and political commentator. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018. He is also an associate editor of the conservative-leaning British political and cultural magazine The Spectator. Murray has also written columns for publications such as The Wall Street Journal.
Hege Storhaug is a Norwegian political activist and author. Since the 1990s she has been known for her criticism of Islam and later anti-immigration activism. She formerly worked as a journalist, before she became involved in anti-immigration activism. She runs the small anti-Islam organization Human Rights Service with her partner, and holds the title information director within the organization. In 2015 she published the bestselling book Islam, den 11. landeplage, later translated to English as Islam: Europe Invaded. America Warned, which claimed that Islam is a "plague." Scholars and commentators have described her views as far-right and Islamophobic.
Document.no is a Norwegian far-right anti-immigration website. Academics have identified Document.no as an Islamophobic website permeated by the Eurabia conspiracy theory. The website received global media attention in connection with the 2011 Norway attacks due to its association with perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik, a former comment section poster on the website.
Human Rights Service (HRS) is a Norwegian foundation established in 2001. The organization is known for its criticism of Islam and immigration, and is managed by Rita Karlsen and Hege Storhaug.
Walid al-Kubaisi was a Norwegian-Iraqi author, journalist, translator, film director and government scholar. He notably criticised the alleged influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the documentary film Frihet, likhet og det muslimske brorskap. He was an engineer by education.
Hallgrim Berg is a Norwegian author, traditional folk musician, and former politician for the Conservative Party. He was a member of the Norwegian Parliament from 1982 to 1997, representing Buskerud. He has released several books and been involved in several musical albums, and held numerous public positions.
Fjotolf Hansen, better known by his birth name Anders Behring Breivik, his initials ABB, and by his pseudonym Andrew Berwick, is a Norwegian far-right domestic terrorist. He is known primarily for committing the 2011 Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, in which he killed eight people by detonating a van bomb at Regjeringskvartalet in Oslo, and then killed 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp, in a mass shooting on the island of Utøya.
Counter-jihad, also spelled counterjihad and known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all linked by apocalyptic beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as a worldview that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the far-right anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.
Øyvind Strømmen is a Norwegian author, translator and freelance journalist. He is known for his books on rightwing extremism and many contributions in Norwegian social- and mainstream media.
The European Defence League (EDL) is a largely UK-based offshoot of the English Defence League founded by Tommy Robinson which campaigns against what it considers sharia law and itself has various offshoots. The group was set up in October 2010 and held its first demonstration that month in Amsterdam, Netherlands, at the trial of Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.
The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a white supremacist conspiracy theory that states that there is a deliberate plot, often blamed on Jews, to promote miscegenation, interracial marriage, mass non-white immigration, racial integration, low fertility rates, abortion, governmental land-confiscation from whites, organised violence, and eliminationism in white-founded countries in order to cause the extinction of whites through forced assimilation, mass immigration, and violent genocide. Less frequently, black people, Hispanics, and Muslims are blamed for the secret plot, but merely as more fertile immigrants, invaders, or violent aggressors, rather than the masterminds.
The Great Replacement, also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory disseminated by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its blatant absurdity."
The New English Review is an online monthly magazine of cultural criticism, published from Nashville, Tennessee, since February 2006. Scholars note the magazine to have platformed a range of far-right Islamophobic discourse including conspiracy theories. An eponymous press is run by the same publisher.
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