All signs point toward some economic problems in the near future. Oil will soon race past $100 a barrel, interest rates are bottomed out, the dollar is heading toward lows that may no longer be healthy and, since the subprime mortgage crisis of this summer, lending practices have yet to recover. Even Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says growth will slow. Unfortunately, economic recession is part of life. Since World War II, we have had 10 of them, usually lasting an average of eight to 12 months.
But it's all right; life will go on. In this country, we have a pretty stable system. Despite racial tension, an influx of immigrants and rapidly changing demographics, everyone gets along relatively well. We're used to it. We've been through this before, multiple times. And, while the social revolutions of the '60s may not have accomplished every goal sought by progressives, the sustained riots and unrest of that era will not likely occur again on U.S. soil in the near future.
What concerns me most is the state of European affairs. Despite the postcards depicting pretty landscapes, all is not well in the land of good wine and cheese. For decades now, immigration and cultural issues have been simmering across the continent.
In Denmark, a director who produced a film about the harsh treatment of Muslim women was shot dead by a young Muslim and found in the middle of a street with a knife pinning a note to his chest. The note threatened Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a previously Muslim member of parliament who is now an extremely harsh critic of the religion.
In 2005, French suburbs exploded into flames as a mix of North Africans and Turks torched more than 8,000 cars in two weeks. In Switzerland, the majority party gained even more seats in parliament when it ran an election poster reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany propaganda. In the poster, three white sheep, standing in Switzerland, are kicking out a sinister-looking black sheep, with the words "For more security." The party also supports a law calling for the deportation of entire families if a family member were convicted of any crime.
This has happened over the last four years, during times of economic growth and prosperity for the EU and the world. As economies begin to slow down globally, jobs disappear, money dry up and, most importantly, the many bountiful benefits handed out by European governments to their content people are pared down.
The social fault lines that have been uneasy during times of economic growth will deteriorate as the white Europeans and the Muslim immigrants are forced to tighten their belts. As crime rates increase, as they are bound to do during a recession, the ruling class will look to scapegoat the easiest target: in this case, the lower-class immigrants who have carved out a working- or lower-class niche in the European economy.
The European countries, already run in some cases by militantly anti-immigrant governments, will stop using rhetoric and start using force as they export their economic problem out of the country one planeload at a time, resulting in the worst humanitarian crisis on European soil since World War II.
It sounds implausible, I agree. The Europeans worked hard to change their image from bloodthirsty colonizers to cultured, peaceful people. But you can't ignore the warning signs. Across Europe, ethnocentrism rears its head once again as white Europe faces the prospect of negative population growth and drastically different demographics.
Can we have a repeat of the Holocaust? Of course not. Modern technology and modern thinking makes that impossible, but don't for a second think that wine, cheese and chocolate will be all that Europe gives the world in the coming years.
Charlie Szold is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a conservative columnist for The Eagle.
