An Obsession With Europe

Some of our American readers have expressed the opinion that we spend too much of our time covering European aspects of the Jihad (and the Counterjihad), and not enough on equally important American affairs.

I admit to a preoccupation with what’s going on in Europe, and I do spend an inordinate amount of time and blog space on European issues. There are several reasons for my concentration on Old World affairs:

1.		American issues are fully covered by other blogs. Hundreds — if not thousands — of American blogs offer extensive in-depth coverage of jihad-related stories in the USA, and also of stories of interest to Americans that occur abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want to know about the latest from the Green Zone, or Hillary’s maneuverings, or Barack Obama’s most recent faux pas, or about the guy who was tasered at John Kerry’s speech, you have many good blogs to choose from that offer far better coverage than we ever could. It doesn’t mean that we ignore American stories, just that we give them less attention than we otherwise might.
2.		English-language versions of some important European stories are otherwise unavailable. Gates of Vienna has acquired a dedicated corps of volunteer translators ready to get important stories into English. Some of these stories never see the light of day in English-language venues until they appear here. With the help of Kepiblanc, Phanarath, Carpenter, CG, LN, Michiel Mans, H. Numan, ProFlandria, KGS, and others too numerous to mention, we now have the ability to get Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Flemish, German, and French translated into English very quickly. The efficient use of these available resources allows us to push important stories into the Anglosphere that might otherwise go unnoticed.
3.		Some Europeans rely on Gates of Vienna for a news digest. Particularly in Sweden, where readers say the news is smothered by politically correct self-censorship, people look to Gates of Vienna, the Brussels Journal, and other news-collecting nodes for information about their own countries. We also provide a convenient place for pan-European discussions. Because we’re not European ourselves, we don’t excite the intramural enmity that might otherwise occur. Of course, people can always gang up on the United States in our comments. But, heck — that’s what we’re here for.
4.		Europe is important. Europe is on the front lines of the Great Jihad. What happens there in the next five to ten years will be crucial in the battle to preserve Western Civilization from the onslaught of Islam. Generally speaking, more Europeans have woken up to the imminent danger that is facing them than have their American counterparts, who, due to the relatively small number of Muslims within our borders, are unaware of — or remain in denial about — the coming clash of civilizations. In Europe the battle has already been joined.

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In recent weeks I have been concentrating on Sweden because the Modoggie Affair, coming as it does on the heels of a series of immigration-related issues, may be precipitating the long-awaited Swedish crisis.

Fjordman has asserted that Britain is the most thoroughly Islamized and dhimmified of European countries, with Sweden running a close second. But he expects the major crisis to occur first in Sweden, whose economy is more vulnerable due to the hypertrophy of the welfare state. Combine this with the Swedish tradition of social consensus — in which dissent is kept quiet due to a commonly understood sense of propriety — and the crisis lurks just below the surface, unavoidable, but not particularly visible.

So all of this is why I keep the Gates of Vienna telescope on Europe.

Our turn will come, but Europe has the privilege of going first.