More myopia in Europe, via the Brussels Journal, October 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Jacques Barrot is the European Commissioner for Justice. In an interview at Café Babel [in French] he gives some revealing answers which indicate that the European suicide is underway. He calls immigration an economic and moral necessity, adding that Islam is welcome in Europe.
Mr Barrot is a former deputy in the French National Assembly, from 1967 to 2004. He was one of the founders of today’s UMP party, an institution that claims to be conservative. UMP is the party of Nicolas Sarkozy, who is known to the media and the world as a politician of the “Right.” Barrot had previously supported Jacques Chirac, and before that had been a leader of the centrist movement. In 2000 he was convicted in a French court of “abuse of confidence”. The case involved the diverting of government money to his party. He received an eight month suspended prison sentence but was pardoned by Jacques Chirac. Since 2004, Barrot has been a European Commissioner. He is also a Vice President of the European Commission.
Below are excerpts from the Barrot interview:
Does Europe need immigration?
Barrot: Yes. The demographic situation of Europe requires a migration that must be concerted. Europe’s mission is also a desire to facilitate exchanges between countries. Immigration is both an economic and a moral necessity. [“¦]
Islam is perceived by some as incompatible with European values of democracy, peace and equality of the sexes. What is the EU’s position with regard to this problematical situation?
B: This way of looking at Islam as antagonistic to European values is a totally partial and erroneous view. Islam is a monotheistic religion that seems to me to be compatible with our principles of laïcité. What is not compatible, are all the fundamentalists, not only Islamic, who wish to segregate and exclude other religions.
But is this really true? Christian fundamentalists are routinely equated with Islamic jihadists, and in reality it is an extraordinarily unfair comparison. Christian fundamentalists are not blowing anything up. Christian fundamentalists are not crowing about how they will soon take power and replace Constitutional rule with religious law. Christian fundamentalists are not preaching that non-Christians must accept a second-class status and pay a special tax for the privilege of not being robbed from and killed.
As soon as pluralism is accepted by Islam, in any case in Europe, Islam is welcome. What IS true is that we will always fight against the fact that in the Islamic milieu Christian communities are not always respected as they should be. But that is characteristic of a certain number of Islamic States, it is not characteristic of Europe. Europe favors religious pluralism and it is obvious that if Islam wants to exist in Europe, it must accept this pluralism.
Here Barrot seems to be setting clear conditions for a large-scale presence of Muslims in Europe. Yet what apparatus is he setting in place, or advocating be set in place, to make sure that “pluralism” is or will be “accepted by Islam”? He seems to realize that it isn’t accepted by many Muslims now. What is he doing to change that? Or is he simply favoring massive immigration of non-pluralist Muslims into Europe, and hoping for the best?