Ring out the bells, or maybe send for the Muezzin, for now is the anniversary of the Barcelona process. The what? You might ask. The Barcelona process is the means by which European Union is slowly submerging its culture in a miasmic Eurabia.
Over the past week at meetings in Morocco and Barcelona, hundreds of European and Arab politicians, NGOs and their academic and media circus have been celebrating their cultural, economic and political "common space."
The basic idea of this engagement is to reinforce ties between the EU and the Arab world, taking as its cue the desire often promoted by the French that a Francophone Arab world, in concert with the European powers would act as a counterbalance to the U.S. In some ways the peripheral aims are laudable. To improve the economic growth of a desperate region is, in itself a good thing. But with the baby comes some disturbing bathwater. Described in detail this year by the scholar Bat Ye'or in her seminal work, “Eurabia: The Euro Arab Axis,” this process has become the driver for an anti-Israeli, anti-American and pro-Islamist consciousness within the EU.
The celebrations have been muted, however, by the glaring failures of the system, brought into stark relief by the horrors of the last month's street violence in France, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. These problems are not on the agenda. Those that are make an interesting snapshot of the problems.
Josep Borrell, the Spanish socialist who is the current European Parliament president, said last week in Rabat:
"The results of the Barcelona Process, 10 years after its launch, are mixed: politically, regional conflicts are still in evidence and economically the differences between the two sides are going to increase. However, this isn't because of a lack of investment by Europe. Three billion Euros a year in MEDA grants and EIB (European Investment Bank) loans have been pumped into the region."
That is more than $30 billion over a 10-year period into the Arab world. The results have been that the economic gap between it and the European Union has increased. This is over a period when the economies of Western Europe have generally been stagnating. The problem as he sees it is that "private investment has not followed." Why would it when one looks at the state of the region. Along with this vast injection of cash, cash that follows Gresham's law to the letter another area is seen as a failure.
In an October statement put out by Mourad Allal, head of the 'EuroMed Non-Governmental Platform', the main failing is Europe's inability to open its boarders sufficiently to immigration from the Arab world. He states that "the hindrance to the mobility of people, in this supposedly common space, only reinforces frustrations and encourages identity-based manifestations". It seems that the manifestations that have been taking place in Europe this autumn are because only 10% of the French population is Muslim. He claims that some European states have a negative view of immigration, "Current treatment of migration issues-exclusively security based-and of cultural exchanges—marginalized-illustrates this impression".
Robert Spencer of this parish has neatly destroyed the myth of Islamic tolerance, both today and historically. However, that myth lives on in the minds of these people. Borrell put it best when he claimed that the Moorish occupation of Spain was "a time of particular harmony between the three great Religions of the Book." He was talking to the Knesset. Jews and Christians today know what that sort of harmony means, and it isn't the rose-scented vision that he and the EU's leaders proclaim.
