The Strange Death of Europe

Probably the most important book recently published. Robertson, The Wea Flea is doing a three part review. I will do a shorter one. In the meantime here are quotes gleaned by Robbo and myself.

“What is the effect of people coming into Europe in very large numbers who have not inherited the doubts and intuitions of Europeans? Nobody knows now, and nobody ever did. All we can be certain of is that it will have an effect. Putting tens of millions of people with their own sets of ideas and contradictions into a continent with its own set of ideas and contradictions is bound to have consequences. The presumption of those who believed in integration is that in time everybody who arrives will become like Europeans, a presumption made less likely by the fact that so many Europeans are unsure whether they want to be Europeans. A culture of self-doubt and self-distrust is uniquely unlikely to persuade others to adopt its stance. Meantime it is possible that many – at least – of the incomers will either hold fast to their own certainties or even, quite plausibly, attract Europeans in the generations to come with these certainties. It is also plausible that many of those who come will enjoy the lifestyle, will take part in the aspirations and the fruits of the economic uplift so long as it continues, and yet despise or disdain the culture into which they have come. They may use it – as President Erdogan memorably said of democracy – like a bus, and get off whenever it has taken them to their desired destination.  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe“Page 2

“In 2014 women who were born overseas accounted for 27% of all live births in England and Wales, and 33% of newborn babies had at least one immigrant parent, a figure that had doubled since the 1990s.”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe Page 3)

“David Coleman, a professor of demography at Oxford University, has shown that on current trends people who identified themselves as a ‘white British’ in the 2011 census will cease to be a majority in the United Kingdom in the 2060s. However, he stresses, if current levels of immigration to Britain continue, let alone rise, that number will move closer to the present. It would be a time when, as Prof Coleman says, Britain would become “unrecognisable to its present inhabitants”.  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(Page 34)

“For religion had not only retreated in Western Europe. In its wake there arose a desire to demonstrate that in the 21st-century Europe had a self-supporting structure of rights, laws and institutions which could exist even without the source that had arguably given then life…… In the place of religion came the ever-inflating language of “human rights” (itself a concept of Christian origin). We left unresolved the question of whether or not our required rights were reliant on beliefs that the continent had ceased to hold or whether they existed of their own accord. This was, at the very least, an extremely big question to have left unresolved while vast new populations were being expected to “integrate”. Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe P.6

“in order to incorporate as large and wide number of people as possible it is necessary to come up with a definition of inclusion that is as wide and unobjectionable as possible. If Europe is going to become a home for the world it must search for a definition of itself that is wide enough to encompass the world. This means that in the period before this aspiration collapses our values become so wide as to become meaninglessly shallow. So whereas European identity in the past could be attributed to highly specific, not to mention philosophically and historically deep foundations (the rule of law, the ethics derived from the continent’s history and philosophy), today the ethics and belief of Europe – indeed the identity and ideology of Europe – have become about ‘respect’, ‘tolerance’ and (most self abrogating of all) ‘diversity’. Such shallow self definitions may get us through a few more years, they have no chance at all being able to call on the deeper loyalties that societies must be able to reach if they are going to survive for long.”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of EuropeP.7

The UK needs to build a city the size of Liverpool every year to house all the new people who come to Britain each year – let alone the primary school places and the strains on the National Health Service.Whilst many immigrants work hard and overall provide a benefit to the economy – the fact is that according to a report from University College London in 2013 entitled “the fiscal effects of immigration to the UK” the overall cost to the UK economy of immigration between 1995 and 2011 was at least £114 billion.“During Britain’s EU debate one millionaire pro-EU entrepreneur insisted that migration into Britain was necessary because he didn’t want his daughter to become a “potato picker”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(page 50)

Today Western governments (at least in public) and most of the media and academic elites feel that they can lecture us in what real Islam is, and what everyone wants. They assure us that millions of Muslims coming to the West will just integrate and that their values are basically the same as ours. But what if they are wrong? Or is it ‘racist’ or ‘Islamaphobic’ to even ask the question?  -  David Robertson ,https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/03/douglas-murray-the-strange-death-of-europe-part-one-meaningless-shallowness/

“At the same time the only culture that couldn’t be celebrated was the culture that had allowed all these other cultures to be celebrated in the first place. In order to become multicultural, countries found that they had to do themselves down, particularly focusing on the negatives. Thus the states that had been so open and liberal that they had allowed and encouraged large-scale migration were portrayed as countries which were uniquely racist. And while any and all other cultures in the world could be celebrated within Europe, to celebrate even the good things about Europe within Europe became suspect.” (Page 101)

 “Borders, proclaimed the European commission president, Jean Claude-Juncker, in August 2016, are the worst invention ever made by politicians”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(page 178) 

“Moreover, Europe remains the world leader in not only allowing people to stay but in assisting them to fight the state even when they are there illegally. By 2016 Britain had still not even managed to deport a man wanted in India for two bombings in 1993. The Bolton greengrocer Tiger Hanif arrived in Britain illegally in 1996 and had managed to receive more than £200,000 in legal aid from British taxpayers to avoid repatriation. And nor does the continent’s madness stop there. When Belgian investigators looked at the perpetrators of the numerous terrorist plots carried out by Belgian nationals, they discovered that a great many of them had plotted their attacks whilst being supported by the state. Indeed, Salah Abdeslam, lead surviving suspect of the November 2015 Paris attacks, had collected unemployment benefit to the tune of €19,000 in the period preceding the attacks. He had collected his last benefits only weeks before, making European societies among the first in history to pay people to attack them.” Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe,(Page 204)https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

“I feel that we in the EU are now committing ritual suicide and were just looking on” – the Left Wing Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico. (Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212 

In August 2015 Angela Merkel announced that Europe was open to refugees and she declared, “We can do this”. Much of the media, like the Economist, backed her and said that her move was brave, decisive and right. And yet in 2010 in Potsdam she had made a speech in which she admitted that “the approach to build a multicultural society and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other has failed, utterly failed”. Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212 (Page 96)https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration/

“What is the effect of people coming into Europe in very large numbers who have not inherited the doubts and intuitions of Europeans? Nobody knows now, and nobody ever did. All we can be certain of is that it will have an effect. Putting tens of millions of people with their own sets of ideas and contradictions into a continent with its own set of ideas and contradictions is bound to have consequences. The presumption of those who believed in integration is that in time everybody who arrives will become like Europeans, a presumption made less likely by the fact that so many Europeans are unsure whether they want to be Europeans. A culture of self-doubt and self-distrust is uniquely unlikely to persuade others to adopt its stance. Meantime it is possible that many – at least – of the incomers will either hold fast to their own certainties or even, quite plausibly, attract Europeans in the generations to come with these certainties. It is also plausible that many of those who come will enjoy the lifestyle, will take part in the aspirations and the fruits of the economic uplift so long as it continues, and yet despise or disdain the culture into which they have come. They may use it – as President Erdogan memorably said of democracy – like a bus, and get off whenever it has taken them to their desired destination. “Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

The six Gulf cooperation countries comprising Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman had granted asylum to a grand total of zero Syrian refugees by 2016.“Not only has Saudi Arabia not made one Syrian into a Saudi citizen, it has also refused to allow the use of 100,000 air-conditioned tents there are erected for only five days a year by pilgrims and the Hajj. At the height of the 2015 crisis the single offer the Saudis did make as to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the benefit of the country’s new arrivals”Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212 

“When the 2015 crisis was at its height many individuals in Britain from the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party to the Labour Party Shadow Home Secretary, with numerous actors and rock stars in between, had said they would take in a refugee family. More than a year later not one of these people had actually done so. As with the generosity and benevolence throughout the crisis, it was easy to expect others to be benevolent on your own behalf once you had signaled that you are on the side of the Earth’s poor and oppressed. The consequences of your benevolence could be left to others.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (Page 285)

“The first arrivals benefited Europe by bringing a different culture, their vibrancy and their cuisine. But what did the 10 millionth bring that was different from all those before? The European public was far ahead of the politicians in recognising that the benefits were not endless. Long before the politicians notice, the public already knew that a continent which imports the world’s people also import the world’s problems. And contrary to the race relations industry, it turned out that the immigrants into Europe often exhibited far more differences than similarities to the resident populations and towards each other, and that the larger the numbers the greater the dissimilarities.” (Page 302)

“In 2009 police in Norway revealed that immigrants and non-Western backgrounds responsible for all reported rapes in Oslo.”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(Page 56)

“Moreover, Europe remains the world leader in not only allowing people to stay but in assisting them to fight the state even when they are there illegally. By 2016 Britain had still not even managed to deport a man wanted in India for two bombings in 1993. The Bolton greengrocer Tiger Hanif arrived in Britain illegally in 1996 and had managed to receive more than £200,000 in legal aid from British taxpayers to avoid repatriation. And nor does the continent’s madness stop there. When Belgian investigators looked at the perpetrators of the numerous terrorist plots carried out by Belgian nationals, they discovered that a great many of them had plotted their attacks whilst being supported by the state. Indeed, Salah Abdeslam, lead surviving suspect of the November 2015 Paris attacks, had collected unemployment benefit to the tune of €19,000 in the period preceding the attacks. He had collected his last benefits only weeks before, making European societies among the first in history to pay people to attack them.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (Page 204)

For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212”https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

“I feel that we in the EU are now committing ritual suicide and were just looking on” – the Left Wing Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe. (Page 228

“For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe

“One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere on this planet to burst into the northern one. But not as friends. Because they will burst into conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.” Algerian President Houari Boumedienne in 1974 speaking to the Gen assembly of the United Nations  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(Page 310).

“For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212”https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

“One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere on this planet to burst into the northern one. But not as friends. Because they will burst into conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.” Algerian President Houari Boumedienne in 1974 speaking to the Gen assembly of the United Nations Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

(Page 310). https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

The UK needs to build a city the size of Liverpool every year to house all the new people who come to Britain each year – let alone the primary school places and the strains on the National Health Service.Whilst many immigrants work hard and overall provide a benefit to the economy – the fact is that according to a report from University College London in 2013 entitled “the fiscal effects of immigration to the UK” the overall cost to the UK economy of immigration between 1995 and 2011 was at least £114 billion.“During Britain’s EU debate one millionaire pro-EU entrepreneur insisted that migration into Britain was necessary because he didn’t want his daughter to become a “potato picker”Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212 (page 50)https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration/

Where faith still exists it is either wholly uninformed - as in the evangelical communitises - or it is wounded and weak. - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

It may be a terrible generalisation to say this, but beneath this surface existence everything else in European thought and philosophy is a mess. - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 223

Islam has no place in Slovakia. Migrants change the character of our country. We do not want the character of this country to change, - Robert Fico, PM of Slovakia, Der Standard 27 May 2016 quoted in - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 230;

There is another Christian aspect to this. Secular Humanism has no answer to Islam and cannot assimilate it – because Islam is a political system that cannot share the values of secular humanism. But Christianity can deal with Islam. Why? Because we recognize with Muslims that there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth; because we recognize that we are more than just ‘blobs of carbon floating from one meaningless existence to another’; because we share an emphasis on the importance of families and social justice; because we too recognize the importance of being right with God, we can speak to Muslims at a level which the secular humanist cannot.  But whereas the Muslim hopes that God in the end will have mercy on them – the Christian is able to offer full and free forgiveness because of Christ. Christians have no ISIS, but we do have the new birth. What if God was permitting millions of Muslims to come to Europe so that they could hear about Christ? D Robertson There is another Christian aspect to this. Secular Humanism has no answer to Islam and cannot assimilate it – because Islam is a political system that cannot share the values of secular humanism. But Christianity can deal with Islam. Why? Because we recognize with Muslims that there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth; because we recognize that we are more than just ‘blobs of carbon floating from one meaningless existence to another’; because we share an emphasis on the importance of families and social justice; because we too recognize the importance of being right with God, we can speak to Muslims at a level which the secular humanist cannot.  But whereas the Muslim hopes that God in the end will have mercy on them – the Christian is able to offer full and free forgiveness because of Christ. Christians have no ISIS, but we do have the new birth. What if God was permitting millions of Muslims to come to Europe so that they could hear about Christ? David Robertson https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration/

Life in modern liberal democracies is to some extent thin or shallow and that life in modern Western Europe in particular has lost its sense of purpose.  - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 258 

Or is it possible that we are aware of the existential nihilism which underlines ur society but find it embarrassing. - - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 260

Does the free secularised star exist on the basis of normative presuppositions that it itself cannot guarantee? - Ernste Bockenforde, 1967 quoted in - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 260

… how long can a society survive once t has unmoved itself from its founding source and drive? - - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 26

Does the free secularised star exist on the basis of normative presuppositions that it itself cannot guarantee? - Ernste Bockenforde, 1967 quoted in - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 260

Life in modern liberal democracies is to some extent thin or shallow and that life in modern Western Europe in particular has lost its sense of purpose.  - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 258 

Or is it possible that we are aware of the existential nihilism which underlines ur society but find it embarrassing. - - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 260

Does the free secularised star exist on the basis of normative presuppositions that it itself cannot guarantee? - Ernste Bockenforde, 1967 quoted in - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 260

… how long can a society survive once t has unmoved itself from its founding source and drive? - - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 26

 ..most branches of European Christianity have lost the confidence to prosyletise or even believe in sir own messGE. … THE MESSAGE OF THE RELIGION HAS BECOME A FORM OF LEFT WING POLITICS DIVERSITY ACTION AND SOCIAL WELFARE PROJECTS. SUCH CHURCHES ARGUE FOR ‘OPEN BORDERS’ YEY ARE CIRCUMSPECT ABUT QUOTING THE TEXTS THEY ONCE PREACHED AS REVEALED. - Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 264

Had the leaders of Western Europe told their publics in the 1950s or at any point since that the aim of migration was to fundamentally alter the concept of Europe and make it a home for the world, then the people of Europe would most likely have risen up and overthrown those governments. - The Strange Death of Europe, p 297

Despite the much vaunted horror of ‘islamophobia’trailed by ‘anti-racists’ and others in Britain have been overwhelmingly other Muslims murdering them for doctrinal reasons. - The Strange Death of Europe, p 302

But , while China will probably still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia and eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of yje United Nations.- The Strange Death of Europe, p 2the middle of this century p309

In August 2015 Angela Merkel announced that Europe was open to refugees and she declared, “We can do this”. Much of the media, like the Economist, backed her and said that her move was brave, decisive and right. And yet in 2010 in Potsdam she had made a speech in which she admitted that “the approach to build a multicultural society and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other has failed, utterly failed”. Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(Page 96)


“Politicians, academics, journalists and others had learnt the tough lesson that criticising Islam, in the manner in which Dutch society was able to criticise every other religion, was at the very least something that changed your life and was also – unless you have police protection – likely to be deadly. The country that in the past had fostered religious doubt and produce rationalist thinkers like Spinoza, was now very anxious on the subject of religion” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europepage 139

“This habit of attacking the secondary symptoms of the problem rather than the primary problem has many causes. Not the least of them is that it is infinitely easier to criticise generally white skinned people, especially if they are working class, than is to criticise generally darker skinned people whatever their background. And not only is it easier, but it elevates the critic. Any criticism of Islamism or mass immigration – even criticism of terrorism and rape attacks – can be seized upon by anyone else as a demonstration of racism, xenophobia or bigotry. The accusation, however untrue, can come from anywhere and can always carry some moral taint. By contrast, anybody who criticises someone as a racist or a Nazi is somehow elevated to the position of judge and jury as an antiracist and anti-Nazi. Different standards of evidence also apply.”Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe Page 241

“When in 2007 two car bombs were left in London by a Muslim doctor in the NHS and a Muslim PhD student, the new Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said that it would be wrong to describe such attacks as Islamic terrorism because these terrorists were in fact behaving contrary to their faith. Henceforth, she said, it would be more appropriate to describe such events as anti-Islamic activity. “Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of EuropePage 153

“Mohammed is now the most popular boy’s name in England and Wales. The official line is so what, Britain will still remain Britain when most of the men are called Mohammed rather than Harry or Dafydd. “Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe

`’By 2015 there were more British Muslims fighting for ISIS than for the British armed forces. ‘`Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe P313

“Not only has Saudi Arabia not made one Syrian into a Saudi citizen, it has also refused to allow the use of 100,000 air-conditioned tents there are erected for only five days a year by pilgrims and the Hajj. At the height of the 2015 crisis the single offer the Saudis did make as to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the benefit of the country’s new arrivals”Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe page 316

“To immerse oneself in popular culture for any length of time as to wallow in an almost unbearable shallowness. Was the sum of European endeavour and achievement really meant to accumulate in this?…… we look like a people who have lost the desire to inspire because we have nothing to inspire anyone with.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(p263)

“Today German philosophy, like the philosophy of the rest of the continent, has been ravaged not just by doubt (as it should be) but by decades of deconstruction. It is pulled itself and everything else apart, without having any notion of how to put anything – let alone itself – back together again” (p223)

“It was some years ago, during a conference at the University of Heidelberg, that the full catastrophe of modern German thought suddenly came upon me. A group of academics and others had gathered to discuss the history of Europe’s relations with the Middle East and North Africa. It soon became clear that nothing woDouglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europeuld be learned because nothing could be said”Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (p224)

“The search for meaning is not new. What is new is that almost nothing in modern European culture applies itself to offering an answer. Nothing says, ‘here is an inheritance of thought and culture and philosophy and religion which has nurtured people for thousands of years and may well fulfill you too’. Instead, a voice at best says, ‘find your meaning where you will’. At worst the nihilist creed can be heard: ‘yours is a meaningless existence in a meaningless universe’. Any person who believes such a creed is liable to achieve literally nothing. Societies in which that is the case are likewise liable to achieve nothing. While nihilism may be understandable in some individuals, as a societal creed it is fatal.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(p266)