How to save Europe

Actually, I have in mind how to "save Britain." This may or may not save Europe but it might help. Quite frankly, I have no idea how to save Belgium. Not a week goes by without some commentator predicting the death of Europe from "cultural suicide." Europe is under attack from two aggressors, writes George Weigel this week. The aggressors in Culture War A are radical secularists, motivated by what the legal scholar Joseph Weiler has dubbed “Christophobia.” They aim to eliminate the vestiges of Europe’s Judeo-Christian culture from a post-Christian European Union... The aggressors in Culture War B are radical and jihadist Muslims who detest the West, who are determined to impose Islamic taboos on Western societies by violent protest and other forms of coercion if necessary, and who see such operations as the first stage toward the Islamification of Europe... The question Europe must face, but which much of Europe seems reluctant to face, is whether the aggressors in Culture War A have not made it exceptionally difficult for the forces of true tolerance and authentic civil society to prevail in Culture War B. For a non-self-loathing European such as myself, this stuff makes for depressing reading. I suspect Weigel is right, but I wonder what is to be done about it. Here are three simple suggestions for the United Kingdom to save itself from A and B. 1. Preserve the monarchy at all costs, and make sure the British monarch remains head of the Church of England. This anchors us to our roots and promotes the benign, liberal Christianity that has served the UK well. (I am not, by the way, an Anglican.) 2. Encourage immigration and integration. Demographics suggest we need more workers but social conditions in many English post-industrial cities (and the London bombings) suggest we have failed at multi-culturalism. Let's promote a fast-track to citizenship for immigrants and give the decidedly lame citizenship test some teeth. I do not want a homogenous Little England but I do not want a Londonistan either. 3. Help Britons reproduce. We need more children, not to poor, teenaged girls, but to twenty and early-thirty something adults. Continue to improve maternity and paternity leave; increase child tax credits; promote and support adult retraining so that mothers can easily return to the workplace. Easy, eh?