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" Eurabia" (a blend word of Europe and Arabia) is a far-right Islamophobic conspiracy theory that posits that globalist entities, led by French and Arab powers, aim to Islamization and Arabization Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining its previous alliances with the United States and Israel.
The theory was developed by Bat Ye'or (the pen name of Gisèle Littman) in the early 2000s and it is described in her 2005 book titled Eurabia: The Euro‐Arab Axis. Benjamin Lee of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats at the University of Lancaster described her work as arguing that Europe "has surrendered to Islam and is in a state of submission (described as dhimmitude) in which Europe is forced to deny its own culture, stand silently by in the face of Muslim atrocity crime, accept Muslim immigration, and pay tribute through various types of economic assistance." According to the theory, the blame rests with a broad range of groups including: communists, fascists, Mass media, universities, mosques and islamic culture, European , and the Euro-Arab Dialogue.
The term has gained some public interest and it has also been used and discussed by activists across a wide range of the political spectrum, including right-wing activists, self-described "Conservatism" and counter-jihad and other anti-Islamism activists. Bat Ye'or's "mother conspiracy theory" has been used as the basis for other subtheories. The narrative grew important among people who expressed anti-Islamist sentiments and it was also used by members and supporters of movements like Stop Islamisation of Europe. It gained renewed interest after the use of the term by 2011 Norway attacker, Anders Behring Breivik. Ye'or's thesis has come under criticism by scholars, which intensified after Breivik's crime. The conspiracy has been described as having a resemblance to the Antisemitism Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Eurabia has also been discussed by believers in classical anti-Europeanism, a strong influence on the culture of the United States as well as by believers in the notion of American exceptionalism, Anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism in the United States, Patrick Chamorel No 25, EUI-RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS) 2004 which sometimes sees Europe on the decline or as a rising rival power, or, as is the case here, both.
Bat Ye'or's Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis was the first print publication in the Eurabia genre, which has since grown to a number of titles, including Melanie Phillips's , Oriana Fallaci's The Force of Reason, and Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept. The term is often used by the writers Oriana Fallaci, Mark Steyn and several web sites, many of them affiliated with the counterjihad movement. Defeating Eurabia by Fjordman (the pen name of Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen) earned him a high standing among far-right extremists.
An important part of the narrative is the idea of a demographic threat, the fear that, at some time in the future, Islam will take over Europe. or as Bernard Lewis put it, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century." Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for An Old Continent is quoted often among the Eurabia literature.
Muslim minority populations and Muslim immigration gained new political significance. This has led to the adoption of political positions that were previously considered fringe or third rail on either side. The main anti-Islamic theme has also penetrated into mainstream European politics, for instance in the case of Dutch populist Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders:
Whilst it is reasonable to assume that the overall Muslim population in Europe will increase, and Muslim citizens have and will have a significant imprint on European life,Kaufmann, Eric (20 March 2010). "Europe's Muslim Future" , Prospect, Issue 169. its significance can be overstated. Justin Vaïsse seeks to discredit what he calls, "four myths of the alarmist school", using Muslims in France as an example. Specifically he has written that the Muslim population growth rate was lower than that predicted by Eurabia, partly because the fertility rate of immigrants declines with integration.See also Randy McDonald, France, its Muslims, and the Future, 2004-04-13, Doug Saunders, " The 'Eurabia' myth deserves a debunking ", The Globe and Mail, 2008-09-20, Fewer differences between foreign born and Swedish born childbearing women, Statistics Sweden, 2008-11-03, Mary Mederios Kent, Do Muslims have more children than other women in western Europe? , Population Reference Bureau, prb.org, February 2008; for fertility of Muslims outside Europe, see the sentence "The dramatic decline in Iran's fertility provides a recent example of how strict Islamic practices can coexist with widespread use of family planning.", and (the articles) Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi and Mary Mederios Kent, Fertility Declining in the Middle East and North Africa , prb.org, April 2008, especially the figure 2, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, especially the figure 1; He further points out that Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive Social group,See also "Merely speaking of a 'Muslim community in France' can be misleading and inaccurate: like every immigrant population, Muslims in France exhibit strong cleavages based on the country of their origin, their social background, political orientation and ideology, and the branch or sect of Islam that they practice (when they do)." in Justin Vaisse, Unrest in France, November 2005 , 2006-01-12 and that many Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially. Finally, he wrote that despite their numbers, Muslims have had little influence on French foreign policy.See also Justin Vaïsse, La France et les musulmans: une politique étrangère sous influence? , April 2007
Furthermore, leading European Muslims are rather outspoken against religious fundamentalism and are far from acknowledging Arab countries as a role model at all.Europas muslimische Eliten: Wer sie sind und was sie wollen Jytte Klausen, Campus Verlag, 13.03.2000Walter Laqueur (2009). Best of Times, Worst of Times. University Press of New England. p. 211.
In political campaigning for the 2019 European Parliament election, Germany's far-right party AfD used Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1886 painting The Slave Market with the slogan "Europeans vote AfD!" and "So Europe doesn't become Eurabia!". Deutsche Welle reported that the reproduction of the painting suggestively depicted dark-skinned men with beards and foreign-dress "inspecting the teeth of a nude white woman".
In 2011, Francesco Speroni, a sitting MEP for Lega Nord, stated that he shared the same view as Anders Behring Breivik's idea "that we are going towards Eurabia". In the aftermath of the shooting, Speroni confirmed his agreement with Breivik on the conspiracy theory in an interview with Radio 24.
In 2018, Giulio Meotti used the theory in relation to the demographics of Europe, writing that "Europe is over. Its future will be a mix of Eurabia and a geriatric ward."
In May 2019, ahead of the European elections, Lega Nord leader for Sarzana claimed that both the European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists were attempting to bring about Eurabia. The day before the vote, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini endorsed the theory as a genuine threat. He insisted that a state of Eurabia had already occurred in Sweden, a claim which the Swedish embassy promptly denied with an official statement. Invoking the memory of Oriana Fallaci, he released an anti-migrant speech on Twitter, accompanied by the message "No to Eurabia".
Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders, who serves in the Dutch House of Representatives, has openly stated that "if we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time." A supporter of the conspiracy theory, Wilders believes Muslim immigration to Europe is being driven by an agreement between the European Union and Islamic countries. He has delivered speeches in the Dutch parliament about Eurabia.
2083: A European Declaration of Independence, the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, includes a lengthy discussion of and support for the "Eurabia" theory. It also contains several articles on the Eurabia theme by Bat Ye'or and Fjordman.See: As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror." Smilende Breivik fornøyd med dommen , nettavisen.no, 24.08.12
Breivik has later stated that he previously had exploited "counterjihad" rhetoric in order to protect "ethno-nationalists", thereby instead launching a media drive against what he deemed "anti-nationalist counterjihad"-supporters. "Mass killer Breivik says wants to create fascist party". Reuters. Sep 5, 2014.
In an investigative paper published in 2011 and titled "Fear Inc.," the Center of American Progress (CAP) reveals a detailed list of donors that help support think tanks that perpetrate misinformation about Muslims and Islam. One such think tank is the Middle East Forum (MEF), led by academic and scholar Daniel Pipes. In 2009, the MEF is said to have received funding of nearly $6 million.
Pipes and his anti-Muslim hyperbole are well known."[20]
"Leading Islamophobic figures like Pamela Geller, lawyer David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, commentator Steven Emerson, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney play a major role in the anti-Islamic lobby " [21] among them the president of Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer and political commentator Daniel Pipes.see for instance:In May 2006, Fox News host John Gibson called for white Americans to have more babies, referencing a decline in the "native population" of Europe as an apparent demographic warning for the U.S. regarding Hispanic birthrates. In what Media Matters reported as fearmongering, he claimed that Eurabia was occurring in Europe.
In his 2011–2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination, senator Rick Santorum warned that Europe was "creating an opportunity for the creation of Eurabia", and that the continent was "losing, because they are not having children." Classicist Bruce Thornton is also a strong advocate for the theory.
A 2007 film outline by Steve Bannon, who would later become the chief strategist for President Donald Trump and a member of the U.S. National Security Council, proposed that Muslims were trying to turn the United States into the "Islamic States of America".
David Aaronovitch acknowledges that the threat of "jihadist terror" may be real, but that there is no threat of Eurabia. Aaronovitch concludes that those who study conspiracy theories will recognize Eurabia to be a theory that adds the "Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea".
Conservative US military analyst Ralph Peters has criticized the Eurabia narrative on the grounds that it is unlikely to happen as posited, citing the historical precedent of genocides frequently occurring in Europe, such as in the Balkans during the 1990s, and the Holocaust during World War II. Peters stated that if Muslims "taking over" Europe were imminent, Europeans would either Ethnic cleansing their Muslims at best or engage in a genocide of them at worst, possibly leading to a U.S. intervention on behalf of persecuted Muslims.
In his 2007 book Wars of Blood and Faith, Peters states that far from being about to take over Europe through demographic change, "Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time" and that in the event of a major terrorist attack in Europe, thanks to the "ineradicable viciousness" of Europeans and what he perceives as a historical tendency to over-react to real or perceived threats, European Muslims "will be lucky if they're only deported".
According to Marján and Sapir, the very idea of "Eurabia" is "based on an extremist conspiracy theory, according to which Europe and the Arab states would join forces to make life impossible for Israel and Islamize the old continent."
Writing in Race & Class in 2006, author and freelance journalist Matt Carr argued that Eurabia had moved from "an outlandish conspiracy theory" to a "dangerous Islamophobic fantasy". Carr states,
The Eurabia conspiracy theory has many similarities to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Doug Saunders argues that pro–Al-Qaeda writers, and those who promote the Eurabia theory as truth, have a common extremism and world view, where "there is one creature called 'the Muslim' and another called 'the Westerner. He proposes that there is no such distinction and that Muslims can become secular in the Western world.
(2026). 9780429265860, Routledge. ISBN 9780429265860 Arun Kundnani, writing for the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, notes that "Eurabia" fulfills the counter-jihad movement's "structural need" for a conspiracy theory, and compares "Eurabia" to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, while Carr compares it to the Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory.
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Categories: 2005 Neologisms, Anti-arabism In Europe, Arabization, Bat Ye'or, Demographics Of Europe, Euroscepticism, Far-right Politics In Europe, Islam-related Controversies, Islamization, Islamophobia In Europe, Political Neologisms, Political Catchphrases, Stereotypes Of Arab People, White Genocide Conspiracy Theory, Religious Stereotypes, Islamophobia In The United States, Far-right Politics In The United States, Anti-arabism In The United States, Neologisms, Islamophobic Tropes
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