Return of History...in Europe?!

Sunanda K Datta-Ray apparently thinks so.

The profusion of burqas, hijabs, beards and fezzes, and Edgware Road’s shisha cafes with men puffing away at hookahs, seem to bear out Muammar Gaddafi’s boast that Europe will become “a Muslim continent within a few decades”.

The guy is a well-established, widely published, self-confessed liberal. But in a sweeping obeservation he drives the point home.

The Battle of Britain is being lost in Brick Lane and Bethnal Green without a shot being fired.

Isn't this supposedly a Hindu fundamentalist concern?

While rational Indians demand a uniform civil code, Britain is moving the other way. Eighty-five sharia courts for divorce, family disputes, forced marriage, domestic violence and commercial matters have operated in areas of Muslim concentration since 1982.

In a post-racial, secular, harmonious society, you would think these issues are settled. Especially with the march of inevitable demographics staring you in your face.

But the attempt to foist an uneducated immigrant minority’s social prejudices on the more cultivated and enlightened lifestyle of an established host society is unpardonable. If they are so committed to the burqa,halal or Friday closure, they should stay where these are the natural order.

What? Come again.

That is possibly an exaggeration. But some claim France has nine million illegal Muslims in addition to the more than five million acknowledged ones whose higher fecundity will mean a Muslim majority by 2050.

It's difficult to dismiss Sunanda as an Islam-baiter. Well, even he has to take recourse to the usual cliche:

Scholars maintain that the Quran only advocates modesty without specifically sanctioning burqa or hijab. That is also true of the Hadith, the sayings of the prophet. Veiling is a pre-Islamic tribal custom with Byzantine roots.

If you want them to do something, there's no other go but to appeal to Islam-centric behavior of Muslim societies. Once that's accepted, the whole concept of rational justice for everyone evaporates. Sunanda concludes what Huntington did long time ago. To him, the writing seems to be on the wall.

The Ottoman empire which ruled a swathe of south-east Europe from 1299 to 1922 had to be beaten back from the gates of Vienna in 1683. We may be witnessing the return of history.

We sure do live in interesting times. And it remains to be seen as to what will transpire with the inevitable march of history.