Neo-medievalism and Islamized Europe
by Abu Daoud
Some time ago I wrote a post titled "The Islamization of Europe" wherein I argued as follows:
Also, every one of those states has a Muslim population that is willing to use acts of violence to further their politico-religious aims (in Islam there is no distinction, of course). So yes, a Muslim city-state in France with Algerian leadership will look different than the Turkish Islamic city-state in Germany or the Pakistani one in England. They will not be alike, but they will all be Islamic which tells us a few clear things: no religious freedom, an inferior status for women, persecution of homosexuality, an increase in nepotism and decline in rule of law, and the use of state-sponsored violence to proscribe dissent. These are trends that one can find in every single Muslim state in the world.In other words, I see the decline of the nation state and the rise of the city state in the future. I recently made this point in relation to Libya, for instance. A recent article by Parag Khanna over at Foreign Policy describes neo-medievalism as follows:
Many see the global economic crisis as proof that we live in one world. But as countries stumble to right the wrongs of the corporate masters of the universe, they are driving us right back to a future that looks like nothing more than a new Middle Ages, that centuries-long period of amorphous conflict from the fifth to the 15th century when city-states mattered as much as countries.Khanna then addds some other important factors which I had not taken into account in my previous analysis, like multi-national corporations and arms dealers. Since companies like Exxon-Mobil and Apple are worth more than a good number of nation states in the world, this is a shrewd move.
Anyway, suffice to say that I am a neo-medievalist. Not because I like it, but because I find this projection for the future to be reasonable and sound. Lacking from Khanna's brief article is any discussion of Islam, but one need not expect that in one page.
Other posts on the Islamization of Europe can be found here:
European Islamdom I
European Islamdom II
European Islamdom III
PS: You can actually LIKE neo-medievalism on Facebook, how cool is that?
