The Strange Death of Europe

 

 

I stayed up late last night to watch with absolute horror what is happening in Europe. Once in bed, I still couldn't sleep, and so I switched on the light and read - again - Douglas Murray's prophetic book "The Strange Death of Europe". I had always thought that the book should've been made into a documentary film. Now we have documentaries by the thousands on YouTube.

 

 

No, don't run for the hills; run to your nearest bookshop to buy a copy of "The Strange Death of Europe"! It's a well-researched book, with footnotes and everything, about how godless Europe is dying in front of our eyes; and all because it’s too knackered and feeble to resist the barbarian hordes, welcomed in by idiots who’d trade a few beheadings for some more colourful ethnic restaurants. (I paraphrase, but barely.)

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org

Click on the following pages to enlarge their print and your knowledge

 

"The Strange Death of Europe" is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration as a society and an eventual end.

This is not just an analysis of demographic and political realities, it is also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes accounts based on travels across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who pretend they want them to the places which cannot accept them.

Murray takes a step back at each stage and looks at the bigger and deeper issues which lie behind a continent's possible demise, from an atmosphere of mass terror attacks to the steady erosion of our freedoms.

The book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation, and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa, and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away.

This sharp and incisive book ends up with two visions for a new Europe--one hopeful, one pessimistic--which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.

But perhaps Spengler was right: "civilizations like humans are born, briefly flourish, decay, and die."

Could it happen here in Australia? Of course it could, but don't you worry about that: South Africa is 4-40 and staring into the abyss.

 

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There were three guns, two with telescopic sight, a cracked mirror, an old radio, some cans and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles. The sum total of his life, plus loneliness, hardship, and the occasional sickness.

 

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I had never heard of, let alone met, Gösta Brand when in 1977 I lived and worked on Thursday Island, commonly known as TI, although at that time he was still very much alive and living on tiny Packe Island (marked with a red arrow on the above map).

I came across his story many years later and had it confirmed by my old TI-friend David Richardson. Balfour Ross, a long-time TI resident, who was a regular visitor to this blog when he still lived in Malaysia, could have also confirmed it, but both he and David Richardson are dead now.

Which makes this story even more worth keeping alive, even though Gösta had his moment of fame in 1975 when his story was published under the title "Den förverkligade pojkrömmen" in his native Sweden.

 

Read the original article in Swedish here

 

If your knowledge of the Swedish language does not go much further than the Swedish chef's in the Muppet Show, allow me to translate:

 

Every boy's dream comes true I was sceptical until the last moment. It was Eino who had heard about him and had contacted the man's brother in Sweden who confirmed that the story was true. He had read the story in a book by a Danish travel writer. It was about a modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe who was said to live alone on a tropical island to the north of Australia. A real Jack London figure who had left Sweden more than 50 years ago and had lived a life of adventure as a sailor, pearl fisherman, crocodile hunter and hermit. "It sounds like a piece of fiction" I said. "That sort of things doesn't happen anymore. It's as dead as the brontosaurus. It's just the boy inside all of us that still dreams of such adventures." But Eino could produce evidence that this modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe existed. He had contacted the man's brother, a Viktor Brand, a farmer who had lived all his life on a farm in Simlångsdalen in Sweden. Viktor confirmed that he had a brother named Gösta who had left Sweden fifty-one years ago. He had received the occasional short letter and card from his adventurous brother. The last one had been postmarked "Thursday Island", but that was more than a year ago. He thought he had been sick. Maybe he wasn't even alive any more. Just in case we ever got as far as Thursday Island and found our modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe, we recorded a greeting from Viktor on Eino's tape recorder. Thursday Island was almost as far away from Sweden as one could get. Our first stop after a long international flight was Sydney in Australia, then a domestic flight to Horn Island in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea. Then a short ferry ride across to Thursday Island. (There was also a Friday Island nearby which made me think of Robinson Crusoe again) We had brought with us the cassette recording of Viktor's greetings and a bunch of family photos. The community on Thursday Island was as large as a Swedish fishing village. It reminded me somewhat of Byxelkrok on the island of Öland. The population consisted mainly of coloured people, not Australian aborigines but South Sea islanders from Melanesia. There were no racial barriers as there seemed to be on the Australian mainland. On our very first evening on the island we freely mixed with snooker-playing and beer-drinking blacks and whites alike in the hotel bar and were able to ask questions about Gösta. Nobody knew a Gösta Brand but they had heard of an old Swede called Ron Brand who lived on Packe Island, an hour away from Thursday Island by fast boat. But he was supposed to be seriously ill, and nobody knew if he was still alive. Next day the postmaster confirmed that Ron was identical with Gösta - Gösta had simply been too difficult to pronounce for the local people. Two hours later we were on our way to Packe Island in a small boat owned by a South Sea Islander. About twenty minutes into our bumpy ride he yelled, "There is his boat! I am sure he is on it!" At the risk of capsizing our little dinghy and turning us into shark-food, Eino took out his camera and started filming. The boat, an average-sized sailing boat with an auxiliary motor and a dinghy tied to her stern, lay at anchor a few hundred metres off Horn Island. We spotted the bare torso of a man inside the cockpit who disappeared into the cabin as we approached. "I think he is sick," mumbled our boatman. However, as we got closer, he re-appeared from the cabin and we saw an emaciated, wiry, brownish man wearing a slouch-hat as protection against the sun. I called out in Swedish, "Are you Gösta Brand? We have come from Sweden to bring you greetings from your brother Viktor." He answered in a mixture of Swedish and "Sailor's English." Yes, he was Gösta Brand. He lived on Packe Island but had anchored his boat here because he was ill and had wanted to come a bit closer to civilisation. He thought it was his lungs, but he wasn't interested to go to a hospital. And he definitely didn't want our help to return to Sweden! " I would die on the spot," he laughed. "I have lived far too long in the tropics. If I should die, it has to be on my island or on the boat here." He was friendly and happy and not at all unsociable as we had anticipated. We suggested that he should follow us out to his island, so that we could film him there. He didn't seem unwilling but was probably too sick to be in front of a camera and also afraid of leaving his boat. With the help of a bottle of whisky he finally agreed to wait for us until the next day when we would come back in a larger boat to tow him back to his island. Next day we managed to hire a twin-engined speedboat that bounced along at more than 30 knots. I helped Ron lift the anchor and sat next to him in his boat while we were towed out to sea, with Eino filming from the speedboat. It turned out to be a more dramatic film than we had anticipated as the waves became bigger and wilder until they completely drenched us and filled the dinghy with water. Close to capsizing, we desperately waved our arms to tell the speedboat to turn back. We were wet, depressed and angry as we dropped Ron and his boat back in the same spot where we had found him. So much for our efforts to film this modern-day Robinson Crusoe's existence on his tiny island! I don't know whether it was the influence of the whisky or the prospect of appearing on Swedish television but suddenly Ron did agree to leave his boat and come with us to his island in our speadboat. "As long as you bring me back here afterwards," he said. An hour later, after having passed other deserted islands, we stepped ashore on a South Sea island straight out of a "Boy's Own" setting. The calm waters of the bay in front of Packe Island were absolutely clear and blue, and the sand was soft all the way up to the palm trees. Palm trees that Ron had planted himself while he had built his hut and the bamboo fence surrounding it. The hut was painted white and had a roof of corrugated metal. For almost twenty years he had lived here totally alone after having cleared a piece of land and the beach in front of it. For all this he paid a peppercorn rent of ten dollars a year to the Australian government. He regretted that a group of cultured-pearl farmers had moved in at the other end of the bay. We thought he would have welcomed having some other people nearby but he regarded them as trespassers on his island. He told us about the many adventures he had had and showed us some nasty scars on his legs from crocodile bites. He had become an Australian citizen and for the last few years had been getting a government pension which took care of all his material needs. But he still went crocodile-hunting on occasions or fished for barramundi, always accompanied by a native from one of the other islands. "They are my best mates," he said. On the beach sat his canoe, named "Minnehaha"", meaning "Laughing Water" in some Red Indian language. Yes, he had lived amongst Red Indians, too. That was in Canada, before he came to Australia. "Why did you choose this life?" we asked. "Because I love my liberty!" he answered quickly and without hesitation. He had obviously considered this question many times. "Didn't you ever miss a woman?" "Yes, of course, but then I also have to get hold of a woman. I have never lived with a woman. I love my liberty!" It sounded self-assured but by the time we had finished our filming and were to leave, we thought we knew the price he had paid for his freedom - what he called his "liberty" - and his carefree existence. He had seemed strangely touched by our visit as we recorded his message to his brother in Sweden. "You are both welcome to come back and stay on my island," he said as we were about to depart. "Bring your wife and kids with you." We could tell that he meant what he said although he knew quite well how unlikely another visit would be. Not many people ever come this far. I had one last look into the cabin of his boat before I climbed down the rail. There were three guns, two with telescopic sight, a cracked mirror, an old radio, some cans and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles. The sum total of his life, plus loneliness, hardship, and the occasional sickness. As we left, the outline of where he sat in the boat waving goodbye was getting smaller and smaller. Very soon it would be hard to believe he existed at all. But both Eino and I had the tooth of a crocodile he had given us to prove that he was real!

 

I had heard stories of people who wanted to visit him on Packe Island but he was anti-social and chased them away. Who was the man behind that wrinkled, mean old face? If what they tell us in books were true his long communion with nature and the surrounding sea should have taught him many subtle secrets. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was nothing but a narrow, ignorant and cantankerous man who had turned his back on society. Perhaps those words in the Swedish article summed it all up:

"There were three guns, two with telescopic sight, a cracked mirror, an old radio, some cans and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles. The sum total of his life, plus loneliness, hardship, and the occasional sickness."

 

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They got rid of the ones they didn't invite in; now they can't get rid of the ones they did invite in!

 

 

They got rid of the ones they didn't invite in; now they can't get rid of the ones they did invite in! Now thick black smoke fills a public square in France. Now hooded figures move through the haze. Debris litters the ground. Structures burn. People film as the chaos spreads. That is the footage circulating today from the October 17 riots.

Officials and much of the media still call this a student protest over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and rundown schools. The pictures and the arrest numbers tell a different story.

The movement began in mid-September in the Paris suburbs, places like Créteil with large immigrant populations. High school students blockaded schools and complained about missing teachers and poor buildings. Within days it spread nationwide. What followed was not orderly marching. Schools were ransacked or set on fire. At least two dozen facilities were damaged or destroyed in the early weeks.

Trash bins, cars, and buildings burned. Protesters hurled fireworks, paving stones, and other projectiles at police. In one case a 15-year-old aimed a makeshift flamethrower at a staff member. In another a student’s hand was mutilated after he handled a police grenade. Hydrochloric acid was thrown at officers in some incidents.

 

 

By early October more than 6,000 people had been arrested, the large majority of them minors. Hundreds of police officers and hundreds of students and staff were injured. Interior officials and the government described the shift from school action to urban violence. They blamed ultra-left agitators who joined the crowds.

On October 17 the protests expanded further as unions, former Yellow Vest participants, and others joined over cost-of-living issues. Authorities recorded roughly 140 actions involving more than 32,000 people outside Paris by midday, with over 250 arrests already logged. In Marseille protesters stormed the town hall, rammed doors, entered the building, and spray-painted anarchy symbols before police cleared them. In Lyon a tourism office was set ablaze. In Lille the mayor’s office was broken into and vandalized. In Paris, around Place de la République, masked and black-clad groups threw objects, attacked a bank, and looted a sports shop while police fired tear gas. Windows were smashed at the offices of conservative broadcasters. Cars burned. Officials again pointed to far-left elements intent on disorder.

 

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is a video of a French Parisian liberal woman pleading with "Protesters" that she's one of them; that she voted to help them; that she voted to give them shelter and money. As they looted and destroyed her shop, they laughed at her. She was left standing there, stunned, not believing that these thieving, rabble-rousing, criminal, barbaric hordes are the ones she's spent her whole life defending and advocating for them to invade her country and destroy it. Because of her fame in defending North African refugees, all the French media yesterday carried her story and her picture in front of her looted shop. Poor thing, her whole life wasted and she can't believe the mistake of her suicidal empathy that brought France to this ruinous state of destruction. You can see the sudden realisation on her face: having invited misery and death into her civil society, she herself is now on their menu, too. You can punish and lock up the people who did this, but the real solution is shutting the border and mass deportations! If you import people from Third World countries, you quickly become a Third World country.

 

This is the pattern that has played out for weeks. The education grievances may be real in places, but the sustained violence, the looting, the attacks on public buildings, and the rapid turn to urban disorder do not match the image of ordinary high-schoolers seeking better classrooms. Large parts of the unrest have been concentrated in the same banlieues that have seen repeated waves of rioting tied to failed integration and parallel societies. French authorities and right-leaning observers have noted the role of ultra-left organizers. Some American commentary has gone further and linked the scenes to the results of mass immigration policies that imported populations with limited assimilation and higher rates of street disorder. The French government itself has rejected the idea that this is simply about schools; it has spoken of urban violence that must be stopped.

 

 

France faces presidential elections in 2027. Marine Le Pen and the National Rally are leading in the polls. The scenes of burning buildings, hooded rioters, and overwhelmed police will not help the parties that have spent years defending open borders, multiculturalism without conditions, and soft responses to disorder. When the media continues to frame weeks of fires, lootings, and mass arrests as a student protest over classrooms, viewers are left to trust their own eyes.

 

 

And the same is happening in other parts of Europe. The political choice facing voters in France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, is between continuing the same approach to mass migration or restoring order.

What's happening now in France demonstrates what every clear-thinking person has known for years: If you import the third world, you become the third world. Thank you, France, for showing the rest of Europe and the rest of the world the horrific impact of socialism and open borders.

 

 

What is unfolding in France is far more troubling, and far more existential, than a mere protest over school funding or a row over classroom sizes. This is not a demand for better ‘education’ as a route into French society, but a rejection of that society and its values. It is an intifada against French civilisation itself. The sooner France wakes up to this reality, the sooner it can begin to put a stop to it.

Is Paris burning? It is! And it must be stopped! "C’est la lutte finale!"

 

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The reader who plucks a book from the shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again

 

 

While my reading diet is somewhat determined by what I find in op-shops, I have a special shelf in my library for treasured books I love coming back to. Some of them are novels, others are non-fiction. Some are fairly recent, others were written a very long time ago.

 

 

One treasured book I love to come back to is Anne Fadiman's "Ex Libris - Confessions of a Common Reader". It is a lovesong to the act of reading, and I find myself smiling, with a mixture of recognition and confession, at a kindred spirit. It’s all here: the lure of the second-hand book; the conversation of the annotation; the treasure-hunt of the footnote; the pedantry of apostrophes and spelling errors.

It is such a delightful book that I can eke out a whole week reading it, a couple of chapters a night, not wanting to stop this wonderful conversation with a book-loving friend who knows me so well!

 

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Sunday morning coming down

 

 

I would've preferred the grainy and weathered voice of Johnny Cash singing this song, but then I would've missed out on this beautiful video clip which pretty much sums up everything I feel about this Sunday morning - and that's even before I've looked in the mirror!

George Orwell once wrote: "By fifty, everyone has the face they deserve." This is plainly no more true than to assert that by fifty, everyone has the income or status they deserve. And it's even less true of the face that stared back at me as I shaved myself this morning.

Quite possibly we all feel a bit queasy when we catch our own reflection in the mirror or when we see ourselves in a photo. The disjuncture between appearance and our inner reality is one of life's tragic elements, and it seems to widen even more with advancing age.

Our face is our visual ambassador to the world; and yet, it is as unrepresentative of us as a picture postcard is of an entire country. Bear that in mind next time you're about to judge someone by their face.

This morning my face looks a bit like "Sunday morning coming down".

 

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