Europe's Ghost.

• Author: DeAtkine, Norvell B.
• Position: Book review

The late Michael Radu was one of a fast disappearing class of intellectuals who could rightly be referred to as a renaissance man. Fluent in several languages, an insightful analyst of contemporary cultural trends, his baleful outlook on contemporary European trends is a cautionary tale for Americans. It is a book not only about the dangers of unchecked and aggressive political Islam taking root in Western civilization, but also the erosion of a once proud and dynamic civilization, retreating into tepid, effete, secular society valuing little other than a comfortable day to day existence.

He describes in painstaking detail the catastrophic consequences of political correctness bordering on the theater of the absurd. He describes the welfare system of the European countries that allows Islamist terrorists to plot their acts of terror in leisure, supported by the state welfare system, not only for themselves but their families as well It is a Europe in which Christianity can be (and is) disparaged and ridiculed but similar attacks on Islam are considered a racist hate crime. It is a Europe in which political asylum is granted a radical who was considered by Saudi authorities as a "religious extremist." The reader is left to ponder the literal significance of accepting as a refugee someone considered too extreme by one of the most extreme religious states in the world.

The late Shah of Iran frequently spoke of the "unholy alliance of the black and the red," referring to the perverse symbiotic relationship between the left and the religious fanatics. It is ironic but apparently lost on the cognoscenti of the Left that the first victims of a repressive Islamic regime will be them, as was the fate of the Iranian Leftists and communists who clamored for the return of Imam Khomeini from Paris to Iran. But the situation in Europe is not wholly different from the increasing problem of fitting Islamic values and beliefs into the secular American society. We have yet to deal with the attendant problems of promoting free speech versus the national security issues involved by easily inflamed Muslim communities-egged on of course by the Muslim extremists who dominate the Islamic cyberspace, control many mosques and intimidate much of the Muslim community. This issue surfaced spectacularly in the media frenzy surrounding the announced Qur'an burning in an obscure Florida church.

The author painstakingly details the path to radical Islamic jihadism by a...