§ As Europe's leaders have no children, they seem have no reason to
worry about the future of their continent.
§ "Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight
for itself or even take its own side in an argument". — Douglas Murray, The
Times.
§ "'Finding ourselves' becomes more important than building a
world." — Joshua Mitchell.
There have never been so many childless
politicians leading Europe as today. They are modern, open minded and
multicultural and they know that "everything finishes with them". In
the short term, being childless is a relief since it means no spending for
families, no sacrifices and that no one complains about the future
consequences. As in a research report financed by the European Union: "No kids, no problem!".
Being a mother or a father, however,
means that you have a very real stake in the future of the country you lead.
Europe's most important leaders leave no children behind.
Europe's most important leaders are all
childless: British PM Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime
Minister Mark Rutte and the French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron. The
list continues with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Luxembourg's Prime
Minister Xavier Bettel and Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
As Europe's leaders have no children,
they seem have no reason to worry about the future of their continent. German
philosopher Rüdiger Safranski wrote:
"for the childless, thinking in
terms of the generations to come loses relevance. Therefore, they behave more
and more as if they were the last and see themselves as standing at the end of
the chain".
"Europe
is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit
suicide", wrote Douglas Murray in The
Times. "Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for
itself or even take its own side in an argument". Murray, in his new book,
entitled The Strange Death of Europe, called it "an existential
civilisational tiredness".
Angela Merkel made the fatal decision to
open the doors of Germany to one million and half migrants to stop the
demographic winter of her country. It is not a coincidence that Merkel, who has
no children, has been called "the compassionate mother"
of migrants. Merkel evidently did not care if the massive influx of these
migrants would change German society, probably forever.
Dennis Sewell recently wrote in the Catholic Herald:
"It is that idea of 'Western
civilisation' that greatly complicates the demographic panic. Without it, the
answer would be simple: Europe has no need to worry about finding young people
to support its elderly in their declining years. There are plenty of young
migrants banging at the gates, trying to climb the razor wire or setting sail
on flimsy boats to reach our shores. All we need to do is let them in".
Merkel's childless status mirrors German
society: 30% of German women have not had children, according to European Union
statistics, with the figure rising among female university graduates to 40%.
Germany's Minister of Defense, Ursula von der Leyen, said that unless the birth
rate picked up, the country would have to "turn the lights out".
According to a new study published by the
Institut national d'études
démographiques, a quarter of European women born in the 1970s may
remain childless. Europe's leaders are no different. One in nine women born in
England and Wales in 1940 were childless at the age of 45, compared to one in
five of those born in 1967.
French politician Emmanuel Macron has
rejected French President François Hollande's assertion that, "France has
a problem with Islam". He is against suspending the citizenship of
jihadists, and keeps insisting, against all evidence, that Islamic State is not
Islamic: "What poses a problem is not Islam, but certain behaviours that
are said to be religious and then imposed on persons who practice that
religion".
Macron preaches a sort of multicultural
buffet. He speaks of colonialism as a "crime against humanity".
He is in favor of "open borders", and
for him, again against all evidence to the contrary, there is no "French
culture".
According to philosopher Mathieu Bock-Coté, the
39-year-old Macron, who is married to his 64-year-old former teacher, is the
symbol of a "happy globalization freed of the memory of the French lost
glory". It is not a coincidence that "Manif Pour Tous," a
movement that fought the legalization gay marriage in France, urged voting
against Macron as the "anti-family candidate".
Macron's slogan, "En Marche!" ("Forward!"), embodies the
globalized élites who reduce politics to an exercise, a performance.
That
is why Turkish leader Erdogan urged Muslims to have "five children" and
Islamic imams are urging the faithful to "breed children": to
conquer Europe. Islamic supremacists are busily building a clash of
civilizations in Europe's midst, and they depict their Western host countries
collapsing: without population, without values, and abandoning their own
culture.
If
you look at Merkel, May, Macron and others, are these Islamic supremacists so
wrong? Our European leaders are sleepwalking us to disaster. Why should they care,
if at the end of their lifespans Europe will not be Europe? As Joshua Mitchell explained
in an essay, "'finding ourselves' becomes more important than building a
world. The long chain of generations has already done that for us. Now let us
play".
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
