England's Muslim immigrants are not all Islamists by any means. Neither are all orthodox Muslims. But assimilation is not the norm. The Muslim birth rate is very high whereas that of native Britons lags far behind. It is estimated that by 2050, 20 percent of the European Community will be Muslim, and Muslim majorities will by then be in place in a number of large cities.
One can understand why Muslims are flocking to Europe (900,000 legal immigrants enter the EU yearly). It is clean, wealthy, orderly, safe and free. Certainly Europeans are not knocking on the doors of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Lebanon demanding admission. Europeans have created among the most prosperous and peaceful societies on earth. And yet, the paradox is that the refugees from the least successful societies in the world have more confidence in their civilization than the Europeans have in their own. Their birth rate is the best evidence. Surely George Weigel ("The Cube and the Cathedral") is correct that the reason lies in religion.
English churches, like many of those throughout Old Europe, stand empty. Daniel Pipes suggests that more people in Europe today attend mosques on Friday than churches on Sunday. We stood outside Westminster Abbey after a service and noticed that the worshippers were -- without exception -- over the age of 65.
Even the tour guides at famous landmarks like the Tower of London and other landmarks -- though sometimes dressed in traditional garb -- reflect the post-Christian nature of British society. "People in those days," they explain in reference to the 16th century, "believed in an afterlife."
One of the great questions of our time is whether Europe will, in the coming century, maintain its identity and civilization, or be gradually absorbed into the expanding Muslim world. And America's fate cannot be divorced from that of its forebears.