The thesis developed by Douglas Murray in The Strange Death of Europe is that “the civilization we know as Europe is in the process of committing suicide and that neither Britain nor any other Western European country can avoid that fate because we all appear to suffer from the same symptoms and maladies.” (Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe provides a brave and important, if not complete, assessment of the West’s dire situation). More specifically, “Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument.” Indeed, European elites “seem persuaded that it would not matter if the people and culture of Europe were lost to the world.” So as to dispel any doubt about the gravity of his prognosis, Murray asserts that Europeans currently alive will have lost the only place in the world they call home “by the end of [their] lifespan.”

This dire situation came about as a result of two simultaneous sets of events: first, the mass movement over the past few decades of millions of people into Europe, a movement which has resulted in “the home of the European peoples” becoming “a home for the entire world”; and second, the loss by Europeans of their “beliefs, traditions and legitimacy,” a loss which has brought about an “existential civilizational tiredness” – a pervasive feeling that Europe has run out of steam. Although not unique to that continent, this existential tiredness has occurred at precisely the moment when millions of non-European migrants began to move in. And although large migrations into a society confident about its identity might well have positive results, “the movement of millions of people into a guilty, jaded and dying culture cannot,” especially when many of the millions in question have a strong religious faith and culture, the history of which is characterized by relentless and prolonged conflicts with Christendom.

If Europe is to become a home for the world, says Murray, it must define itself on the basis of criteria that are vague enough to encompass the world. That can only be achieved through the erosion of elements traditionally associated with European identity: the rule of law, separation of Church and State, freedom of speech and religion, equality between the sexes, and so forth.

This cultural and moral erosion is already well advanced, as attested by the fact that European leaders nowadays speak as if the entire ethics and beliefs of Europe could be reduced to the broad notions of “respect,” “tolerance,” and especially “diversity.” According to Murray, “such shallow self-definitions may get us through a few more years, but they have no chance at all of being able to call on the deeper loyalties that societies must be able to reach if they are going to survive for long.”

This moral shallowness is largely due to the fact that most Europeans, while acknowledging that the culture of human rights derives from the Christian tradition, show little interest in renewing with the latter. Murray mentions a recent survey showing that affiliation to Christianity in the UK by 2050 will have fallen by a third, from almost two-thirds in 2010, and will thus become a minority affiliation. The same trend can be observed in other European countries. In France, the Eurobarometer Poll conducted in 2010 indicated that 27% of French citizens responded that “they believed there is a God,” 33% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force,” and 40% answered that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force.” It is no wonder then that new mosques are popping up in every major French city while the French Observatory of Religious Heritage states that France could lose “5,000 to 10,000 religious buildings by 2030.”

Muslims migrating to Europe show little to no desire to join in this secularist momentum. Whether it be in Paris, Birmingham, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome or Malmo, they are building theirs mosques and worshipping as they did in their countries of origin. In the Paris arrondissement of Seine Saint Denis alone, there are some 230 mosques. At Friday prayers, worshippers spill out onto the streets and several mosques are seeking larger facilities to meet the demand. The result is that the neighborhoods where the immigrants live bear little resemblance to those where the locals live. In many cases, they have become “no go” areas where authorities have simply lost control due to the high number of immigrants. There are now more than 1,000 such areas in Europe.

All this perhaps explains Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan recent exhortation to Turkey’s citizens in Europe to step up their rates of procreation and have five children each so as to counter the European Union’s “vulgarism, antagonism, and injustice.” What most people in the West fail to recognize is that there are essential ideological and political aspects to Islam that cannot be treated separately from religious aspects. Many Western historians and intellectuals (Bertrand Russell, Arthur Koestler, Bernard Lewis) as well as prominent Islamic theorists of the twentieth century (Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Mauduni) have emphasized the similarities between Islam and communism.

The first thing that might be said about The Strange Death of Europe is that it is a courageous book. Murray sheds light on the failure of European countries to assimilate Muslim immigrants. In doing so, he exposes himself to the scourge of political correctness and has indeed been accused of “gentrified xenophobia” and racism by the leftist commentariat. In a typical case of dereliction of duty, the latter refuses to address the problems raised by massive inflows of migrants for fear of being stigmatized. Murray’s greatest merit is to have shown beyond doubt that the concerns of the vast majority of Europeans about the surge of immigration in recent years are well founded, and to have done so while at the same time emphasizing the need to accommodate the needs of important numbers of asylum seekers.