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And another thing

A message of hope from a teeming church in Kensington

Paul Johnson

Saturday, 19th March 2005

Easy to believe that Christendom, the entity coterminous with the Europe of history, is slipping away too, and being replaced by the new ‘Europe’ of Brussels — secular, materialist, libertine rather than free, profligate and corrupt, cowardly and selfish, the continent of hollow men and sterile women. It is a weak continent too, having turned its back on God, and placed the pursuit of pleasure and ‘security’ before risk and adventure, romance, poetry and service, before the faith of the pilgrim, the star of hope and the warm heart of charity. It is a Europe of interminable dole queues and bitter, hopeless middle-aged zombies who know they will never work again.

It is also a Europe of empty cradles and shrinking classrooms. The biggest demographic catastrophe in the whole of its history is beginning to be felt. Everywhere the birth rate is below the replacement level, and the gaps are being filled by immigrant Muslims, sullen and hostile now, waiting their day. Germany’s population will fall nearly 20 per cent by mid-century, Italy’s by 10 per cent, Poland’s by 12 per cent, to give only three examples. A generation ago, Europe was still opening new universities. Soon it will be shutting them.

The plight of Europe is such that, whenever I have the chance to talk to young people now, at any age from 12 to 20, I always urge them to make their future in America, particularly if they are clever and energetic, qualities essential for a vigorous life over there. America has everything Europe lacks. It has the world’s most dynamic economy, making impressive gains in productivity while expanding the number of jobs at the rate of a quarter of a million a month. It is growing in numbers, attracting the world’s best immigrants, and with a healthy birth rate of its own. Population is just topping 300 million and will be 425 million by mid-century. It has a democratic spirit at all levels of society so that people really feel they create and participate in government. In science and philosophy, in painting, sculpture, music and literature, it makes Europe seem provincial. It has nearly 4,000 universities, including all the world’s best. Most of all, it has a belief in its own future, a confidence that the world can be made, and will be made, a better place, not only materially but spiritually. It is the nearest we have in the world to The Good Society, and my only regret is that I did not make my home there 30 or 40 years ago, when I was still young enough to weather the change. Instead I have to make the best of enjoying the bits of England that are left, morsels of culture, dignity and civilisation not yet gnawed or gobbled up by the rodents of New Labour, the yobs and celebs, the hobbledehoys of mass entertainment and the picklocks and con men who dominate that combined brothel and mortuary, the Palace of Westminster and all its sinister and unsavoury purlieus.

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