Old Borders Never Fade Away

That's the lesson from Fouad Ajami's insightful piece in today's Wall Street Journal ($). Titled "The Moor's Last Laugh," it reminds us that Europe is indeed a peninsula of Asia laying across a small sea from North Africa and the Middle East. When Americans think of Europe, they often imagine a highly civilized land rich in history and culture, and in that they're correct. But we might want to dust off our Renaissance history books to recall a period in which Arab culture played a comparable role in Continental politics.

"The geography of Islam -- and of the Islamic imagination -- has shifted in recent years. The faith has become portable. Muslims who fled their countries brought Islam with them. Men came into bilad al kufr (the lands of unbelief), but a new breed of Islamists radicalized the faith there, in the midst of the kafir (unbeliever). The new lands were owed scant loyalty, if any, and political-religious radicals savored the space afforded them by Western civil society. But they resented the logic of assimilation. They denied their sisters and daughters the right to mix with 'strangers.' You would have thought that the pluralism and tumult of this open European world would spawn a version of the faith to match it. But precisely the opposite happened. In bilad al kufr, the faith became sharpened for battle."

Europe's leaders might want to get serious about assimilating their Arab and Islamic citizens and guest workers before they're overwhelmed by these young men sharpened for battle. And they'd better act now, for they're not getting any younger.