Is Europe headed for a civil war?

We will see an American civil war happen before Europe splits, there is a lot of tension coming from the nationalists around the world.

I'm not sure it will become a hot war, but we are heading to some tipping point for humanity.

Something is up.

But we're also seeing the result of decades of oil money spent on totalitarian religious propaganda by the oil plutocrats in the silly hope of buying themselves peace at home while spending on champagne and hookers while abroad.

The way things are going over here.

Thousands of Europeans did.

Again.

It's always existed. I'm not sure it's that much worse in Europe in general than it's sometimes been in the recent past. The LePen family have been a curse on France since what seems like the year dot -certainly since the early 80s.

And while the Islamist extremists are also a big problem, we have to remember that Europe has had a problem with terrorism of one sort or another for a very long time: the IRA and Protestant 'paramilitaries' in the UK; ETA in Spain; the Red Army Faction and other groups in Germany. Contrary to what you'd think from the media, the frequency and death toll from terrorist incidents in Europe was WORSE in the 1970s than it is now.

I don't think there would be civil war in most parts of Europe, however.

Nationalism, however, has brought the UK to the brink of a very bad social and economic mess, however. If not quite civil war, the equivalent of a country imposing sanctions on itself. And there is the risk of reigniting localized civil war in Northern Ireland.

It is never a good idea for a country to get itself so whipped up against outsiders that it ends up punishing itself. Please please don't do so yourselves in November!!!!!!

There has been a spike in terrorism-related deaths in recent years but it still doesn't measure up to the death toll of the 70s and 80s.

We spend trlllions in resources, in an attempt to prevent 200 deaths per year, but the war on terror policies actually provoke an increase in terrorism.

But the rate of foiled attacks seems to be picking up fast,
even before most ISIS jihadis even returned to Europe (which will mostly be next year)

Europe is a country?

Most European countries were at one time or another formerly parts of united states
Charlemagne, Plantagenets, Habsburgs, Saint Roman German Empire, Napoleon, etc

Anyway, nice attempt at diversion from the central issue.

because there is not, and will not, be an organized group trying to fight a war. There may be some terrorism, but not on the scale of the IRA, ETA, Red Army Faction etc. They weren't 'civil war', and any returning ISIS idiots won't be fighting one either.

The central issue is that your OP is fearmongering.

I did not relay the views of extremists like Gert Wilders or Marine Le Pen,
but of mild, soft spoken analyst Gilles Kepel (one of the world specialists on Islamism)
echoing the worries voiced by top British politicians about radicalization in Europe.

These moderate voices deserve a more attention than being brushed aside as fear mongering.

The Sun is a Murdoch-owned British tabloid; notorious for its inaccuracies, dishonesty, and sensationalism. It is extremely anti-EU and no doubt helped to tip the vote in favour of 'Brexit',

Bad as the Sun is, it's not down to altering the sentences printed in die Welt

So the point is not to spread fear about Muslims - he says the 'civil war' could come about if Muslims become generally hated. If you want to know how you, as an American, can help, then it's to stop making threads like this. And to stop using The Sun and unnamed 'top British politicians' as your justification.

Two other points if I may:

-1- the rule about quoting RW sources is obviously intended not to echo RW opinions. It cannot reasonably apply to facts or expert opinions collected by RW media. The weather forecast stays valid even if it's on the webpages of InfoWars.

-2- casting doubt because I did not dot all i's and cross all the t's is a superficial way to deny the meaning. I just didn't take the time to google the name of the British senior official who mentioned views exactly parallel to those of Kepel.

One click gave me two (not the one I had in mind and might find later)
Met's head of special operations

Britain’s most senior Muslim policeman

and that means OPs like yours.

No, the British officials aren't talking about 'civil war'.

"the rule about quoting RW sources is obviously intended not to echo RW opinions." - exactly. That's why I wish you'd stop.

The Montaigne Institute (the exact same one which commissioned some of Kepel's work) released yesterday a new study on the "Islam of France" in the LW "Le Monde" daily. The study was conducted by Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim. And, to quote, the study is worrying.
http://www.lemonde.fr/religions/article/2016/09/19/grand-imam-redevance-sur-le-halal-cours-d-arabe-les-propositions-de-l-institut-montagne_4999882_1653130.html?xtmc=islam_institut_montaigne&xtcr=4

Summary of what I got by glancing through:
- the majority of Muslims just leave their peaceful daily lives (nothing new), but
- there is a strong radicalized minority of about 25% rejecting democratic values
- this 25% = roughly 50% of the younger French Muslims rejecting democratic values
- key finding: Islam is the flag of a social revolt (added to decades of wahabbi propaganda)
http://www.institutmontaigne.org/res/files/publications/institut_montaigne_-_un_islam_francais_est_possible.pdf

Therefore the driving causes of radicalization (economic + propaganda) run much deeper than any effect a cautionary voice like mine might have.

And it's confirmed by original, authorized and LW sources.

Charlemagne was rather a long time ago!!! Would you say that the different states of the USA are not part of the same country, because they were once separate colonies?

Anyway, the answer is no. There is no evidence that Europaean countries will start fighting each other, much as people like Farage might like it if they did.

Its existence does however help to reduce the risk of wars between countries.

Terrorism and intergroup violence within a country does not equal, or usually cause, civil war between the countries. We are talking basically about small groups of violent young men: religious fundamentalists versus racist nationalists. Neither type of group is an asset to society, or very safe to have around, but it is not as though they are determining the entire course of life within their countries, let alone between them. Even the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which might be described as a form of local civil war, did not spread to other countries (not even to the Republic of Ireland to any appreciable extent). And did not, in their entirety, kill anything as like as many people as are murdered with guns in the USA (let alone all murders in the USA) in any single year , yet you do not describe the USA as being in a state of civil war.

-1- the European society is an homogeneous body of democracies which are largely integrated (commerce, tourism, whatever)

-2- as detailed by Kepel, the hope of the Islamists (most notably ISIS) is to excite all European Muslims against their host societies, regardless of whether it's in Spain, Netherlands or Germany.

One state vs one homogeneous group, that pretty much fits the bill of a civil war, some technicalities aside: the EU is not a country as the US is, even though both entities have many common points.

I do think that there will be racial tensions, erupting into violence. And I suspect many countries and their people may bristle at the one Europe move, as the UK did. Brexit may lead the way for other countries to leave the Union.

I don't see how this will divide large swaths of people. It'll be a security mess, that much I do believe.

However, as mentioned above, I believe the US is much more likely to experience a civil upheaval than Europe. I don't believe that we'll end up dealing with all out war, but I don't think it would be unrealistic to think that in the next couple of decades we could see the Balkanization of the US as a result of the widening ideological gap that seems to be growing between the different regions.

they've been fighting with Isis?

Most countries are signatories to a treaty which forbids to create stateless individuals.
Those ISIS jihadis mostly only hold their european nationality of origin.

If he meant in Europe as a whole, this would not make much sense

that's the point 4 of the OP with a link (couldn't find a direct English version of the Die Welt interview)

There simply aren't enough Muslims in any Europaean country for civil war between Muslims and non-Muslims. The overall percentage of Muslims in the EU is 2%, hardly enough to fight a civil war with others, even if they wanted to, which the vast majority don't. Of course it varies between countries, with Eastern Europe having very few Muslims, and France having the highest proportion due to the Maghreb colonial history. Even in France, however, it's under 10 per cent. Not to mention that there are many divisions between different groups of Muslims, and of course between different groups of non-Muslims!

Nasty skirmishes between small groups of far-RW violent Islamists and far-RW violent nationalists - yes, quite possible; but there have always been nasty skirmishes between nasty people, and it does not constitute civil war.

Most people here barely heard of it, but in 2009 France started purging all the Roma from there and sending them out of the country- including many born there. The French got tired of the crime and after a few high profile riots and events they started the purge- that continues to this day. Estimates are 80% of the Roma there have been evicted from the country.

The events that set it off were much smaller in impact and scale than the recent Islamic terrorist attacks there. However there is a long hatred of the Roma there based on the amount of crime and their reputation as con artists and thieves so the majority of French citizens turned a blind eye.

Tolerance can only go so far. Hate to say it but it looks like most Muslims in France and other European countries did little to decry violence and sexual assaults from refugees of Muslim origins. Having the press censor and ignore these attacks only fueled the bias against them.

What are not so widely reported are Muslim condemnations of violence,

whether terrorism:


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muslim-anti-isis-march-not-covered-by-mainstream-media-outlets-say-organisers-a6765976.html

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/british-muslim-leaders-wage-war-isis-propaganda-uk-mosques-homes-1554234

or more localized violent acts involving Muslim perpetrators:

http://www.mcb.org.uk/child-abuse-in-rotherham-we-cannot-let-this-happen-again/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23087686

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/german-muslims-condemn-cologne-new-year-mass-attacks_us_568ed20ce4b0a2b6fb6f5a7c


It seems to me that if anything is being to some extent 'censored' it is Muslim condemnation of violence perpetrated by some specific Muslim individuals and groups!

It look 700 years but Islam lost the long war for the Iberian peninsula. Then they kicked out the Jews because they were perceived as collaboration. And then unleashed the Inquisition.

It will be ugly

We're now talking about a native born group which has been targeted by religious fundamentalist propaganda (taking advantage of discontent over joblessness and a lack of sense of identity)

The action taken toward the Roma was mostly cosmetic, with little real effect.

1- as I wrote earlier, the Roma did not "roll over", the measures were cosmetic.

2- who is asking the Muslims to "roll over"? That's something you're conjuring up out of nowhere. However, if by not "rolling over", you mean not adhering to the democratic values of the French Republic, I suppose you're saying a major problem is brewing.

I think ongoing terrorist attacks are inevitable but I think a "civil war" is a little far fetched.

Imagine if people had told the good people of Lebanon in the 60's their country would drown in decades of hot or protracted civil war after an influx of Palestinian refugees..

They would have laughed: Lebanon was a prosperous country used to religious coexistence.

It's unhealthy, IMO, to chase the fearful down their rabbit-holes, as the expression goes.

No thanks.