In a peculiar outburst, David Goldman of First Things (a.k.a. the pseudonymous blogger Spengler) accuses me of hoping that "Islam will save us from secularism," and of "flirting publicly" with the Euro-Islam of Tariq Ramadan. This is roughly the opposite of what I intended in this post, but since I was apparently unclear, allow me to clarify. The (unlikely) scenario I spun out, in which a reinvigorated Islam manages a sweeping "transformation of European culture," with a Ramadan-esque figure playing "a Muslim Saint Paul to the E.U.'s Roman Empire," is one that I would regard with enormous dismay should it ever come to pass. That's why I suggested that were such a transformation likely or even plausible, it would merit "the deepest sort of pessimism" about Europe's future. My point was that any scenario for the wholesale Islamification of Europe seems relatively unlikely at this point; it was not that Islamification is desirable, as the key to the continent's "spiritual reawakening." I've never believed anything so fatuous, and never will.
Goldman adduces further evidence for my supposed flirtation with dhimmitude from the fact that back in 2007, I was underwhelmed by Paul Berman's 28,000-word takedown of Tariq Ramadan himself. I hold no brief for Ramadan (who does, in fact, seem to harbor ambitions of winning Europe to Islam), and Berman made many telling points against him. But as I said at the time, an essay of such extraordinary length and density needs to do more than "raise troubling questions" about its subject; it needs to "demolish him" completely, and there I thought that Berman came up short. And I stand by that opinion.