Fistfights With Muslims In Europe: One Man's Journey Through Modernity by Julian Langness

Author:Julian Langness [Langness, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Immigration, Europe, violence, Multiculturalism, Masculinity, Islam, Fighting
Publisher: ES Linden Co.
Published: 2016-01-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

My first morning in Vienna, in the city center, I found there was a great march occurring. It was protesting the Iraq War and the anniversary of the invasion. The marchers took about twenty minutes to filter through. There were great banners with peace signs on them, and black banners protesting the military industrial complex. Homemade signs mocked George Bush and called for the people of the world to unite in opposition to war.

There were anarchists, and leftists, and Maoists. I estimated the crowd to be about 10-15% Muslim and 70% white, with the remainder seeming to be a motley collection of every other ethnic group in the city. There were Bosniaks, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indians. Each group stuck together, carrying signs that seemed, to some extent, to represent their own interests more than opposition to the Iraq war.

The largest two groups were made up of what I believed to be native Austrians however. The first was the rag-tag student population, the same as which you would find at any similar march throughout the West. They wore hip, tattered clothes, Che Guevara shirts, and beanie hats. They exuded self-assurance and the belief in their own intellectual superiority.

The other big group, larger still than the student population, was the great number of older Austrians‌—‌Baby-Boomers, or “68’ers” as they’re called in Europe‌—‌who brought up the rear of the march. They also struck me as similar to what I would have seen in America. This contingent looked out of place next to the Maoists and anarchists in the march, but you could tell they were in their element and loving every minute of it.

The two clusters of young Austrians, one group native whites, one group immigrants, overshadowed by even greater numbers of elderly Austrians, was a fair illustration of Austria’s‌—‌and Europe’s‌—‌demographics.

After WWII Europe and the rest of the West engaged in a frenzied burst of procreation. This lead to a large baby-boom among the young couples who had survived the war and who were now eager to start their lives and start families. They got married in the beginning of a period of profound economic improvement, and it was quite natural for them to have 3 or 4 children each. They had affordable housing, and could live easily on one income. There were no economic arguments against having children, and culturally procreation was looked upon as a positive and normal part of life.

As their children (the Baby-Boomers) grew into teenagers however society underwent a radical shift. It was catalyzed to a great degree by the very ease and comfort in which the Baby-Boomers had been brought up. Raised within the protective cocoon that the 1950’s and the rapidly growing economy created, they were free to “search for their bliss” and “find themselves”. These aims were sincere, and they genuinely felt they would achieve a better and fairer society. They emerged into the “Peace and Love Generation”, jumping up to fight against the perceived injustices of their parents’ and grandparents’ world. They sought to overturn gender roles and what they viewed as sexual repression.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.