As British historian Frederick Taylor noted in his 2003 book, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, which we reviewed here, Allied propaganda leaflet dropped en masse on Nazi Germany during World War II carried the slogan:
“Europe is a fortress. But it is a fortress without a roof.”
These days, as Mark Steyn writes, the walls of that “fortress” are looking pretty shaky as well:
The Guardian has a report from the Greek-Turkish frontier — or “Europe’s border“, as a German member of the 175-strong Frontex security team describes it:
In 2009 some 3,600 migrants managed to slip across the frontier not far from this market town; in 2010 that number shot up to 36,000, helping explain why Greece has become the favoured port of entry for 90% of illegals pouring into the EU.
“They come at all hours of the night and day,” said Orestiada’s police chief, Giorgos Salamangas, in his icon-bedecked office. “And they’re coming not just from the Middle East and Asia but all of Africa, places I have never heard of before.”
The Guardian being The Guardian, they headline the piece “Fortress Europe”.
But as Mark notes, “it’s a fortress you can stroll into,” and an increasing number of Europe’s neighbors may do just that in coming years:
Sub-Saharan Africa will double its population between now and 2030. They’re poor and getting poorer. Excepting South Africa, the Dark Continent’s per capita income averaged $355 in 2004, but is expected to fall by almost 20 per cent to $290 by 2030. Good for the planet? Well, it depends how you think about it. A few years ago, a Unicef report found that more than one billion children in the developing world were suffering from the most basic “deprivations” — lack of food, lack of education, lack of rights. Yet by 2020 each of them — or at any rate the half who are girls — will have had an average of three children each. Who in turn will lack food and education and much else, and will be at higher risk of many genetic disorders. It would be asking an awful lot for untold millions of them to remain in the teeming, disease-ridden shanty megalopolises into which Africa’s population is consolidating – rather than to, say, head for the lusher fields of Giorgos Liakides’ village.
Here’s the question for “Fortress Europe”: What’s to stop that vast “caravan of humanity” just walking in and taking it the way Robert Mugabe’s thugs took any Zimbabwean farm that tickled their fancy? The Camp Of The Saints is looking more prophetic every day.
Perhaps after the Obama administration concludes, Janet Napolitano could be available to consult with the Europeans on protecting their frontier.
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