mr. markopolos? >> no, sir, i'm done. >> anymore metaphors? >> no, sir. >> mr. khuzami or mr. walsh? no. >> i like metaphors, as people know. thank you for coming. and the hearing is closed. .

as well as the potential side effects and consequences of cell phones news. live today at 2:00 eastern on c- span 3./ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this week on q&a, our guest is christopher caldwell. he is the author of a new book.

>> i have always been really interested in immigration. in the late 1980's i started to get interested in latin america. i began to write about it in late 1989. i went to panama, and i thought this is a really great thing to do, i am so interested in this. then the berlin wall came down. editors were totally an administration -- on tenor has been -- uninterested. one way to cover this was by covering immigration into the united states. i love the topic of immigration. about mid-way through the 1990's when i was thinking about going to tijuana it occurred to me that immigration in europe

was not really developing along the same lines that the american one was spirited it was much more disruptive. it was much more full of problems for the society. it which much more traumatic for the people that live there. i started reporting on that fourth the atlantic monthly. i wound up making dozens of trips and became -- it became a very natural thing for me to read a book about. >> use a we have about 35 milligan people in the united states that were born in other countries. -- you say that we have about 35 million people in the united states that were born in other

countries. >> this book is really about western europe the 15 western european countries that constitute the core of the european union. they have a population just under 400 million. there are about 50 million people living outside their country of birth in those countries. they are not from outside of europe, but a significant portion of them are. a significant portion of the non-european immigrants are from muslim lands. there are now about 20 million muslims in europe. >> you say there are 2 million muslims here. >> it varies greatly depending on how you reckon in black muslims, whether you count them in the group. there are arguably millions of those. i did not really get into that in the united states. muslim immigration to the united

states is much smaller. it is exponentially larger phenomenon in europe, largely because of the countries there next to. there right next to north africa. >> there are 5 million foreign-born in france. and 4 million in germany. >> germany there has been a dramatic revision of statistics over the summer. there are about 7.54 unborn -- foreigners in germany. germany has a funny way of counting these things. it cancer in people born in germany s so-called foreigners. if they do not have german citizenship.

it is a shrinking population. it is sent to about 75 million. -- it is down to about 75 million. it had been thought that there were 3 million, but the interior ministry did another cao earlier this summer and came up with a figure of 4.5. >> what is the 2 million figure in britain? >> the 2 million -- i believe the foreigner number is higher than that. and 2 million is the rough number of muslims in britain, although britain is very in precise about counting these things. they have carried -- change their way of accounting leasing's in the last couple of years.

the beginning of the immigration to europe had to do with europe's extreme need for reconstruction after world war two. iyou had cities entirely destroyed. you had much of the labor force killed. there was a lot to build. when that happened, countries with empires, such as britain, the netherlands, france, brought people from their old empires. countries without empires signed agreements with poorer countries, starting in europe, to bring labor in. the usual -- no one really was thinking in the slightest about what religion these people were

when they drew up these agreements. your typical muslim immigrant to europe in the 1950's was a laborer. was one guy coming to work in the steel mill or be an engineer on the subway car or to work in a lace mill. as time went on, let's take the example of germany. as time went on, the system of bringing in guest workers for two years, they realized it was not the most efficient way to do it. to get a guest worker you had to send a recruiter, a team of evaluators, doctors, he was an expensive process. then you get a guy and he comes to germany and works out great.

he is a super labor. it is a very expensive process to send him back and get another guy who might not be as good. companies position to let these people stay. some of these people have families. over time, and this happens in most mass emigrations. you have an immigration of labour that gets replaced by an immigration of settlement. today only a very small minority of immigrants admitted to europe are for labor purposes. a far larger number are for family reunification. >> how many of the 7.5 million in germany are turks? >> there were many different

countries in the guest worker program. and turkey soon came to take up the preponderance -- came to be the major country in the guest worker program. in the course of the program, there it -- there were 18 million turks that came to germany. i am not exactly sure of the number. it is somewhere around 3 million. >> in france, how many are algerians? >> france is very difficult for statistics because france had since the french revolution a very radical idea as citizen equality. there is no such thing in the eyes of the state as an

algerian frenchman or a muslim frenchman. there are only frenchman. it is not permitted to ask those questions. the best demographers and france -- the best demographer has worked on this and has come up with an estimate which is so much lower than other people around 4 million. and i think those are fairly evenly distributed between a million a piece of the three north african countries with a smattering of people from elsewhere. these numbers are extremely and precise. >> in great britain, pakistan used in bangladesh -- pakistan easis and bangladesh?

>> london as the dominant muslim population. >> go back to an earlier statement about the way that europe looks at immigrants and the way the united states looks set emigrants are different things. >> yes. the title of this book has been a little bit controversial. people say in what sense -- ok, it is a big problem but in one sentence -- but in what sense does is a revolution? i would say it is tempting to look at europe's revolution as being similar to ours and the past few decades. the percentages and the populations are about the same.

the role of the dominant culture and immigration is about the same. the big difference is that this is our second wave of mass emigration. we had one that started in the middle of the 19th century and lasted until about 1925. that i would say revolutionize the united states. the country's started out with at the beginning of the migration was not the same as the country we wound up with several decades slatelater. we were much more content with the assumption that the america we know now may be something different in agaour grand children's time.

europeans have not yet have that revolution. they are having it now. they do not think of themselves as an experiment. if they think of themselves as firmly anchored cultures that have been the same in their essence, if not in their out with manifestations, for about one dozen years. they are really uncomfortable with this idea of becoming a continent of immigrants. >> your the end of your book i found this sentence. "islam is a magnificent religion that has also been, at times over the centuries, a glorious and generous culture. but, all can't to counter rate, it is no sense europe's religion and it is in no sense of europe's culture.

" go back to the beginning of that. >> you have to travel around the middle east and look at the tremendous monuments that were constructed in its name. the libraries, the literary culture that resulted. the beautiful calligraphy. we have to grant the diversity of islam. it is a very diverse -- it has many manifestations around the world. if you go listen to singing in a synagogue or look at the literary culture of the egypt,

it is impressive you have to respect their ability to stick to this culture even them -- even in the middle of globalization. there is a tendency -- what i am criticizing is this tendency to say that is long has always been a part of europe. people tend used euphemisms to talk about the way islam in europe have interacted over the centuries. islam has typically been an enemy of europe. if europe absorb kings at of islamic culture, it was not because -- if europe absorbed things out of islamic culture, it was because islam was a

superior culture and they did it through invitation. in countries where you would say people dislike the united states come that they absorb our culture in many ways. i am not saying that it is impossible for europe and islam to get along today, the conditions are different. we have globalization, but you cannot look at this as something as inevitable. is is not what the patterns of history tell us is the likely outcome. >> your own background. when did you first get into this business of writing? >> i was always interested in writing. i grew up loving books. i grew up in massachusetts.

it has been a very long time since i have wanted to be anything other than a writer. i do not think ever release seriously entertained doing anything else. maybe being a great poet or novelist would have suited the better. but after a stint and publishing i found my way into journalism in washington and have been doing that for about 20 years. >> where did you go to college? >> i went to harvard. i studied english. >> what year did you graduate? >> 1983. >> where do you make your money besides writing books? >> i am a senior editor at "the weekly standard."

i write a column in "the financial times" every saturday. i write for other people when interesting projects come up. >> where would you put yourself on the political cycle? >> it may sound funny, but i didn't think of myself as an extremely political person. temperamentally i would say allium quite conservative. -- i would say i am quite conservative. i do try to approach every subject's that i am dealing with as a journalist as if i were just born and without

preconceptions. i tend to sink the there is a lot of wisdom and tradition. i have the if it is not broke do not fix attitude. i would say as a younger man i was more of a libertarian conservative. i think as i have aged, i have become a regular small conservatives. i think this has had a strong affect on my book.

generally it is books that are pessimistic about the immigration situation in europe. i think that this book is -- correct me if you think i am wrong, i think this book is very respectful of islam. one of the things that i think makes me pessimistic about immigration in europe is that compared to this constant change that is european society, i think the steadiness of familiar religious tradition looks like a pretty good alternative to a lot of rational people who are newcomers to europe. >> you dedicate your book to zelda.

>> she is my wife. >> when we were originally going to take this interview you had to cancel for a funeral. >> that was my father-in-law, robert novak. needless to say, we will miss terribly. >> how well did you know him? >> to the extent that you can know anyone. i knew him pretty darn well we were very close. i loved him. i was very proud to have him as a father-in-law. we did not talk too much about politics and things like that. our shared interests were things like baseball and history.

he was a constant -- he was constantly turning history books through him. he was also -- always full of interesting things to talk about that way. to the extent that we did talk about our professional lives, i always found him immensely reliable to go to for journalistic ethics, like if you have a situation like some guy wants to take me to dinner and i do not know what he wants out of me, what should i do? i found him a very rigorous person on questions like those. i treasured his company. >> we did not see the funeral.

was it close? >> no. >> we did not see him for a long time when he got a brain cancer. we know him well, we have seen him a lot. what was the end of his like life = = = = = = fe like? >> he was very sick. it was a very serious cancer. we were very full of hope. even as he declined. brain cancer is very serious. courageous though he was. as much as he pried -- tried to put a humorous face on it, is a pretty steep decline.

he was able to write three columns. one was about his disease. when he was diagnosed, he was diagnosed the same day he had a massive seizure. he was debilitated by that. ipequot -- he quickly lost the ability to do serious journalistic work. >> to senator kennedy and bobby novak ever talked during both of their illnesses qwe? >> yes. it was more geraldine and vicky. theological differences like that -- theological differences

like that i do not think it meant a big difference to my father-in-law and his life. i cannot say enough about the generosity that the kennedy family should to my mother-in- law at that time we did showed to my mother-in-law at that time. -- i cannot say enough about the generosity that the kennedy family showed it to my mother- in-law at that time. >> i want to read something off the page 334. "george w. bush's blunders military misadventure in iraq.. ." >> it is interesting. i would not call myself an opponent of the iraq war.

it certainly looms over the composition of this book. i have not a big -- i was never a big fan of the rationale that george bush had for it. i would say i supported it, but on a different rationale. which is one reason that i have been surprised to see this book described as an expression of support for american foreign policy, because i think having read the book and perhaps the people who leap to that conclusion have not, having read the book i do not think there is much of that in there. there is another way that iraq

really affected the with this book was written, which is that i tend not to be a partisan political writer, i do not think. it would not be my inclination to give europeans lectures on what they now have to do. i am describing a situation, i am not writing a policy brief to europeans. i think the fact that most of my conversations that i had with muslim immigrants and european politicians and with academic experts on this sort of thing, since most of those conversations were in the context of the iraq war, during which europeans were exceedingly reluctant to take any advice

from americans, and might have further dampened -- it might have further dampened my desire to sound like mr. bossy pants. >> what did 9/11 haimpact have n the relationship between europe and america? >> it is a very tricky thing to tackle. i believe at the time it happened there were certain tendencies that were already ripening in european life. i think with the fall of the berlin wall and the removal of the soviet threat, europeans

felt that the need for solidarity with america was much less present. on top of that, all of these countries have been shaped, 55 years by an american presence. they had all been molded into something that was a little bit more american than what they were used to. i think that all the european countries were -- were yearning for a good deal of independence from the united states. before september 11, there were plenty of issues on which it appeared that europeans were gored to create a pre-text for a fight. capital punishment was becoming a major schuman rights issue. i think europe felt the need for space between the united states

-- if it had not been for the iraq war, they would have diverged over something else. to go back >> back to talk abo's misadventure. you have o a quote that i want to read. who is he? >> he is a commentary on the left. i do not mean to single him out in a book that attempts to pack a lot of information into a short space, you need to limit your examples. i am using his as a representative of the tendency that i am describing for europe to what to pull away from the

united states. >> let me read it. "yearly to the rio days after the hryvna six suicide attacks on civilian workers in new york and washington, it has become painfully clear that most americans simply do not get it, schock, rage, and greeks there have been up plenty. but any glimmer of recognition of what people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process storewide united states is hated with such bitter this not only in arab and muslim countries, but across the developing world, seems almost entirely absent." to get that is an extreme example of a writer -- >> that is a writer that expects a lot for people to come out and say

that the bombers are right and we're wrong. i think that is expecting quite a lot. september 11 -- it has a great resonance throughout this book. september 11, in his own way is an immigration story. one of the things that has always haunted me about its, many of things caught me about it, but one is that we had a mission that consisted of 20 people who were operating in western countries, much of that time in europe. it were not just popping in and out. there were here for a couple of years planning this before the attacks.

all it would have taken for the attacks to come apart would be for one of the guys to say this is really a culture with a lot to say for itself. for one of those tests to fallen in love -- for one of those guys to have fallen in love. that never happens. -- happened. no one was changed. i find that quite haunting. it means that two people just landed on the shores of the west, the appeal of the west is certainly there but not glaringly obvious. it does not automatically transform people the way a lot of complacent europeans assume.

>> what year did you start your research for the spoke? -- for this book? >> i started writing about muslim immigration in the late 1990's, but the interest in this really pick up after september 11. in there were certain episodes -- in 2002, you had what it is called -- you had a lot going on in the west bank and jerusalem. there was a sudden radicalization of muslim used particularly -- muslim youth. there were physical attacks

every day. that episode in the spring of 2000 to convince me that there might be something really gravely serious going on. then after that, when that did not really abate for quite awhile, i started going over much more frequently, every month at one point. as i say, it was pretty much a matter of course that i would want to gather this material together into a book. >> where there times when you went, "aha moments." >> i cannot think of ones. i wish i had one ready to hand, but i do not. to could do to change your mind in any way from the beginning of the research to the time you

wrote your book? >> i do not think i started off with a lot of preconceptions. i tend to be a person who was quite sympathetic to emigration. it certainly has been in the united states. i know why immigrants come and how difficult it is for immigration -- for immigrants to be there. i am not predisposed to see a problem and all emigration. to describe the prevails of emigrants -- immigrants and their experiences and motivations is not the book i set out to right.

i set out to write about the transformation of european culture. one thing that surprised me is how deeply europe's institutions and values were being changed. i suppose the big thing that was a surprise to me is a large part of the price that europeans pay for immigration is in the form of rights. when you shift from being a culture that is operating on old historical norms to being a culture that is meeting -- mediating between different cultures you lose a lot. rather than letting people go about their business, you have to set up ground rules for how people interact like for instance the french law.

the french were troubled by a young school girls wearing a veil and high school. they felt it would be harsh to muslims if they just said muslim girls cannot or the mail. they went through this whole elaborate process. they got legislation set up, which would ban the veil, the yarmulkes, and a large cross. to address this very specific problem that france perceived, they have to take a little bit of rights away from everyone in society, and once they had the legislation ready, nicolas sarkozy, who is now the president of france but was then

the interior -- minister of the interior travel to meeled to met the ok from an influential shake in egypt. that might account as an eye opening moment. that everyone knew it would take a lot of effort to emigrate immigrants. everyone knew it would take a lot of money, but the idea that it would involve certain sacrifices of rights is something that has become clear to me over time. >> if you live in france and your muslim, can you wear a veil? >> you could wear in public.

this law affected only government buildings. it goes back to what we're talking about this idea of citizenship for everyone is supposed to be equal. the french has always felt a great deal of liberty -- has always taken a lot of liberty and sank you have to do this exact same way. it is consistent with the french, republican tradition even though it is the removal of liberties. the same thing came up in hospitals. you are not allowed in french hospital to say i prefer a doctor of my own sex. there is agitation canal in france, much of it pushed forward by nicolas sarkozy to get rid of the total head covering.

some writers have pointed out that they're talking about the total cover that has just a slip for the s. -- that has just a slit for the eyes. >> in europe, what has happened since the borders came down? >> that is a big part of my story. this book goes at this problem through every conceivable angle. one of the more important ones is the european union. this was started as a group of six countries in the 1950's and has gotten bigger and bigger. there are no longer any passport controls in europe. when you are in europe, you

could go anywhere you want. >> to the 25 countries? >> there is still some restrictions on the 10 new 412 new european countries. -- that 10 new or the 12 new european countries. there is freedom of movement within the european union, but due to popular outcry, all of the european countries have kept control over their own national immigration policies. soever when guards his own door on the outer world, -- so everyone guards his open door of the algor world. what has happened is you tended to get immigrants coming to whatever country happens to be lax thithe most laxed, and to s.

it is a question partly of border controls, but more of which country has been the softer touch in terms of accepting stories for political asylum. forlani time -- for a long time those countries where the northern european countries we have had a strong reaction against immigration in the past decade. in more recent years it has been spain. spain gave an amnesty to 800,000 undocumented immigrants about five years ago that was only the

latest of many such things. a lot of spain's nabors complaint -- neighbors complained that what the minister -- president was doing by giving these people european citizenships, they're inviting them to go to other european countries that have more generous welfare states. i should say that the european union has decided there is going to be a common european immigration policy of some sort and another year, according to projections, but it is not in place yet. >> "immigration is americanization." what does this mean? >> i started this book thinking

-- describing america as a nation of immigrants is kind of a cliche. i realize it is a very profound thing. to be a nation of immigrants, to think of yourself as a nation of immigrants is to surrender a certain amount of control over what your country is going to be like as time develops. you in that living in this country realize -- and you and i living in this country realize that our country will be shaped largely by the people that are yet to come this country for all its greatness has a greatness that dress. europeans think as their country as permanent things.

they think other countries as things that do not drift. if they want to persist with immigration, they will have to get used to surrender in a little bit of control over their future. -- to surrender ring a little bit of control over their future. -- to surrendering a little bit of control over their future. this tends to go with other phenomena, like women's rights and the spread of human rights, all of which are part of an american-style indictment. to go after the trouble you have done -- >> after all of the

travel you have done, if you had to pick a country you live in -- what do you think is the best environment? >> for the things i'd like -- to someone in massachusetts, the netherlands is a very pleasant country. it has a colonist heritage -- colonist heritage, but there is a tendency to push every social experiment to its illogical conclusion, but there is a certain citizen involvement in politics and certain frankness about the netherlands that i

found attractive. >> you see in europe racism is a terrible problem -- you say in europe racism is a terrible problem. go back to the population decline. how significant is it going to be? to kotte repeated -- >> their european demographic decline is very significant. this goes back to the 1930's. europeans are very uncomfortable approaching this topic, but it does provide -- it is an

indispensable factual basis for understanding what is going on in europe right now. it gets discuss a lot. the average woman will have 2.1 children to replace the population, to keep the population at the same size. if the average woman does not, the population shrinks. i looked at work of the demographers who pointed out that when you get down to 1.8, the population is really shrinking. it means that at the end of this century but you have a country that is only two-thirds the size -- but when you get down to the level that europeans at, then the population released terrorists imploding -- really

starts imploding. you will fall down to a quarter of your population in this century. at that point, if you want to keep your institutions going, if you want to keep your buildings and repair, your parks open, if you want to keep cities from turning into ghost towns, then you need immigration. my argument about this is a little bit nuanced. i would say europe did not have the need for this population replacement emigration when mass emigration began, but now i would say it does face the choice between keeping its population of the same in

keeping its institutions the same. >> what is the birth rate among white europeans versus the muslim, african, and turks and all of that? >> that is generally it difficult number to find. in general, immigrant birth rates are above those of natives. it varies from country to country. emigrant birth rates converge towards those of natives over time as a assimilate. -- immigrant birth rates converge towards those of natives over time as they assimilate. one need not be unhappy about this and read too much into it and need not be a calamity, but you are in a situation now where

the percentage of the population that comes from -- that has its roots and immigration will grow in europe, even if not another democrat sets foot in europe. >> you mentioned that europeans are and interested in paying for their defense. -- are uninterested in paying for their defense. >> i did not go into that too much in the book. the cost of keeping troops in europe is not really what i am talking about. the american defense guarantee i think has freed up a lot of european energies and government resources for other things. i think i wrote that in the context of the desire that i

mentioned for a little bit more european independence from the united states. they will have to be self- sufficient before they can have that. >> 20 years ahead. what will europe look like? will we still have american soldiers over there? >> in general, i am very reluctant to predict the future. this is very dependent on policy and mentalities. if you were predicting what would be the nature of ethnic relations in the united states in 1965, at the time of the passage of the civil rights act, some people would say it would get worse in some people would

say better. i would say 10 years later the people who said it would get worse what appeared to get right. 20 years later the people is that it would get better would be right. -- the people that said it would get better would be right. one thing that seems clear is that europe is heading in a more restrictive direction in terms of immigration policy. you mentioned in the context of race. one of the big problems that europe has is their immigration problem is the race problem. >> we have immigration on one hand and race on the other. therey are two mostly separate issues. you can suggest changes in immigration policy without being

accused of bigotry. the people who want the change in european immigration policy are almost routinely accused of bigotry over the last 10 years i think that is changing now. i think that you see the growth of an attitude among mainstream politicians that europe should be able to set what ever immigration policies it likes, as any of vern -- as any sovereign state would. >> you have written 20 years of your life. how would you rate that experience compared to the many articles that you wrote? >> i really love the big process of synthesis involved in writing

a book. i find it much harder than writing articles, because when i wrote my book i did not want it to be just like a collection of articles masquerading as a book. i think this book has a real art to the argument as an article would. i find that in writing a book, every single step takes twice as long as you think it is going to do. i have really enjoyed the process of writing it. >> christopher caldwell, we thank you very much for joining us. >> a thank you. -- thank you.

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the commission on wartime contract thing in iraq and afghanistan holds an oversight hearing. our live coverage begins at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. >> steve israel on how he uses communication to update his constituents. too good this morning we will stop -- >> this morning we will talk with neil king. we will also talk with chuck hawkins. in a couple of hours, gary candler chairman of the commodity futures trading commission discusses the collapse of lehman brothers.