At the root of such appeals is an awareness that Europeans are unlikely to simply find or come up with another culture or a better culture. And also an acknowledgement that modern Europeans from school upwards are currently doing a very poor job of celebrating a culture that has nurtured believers and doubters of previous generations and may nurture believers and doubters in this generation too. A growing number of both believers and non-believers have begun to realise that during the potentially huge upheavals in the years ahead it will not be enough to face them by first stripping ourselves absolutely bare. That practice is of course a particular part of the French tradition and the reason why when the country seeks to circumscribe the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, or burka, it has to excuse it by circumscribing the wearing of Jewish and Christian symbols as well. While many people will see the sense in this, it also risks a game of strip-poker in which you begin stripped down to nothing whereas your opposite number has come fully clothed. It is possible that Islamic radicals will remain in France despite the ban on the wearing of the headscarf in certain public buildings while it is also possible that Jews – caught between the Islamists and the stricter secularisation they have provoked – will leave. Neither would be a desirable outcome.

If the culture that shaped Western Europe has no part in its future, then there are other cultures and traditions that will surely step in to take its place. To re-inject our own culture with some sense of a deeper purpose need not be a proselytising mission, but simply an aspiration of which we should be aware. Of course, it is always possible that the tide of faith that began its long, withdrawing roar of retreat in the nineteenth century will come back in again. But whether it does or not a mending of the culture will be impossible if the religious think that those who have split off from the same tree are their greatest problem, while those on the secular branch try to saw themselves off from the tree as a whole. Many people can sense the pain of that separation and the resulting want of meaning that arises from the shallows. A split has occurred in our culture that it will take the work of a generation to mend.

19. What will be

19

What will be