One gets this attitude in Israel (which faces similar demographic pressures which are far, far more acute) a lot: "You think we're going down? No, we're all going down". It's a bit of a defense mechanism; if everyone is going down, one can be fatalistic, and say to oneself that it doesn't matter what one does.
Isn't demographics the main reason that Sharon is going through with the Gaza pullout? Ie that because Gaza has one of the highest birthrates in the world, and is growing at nearly 4% annually, getting out puts off the day when Arabs outnumber Jews in the space between thg Jordan and the Med?
The recent contrarian demographic analysis, suggesting large-scale emigration and an unreported drop in the Palestinian birth rate, seems to have some points in its favour.
Most Americans (and the overwhelming majority of conservative ideologues) are descended from European immigrants, and why these people want their ancestral lands to suffer is simply beyond me.
My first thought is that it's because they all left those lands, often poor or ideologically alienated. The collapse of Europe would be an affirmation of their immigrant ancestors' decision.
Yeah, that's certainly true.
Actually, another thing that I've just thought of. Does anyone know of any reliable statistics for mosque attendance in Britain? Because, for his point on 'mosque attendance overtaking church (of england) attendance)' I was trying to find the facts on that and all I could find were comments from various boosterish Muslim types and I generally take the word of missionaries on their level of success with a pinch of salt. According to the last census the Muslim population of England and Wales is about 3% (and considering the monolithic whiteness of Scotland and Northern Ireland, the rates there are undoubtedly much lower than even that low rate) which would make the Muslim population of the UK somewhere between 1.6 and 1.9 million, adjusting for the fact that some Muslims didn't disclose their religion and for illegal immigrants.
Now, I remember reading an article in The Times about an attendance revival
(continued)
Now, I remember reading an article in The Times about an attendance revival in the Church of England that had pushed average weekly attendance back over 1 million again, but I can't seem to find it. But if CofE attendance is over 1 million that means that between 53-63% (depending on whether you use a low or high estimate of the size of the Muslim population) of Muslims in the UK need to be showing up to the mosque in the average week. Not impossible, sure, but I do remember reading much lower attendance rate stats for Muslim communities in France and Germany (of course there are significant ethnic differences in the composition of Muslim communities in different European nations).
So, basically, I guess we need more data on this question. Does anyone know any reliable sources on this?
According to this rather badly written article, this academic has found a 63% mosque attendance rate among UK Muslims.
The article also assumes a C of E total of just 916,000, compared to the more usual 1-1.3 million.
(BTW, you may be amused to learn of Mr Steyn's recent victory in the prestigious Canada's Biggest Asshole awards).
Hah, that doesn't surprise me. I guess greed will do many things, but Steyn must feel a bit weird at times being such a shill for the most paranoid and agressive form of American nationalism.
Thanks for the link. I'll include that in an update to this post.
The recent contrarian demographic analysis, suggesting large-scale emigration and an unreported drop in the Palestinian birth rate, seems to have some points in its favour.
Randy, when you say large-scale emigration do you mean of Palestinians? I know that Israel, also, has recently had a net loss of Jews in migration terms (althought the Jewish population is growing due to reasonably high fertility). I'll need to find it, but I read something recently that suggested that Lebanon has a much smaller Palestinian population than generally assumed because of high emigration to Europe.
Emigration of Palestinians, yes--the survey that said not 3.8 but 2.4 million people lived in the Palestinian territories. I was at first suspicious of it (not least because of the way it was presented) but certain points (poor registration of births, unrecorded emigration) do ring plausible.
A better reason for the American-wingnut contingent wishing ill on Europe is that the European blend of capitalism and social democracy represent a direct and major threat to America's prestige by presenting a working and, in many respects, better alternative to laissez faire capitalism/corporate oligarchy.
They deliver better results to the average citizen of their countries. THAT is something the wingnuts cannot deal with, and therefore something they gloss over by trying to paint Europe as doomed.
I'd not call it 25 years, 50 is more reasonable. In 50 years 40% of the population in Europe will be muslim if not more. If you don't think that will be an issue; and will become a major voting block as time goes on then you are living in a myopic world. The biggest thing you've forgotten in your calcuations is plummeting birth rates *among* Europeans. In 25 years, I've read that the current non-muslim population will be between 50% and 68% retired if not moving on(out of their countries, or simply living off the system) and no longer interested in politics.
Unlike the west, and our post reformation--we told our religious leaders to stuff for the most part when we goto the ballet box and vote on what we feel or reason out. Not so with the pandering masses and their imams.
Some of us people at LGF really don't care, it's Europe's problem to deal with. Myself, I figure they'll have their own little tribal conflicts over past histories caused by the EU falling a-part.
Ofcourse in that case, it may cause the European birth rates to go through the roof and they'll see a new era of prosperity when they recover...if they don't nearly wipe out western civilization for a third time.
I linked to an earlier couple of posts of mine about fertility (go back to the two links where I've written 'Europe has a serious demographic problem'), so it's not something I am unaware of. However, you must remember that it is very sketchy territory making demographic prohections 50 years into the future. 20, even 10 really, is about the best limit. Already there are a couple of things in motion that I see as having a slowing effect on the growth of the Muslim population.
1. Stricter asylum and immigration laws, as introduced in recent years in quite a few European countries (including limits on bringing in marriage partners from other countries). Much of the current British election campaign is being fought on who can be toughest on immigration. Populist anti-immigration rhetoric is increasingly part-and-parcel of the political scene pretty much across Europe. I also wouldn't be surprised if, as anti-Islamic feeling grows, more immigration isn't sourced from other areas of
(continued) I also wouldn't be surprised if, as anti-Islamic feeling grows, more immigration isn't sourced from other areas of the world.
2. Decreasing fertility rates in many of the sender countries as well as in immigrant communities themselves. Turkey and the Maghreb countries have seen a sharp drop in their fertility rates in the last couple decades, and even rates in much of the Middle East are dropping (especially in Iran). Fertility rates among indigenous populations in Europe seem to have stabilized (albeit at a low level) while those of Muslim immigrant groups, while still relatively high, are continuing to drop.
You should also remember that a lot of Europe's immigrants are non-Muslim. For instance, Muslims are a minority of the immigrant/ethnic minority population of Britain.
Do you have a source for that 'in 25 years 50% of Europe's non-Muslim population will be retired' figure? That seems very suspicious.
I'm googling for more info, but I would remind you that you are assuming, in common with you other assumptions, that the current social systems of the various European nations, will remain in place indefinitely.
Ok, I found this page which has a table for percentages of the over-60's in various European countries projected through to 2050. The highest rate is projected to be in Spain at 44%, which is quite high, but is not the retirement age. But if that is the highest rate in Europe, then surely that tells its own story?
Good stuff here. Let me point out another fallacy in the wingnuts "logic", apart from playing with numbers and seeing everything like it was a videogame battle: they equate demographics with the threat of upheaval of existing political, legal and social institutions. Classic fascist mentality. Encouraging higher birthrates of the supposed select, "pure", dominant ethnic group was a propaganda tool of Hitler and Mussolini, and the same message is being reiterated by the far right (Le Pen, Haider, BNP, Northern League, etc.). Maybe that's also why Europeans tend to be sick of those arguments, no? Does that thought ever cross the poor wingnuts' head? Sometimes I think an experience of dictatorship in your recent history gives you at least a little bit more immunity to that kind of thinking. Oh, and besides the fascist tone of those demographic arguments, has anyone noticed the implicit mysoginy. As if it wasn't a GOOD thing that women have more options than stay home and produce 4
(cont.) as if it wasn't a GOOD thing that women have more options than stay home and produce 4 to 12 children each as in my great-grandma's times, in rural areas where children were a workforce and started working at 8. That was a not insignificant part of Europe not too long ago. But back to the demographics/destruction equation: how could even a theoretical majority of Muslim immigrants who, hypothetically, we'd have to assume were ALL fundamentalist crazies, simply remove all EU and national institutions and replace them with total theocracy and shariah? That's more than a fantasy game, that's like saying that the reason Saudi Arabia is Saudi Arabia is because of Muslim demographics, rather than because it never had modern legal, political and social institutions in the first place. So that by simply playing the demographics fantasy game, we can transform Europe into Saudi Arabia, without actually bothering to consider how . Simply by virtue of a Muslim presence.
Lastly. Thi
(last bit) Lastly. This game is cleary a defense mechanism for American wingnuts in particular (though Euro wingnuts play it too, see again far right and Fallaci and so on, but then they just want to carve out their little niches of votes and book sales) and not just for the reason Paul Drye said. There's a curious omission from these usual doom games about Europe and its Muslims citizens or immigrants: the presence of Muslims citizens or immigrants in the US. Including, problems with the fundamentalist strain therein. It's funny to see all the energy wingnuts pour into bashing French-style secularism and obsessing over the decrease in attendance of Christian churches in Europe and then, they end up sounding exactly like the neofascists in Europe. And when you mention that Israel recognises both rabbinic and Islamic courts for matters of family law (shariah!!! oh god help us!!!), then the only thing they're left with is, "oh Israel is doomed too", Israel, just a second before tout
(very last bit...) ... Israel, just a second before touted as the Ideal Right Wing governed nation that knows how to stick it up to Arabs, suddenly becomes another "wimp" in the eyes of the Wingnut.
These people are sick pathetic neofascist nuts, that's all. That's all that can be honestly said. You can tiptoe around definitions in so many ways but that's what it comes down to.
One last thing actually - it's true, much of immigration isn't even Muslim, yet the anti-immigration far right use that Muslim-hating paranoia to argue against all immigration. Some of the biggest groups of people speaking non-European languages in Europe include Hispanics, people from Latin America; then there's Eastern Europeans and Russians; Chinese native speakers; and then Arab native speakers, Africans, and then people from different Asian countries. Can we please have a doom scenario where Hispanics and Chinese and Russians overthrow the political and social order in Europe purely by virtue of demographics? It'd be a fun alternative!
You idiot. Spanish, Russian, Polish, Romanian etc. etc. etc. are EUROPEAN languages. Geez even school children know that here in Mexico.
Well, shoot me, I used the wrong definition. I had in mind a recent article with statistics about linguistic communities in Milan, Italy. Substitute "non-european" with foreign as in, foreign to that place where that survey was made, doh... Should have mentioned that it was that specific instead of generalising about Europe, that's where the "non-european" idiot blunder came from. The biggest linguistic community in Milan according to the survey was Spanish speakers from Latin America. I'm from Argentina myself, and live in Rome. So yeah well. Point still stands, the people who are anti-immigration use Muslims for the doom scenario and don't even bother with actual composition of recent immigration.
The pushed age for retirement in Europe is 50(in line with the constitution and workers rights ammendments).
They are ofcourse trying to change it now realizing the shorsightedness of this. It's only a nasty downward spiral.
" The pushed age for retirement in Europe is 50(in line with the constitution and workers rights ammendments)."
You should really break this news to the poor deluded Europeans who keep being told to come into work after their 50th birthdays.
Where do you people get this rubbish?
http://www.globalaging.org/
elder...eretirement.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/11.../uk/
1169821.stm
If only we were able to retire at 50. I sure wouldn't call that a nasty downward spiral.
Some people must be so envious of countries where you get a little bit more paid holidays and a little bit more health care, they start hallucinating about things like retiring at 50.
Reality is, the only doom scenario Europe is more likely to face is, becoming more like America. But that's too boring, so let's have more of the Eurabia talk, please.
To "anonymous":
The problem is that the welfare state depends on the number of working people being significantly larger than the number of non-working people. Concern for demographics is not in itself "fascist." European welfare states will not have enough young workers paying into their systems to protect the elderly non-working. Neither will the US social security scheme. What solutions do you propose? Tarring Americans as "sick neofascist nuts" won't cut it. And do you really think that immigrants to Europe, whatever their origin, are coming so that they can support you in your old age? If you tax them to death, they will stop coming.
Immigrants into european countries contribute to tax revenues just like any other workers. Emigrants go other countries to better themselves and get access to greater opportunity. They are currently more than happy to go to supposed high-tax countries such as Sweden, so your theory doesn't really hold water.
No system is without problems if the 'number of working people is significantly larger than the number of non-working people'. That isn't something Socialism/Capitalism/Social-Democracy systems can be held accountable for, nor provide a panacea for. If it's a problem for the 'welfare state' then it's an equal problem for a system without state administered social supports.
It's a classic mote/beam situation.
When a Dutch filmmaker was murdered by a Muslim fanatic, the right-wing élite went berserk. The Dutch 9/11! Eurabia! Dhimmis! etc.
When an American judge's husband and mother were murdered: crickets. Even though there's strong evidence that the murders were committed by anti-Semitic white supremacist terrorists. Even though a judge is arguably even MORE of a political target than a movie director.
Very good post. I was not aware of the kind of stuff neocons say about UE. I'm french, and I happen to be a muslim. I'm not sure about the figures, but here we have approx. 10 % of the population that are considered "of muslim culture" (whatever that means). But recently a survey showed that the level of practice among the muslims tends to become more or less the same as in the rest of the population. France is mostly a secular country now. I guess about 15 % of the so-called muslims attend the mosque once a week. The attendance at church for the christians is roughly the same.
Thanks again.
As for the possible collapse of EU, that's another topic. I think Mr Steyn is totally wrong but who knows...
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