Mark Steyn is, as so often in the last years, claiming yet again that the future belongs to Islam.
Point is, demographics aren’t quite as decisive as they used to be, and large, uneducted masses are mostly a danger to themselves nowadays. Not to mention the fact that there only are 15 million Muslims in all of Europe and that their birthrates also aren’t all that high in several countries. German Muslims have a birthrate below replacement level, at about 1.8 babies per woman, and it is rapidly declining even further. The danger of substantial Muslim immigration also is very slim. Our expulsion policies towards Third World immigrants already are inhumane in their draconian harshness, and they are only going to get harsher over time. ‘Our’ Muslims also aren’t a monolithic mass. Especially in Germany we have a lot of Alevites, whom ‘mainstream’ Muslims consider heretics. There is no way that the Alevites make common cause with the more conventional Muslims whom they in return see as a threat to themselves.
As to age structure: The relative proportion of young people is higher than in the ‘native’ populations, but in absolute terms the ‘native’ still have hands down more young people of fighting age, as well as the weapons and all the other stuff that is needed to keep the barbarians at bay. And we will do that, and more, once we feel seriously threatened. Most Europeans so far simply don’t, and there is no concrete danger you could point to, except in some French and Belgian cities. And the Muslim ‘youths’ wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes if they ever tried that crap on French farmers, rather than the urban types, so those specific problems will stay localized.
Mark Steyn is a smart fellow, but when he goes on and on about demographics he is reminding me of the statisticians who claimed in the 1850s that by 1910 the streets of New York would be covered with four feet of horse manure. They couldn’t have foreseen the motorcar. Steyn’s arguments aren’t quite like that, more like that of one of those statisticians who’d refuse to change his opinion even after the invention of the motorcar. He simply isn’t thinking outside of the box. Demographics isn’t what it used to be, the more populous country or ethic group doesn’t win automatically anymore, not for decades in fact. Such a large population would have to invest a lot of time and money into the education and training of its young, and as it happens Islam does exactly the opposite. If there ever are serious conflicts betwen ‘native’ Europeans and Muslim immigrants, the Muslims won’t have a chance.
You have a point about the demographics, and Germany may be improving, but don’t forget most of the 911 attackers came out of a Munich Mosque.
“large, uneducted masses are mostly a danger to themselves nowadays”…in a democracy that has a reasonably direct path to citizenship, they also vote, and thus influence everyone else’s future, not just their own.
“If there ever are serious conflicts betwen ‘native’ Europeans and Muslim immigrants, the Muslims won’t have a chance.”
But I think one of Steyn’s points is that, under current circumstances, it wont’ come down to conflict. He believes that Europe, under the collective weight of multi-culturalism and post-colonial guilt, has lost the will to fight. (I may be mischaracterizing his views, but I don’t think so.)
I think Steyn would probably agree with your take and the big reason he his hammering on this is to help wake up Europe to the threat so it can act before it’s too late.
“Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.”
Numbers don’t seem to mean much in modern warfare, except insofar as they provide additional targets. The only way the Islamic fascists can win is if the Europeans don’t fight. With history as my guide, I say they will fight.
All it will take is some sort of trigger. Killing Theo van Gogh didn’t do it; blowing up commuters in Madrid and London didn’t do it. What will it take? I don’t know, but experience tells me that they will do whatever is necessary to bring disaster upon themselves. They simply cannot resist the chance to make a gesture. The Palestinians rejected the best offer they had ever had or will ever see again. The Taliban refused to consider violating the customs of hospitality by surrendering their “guest.” Saddam decided to treat an ultimatum from the US as an initial negotiating position. It remains to be seen how quickly the Iraqi appetite for mutual slaughter will exhaust American patience. Iran is just begging for a chance to become the world’s largest source of trinitrite. We are about to see what happens when a culture with an almost limitless capacity for symbolic, ritual violence comes up against a culture with an almost limitless capacity for the real thing. We saw this in the US when the mock-chivalric knights of the South went to war against the grim, prosaic industrial massed forces of the North.
Whatever it takes, however long it takes, I’m afraid there will be a war forced upon Europe. And when it is over, the Europeans will once more look at the devastation and ask “What have we done?”
“We are about to see what happens when a culture with an almost limitless capacity for symbolic, ritual violence comes up against a culture with an almost limitless capacity for the real thing.”
Nicely put.
Mitch,
But the 68 cent question Mr Steyn raises is that in “soft Europe” (softer than soft America?) does that culture retain the “limitless capacity for the real thing”?
A question for the rest, does anyone have any idea why those demographics experts call population “growth rates” below 1.3 “non-recoverable”?
While I agree with a good deal of that Ralf, I have my doubts about your estimate of French farmers. They are seriously overfed, oversubsidized and have had the government surrendering to them on numerous occasions. I am not sure they would be able to fight anyone who really went for them, though, undoubtedly they will happily throw barricades across roads in order to get something out of the government.
Interesting post. I have heard that most Muslims in Germany (Turks in the main I image) are not actually citizens, but rather “guest workers”. Meaning that they could be readily removed from the country within the existing legal framework, if that proved necessary. (I imagine that the guest workers’ children are also of that same status even if born in Germany?) That’s gives Germany a big advantage over Holland and France in this respect.
Germany has recently changed the laws of citizenship, I believe. I cannot understand why depriving people who have worked in a country, paid their taxes, obeyed the laws of the rights of citizenship for several generations is somehow an advantage. Creating a whole sector that is for ever second class is not considered to be an advantage normally.
Assuming Goergens intended to say ‘uneducated’ as opposed to ‘uneducted’, several of his arguments do not fully address the Steyn position.
First, the owners of cars and buses in France, not to mention their insurance companies may a different view of any danger attributed to th eMuslim population. While the German Muslim birthrate is ‘low’ and falling (evidence?) the Muslim birthrates in France, Spain, Italy and other EU countries where assimilation is not occuring are nearly double of the host countries. Combined with Wahhabists direction to go forth and multiply the problem will only increase.
Radical Muslims do not want peaceful coexistence with infidels. Convert or else is their mantra.
“Creating a whole sector that is for ever second class is not considered to be an advantage normally.”
Normally that would be true of course, but are Muslim immigrants “normal”?
The Muslims are not just fighting the West and Isreal. They are fighting everyone. This includes the Hindus, the Buddists, the Athiests, and the Heathens.
Better yet, they are fighting progress. They are fighting Women, Technology, Economics, and the Environment. They are trying to over come the effects of longevity, declining infant mortality, and improved education levels. They are fighting pornography, alcohol, Gays and television.
We will win. No Doubt about it.