Birthrate and the Islamification of Europe

[West Virginia Mule]

Yesterday I finished reading a book by the Canadian author Mark Steyn (America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It) and, therein, he makes some extreme points concerning Islam and Europe. Basically, he's saying that the birthrates in Europe are flatlining, almost all below the replacement rate of 2.0, and that the Continent is self-inflicting its own extinction by not reproducing. No one is having children, he says, and the end result is a steady population drain which, when coupled with Europe's social programs, makes for too few young people in the workforce to support an aging populace in the widespread government entitlement programs.

Furthermore, Steyn says that Europeans believe they can supplement the lack of self-reproduction with immigrants, most of whom are from Muslim parts of the globe. The implication here being a dramatic demographic shift wherein the native populations of European countries are shrinking and the Muslim immigrants are flooding in, bringing with them no sense of identity other than that of Islam. The author states that since, a minority-turned-majority population of Muslims have no loyalty to anything other than Islam, that the Europe that was will be swallowed and a kind of Islamic European Union will rise in its place.

He makes arguments as to the nature of the spread of Islam, from a Euro population too suffocated by political correctness, apathy and what it believes is tolerance to preserve their own cultures, identities and history, to the more nefarious assertion that Islam is, in fact, willfully spreading itself across the West in an attempt to, ultimately, subvert all western culture to its will.

Since most of you are European, I was wondering what your opinions are on this, if any.

[t.a.j.]

The arguments has several problems, even though the reproductive rates cite are correct.
1) those reproductive rates include immigrant populations.
2) biological children are not automatically cultural children, a childhood in Europe is different from one in Arabia or Northern Africa e.g.
3) culture is always fluid and changing. European culture(s) changed a lot during the cold war, the West becoming strongly americanized. The notion that there is one European culture invaded by one Islamic culture is simply a misunderstanding of how culture works.

[Belgarion]

Furthermore, Steyn says that Europeans believe they can supplement the lack of self-reproduction with immigrants, most of whom are from Muslim parts of the globe

Not necessarily true. For example, the Italians constitute the largest immigrant minority in the German city I live.

The implication here being a dramatic demographic shift wherein the native populations of European countries are shrinking and the Muslim immigrants are flooding in, bringing with them no sense of identity other than that of Islam.

This is perhaps true for less than half of the muslim immigrants who just refuse to assimilate. But the other half is just trying to adapt and support their community pretty much like the locals. At this point, the differences are very minor.

The author states that since, a minority-turned-majority population of Muslims have no loyalty to anything other than Islam, that the Europe that was will be swallowed and a kind of Islamic European Union will rise in its place.

That's an exaggeration. Even in France and Germany, which host the largest immigrant populations in Europe, the ratio of immigrants ot ethnic Europeans are in the %5-10 range. A WW3 that will wipe out Europe in the next 100 years is more probable than the birth of an Islamic EU.

He makes arguments as to the nature of the spread of Islam, from a Euro population too suffocated by political correctness, apathy and what it believes is tolerance to preserve their own cultures, identities and history, to the more nefarious assertion that Islam is, in fact, willfully spreading itself across the West in an attempt to, ultimately, subvert all western culture to its will.

European politicians are not a bunch of fools that let the Muslims in just for the sake of humanity and they are certainly not apathetical to the concerns about the islamisation of their countries. Except it's not happening. It's not alarming. That's why the European laws regarding Muslim immigrants are not very tight. This can of course all change in the next 50 years.

In the meantime I'll keep my hopes up for the quick death of Abrahamic religions due to advancements in technology and science in the next 50 years.

[Joost]

Myth: Most immigration in the Netherlands is from Muslim countries.

I looked up some stats from CBS Statline, the statistics database of the Dutch government. The link shows the net migration (immigration - emigration ± corrections) by country of birth (so e.g. Polish-born people moving back to Poland are discounted). Making a list of the countries with the largest net migration (in 2011) I get:

Poland 11782
China 2875
Bulgaria 2492
Germany 1945
Russia 1870
Somalia 1504
Greece 1402
India 1376
Morocco 1129
Hungary 1122
Iran 1119
Belgium 1021

Out of the first twelve countries, only three with a Muslim majority and none amongst the first five.

Other than that, this whole anti-Islamic discourse is mosly rhetoric and has little basis in actual reality or statistics, IMO. With movements like the English Defence League, the Golden Dawn and Jobbik marching around in Europe's streets, it's also pretty dangerous if you ask me.

[Isis65]

European population tends to extinction?
Women's fault, instead of staying at home to churn out children,
they study and work, and have discovered that there are other ways to realize themself that family.
But I have to tell you that not only European women discovered it, in all countries where women have access to education and work the birth rate falls quickly, those who remain to make many children are the poors (of all religions).

Not necessarily true. For example, the Italians constitute the largest immigrant minority in the German city I live.

really strange...

(living here now it's only for old ones or for Berlusconi's fans...)

[Joost]

About reproduction rates of Muslims and non-Muslims: it looks like the difference in birth rates is in fact rapidly converging.



(green = 'Dutch', purple = 'non-Dutch')

At the moment, the birth rate of Turkish women is, at 1.7, already lower than that of Dutch women, at 1.8.

[Belgarion]

Now, that's interesting. I guess, it shows that the Turkish women of the current generation living in the Netherlands have at last closed the huge cultural gap, or at least much more than, say, 2 generations before them.

[Joost]

Partly/not entirely. There's still a strong identification with Islam amongst Turks and Moroccans, and recently there was some scare about a neighbourhood in The Hague, ominously called the "Sharia Triangle", after a report in a newspaper indicated that in that neighbourhood, where a lot of orthodox Muslims live, people might be trying to 'enforce' aspects of Sharia on the streets (the named issues were on the level of: reprimands on the streets against drinking, smoking, or wearing too sexy clothing). So there's still quite a way to go. And this is an extreme situation in a neighbourhood ended up being very segregated. But I think things in the Netherlands are, at least in this regard, moving into the right direction. (xenophobia is a worse problem here, imo)

[Belgarion]

Well, these kinds of religious morons enforcing their backwards, corrupt world views on others are not helping against xenophobia either. Average people easily fall into that trap, ending up stereotyping an entire people.

[Sleeping Dragon]

I hate it when backwards religious morons stereotype an entire people.

[t.a.j.]

I hate it when backwards religious morons stereotype an entire people.

*hugs*

[West Virginia Mule]

Thanks to those who responded seriously.

[End Of An Era]

Partly/not entirely. There's still a strong identification with Islam amongst Turks and Moroccans, and recently there was some scare about a neighbourhood in The Hague, ominously called the "Sharia Triangle", after a report in a newspaper indicated that in that neighbourhood, where a lot of orthodox Muslims live, people might be trying to 'enforce' aspects of Sharia on the streets (the named issues were on the level of: reprimands on the streets against drinking, smoking, or wearing too sexy clothing). So there's still quite a way to go. And this is an extreme situation in a neighbourhood ended up being very segregated. But I think things in the Netherlands are, at least in this regard, moving into the right direction. (xenophobia is a worse problem here, imo)

silly enough i often see that a negative state of mind such as xenophobia and/or intolerance supersedes any culture, religion or background if a common enemy is found

[t.a.j.]

The best way to think about these things, imho is to imagine a kind of cognitive module, the function of which it is to determine for any setting in which you may find yourself who is with you and who is against you. This module picks up hints and options from the environment, the way people look, talk, what they say, which names of groups and persons are spoken of well or badly and so on. Most of this happens subconsciously and appears to your consciousness as feelings of camaraderie or hostility, as well as "common sense" rationalizations ("all polish people are thieves").
See from above, that is looking at groups of people as a whole, the activity of these modules paint a picture of drawing front lines between groups. These front-line are shifting all the time and have to be (re)created at each interaction.

For example: two football fans, fans of different clubs might at a game feel camaraderie towards fellow club fans and have hostile feelings towards the fans of the other club. But when threatened in their identity as football fans by common talk about referee corruption, they might feel camaraderie towards the fans of other clubs and feel hostile towards people bad mouthing the sport.

[Lorn_Songster]

My 2 cents: Spain was ruled for a looooooooong period of time by muslim and we lived an era of economic and culture splendor. Every culture enrichs another we here have known it since forever, and never lost identity we are as spanish as always, before we called spanish (hispanic) by romans. Next is asian CULTURE taking over I guess, as wars for territory (Sepultura quote intended) are long over although some nationalists havent noticed yet.

[Snooz]

Mark Steyn is a freak. If such a maniac ever were to be in government I wouldn't hesitate to take up arms against it. The "holy war on muslim immigrants" is a disgrace for Western civilization and for common human dignity in general.
The supposed "islamification" is a ridiculous idea considering that only 30% of migrants arriving in Sweden come from islamic countries. And probably half of those belong to some christian minority. And their birthrates have already fallen below the native birthrate which is actually rising.

Or maybe Steyn's "counter-jihad" bullshit it's just a clever and sinister trick of rhetorics. He likes to talk about how many they are because everyone who joins in on that discussion automatically has conceded and agreed on the main message: that they are our enemy and must be dealt with.

Our in Steyn's own words: "if you cannot outbreed the enemy, cull 'em". How can anyone take such a man seriously? America is supposed to be the heart of the free world yet this piece of filth is a bestselling author there. The mind boggles.

This country is a democracy with self-respect. That means we will never declare some hundreds of thousands of innocent people as 2nd class citizens just because of some immigrant background they might have.
I have plenty of "muslim" names in my phonebook and have absolutely zero reason to dislike any of them. If that means I'm brainwashed by "politically-correct apathy" then so be it. I'm truly sad if this is a common view among north american conservatives today. Conservatives and libertarians in this country will remain focused on working for lower taxes and smaller government. We won't start to bully some ethnic or religious minority just to show how "tough and manly" we are. Let patethic faggots like Mark Steyn do that. I'd like to see him and his kind come here and try to "cull" our citizens.