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WILL EURABIA MODERNIZE ISLAM?
I find this article so weird,on so many levels. In Australia 80% of "refugees" are still on welfare 10 years after they arrive here. So how are they a lifeline to rescue the locals? Why will they be able to turn things around and do what the natives canât? If anything, they will accelerate the downfall of Western Civilisation, so keep them out. Europe has gone through many increases and decreases in population over the last five hundred years, and they have never needed Islam to rescue them. For an article on why the doomsayers are wrong, see thisThe forecast isnât all grim. Thereâs little doubt that Europe, including Britain, will fundamentally change during the next 50 years. But if it turns into what some commentators are calling "Eurabia," the change wonât necessarily mean the end of Western civilization. It need not mean regression to the Dark Ages, the theocratization of secular democracy, or the Islamicization of Christianity. On the contrary, it might bring about the much-needed modernization of Islam.
Nativist politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, the late Pim Fortuyn in Holland, or commentators like Oriana Fallaci in Italy, may continue to be in the news, increase their following and even score valid points, but theyâll be butting their heads against a demographic stone wall. Even with continuing immigration, Europeâs taxpayers can only look forward to their steeply increasing taxes buying them steeply decreasing services. Without immigration, one EU taxpayer would soon have to support four or five EU pensioners -- or watch his parents build their last igloo, European-style. Continuing immigration, though, will likely lead to Eurabia. Immigrants tend to respond to their own demographic pressures, and Europeâs fastest growing neighbours today are -- to quote Niall Ferguson again -- "predominantly if not wholly Muslim." The question is, what will Eurabia lead to? The past is a good (though not infallible) guide to the future. European nations turned their essentially homogenous countries to U.S.-style immigrant societies after the Second World War for several reasons, one being the aftermath of empire. The law of unintended consequences caught up with Britain, France, Holland and Belgium. Their face-saving fictions -- such as "commonwealth" or "metropolitan France" -- obliged these ex-colonial powers to accommodate a reverse population flow from troubled or depressed regions of their former possessions. The trickle became a flood in the early 1960s as immigrants from North Africa, the Caribbean or the Spice Islands inundated the home countries, giving politicians like Enoch Powell grey hair. Another reason applied especially to countries like Germany that needed guest workers as their booming post-war economies quickly outpaced their decimated post-war labour forces. The guest workersâ own reason was that European societies -- even East European societies, after the Soviet collapse --were more attractive in terms of economic opportunities and social benefits, to say nothing of human securities and freedoms, than the prospective immigrantsâ native societies. A final reason, no less important than the others, had to do with changing attitudes. Europeans started accepting immigrants for they had been dazzled by the American melting pot. In the euphoria that followed post-war prosperity, the seeming triumph of rationality and liberal ideals, people in Europe momentarily lost their fear of demographic realities along with many older concerns of the human condition, from scarcity to salvation. Many felt that such ancient quandaries were left buried under the rubble of empire, leaving them free to concentrate on individual self-realization, or new preoccupations from gender-equality to the environment. In practical terms, in addition to welcoming (or at least permitting) newcomers from such unfashionable addresses as Turkey or Algiers, Europeans expressed their new-found spirit of self-confidence by a) going to church less often; and b) having fewer babies. Both activities were replaced by driving more BMWs for longer distances on wider highways and (contradictory as this may seem) organizing more ecological conferences in stylish resorts. Nature is said to abhor a vacuum. Itâs hardly surprising that the vacuum left by Europeans in fecundity as well as in religiosity was filled by the Muslim immigrants within four to five decades. In another 50 years mosques may outnumber churches in what by then will be Eurabia -- and, more importantly, believers may outnumber unbelievers. While there are more Christians than Muslims in the world -- about two billion as opposed to 1.3 billion -- nominal Christians far outnumber nominal Muslims. When only luxury cars increase and multiply in a region, the demographic outcome isnât in doubt. What remains in doubt is what the demographic outcome might mean. Europe Islamicized may resemble the four young British Muslims in David Cohenâs Terror on the Dole, a news story recently published in the Evening Standard. The four eat chips with brown sauce while hoping that "Sheikh bin Laden" will bomb London ("I pray for it, I look forward to the day.") Other British Muslims in the same story dismiss such talk as "verbal diarrhea." Influences work both ways. China was never conquered because it Sinofied immigrants as well as invaders. Will Eurabia be the crucible of Islamâs progression from the Middle Ages to the 21st century? I donât know, but just asking the question makes me feel better. Posted by: tipper 2004-04-27 |
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