Is it demography?
In a very interesting and wide ranging article entitled, "It's the demography, stupid," Mark Steyn concludes that Western liberal democracy as we know it is doomed to be swept away, not by Islamist attacks, but by immigrants from within. Here is the source of the original article that I highly recommend (thanks to Zeev Silverman for drawing this article to my attention) http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760 - but since it is a very long article I summarize its main conclusions here:
1. The birthrate in many Western democracies is so low that it is way below the replacement rate (2.1 children per couple) and so the native populations of these societies are in decline, and to ensure the population required for efficient working of these societies it is necessary to import cheap labor from the underdeveloped world. For example, Belgium has the lowest birthrate 1.3 children per couple!
2. The liberal PC attitudes of the secular majority has blinded them to the fact that there are many enemies of liberal democracy that are entering their countries, and that the harm that they intend to do to the very fabric of these societies is not recognized and is not being fought. For example, in the UK, each weekend more people go to Mosque than to Church.
3. That liberal immigration policies has allowed these countries to be virtually overwhelmed by foreign and particularly Muslim immigrants. For example, in Belgium and Holland the situation is dire, with 20-30% of the population already Muslim. In Europe as a whole the population of Muslims has grown to 30 million in a decade!!
This leads to the prediction that the EU will become EUrabia within 20-50 years and now there is almost no way to prevent it. In the US, the current situation is not as bad, but going in the same direction.
However, there are two major difficulties I see with his argument. First, everything in his argument depends on quantity (i.e. demographics), but what about quality? One thing Israel has shown over and over again is that in the modern world quality will beat quantity every time! It used to be possible to overwhelm another nation by waves of human sacrifices (Germany and Russia did this), but with technological weapons the situation changed drastically. Now not only are the soldiers considered to be individuals (this was one difference that Gen. Montgomery who fought in WWI and WWII noted) but they have to be able to read the instructions on their weapons and use them accordingly.
Second, this kind of scary "foreign wave" has been a feature of Western society since time immemorial. It used to be the "foreign Jews" who would take over and control society. Then there was the "Yellow Peril," the Chinese and/or Japanese wave overtaking the West. Then it was the Fascists (nearly did) and the Communists (they tried hard). And now we have the Islamists. Well, most Muslims are in fact quiet, well-behaved members of their societies, who like the Blacks want nothing more than to be like the whites. Certainly there are many wealthy Muslims who can buy skyscrapers (instead of destroying them), but there are also many wealthy Westerners. In the long term, an equilibrium between western and immigrant populations will be reached, and it may have no effect whatsoever on the prevalent secular society, that everyone is clamoring to join. In fact, California is now more than 50% "minority" (i.e. Hispanic and Black), yet its basic culture has not changed during that transition!
1. The birthrate in many Western democracies is so low that it is way below the replacement rate (2.1 children per couple) and so the native populations of these societies are in decline, and to ensure the population required for efficient working of these societies it is necessary to import cheap labor from the underdeveloped world. For example, Belgium has the lowest birthrate 1.3 children per couple!
2. The liberal PC attitudes of the secular majority has blinded them to the fact that there are many enemies of liberal democracy that are entering their countries, and that the harm that they intend to do to the very fabric of these societies is not recognized and is not being fought. For example, in the UK, each weekend more people go to Mosque than to Church.
3. That liberal immigration policies has allowed these countries to be virtually overwhelmed by foreign and particularly Muslim immigrants. For example, in Belgium and Holland the situation is dire, with 20-30% of the population already Muslim. In Europe as a whole the population of Muslims has grown to 30 million in a decade!!
This leads to the prediction that the EU will become EUrabia within 20-50 years and now there is almost no way to prevent it. In the US, the current situation is not as bad, but going in the same direction.
However, there are two major difficulties I see with his argument. First, everything in his argument depends on quantity (i.e. demographics), but what about quality? One thing Israel has shown over and over again is that in the modern world quality will beat quantity every time! It used to be possible to overwhelm another nation by waves of human sacrifices (Germany and Russia did this), but with technological weapons the situation changed drastically. Now not only are the soldiers considered to be individuals (this was one difference that Gen. Montgomery who fought in WWI and WWII noted) but they have to be able to read the instructions on their weapons and use them accordingly.
Second, this kind of scary "foreign wave" has been a feature of Western society since time immemorial. It used to be the "foreign Jews" who would take over and control society. Then there was the "Yellow Peril," the Chinese and/or Japanese wave overtaking the West. Then it was the Fascists (nearly did) and the Communists (they tried hard). And now we have the Islamists. Well, most Muslims are in fact quiet, well-behaved members of their societies, who like the Blacks want nothing more than to be like the whites. Certainly there are many wealthy Muslims who can buy skyscrapers (instead of destroying them), but there are also many wealthy Westerners. In the long term, an equilibrium between western and immigrant populations will be reached, and it may have no effect whatsoever on the prevalent secular society, that everyone is clamoring to join. In fact, California is now more than 50% "minority" (i.e. Hispanic and Black), yet its basic culture has not changed during that transition!
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:19 AM
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