Most of our readers are aware of Mark Steyn’s “Demography is Destiny” theme, which he has elaborated in much of his recent writing. Steyn thinks that low birth rates among Europeans, in particular, will inevitably lead to their replacement on the European continent by Muslims who are reproducing at a far faster rate. Steyn pursues the theme in today’s article in the Chicago Sun-Times, Quartet of Ladies Shows Where We’re Headed. He contrasts Fatma An-Najar, the 64-year-old Palestinian grandmother who became a suicide bomber, with Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church: <blockquote>An-Najar gave birth
Steyn’s right; Peter’s wrong. Europe has gone too far down the road of political correctness. It has lost the guts to save itself. My only hope is that America does not follow the same path and we make the necessary tough decisions. Common sense and reality mandate that we exercise the god given right of self preservation before we let the bad guys kill us all. This is a global war on western civilization. The enemy believes it is their duty to kill us all, lie whenever possible and subvert anything related to civilization.
It is a struggle of two species, fighting for the same niche in one eco-system.
The Europeons are by virtue of demographics and statistics (not to mention indifference to their own survival) are on the losing end to aggressive Muslim childmaking and dogma.
I for one, am somewhat pleased that indigeneous Europeons will be snuffed out. With allies like these, who needs enemies? They are a weight to be jettisoned like worthless floatsum. Name the country my friends...what has happened to Spain, France, England and Germany? Anti-American, anti-semetic vapid citizenry and government without any pride in their own uniqueness & ethnicity.
After the Muslims become the dominant force in Europe, the Middle East and Asia...that is going to leave just a few countries to defend humanity from the sword of Allah.
I am afraid my friends, that the vast majority of Americans have also decided to go supine...God, I hope I am mistaken.
Nothing that’s happened in the last several years indicates that today’s Europe has any stomach for the type of conflict that it will take to overcome the Muslim hordes that are pouring in (and then, as Steyn points out, multiplying at a far faster rate wherever they are settled). Surely, there are exceptions in isolated instances, but the critical mass of support to defend themselves is not evident. Peters’ example of muslim killing in a Bosnia, a far-off corner of Europe is ridiculous. What about what’s going on in the heart of Europe—UK, France, Spain, Scandanavia? Where is the 21st century’s European version of Winston Churchill who will rally the people to defend their country? Blair? Not even close and he’s the best of the lot. Those people are so concerned about maintaining their 35 hour work week, their 7 weeks of vacation, and their fat government subsidy from cradle to grave that they won’t do anything that will actually save themselves or the future for their descendants.
No, if Peters’ theory is to have any credibility, Europe needs to get off its collective ass in about, oh, the next 10 minutes.
With all due respect to Peters, I find Steyn’s arguments much more compelling. It is already too late for current generations on both sides—both the active nihilism of the Islamists with their suicide bombs and jihad against infidels, and the passive nihilism of the Euros with their love of welfare and refusal to procreate. A coming civil war between the two is not unlikely, and my bet is the unassimilated jihadists will beat the self-absorbed, guilt-ridden pacifists hands down, Europe’s savage history notwithstanding. If we in the U.S., with our relatively robust birth rates and muscular fighting spirit, are questioning our will to defend outselves, Europe by comparison is much further down the road to submission.
I refuse to even contemplate the ludicrous suggestion the our Marines would fight and die to protect jihadists from Europeans. (They’re far more likely to be involved in attacking the perpetrators of the next big attack on our homeland, anyway, in spite of the Democrats.)
I’d like to see Steyn answer Peters. I like Peters but I would take Steyn over him any day.
Historically, I’d say Peters is right, but I’m not so sure this time around. Europe seems to have lost the will to fight or survive. What will first have to happen is that the people of the various countries will have to toss out their existing governments, dissolve the EU, and then be willing to get their own hands dirty. I’m not very optimistic.
Of course I could be wrong but from what I am seeing on the web and elsewhere, most of today’s Europeans lack the balls to do anything as savage as they have done in past centuries. If they did though, the Muslim birth rate wouldn’t matter. The fact that Muslims have deliberately concentrated themselves in easily identifiable areas to maximize their political and economic power i.e. they’ve become largely fixed targets, would make for a target rich environment.
I suspect that, instead of fighting for their heritage, many Europeans will be leaving the sinking ship in greater and greater numbers as things progress and we can expect more and more immigrants wanting to immigrate to the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the next few years. We may even find some Muslims wanting to immigrate but, I would ban any new Muslim immigration and in fact would start deportations of the most radical Muslims--Imams first--who are already here and eventually work my way through the whole crew. I would also closely monitor all the Saudi-funded Mosques and Muslim educational institutions foundations and charities in the U.S. and at the first sign of radicalism they would be closed down and their leaders deported. Any objections would be met with the statement that there are no Christian churches allowed on the whole Arabian peninsula, as per Muhammad’s wishes, that non-Muslims have to follow strict Muslim rules while in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere and we are just reciprocating.
Americans tend to think Europeans are much more like ourselves than they actually are. Will Europe push back? Only time will tell. Though I believe if they do so it will be only because the socialist life they adore is threatened. I do think that if Europe rouses herself it will be very ugly, and it will be ugly because it will come when the native population feels only incredibly threatened.
On the other hand the use of the Episcopal Church as an example by Steyn does not tell the whole story,the reason for that is because the Episcopal church is not losing membership based just on birth rates, and not everyone is part of the loon left that the Presiding Bishop represents. I say this as a refugee from the Episcopal Church. In truth there are less than the 2.2 million members than the PB cites, a good many of those are people like myself that have left the church, have written and requested to be removed from the rolls but have not been. I know I have not been despite having left the church over 2 years ago because I still keep getting all the newsletters etc… next even in liberal Massachusetts there is one parish that has completely broken with the Episcopal church and is now under the oversight of the Anglican church from RWANDA, not England. 23 other parishes in Mass. and other areas of New England have chosen to leave for the conservative Anglican Communion Network in the U.S. This is going on all over within the Episcopal church in the United States, a slow fracturing that will only continue. By the time the MSM catches up to the schism it will have been accomplished. What is fueling this of course is the Episcopal churches stand on gay clergy, homosexuality in general and it’s teachings on salvation. This is what is decreasing the membership of the Episcopal church. I don’t dispute that the churches birth rate is less than Muslims, or the attitude from the oh so clueless presiding bishop is predominant in those that have stayed with the church, but it is a misnomer to make it appear that the decreasing of the church is simply tied to birth rates, as it is not. It is very tied to it’s lack of biblically based teaching, and the fleeing from the church by millions since the 60’s.
Failing birth rates is a large part of the story, but not all. There was a study out a while back stating that some 70% of mainline protestants decrease was due to falling birth rates, 30% of that was due to those like myself who left the church for more conservative ones. While conservative churches increased birth rate accounted for their increased membership, not just the switching of members from liberal to conservative churches.In other words liberal churches tend to have women who have less children, conservative churches women tend to have a higher birth rate. More people switched from liberal to conservative churches during the time frame of this study, 1900-1975. I would say the trend has not changed a great deal. Which means the liberals will simply depopulate themselves, leaving those more conservative as the predominant population group.
Demographics certainly tell a story, but I am not convinced it tells the whole story.
There were periods over the last 200+ years where European based tyrannies appeared to the people at the time to be unstoppable (Napoleon/Mob Revolution, Hitler/Nazism, Stalin/Communism). The difference this time is there is not a single individual or a single country or a single block of countries to stop, it is a fanatical religion located in all countries.
How do they remove the threat without significant violence and an extremist solution in all countries? What kind of permanent solution is there short of declaring that Islam is not recognized as a religion but is outlawed as a violent revolutionary political movement, and destroy their mosques and schools and deport their practitioners to where? I don’t imagine the muslims would go along with any solution short of their ability to freely exercise their religion as they see fit.
No, I can’t imagine a scenario where European countries allow the 30% of their population that would be willing to openly battle Islam to actually do so. They will spend their dying days fighting their own who would protect them. Some additional questions may be: How long until the European democracies are overthrown and by whom? Is the primary quest for nuclear weapons by Iran for Israel or to support their muslim brothers future take over of Europe?
The future’s horizon looks dark at this point in time. Perhaps the sooner we get to a North American Union with an extra 100 MM fighting Catholics to our south the better.
Oh ye of little faith. The Europeans are just in denial that there is a threat and blaming the Jews as usual. So what else is new? The Islamists will take care of the denial eventually. When the time for serious killing arrives I think the Europeans will rediscover the darker side of their nature. They are a splendid and resourceful people who have survived precisely because of that darker side. Make the acquaintance of some African people of European origin if you haven’t a clue what I am talking about. As a Jacksonian American I am never out of touch with that side of my nature so I have no reason to deny that it exists in others and am not fooled by protestations to the contrary. Europe so outstripped the Islamic world because it was more open to change and growth but has been so successful it needs to be reminded that it is sometimes necessary to fight for survival. Once reminded the Europeans will fight to win. The relatively inflexible and fragile Islamist approach to life will lead to its devastation. They still think we are Crusaders, we have forgotten what Crusaders are. Sure the Europeans could go quietly, but don’t count them out yet.
Many comments seem to think Europe’s main problem is the will to fight for itself. While this is a problem, it could be overcome by events that reawaken the continent’s will by threatening their very way of life. The real problem lies in Europe’s inability to fight for itself. 60+ years of abrogating their defensive responsibilities in favor of U.S. protection have left most countries there without the means of defense.
As for exactly what the solution is, I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t advocate genocide, but I think there is a major war coming that will pit radical Islam against the West. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing, though it will definitely be ugly. Radical Islam can’t be defeated until it is actually defeated. German and Japanese fascism, as well as Soviet communism, were defeated, either militarily or economically. The “can’t we all get along” multicultural/diversity approach will not inflict defeat, and thus will not work.
*EDIT* I see by Mr. Steyn’s response to the Peters article that he believes America will have to fight the coming war mostly alone. He may be right, but that doesn’t argue against the need for it. America (with Great Britain) has bailed out the continent once before, I suppose the West has failed to learn from history.
Yep, I agree with Yankeewombat. The Europeans haven’t gone down the tubes yet, even though they show a really worrisome tendency to put off dealing with the direct threat that militant Islam represents. When they finally do wake up and decide to fight, they will prevail. And it will be ugly.
Interestingly, I’ve come across several articles and columns in the last couple of days that argue that Islam is a dying religion/culture because of its medieval mindset and inflexibility, and that what the world is dealing with now is the death throes - which is what makes it so dangerous.
In fact, Spengler, writing for the Asia Times argues that Iran has a “plunging birthrate”, and that by 2050 that plunging birthrate will have resulted in the collapse of the Iranian society by virtue of having an elderly population with no younger generation coming along to support it. Hmmmmm.
I remember reading a Harper’s in my youth(sob)-a long time ago.The cover was a woman wearing a clerical collar;the title?
“The Episcopalian Church-Trendier than Thou”
So far, the European left seems to have transferred the anger and fear toward radical Islam toward anti-Americanism and the old Jew hatred. So that, when Muslims bomb them or kill people it’s the fault of the US in Iraq or the Jews in Israel. I suspect the change will be subtle, in that European foreign policy will become more and more pro-Islamic until it becomes clear they have allied themselves with those states, and, in the interests of understanding, openness, whatever, Islamic customs will become the norm there, as well as Islamic law in certain areas (but will apply to any interaction with Muslims). The US and Israel will be chided to talk to our enemies, and anything other than submission will be criticized as unilateralism or cowboyism or some such. We know that Europe has already been funding the terrorists in Iraq.
