Running From the Fire, But Carrying the Fire Along
Demographic change is coming to Europe, and one of the questions asked is: will the newcomers bring a new civilisation to replace "old Europe," or are they merely fleeing the fire, while carrying the fire with them?Demography best told the story: where more than 40 percent of the world population was “under the political control” of Western civilization in the year 1900, that share had declined to about 15 percent in 1990, and is set to come down to 10 percent by the year 2025. Conversely, Islam’s share had risen from 4 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 1990, and could be as high as 19 percent by 2025.NYTimes
It is not pretty at the frontiers between societies with dwindling populations — Western Europe being one example, Russia another — and those with young people making claims on the world. Huntington saw this gathering storm. Those young people of the densely populated North African states who have been risking all for a journey across the Strait of Gibraltar walk right out of his pages.
...I still harbor doubts about whether the radical Islamists knocking at the gates of Europe, or assaulting it from within, are the bearers of a whole civilization. They flee the burning grounds of Islam, but carry the fire with them. They are “nowhere men,” children of the frontier between Islam and the West, belonging to neither. If anything, they are a testament to the failure of modern Islam to provide for its own and to hold the fidelities of the young.
If modern Islam can be called a civilisation, it is just barely that. Looking at Malaysia and Indonesia--countries that would be hopelessly backward if not for an ethnic Chinese market dominant minority--suggests that Islam has only survived by parasitising more advanced civilisations. The basis of the modern "Islamic Renaissance"--Persian Gulf oil--was developed by outsiders, and is still maintained by outsiders.
Perhaps Islam is not capable of building, but can only destroy. We have the example of Islam's "Golden Age", fondly looked back upon by Muslims everywhere as the example of a "dominant Islam", blessed by Allah. Unfortunately for those dreams, the reality was somewhat different. But that was then, and this is now.
After Islamic immigrants sweep across Europe, using Europe's multicultural democratic institutions as tools of Europe's own destruction, what will they build to replace the civilisation they destroyed?
Labels: clash of civilisations, demographic change, immigration, Islam
posted by al fin at 6:20 am
6 Comments:
There is a case for saying that western parasitism, seeking oil at a relatively cheap price, has been responsible for keeping medieval regimes in power in much of the arab world. This is the claim of al Quaeda, except that what they want is essentially pre-medieval regimes, but this does not of itself prove it wrong.
We could equally say that western reliance on this oil has meant we have got away with not having to develop the nuclear resources we are perfectly capable of doing.
I am not putting either claim forward as the whole truth but they do contain elements of the truth. Another truth is that the world oil economy has divorced individuals from the manufacturing of much of the world's wealth & given a dispropotionate amount of the world's wealth, through oil taxation, to governments, in both the middle east & the west, which do little to earn it.
I find that getting a clear picture of these demographic issues is extremely difficult with interpretations being widely varied. There is no doubt that many Western nations (and Russia) and the industrialized Asian nations are undergoing drastic decline. And the fertility rates of Islamic populations in Islamic nations and immigrant communities is very high. But some claim that birth rates among these same Islamic populations are dropping at rates that are sometimes faster than industrial nations did.
Also, finding any information as to rates (and especially the changing of these rates) of apostasy among Islamic people and the change in religious adherence. It is easy to see the fraction which becomes more religious - they make extreme speeches and protest and make demands of others. It is harder to see those who drink and only go to mosques when the parents come to visit.
I have heard stories about the increase in organizations to support Islamic apostates in European nations. But I think that the big question is about the change in birth rates in various Muslim nations and communities. If the North African and central Asian nations start to move their "youth bulge" into the ages where people are less likely to pack up and move without replacing them at the same rate, there could be a significant drop in the supply of Islamic immigrants to Europe while sub-Saharan Africans (Christian and animist) poor into Islamic nations. Gulf nations already have large immigrant populations not all of whom are Muslims, including Saudi Arabia. There rates of non-Islamic immigrants to Western nations and even to Islamic nations (Chinese especially) is important to consider.
Literacy rates in Islamic nations are the lowest in the world but have increased recently which tends to support the belief that literacy is one of the strongest correlation and possibly a cause of lower population growth. If this is the case then efforts at increasing literacy in the region and the recent project to ensure the translation of the "Western Cannon" into Arabic might have dramatic effects of the "demographics equals destiny" equation.
I think the parasitism metaphor for the West is weak since we buy their resource and if we did not, the price of what was left on the market would rise and the Chinese and everyone else would preferentially turn to the Saudis and Iranians.
We are more like the bacteria in a cow's gut. The cow (oil producers) provide us with the grass (oil) and we metabolize it into the nutrients which the cow needs (guns, technology etc.).
I think it is time for us to find a new cow.
Hey Al Fin,
It would seem to me that Venter's announcement today may signal an end to Islamic hegemony in the energy industry. I think this might be a good topic for a post at IBA, but you know much more about it than I.
What do you think?
Hi, Pastorius. In fact, I just now posted an article here on the Venter Institute announcement. I suspect that in the next few years, we will know more about how successful Venter's team will be in creating microbes that synthesize oil. My feeling is that between bio-fuels and better fossil fuel discovery and recovery, all the national oil companies--from the Arabs to Russia, to Venezuela--will be forced to pump more fuel and cut prices to compete.
Baron, I doubt the birthrates of Islamic immigrants to Europe will reduce to indigenous European levels within the next two generations. Islam is an insular totalitarian religio-political system suitable for the Bedouin tribes of the medieval arabian peninsula. It is unlikely to ever face the real world as it has become.
Neil, there certainly are many truths concerning issues of globalism, and world power struggles and demographics.
The fact remains indisputable that the Arab world is incredibly backward in terms of invention, innovation, creativity, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, literacy, education, research . . . The same is true for the Muslim world.
Being so backward is a sad thing. Being backward and so bloody violent is much worse.
Snake Oil Baron, the children/woman ratio of many Muslim countries is in free fall and others are already under substitution level (Tunisia, Iran) or at substitution level (Morocco, Algeria, Siria). Others are over the substitution levels but their birthrate is free falling.
KAS will probably be there in 10-20 years, with Iraq and others.
Al Fin is right that the problems in Europe will be from the Muslims already there, not from others. But their birthrate is aligning with the indigenous population. If the economy go down, the level of the subsides to them will be reduced, and they will be forced to reduce the number of children.
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