[lit-ideas] Re: Europe's future, catastrophic or apocalyptic

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 13:01:29 -0700

There are obviously two views about these matters. 

 

1) One view has it that the Muslim take-over of Europe is in progress and
Europeans who say otherwise are in denial or sleeping.  This view is
consistent with the viewpoint of those who take Militant Islam in the Middle
East as a serious threat.

 

2) The other view is that Militant Islam is not a serious threat in Europe
or in the Middle East.  Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy champion this view.
There are merely a few well-educated but alienated young European Muslims
called Jihadists who are stirring things up.  Roy even challenges the trend
information I recently posted.  He argues that sure the Islamic birthrate is
very high at the beginning but as time goes on and Muslims become integrated
or assimilated their birthrates become the same as those of the ambient
society.  As Fukuyama indicated recently, he embraces the Kepel/Roy
viewpoint and largely as a result has applied this viewpoint to the Middle
East and distanced himself from Neocons who adhere to view number one.  

 

I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with mixing and matching.  We
non-Leftists believe here in the U.S. that there is a serious Islamist
problem in the Middle East.  Muslims who come to the U.S. however are not a
problem (with very few exceptions) because they readily assimilate.  They
become indistinguishable from other Americans.  But while we understand that
to be true in the U.S. we aren't at all sure about you Europeans.  Your
Muslims seem to go berserk at the drop of an insult.  You don't seem to be
assimilating them as well as we do here in the states, and if they remain in
distinctly Islamic enclaves, we think, they shall be growing at a more rapid
rate than the ambient society.  To us it looks as though you may have big
trouble looming on your horizon.  

 

IOriana Fallaci shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.  She represents the fear
that European society is doomed.  I understand that her books are very
popular in Europe.  Perhaps she is wrong but her fear is real -- and it is
shared.  And it is that fear that Berlinski addressed in her book - a fear
like that of a fear-biting dog that rends someone who may or may not have
intended him harm. 

 

If you have a whole city full of Oriana Fallacis and they become convinced
that Amsterdam, for example, is being taken over by a Dutch-hating group of
aliens called Muslims, they may react violently.  Berlinski was, I believe,
suggesting that as a serious possibility.  

 

Ralph Peters said, "Europe, history's killing continent, remains the most
unpredictable stretch of the globe."  People go on making their predictions
about it anyway.

 

Lawrence

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Teemu Pyyluoma
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 11:59 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Europe's future, catastrophic or apocalyptic

 

--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

> Berlinski isn't unique or even the first to describe

> an impending Eurabia.

> As to which cities are soon to have Muslim

> majorities, Fallaci thought

> Amsterdam and Rotterdam are close.  

> 

I couldn't care less what Fallaci thinks, if she has

some actual facts to back up what she thinks I might

be interested. Judy already pointed out Amsterdam

demographics, but all you really need to know is that

Netherlands has a population of about 16 million and

less than one million Muslims to know Fallaci is

clueless.

 

> According to Daisy Sindelar a recently Dutch

> government study predicted that

> not only would Amsterdam and Rotterdam soon have

> Muslim majorities but also

> The Hague and Utrecht.

> 

I am not going to bother to look up the actual Dutch

study, but here is a rough guess: Some statisticans

were being silly. Let's say Amsterdam Muslim

population grew 10% one year. This could be any random

occurance, but I'd suspect change in classification.

Now annual growth of 10% leads to 17 times the

starting number over 30 years. The report most

probably mentioned that something like this is an

unrealistic assumption, and as usually happens with

qualifications in general, it was never mentioned in

the journalistic account. Or Sindelar just made up the

numbers.

 

In general, here is a brief and free bull-shit

detector to reporting on Europe:

 

- Rise of Far Right in Germany: It is worrying, but

the numbers say they got less than 5% support. Just

formulated Teemu's Law of Polls says that any

movement, including People's Movement to Eat Babies,

will have low single digit support in polls.

 

- Eurabia. Yes, assimilation and millitant Islamism is

a concern. But once again the numbers: there are about

450 million people living in EU and about 15 million

of them are Muslims. If for some bizarre reason all

the Muslims were classified as one nationality, they

would barely be in top ten.

 

- Unemployment is caused by high taxes. Nice theory in

paper and true in some cases, but in international

comparisons the nations with highest unemployment

actually have the highest taxes. But the correlation

overall is weak. Best expert on European unemployment

writing in English is Oliver Blanchard of MIT. He says

that we don't really know what causes unemployment,

but generally speaking protecting employment in

general and not particular jobs seems to help.

 

- European economic model. There is no such thing.

There are at least five different models inside EU:

Anglo-Saxon (Ireland), Rhineland (Germany),

Mediterrian (Italy), Nordic (Denmark), Eastern

Libertarian (Estonia).

 

- European social model. As in all Europeans receive

plentiful government support against hardships of life

as opposed to ruthless USA. USA despite all still has

a well-fare state, and benefits in most European

countries really are not that great. Sweden is an

exception, not the norm.

 

- Lack of millitary spending.  From CIA World

Factbook:

Rank Country Military expenditures - dollar figure 

Date of Information 

1 United States  $ 518,100,000,000  2005 est.  

2 China  $ 81,480,000,000  2005 est.  

3 France  $ 45,000,000,000  2005  

4 Japan  $ 44,310,000,000  2005 est.  

5 United Kingdom  $ 42,836,500,000  2003  

6 Germany  $ 35,063,000,000  2003  

7 Italy  $ 28,182,800,000  2003  

8 Korea, South  $ 21,060,000,000  2005 est.  

9 India  $ 19,040,000,000  2005 est.  

10 Saudi Arabia  $ 18,000,000,000  2002  

 

EU combined is something in excess of 200 billion

Euros (I estimate %2 of GDP). That ought to be enough

in peace time.

 

- Moralism. That people in general are lazy or violent

for example is true in some cases, unverifiable,

tautological and unhelpful.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Teemu

Helsinki, Finland

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