source: http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=3Df1604
In the summer of 2004, in an interview little noticed outside the
country, the prominent academic scholar of Islam Bassam Tibi predicted
a future for Germany that many decried as provocative nonsense at the
time. In ten years, Tibi said, Germany will be the scene of large
running battles between police and gangs of marginalized Muslim youth,
bringing cities like Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt to the brink of
chaos. This will be the inevitable result, according to him, of a
trend that is already visible. Muslims are not interested in
integration. They are, in fact, obligated not to integrate by the
radical Islamic ideology dominant in their communities, and live
increasingly segregated in parallel societies. The main difference
between 2004 and 2014, Tibi believed, would be that the highly
marginalized Muslim population would have more than doubled to 10
million, sharia would have been gradually introduced in Germany and
the Islam preached there would be even more radical and resemble Nazi
totalitarianism.
Today, more than three and a half years later, a new study of
attitudes among young Muslims by the German interior ministry would
seem to confirm Tibi=92s fears. According to the survey, 44 percent of
respondents have fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, 50 percent believe
that =93Muslims who die in the armed struggle for the faith (Jihad) go
to paradise,=94 and one in four is ready to engage in violence against
non-Muslims.
Nor is such troubling evidence unique to Germany. At about the time
the German study was being released, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael
Nazir-Ali, spoke of the existence of Muslim no-go zones in Britain,
described as areas dominated by radical Islamic ideology where people
of different faiths reportedly face physical attacks. This phenomenon
has been likened by Tory shadow Home Secretary David Davis to
=93voluntary apartheid=94 by Muslims, =93shutting themselves in closed
society, demanding immunity from criticism.=94 And just a month earlier,
in the Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, young Muslim rioters for the
first time used firearms and Molotov cocktails to battle police in
what was described by some in the media as an =93urban guerilla war."
Are these troubling developments part of an inexorable slide toward
the Islamization of Europe that will make Tibi=92s dire predictions
reality? Or are they, as many have argued, the predictable result of
the long-term socio-economic neglect, racism and discrimination
against Europe=92s Muslims that could be easily fixed with the proper
policies? The answer to this question is of existential importance for
the future of Europe, the Atlantic Alliance and, indeed, Western
civilization itself.
The demographics of twilight
The crisis now engulfing Europe is euphemistically referred to in
scholarly papers as the =93second demographic transition.=94 What this
innocuous term conceals is a phenomenon unprecedented in human
history, namely the implicit refusal of large societies in times of
peace to produce babies in numbers sufficient to guarantee their long-
term survival.
While this trend seems to characterize the entire developed industrial
world to one extent or another, it is especially pronounced in Europe,
where it has become a continent-wide phenomenon. Stated simply,
European birth rates (known as =93total fertility rate,=94 or TFR) have
collapsed to approximately 1.5 children per woman in 1995 from nearly
twice that rate three decades earlier.6 What this means, in practical
terms, is that a sustained fertility rate of 1.5 in a society leads to
the yearly loss of one-half percent of its population. The cataclysmic
long-term repercussions of such a development in Europe may be too far
in the future to worry us here, but there are immediate and medium-
term consequences to this phenomenon that should be of grave concern.
With a fertility rate of just under 1.5 percent for the past ten
years, and no realistic prospect of any improvement in the foreseeable
future, Europe has an annual deficit of over two million births to
reach replacement levels. To the extent that the continent=92s
population is increasing at all, it is mostly on account of legal and
illegal immigration. As the smaller post-baby boom cohorts reach
childbearing age, this deficit will widen still further, contracting
the native European population by anywhere between 100 and 150 million=97
or a quarter to a third of today=92s EU-25 450 million=97by mid-century.
This historically unprecedented population implosion will shrink
Europe=92s share of the world population to barely four percent in 2050
from 12 percent in 1950.
Unfortunately, the dire implications of this trend will not wait until
mid-century to manifest themselves, but will start wreaking havoc with
Europe=92s socio-economic prospects in the immediate future. This is
because, long before significant depopulation begins to take place,
low fertility ushers in a pervasive ageing process that ultimately
renders the expensive but unfunded pay-as-you-go welfare systems of
modern western societies unsustainable. Demographers refer to this key
dependency as the =93potential support ratio=94 (PSR), usually expressed
in the ratio of individuals of working age (15-64) to the number of
people of retirement age (65 and over) in a given society. A more
accurate measure is the actual number of working individuals available
to support each retired or disabled individual through their taxes.
Until the late decades of the 20th century, these ratios were
traditionally very high even in western societies, where the average
age of the population remained under 30. But this is changing
dramatically. By 2010, the number of elders (65 and over) in France
and most other EU countries will outnumber people aged 0 to 14=97a
development that has never happened before in recorded history. By
2015, the 60-and-over cohort will represent more than a quarter of the
population, and a decade or so later it will become twice as large as
the group aged 0 to 24. It is beyond question that with a projected
nominal PSR of between 1.5 and 2 in 2030 and even earlier none of the
EU countries would be able to sustain levels of prosperity anywhere
near the ones they enjoy today unless their welfare systems are
drastically reformed or dismantled.
Other less obvious but no less serious economic consequences of this
trend will also begin affecting growth and prosperity in short order.
Rapidly shrinking and ageing populations inevitably lead to decreasing
demand for everything except healthcare and government services.
Ageing societies thus place inordinate burdens on the public purse,
while limiting consumption in the marketplace and negatively affecting
the cost of labor, productivity, international competitiveness,
innovation and foreign and domestic investment. Ultimately, if and
when such societies are perceived as moribund, as they inevitably will
be, one can expect massive out-migration of capital, companies and
skilled individuals to more attractive locales. It is unlikely that
this process will run its course without major political upheavals,
because the logic of ageing welfare societies requires ever greater
transfers of wealth from the depleted younger and poorer cohorts to
the more affluent and electorally powerful =93geezer=94 generations.
There are, of course, a number of options Europeans have for
mitigating negative demographic trends before the population implosion
begins in earnest around 2020. All, however, involve considerable pain
and attitudinal change that could doom them politically. To keep the
potential support ratio from declining, Europeans could, for instance,
raise the de facto retirement age from the current 58 years to 65 or
66, and/or increase the percentage of the working population in the EU
from its current level of 62 percent to the one prevailing, for
instance, in Denmark (75 percent). That alone would add 32 million
people to the workforce. More drastic still (and therefore even less
likely) would be deep cuts in welfare and pension benefits and the
privatization of pay-as-you-go pension plans.
Apart from these short-term palliatives, there are only two possible
long-term solutions that could theoretically prevent the dire
consequences of the demographic crisis discussed above from becoming a
reality=97increasing the birth rate and immigration. And neither one is
a likely panacea.
On the first point, there is a near-unanimity among demographers that
raising European birth rates to the replacement value of 2.1 children
per woman is virtually impossible in the short to medium term (10-20
years), and problematic even in the longer term. Moreover, even if
replacement levels were to be achieved 30 years or more in the future,
most of the negative demographic and socio-economic developments
projected for 2050 will have taken place regardless.
This leaves immigration, and here again the picture is troubling. The
official policy of virtually all EU governments is to discourage
immigration from outside the EU except for highly skilled
professionals and a few other categories, such as family reunification
and political asylum. Despite these restrictions, significant legal
and illegal immigration, estimated at over two million per annum, does
take place and is the main reason Europe=92s population has not yet
started declining. Unfortunately, it has not contributed to the
amelioration of the continent=92s demographic and economic crises;
rather, it is actually making things worse.
The problem with current immigration into the EU is very simply the
fact that much of it places additional burdens on the social welfare
system rather than contributing to its improvement. This is the case,
as will be explained in greater detail below, because most of the new
arrivals enter Europe either as part of the =93migration chain,=94 i.e.,
family reunification, =93mail-order spouses,=94 etc., or as illegal
aliens. The vast majority in both categories lack job and linguistic
skills and do not join the tax-paying labor force in any significant
numbers, but rather work in the underground economy or enlist in the
welfare rolls.
While studies have shown clearly that present immigrant populations to
the EU from poor countries impose a net cost on their host societies,
there is growing evidence that failed immigration and integration
policies may present an even bigger political challenge. The most
serious issue here by far is the extensive and ongoing radicalization
of the burgeoning Muslim populations throughout the European Union.
The Muslim population explosion
Establishing even the basic facts about Europe=92s Muslim populations is
often an arduous task because most European governments, with the
notable exception of Britain, seemingly as a matter of principle,
avoid collecting or publishing most relevant data of an ethnic or
religious character. Nonetheless, using a variety of sources, it is
possible to establish credible approximations of both the absolute
numbers and fertility rates of Europe=92s Muslims.
What is beyond dispute is that in the past half a century or so the
Muslim population in Western Europe has exploded from less than a
quarter million in the early 1950s to between 15 and 20 million today.
While that still represents only four to five percent of the EU-15
(370 million) population or three to four percent of the EU-25 (450
million), it is a rapidly growing population that has also become
progressively radicalized.
Most EU governments have avoided openly debating this issue, except
for rhetorical flourishes about the need to integrate the Muslim
minority, and have focused instead on its implications for terrorism.
Demographers and other experts, on the other hand, have conjured up
the =93Islamization=94 of Europe in the long term or, conversely, the
possibility that Muslim birth rates will fall in line with the native
ones over time and bring about a stable balance. Relatively little
attention has been paid to the likelihood that the burgeoning Muslim
communities, if radicalized and unintegrated, could have a dramatic
impact on political stability in Western Europe long before
=93Islamization=94 takes place.
To understand the potential for such an outcome, it is important to
first come to terms with some of the essential characteristics of the
demographic momentum and the nature of the ongoing radicalization
process of European Muslims.
Perhaps the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that
discussions of whether or not Muslims will become the majority of the
population in Europe by the end of the 21st century are largely
academic. However, the possibility that radicalized Muslims who reject
the European secular democratic order could become a dominant
demographic factor among key age cohorts in 20 years or so is of huge
political consequence. And despite the lack of definitive data, there
are compelling reasons to believe that this could indeed happen.
As already mentioned, most European governments provide statistics on
neither Muslim fertility rates nor total populations. Nonetheless,
available data, however incomplete, shows beyond much doubt that 1)
Muslims are dramatically younger as a group, 2) have fertility rates
that are two or even three times higher than those of native
Europeans, and 3) are growing fast on account of legal and illegal
immigration.
Official British statistics from the 2001 UK census show, for
instance, that 34 percent of the estimated Muslim population of 1.6
million was under 16 years of age, compared to approximately 20
percent of Christians, and over 70 percent of the former were under 34
years old, as compared to 40 percent of the latter. Less than five
percent of Muslims were aged 65 and over, compared to 20 percent for
Christians.12 Overall, in 2001 survey, the average age for Muslims in
the United Kingdom was under 27 years, while that of the white
population was 38 (and projected to be 40 by 2007). The same or worse
ratio is likely to obtain in most of the other large EU members, such
as Germany, Italy and Spain, all of which have lower birthrates than
Britain.
The youthful and more fecund Muslim population, coupled with a
tradition of getting married young, accounts for dramatically higher
growth rates. Though actual TFR numbers are not published, it is a
fair assumption that they are high, probably between 2.5 and 3. This
could be deduced both from the available growth numbers for Muslims in
some British towns and by the size of the average Muslim household,
which was reported to be 4.9 in 1991. Very similar fertility rates are
reported in France, where according to figures for 1999 provided by
the French statistical agency, INSEE, the main Muslim national groups
had birth rates as follows: Algerians=972.57, Moroccans=972.97,
Tunisians=97=
2.90, and Turks=973.21.
Overall, the probable European Muslim TFR of between 2.5 and 3.0 will
result in a natural increase of the Muslim population of approximately
1.5 to 2 percent per annum. This corresponds to between 225,000 and
300,000 if the lower figure of 15 million is used, and between 300,000
and 400,000 if the higher 20 million figure is applied. This compares
to the EU average TFR of 1.5, which, as mentioned, leads to a loss of
two and a quarter million people per year throughout the continent.
The second factor contributing to non-native population increase in
Europe has traditionally been legal immigration. There have been two
waves of post-World War II large-scale Muslim influx into Europe:
=93post-colonial=94 and =93guest worker=94 immigration. The first involved
t=
he
former citizens of the colonial possessions of Great Britain, France,
the Netherlands, etc., who qualified for immigration. This is how
large numbers of people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Algeria,
Indonesia and elsewhere settled in Europe in the aftermath of
decolonization. Then, as European economies recovered from war
devastation, millions of =93guest workers=94 were recruited as cheap labor
for the booming economies of Western Europe in the 1950s and beyond.
These two waves of immigration set the stage for today=92s large Muslim
diaspora communities.
Large-scale legal immigration was essentially terminated in most of
Western Europe after the 1973 oil embargo and the resulting economic
crisis, but it was replaced over time by a different form of legal
immigration which is much more difficult to control and which has been
widely used and abused by Muslims to gain entry into Europe.
Demographers have coined a special term for this phenomenon: =93chain
migration.=94 It was first instituted in most Western European countries
as a humanitarian family reunification measure for the mostly single
immigrants of the initial waves. In the meantime, as immigration for
economic reasons has fallen off drastically, chain migration has
become the most important method of gaining legal entry into the EU.
The most commonly used approach is arranged or forced marriages, where
European-born individuals are married off to partners back in the home
country. Not only is the new bride/bridegroom allowed to join his/her
spouse in Europe, but very often the entire family follows shortly,
resulting in multiple new immigrants.
And, with the exception of Hindus and Sikhs, the vast majority of
arranged marriages are practiced by Muslims. One German source
estimates, for instance, that up to 80 percent of Muslim girls in a
Hamburg Turkish community enter into enforced marriage, while in the
United Kingdom 67 percent of girls between the age of 16 and 34 are
reported to have their marriages arranged by their parents. Overall,
various studies have shown that a clear majority of new immigrants
from outside of Europe now arrive through family reunification. In the
United Kingdom, which accounts for some 10 percent of the total EU
Muslim population, for example, there were close to 50,000 new
arrivals via spousal migration in 2001, most of whom were Muslims.
Muslim chain migration in all of the EU thus could be as high as half
a million per annum, a figure that exceeds the natural population
increase.
Arranged or forced marriages have yet another important effect in that
they act as a major barrier to assimilation in European society. As
political philosopher Francis Fukuyama has argued, and as the American
immigration experience confirms, rates of marriage outside of one=92s
group =93correlate strongly with both assimilation and upward mobility.=94
By controlling and limiting their children=92s marriage choices, Muslim
parents in Europe effectively undermine their chances for integration
and economic betterment, at a significant cost to society.
The final quasi-legal immigration category that contributes
significantly to the growth of EU=92s Muslim populations is political
asylum. Granting political asylum to individuals persecuted in their
native lands for the political views they hold is, of course, a noble
and time-honored tradition in civilized nations. Unfortunately,
European societies have allowed the right to asylum to be widely
abused by millions that have no legitimate claim to it and use it
simply as another convenient way of getting in.
Finally, the Muslim populations in Europe are augmented by large-scale
illegal immigration, which may be the most important quantitative
factor presently. Exact figures are not available, but various sources
allow a credible estimate of both the overall number of illegal
immigrants residing in Europe and the yearly flows. There is, for
example, considerable evidence that the unauthorized immigrant
population in southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and
Greece) alone exceeds the three million mark. Italy, France and
Portugal have at least another million and a half immigrants between
them. Northern Europe with Germany, Great Britain and a few others
with significant Muslim populations almost certainly host another
three million or so. And, given the very large size of this illegal
immigrant contingent, it is reasonable to conclude that the half a
million new arrivals per year estimated by EU authorities is
unrealistically low. Rather, judging by the number of illegals
apprehended by border controls in various European countries, the
actual influx is at least twice as large.
Unlike political asylum, which is mostly a Muslim affair, illegal
immigration to Europe attracts people from every corner of the world,
from China to Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa. Nonetheless, after
the drying up of Eastern Europe as a major source of undocumented
immigrants to the EU in the past few years, Muslims now make up a
clear majority of the yearly influx of over a million.
All in all, natural increase, chain migration, asylum seekers and
illegal immigration put together easily contribute over a million to
the growth of the EU Muslim population every year, and that is
probably a very conservative estimate. The Muslim population is thus
set to increase by at least 50 percent every decade, and will likely
double from its current level by 2020=97and double again by 2035. By
that year (and possibly earlier), the majority of young people in most
large European urban centers will be Muslims.
Major demographic shifts are, of course, nothing new in history. Nor
is the replacement of one dominant culture with another on account of
a new demographic balance necessarily a cause for concern per se.
Unless, of course, that new culture is dominated by the hateful,
obscurantist and inherently violent Islamist creed that does not
intend to coexist peacefully with others.
Radical Islam resurgent
As with any complex socio-political phenomenon, the radicalization of
European Muslims has been the result of a combination of political,
economic and social factors and policies. The stage was probably first
set by the stubborn, if totally unrealistic, belief of European
governments that the millions of Muslim =93guest workers=94 they imported
as cheap labor were indeed guests, and were sooner or later going to
go home voluntarily. Thus, for many years, no European government
entertained the possibility of long-term settlement for the
immigrants, nor took even elementary acculturation and assimilation
measures.
That neglect, coupled with European xenophobia and latent racism,
restricted the immigrants=92 housing options to dilapidated industrial
areas or public housing in large cities and preordained the emergence
of Muslim ghettoes. The ghettoization of the Muslim immigrants and
their progressive isolation from mainstream European society received
another major impetus from the multi-cultural dogmas that became the
order of the day in Western Europe in the 1980s and beyond. The
=93temporary=94 guest workers were thus encouraged to maintain their
separate ethnic, linguistic and cultural identities and organize
separate sports and cultural institutions, and even alternative labor
union and political organizations.
No government policy, however, has had a greater and more negative
effect on those immigrants than the =93social market=94 policies that
became the norm in the EU. As the post-1973 oil crisis put an official
end to the =93economic miracle=94 post-war era in Europe, the welfare
state policies began to impose ever greater burdens on the economy in
terms of government intervention, rising payroll taxes and minimum
wages and rigid labor laws designed to protect highly paid and
pampered skilled and unionized workers and punish the young and
unskilled by making them unemployable. At the same time, generous
welfare checks, housing benefits, child subsidies and free health care
made it economically more attractive for many to do nothing rather
than do minimum wage jobs. Inevitably, this state of affairs bred
resentment, alienation and lawlessness. And as it did, those with a
distinct non-European culture, like the Muslims, progressively
decoupled physically and emotionally from the larger society around
them. It is in these alienated Muslim enclaves throughout Europe that
radical Islam found fertile soil for its siren call.
This process of encapsulation, which began in earnest with the second
generation of Muslim immigrants in the 1970s, coincided with the
coming of age of radical Islam in the Middle East and South Asia. The
next three decades saw the massive infiltration of radical Islamic
influence into Europe, spurred by an influx of foreign radicals from
groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and massive amounts of Saudi
money. This alliance facilitated the takeover of British Muslim
organizations, and helped erect a huge network of Wahhabi-controlled
institutions, including over 1,500 mosques, 150 Islamic Centers, 202
Muslim colleges and 2,000 Islamic schools. As a result, there is
hardly a city of any size in the West that does not have a Saudi-
controlled institution preaching extremism and spewing hatred against
Western civilization and, directly or indirectly, advocating its
destruction. And in Europe=92s increasingly isolated, impoverished and
discontented Muslims, the Wahhabi message has increasingly found
resonance. The end result is by now painfully clear: a pervasive
radicalization of European Muslims is taking place throughout Western
Europe.
The immediate repercussions of this troubling phenomenon are already
visible. The Old Continent is no longer just a transit point for
terrorists; it has itself become a breeding ground for all manner of
Islamic extremists and jihadists. With hundreds of European-born and -
raised extremists documented to have already taken part in terrorist
activities in all the hotbeds of jihadism worldwide, this is and
should be a matter of serious concern. But the more profound challenge
posed by the quasi-totalitarian Islamist ideology now on the march
within the EU is to Europe itself. For, if the kind of radical,
uncompromising and violence-prone worldview currently on display in
Muslim ghettoes remains dominant among European Muslims as they become
a majority of the Continent=92s young, urban population, it is difficult
to see how Europe can remain a modern democratic and secular polity.
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