Immigration Eurabia?

[Wang]

This isn't a new article about the increasing presence of Islam, Muslims and Middle-Eastern influences in Europe, but it remains interesting.

Eurabia?
By NIALL FERGUSON

Published: April 4, 2004

In the 52nd chapter of his ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,'' Edward Gibbon posed one of the great counterfactual questions of history. If the French had failed to defeat an invading Muslim army at the Battle of Poitiers in A.D. 732, would all of Western Europe have succumbed to Islam?

''Perhaps,'' speculated Gibbon with his inimitable irony, ''the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.''

When those words were published in 1788, the idea of a Muslim Oxford could scarcely have seemed more fanciful. The last Muslim forces had been driven from Spain in 1492; the Ottoman advance through Eastern Europe had been decisively halted at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

Today, however, the idea seems somewhat less risible. The French historian Alain Besancon is one of a number of European intellectuals who detect a significant threat to the continent's traditional Christian culture. The Egyptian-born writer Bat Yeor has for some years referred to the rise of a new ''Eurabia'' that is hostile in equal measure to the United States and Israel. Two years ago, Pat Buchanan published an apocalyptic book titled ''The Death of the West,'' prophesying that declining European fertility and immigration from Muslim countries could turn ''the cradle of Western civilization'' into ''its grave.''

Such Spenglerian talk has gained credibility since 9/11. The ''3/11'' bombings in Madrid confirm that terrorists sympathetic to Osama bin Laden continue to operate with comparative freedom in European cities. Some American commentators suspect Europeans of wanting to appease radical Islam. Others detect in sporadic manifestations of anti-Semitism a sinister conjunction of old fascism and new fundamentalism.

Most European Muslims are, of course, law-abiding citizens with little sympathy for terrorist attacks on European cities. Moreover, they are drawn from a wide range of countries and of Islamic traditions, few of them close to Arabian Wahhabism. Nevertheless, there is no question that the continent is experiencing fundamental demographic and cultural changes whose long-term consequences no one can foresee.

To begin with, consider the extraordinary prospect of European demographic decline. A hundred years ago -- when Europe's surplus population was still crossing the oceans to populate America and Australasia -- the countries that make up today's European Union accounted for around 14 percent of the world's population. Today that figure is down to around 6 percent, and by 2050, according to a United Nations forecast, it will be just over 4 percent. The decline is absolute as well as relative. Even allowing for immigration, the United Nations projects that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5million over the next 45 years. There has not been such a sustained reduction in the European population since the Black Death of the 14th century. (By contrast, the United States population is projected to grow by 44 percent between 2000 and 2050.)

With the median age of Greeks, Italians and Spaniards projected to exceed 50 by 2050 -- roughly 1 in 3 people will be 65 or over -- the welfare states created in the wake of World War II plainly require drastic reform. Either today's newborn Europeans will spend their working lives paying 75 percent tax rates or retirement and ''free'' health care will simply have to be abolished. Alternatively (or additionally), Europeans will have to tolerate more legal immigration.

But where will the new immigrants come from? It seems very likely that a high proportion will come from neighboring countries, and Europe's fastest-growing neighbors today are predominantly if not wholly Muslim. A youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize -- the term is not too strong -- a senescent Europe. [/U]

This prospect is all the more significant when considered alongside the decline of European Christianity. In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark today, fewer than 1 in 10 people now attend church once a month or more. Some 52 percent of Norwegians and 55 percent of Swedes say that God did not matter to them at all. While the social and sexual freedoms that matter to such societies are antithetical to Muslim fundamentalism, their religious tolerance leaves these societies weak in the face of fanaticism.

What the consequences of these changes will be is very difficult to say. A creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom is one conceivable result: while the old Europeans get even older and their religious faith weaker, the Muslim colonies within their cities get larger and more overt in their religious observance. A backlash against immigration by the economically Neanderthal right is another: aging electorates turn to demagogues who offer sealed borders without explaining who exactly is going to pay for the pensions and health care. Nor can we rule out the possibility of a happy fusion between rapidly secularized second-generation Muslims and their post-Christian neighbors. Indeed, we may conceivably end up with all three: Situation 1 in France, Situation 2 in Austria and Situation 3 in Britain.

You can read the rest of the article here.


The too low birth-rates of mostly native Europeans contrasted with the high birth-rates of recent immigrant waves, most of whom are Muslims, will lead to increasing islamification of Europe.

One of the primary reasons of the low birth-rates of native Europeans due to too many women who work full-time. Therefore such families with those full-time working women usually don't produce enough children to maintain a country's population. Since women cannot work full-time and take care of children simultaneously, one thing will be sacrificed. So they usually have no children or one child, maybe two children, but that is not enough.

Due to the native Europeans poor birth-rates, they would fade away with time and be replaced by immigrants and their offspring.

Consequently European countries are more and more dependant on larger amounts of immigrants who are vital to fill in the void of, otherwise rapidly greying and shrinking, populations and their economies.

The Muslims are already a force to be reckoned with. If things keep going as they currently are then eventually they would be big enough in certain European countries to cast majority votes on all kinds of stuff in order to change society to their will.

A big question is if unity and stability in the affected European countries can be maintained throughout those times?
If so will the immigrants and their offspring want to preserve the cultures and ways of their adoptive European countries? Or will they alter them, such as for example mix religion with state instead of keeping them separate etc and to what degree (small, mild or radical) will the changes be?



A other interesting article is The Twin Myths of Eurabia.

According to Bat Ye’or, Eurabia is essentially a political project for a demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab Muslim world, a new extended Mediterranean “continent” made possible by EU authorities through deliberately favoring Muslim immigration, promoting Multiculturalism and the dissemination of Arab and Islamic culture in Europe.

The roots of Western civilization are primarily Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman. If you want to create a new entity, Eurabia, encompassing Europe, Turkey and the Arab world, you need first to establish that this cultural entity isn’t “new” at all, but has always existed. The way to do this is to establish that Islam is a natural and integral part of Western civilization. You need to imprint in the minds of the people that yes, Muslims and Christians can indeed live peacefully together, as we did in the glorious days of Andalusia. Not only can we live with Muslims, we actually owe Muslims gratitude for helping us create the scientific achievements of the modern West. Thus we have the twin foundational myths of Eurabia. This is why French President Jacques Chirac can claim that “Islam has contributed just as much to Western civilization as Christianity,” thus echoing Tariq Ramadan. Muslims believe that all people are born as Muslims. Jews and Christians share the same message as Muslims. If they disagree on something, this is because Jews or Christians have “misinterpreted” or “perverted” the true, Islamic message. All good things are essentially Islamic, as Mr Ramadan points out. It is thus an illusion to claim that there is such as thing as a separate, “Judeo-Christian” civilization. All Western achievements are Islamic, as they are the result of a civilization Muslims gave to us. Muslims should thus feel no gratitude for enjoying the benefits of the West, they are merely enjoying the legitimate benefits of their own civilization. In fact, Westerners should feel gratitude towards Muslims.

With this long term plan of creating Eurabia (The Euro-Arab Axis) they kind of want to create a new Roman Empire which stretches across the Mediterranean, in order to obtain the precious oil of the Middle-East that Europe is dependant on. The European Union would then in return be in line with what the Arab, Islamic world thinks of world issues and therefore against America and Israel plus favoring muslim immigrants. However this would also lead to Europe to become a colony of the Arab and Islamic world. It’s complicated, you can read the rest in that long article.

 

[Maciamo]

A few reflections :

If the French had failed to defeat an invading Muslim army at the Battle of Poitiers in A.D. 732, would all of Western Europe have succumbed to Islam?

It wasn't the French, but the Franks who defeated the Moors in Poitiers in 732. Granted that the battled took place in what is now France, but the leader of the Frankish army, Charles Martel, was born and raised in what is now Wallonia, in Belgium. Genetically, modern Belgians have a higher proportion of Frankish blood than the French. So, in the same way as the first crusade was led by a Waloon/Belgian (Godfroid de Bouillon), the Muslims were also defeated by a Waloon/Belgian 360 years before. Without the Waloons, Europe (and the Americas) could indeed be Muslim now !

''Perhaps,'' speculated Gibbon with his inimitable irony, ''the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.''

Islam is now taught at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium (the oldest Catholic university in the world). In Belgium and other European countries, Christian (mosty Catholic) priests MUST graduate in theology to be ordained priest. The idea is that in the future Muslim Imams will also have to graduate from a European university in Islamic theology to be allowed to preach in Europe. I believe that this is a very good idea, as it would reduce, or even eradicate extreminism, fundamentalism and fanaticism in European Islam, and thus make the world safer (let us not forget that it was mostly Europe-born Muslims who committed the terrorist attacks of 9/11).

Two years ago, Pat Buchanan published an apocalyptic book titled ''The Death of the West,'' prophesying that declining European fertility and immigration from Muslim countries could turn ''the cradle of Western civilization'' into ''its grave.''

This kind of comments strongly remind me of the anti-semitic comments made in the late 19th and early 20th century in Europe.

the countries that make up today's European Union accounted for around 14 percent of the world's population. Today that figure is down to around 6 percent, and by 2050, according to a United Nations forecast, it will be just over 4 percent.

Some journalists should go back to primary school and revise their basic calculus. The EU's population is close to 500 million (with Romania and Bulgaria, joining in 4 months), or about 1/12 of the world's population, i.e. about 8%. Add the rest of Europe (including Russia), and the population is about 710 million, or 11% of the world's population.

This prospect is all the more significant when considered alongside the decline of European Christianity. In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark today, fewer than 1 in 10 people now attend church once a month or more. Some 52 percent of Norwegians and 55 percent of Swedes say that God did not matter to them at all. While the social and sexual freedoms that matter to such societies are antithetical to Muslim fundamentalism, their religious tolerance leaves these societies weak in the face of fanaticism.

Indeed, religious tolerance nowadays often equate with tolerance of extremism and even terrorism. This is why European universities should offer theology courses for Muslim imams, and make it compusory by law for imam to hold such a degree to practice in Europe. This is a job like any other after all. Why should a physical education teacher or a plumber need some certification to practice their job, but not imams ? This is favouritism. We have reached a point where in the name of religious tolerance in Europe, religious people have more rights than other citizens. In Belgium the Muslim community went to court and has obtained the right to receive the exact same government subsidies as the Catholic Church ! I would agree only if neither had any subsidies. Maybe I should create an Atheist association, which would have more members that the Muslim and maybe also Catholic communities of Belgium, and ask for subsidies !

According to Bat Ye?for, Eurabia is essentially a political project for a demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab Muslim world, a new extended Mediterranean ?gcontinent?h made possible by EU authorities through deliberately favoring Muslim immigration, promoting Multiculturalism and the dissemination of Arab and Islamic culture in Europe.

I have explained in the thread Is there such thing as an Arab race ?, that the so-called Arab world is not more genetically homogenous than the European contient. I can usually tell apart a Moroccan from a Near East Arab (Lebanon, Jordan...) from an Iraqi from a Saudi from an Egyptian. They all look quite different. The only similarity they have is to be Muslim and speak a dialect of Arabic (but Moroccan, Egyptian and Saudi Arabic are about as different as Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan and Italian).

The too low birth-rates of mostly native Europeans contrasted with the high birth-rates of recent immigrant waves, most of whom are Muslims, will lead to increasing islamification of Europe.

In the short term yes, but I expect birthrate to fall after a few generations (like with all immigrants to Europe or North America). I also expect them to lose faith in Islam the longer they stay in Europe. Nowadays the Muslim immigrants are clearly the new "lower class" of Europe, doing all the dirty, dangerous and hard jobs that European don't want to do anymore. The Romans had slavery, Medieval Europeans had serfs, the colonisation brought a new wave of (African) slavery, and now we have the Muslims as our underclass. I would go as far as to say that many Moroccans in Belgium as regarded almost like the 'untouchables' in India, but because of their own behaviour (other poor immigrant do not have such a bad image). For example the fact that they create their own ghettoes and do not want to intermarry with non Muslims. This is an interesting historical case of self-segregation by the poor. :blush:

A big question is if unity and stability in the affected European countries can be maintained throughout those times?

I suppose that the "threat" of Islam in Europe will reinforce the sense of unity between (non Mulsim) Europeans.

With this long term plan of creating Eurabia (The Euro-Arab Axis) they kind of want to create a new Roman Empire which stretches across the Mediterranean, in order to obtain the precious oil of the Middle-East that Europe is dependant on.

What the hell are you talking about ? Oil is a short term issue. There will soon be electric cars, etc. What is more, most of the Muslim immigrants in Europe come from North Africa or Pakistan, neither of which are main oil producers. We almost do not have any immigrants from the Arabian peninsula (the small Emirates are too rich to bother emigrating) or even Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or Egypt. As for the link with the Roman Empire, I just cannot see North Africa or the Middle East entering the EU; first because they are not European, but also because they do not want to join the EU. As for colonising them, it has already been done. It is the decolonisation that brought the wave of immigrants from the Maghreb. We certainly do not want that to happen again !

 

[Wang]

The EU's population is close to 500 million (with Romania and Bulgaria, joining in 4 months), or about 1/12 of the world's population, i.e. about 8%. Add the rest of Europe (including Russia), and the population is about 710 million, or 11% of the world's population.

The Russian Federation will probably never join the European Union though. And this is at the moment, but in the future the population of other areas in the world will grow while Europe's population does the opposite.

I have explained in the thread Is there such thing as an Arab race ?, that the so-called Arab world is not more genetically homogenous than the European contient.

Yeah it's their similar religious background (Islam) that unites them on issues.

In the short term yes, but I expect birthrate to fall after a few generations (like with all immigrants to Europe or North America). I also expect them to lose faith in Islam the longer they stay in Europe. Nowadays the Muslim immigrants are clearly the new "lower class" of Europe, doing all the dirty, dangerous and hard jobs that European don't want to do anymore. The Romans had slavery, Medieval Europeans had serfs.

Sure these newcomers begin in the lower levels of society, but will crawl up the ladder sooner or later to the top. I don't think the immigrants birthrates will decline as fast as you think or to such low levels. And that most will continue to practice their faith, so Islam in Europe will remain alive and is growing.
Here's some information about this:

Demographics. The Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than that of non-Muslim Europeans, which is declining, writes Omer Taspinar, the co-director of The Brookings Institution's project on Turkey. The Muslim population has doubled in the last 10 years to 4 percent of the European Union's population. About 1 million new Islamic immigrants arrive in Western Europe every year, and by 2050, one in five Europeans will likely be Muslim.

Turkey. Turkey is currently discussing entry procedures with the European Union (EU) that could allow it to join the EU in 10 to 15 years. This would increase the Muslim population in Europe by some 70 million. Some experts hope traditionally secular Turks, who have strictly enforced the separation of mosque and state in their own country, will temper Islamic radicalism on the European continent. Others say the addition of so many more Muslims will push Europe toward increasing religious radicalization..

http://www.cfr.org/publication/8252/europe.html


25 Percent of Europeans Will Be Above Age 65 in 2030, Says New Data Sheet

(July 2006) Europe—which already has 19 of the world's 20 oldest countries in terms of population age—will see its populations continue to age to unprecedented levels over the next 25 years, according to a new data sheet co-published by the Population Reference Bureau.

The aging trend will mean increased strain on European health care and pension systems as well as the continent's economies, many of which are already struggling under employment rates averaging around 10 percent and old-age dependency ratios that are the highest in the world.

Written by Wolfgang Lutz, director of the Vienna Institute of Demography and leader of the World Population Project at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the European Demographic Data Sheet 2006 provides 26 indicators—ranging from life expectancy at birth to average retirement ages to net migration totals—for each of the 25 countries of the European Union and 46 European countries in all.

Among the highlights of the Data Sheet:

- Nearly 25 percent of people in the European Union in 2030 will be above age 65, up from about 17 percent in 2005.
- There is an 80 percent chance that Europe's old-age dependency ratio—the number of people age 65 and older compared with the number of working-age people (ages 15-64) will more than double by 2050, from one in every four to one in fewer than every two.
- As much as 20 percent of Europe 's population could be above age 80 by 2050.
- Unemployment in Europe averaged 9.1 percent in 2004—and 19.9 percent for youth under age 25.
- While the European Union's overall population is projected to increase slightly between 2005 and 2030, the bulk of that increase will come from net immigration. Natural increase (the ratio of births over deaths) will turn negative for the EU in 2010. And the vast majority of Europe's countries—including Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Russia—are projected to lose population in the next 25 years.

http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Sec...Management/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13918

What the hell are you talking about ? Oil is a short term issue. There will soon be electric cars, etc.

Yeah it's not really oil, it's various things. Bat Ye'or has written about it in the bookEurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Here's a interview from September 21, 2004.

FP: First things first, can you explain the term "Eurabia" to our readers?

Bat Ye'or: Eurabia represents a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC)which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions.

The field of Euro-Arab collaboration covered every domain: from economy and policy to immigration. In foreign policy, it backed anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism and Israel's delegitimization; the promotion of the PLO and Arafat; a Euro-Arab associative diplomacy in international forums; and NGO collaboration. In domestic policy, the EAD established a close cooperation between the Arab and European media television, radio, journalists, publishing houses, academia, cultural centers, school textbooks, student and youth associations, tourism. Church interfaith dialogues were determinant in the development of this policy. Eurabia is therefore this strong Euro-Arab network of associations -- a comprehensive symbiosis with cooperation and partnership on policy, economy, demography and culture.

Eurabia is the future of Europe. Its driving force, the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, was created in Paris in 1974. It now has over six hundred members -- from all major European political parties -- active in their own national parliaments, as well as in the European parliament. The creation of this body and its policy follow the 23 resolutions of the "Second International Conference in Support of the Arab Peoples", held in Cairo in January 1969. Its resolution 15 formulates the Euro-Arab policy and its all-embracing development over thirty years in European domestic and foreign policy.

It stated: "The conference decided to form special parliamentary groups, where they did not exist, and to use the parliamentary platform for promoting support of the Arab people and the Palestinian resistance." In the 1970s, pursuant to the wishes of the Cairo Conference, national groups proclaiming "Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance and the Arab peoples" appeared throughout Europe. These groups belonged to different political families, Gaullists, extreme left or right, communists, neo-Nazis -- but they all shared the same anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. France has been the key protagonist of this policy, ever since de Gaulle's press conference on 27 November 1967 when he presented France's cooperation with the Arab world as "the fundamental basis of our foreign policy".

FP: Is Europe's dependence on Arab oil a predominant factor in its pro-Arab policy?

Bat Ye'or: No, I don't think so. Arab leaders have to sell their oil; their people are very dependent on European economic, health and technological aid. America made this point during the oil embargo in 1973. The oil factor is a pretext to cover up a policy that emerged in France before that crisis. The policy was already conceived in the 1960s. It has strong antecedents in the French 19th century dream of governing an Arab empire and the exploitation of antisemitism to strengthen Arab Muslim-French solidarity against a demonized common enemy. Eurabia is not only a web of various agreements covering every field. It is essentially a political project for a total demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab world, where Israel will eventually dissolve. America would be isolated and challenged by an emerging Euro-Arab continent that is linked to the whole Muslim world and invested with tremendous political and economic power in international affairs. The policies of "multilateralism" and "soft diplomacy" express this deepening symbiosis. The Euro-Arab agreements are merely the tools for the creation of this new "continent." Eurabia is also based on the vision of Christian-Muslim reconciliation and has been strongly advocated by religious Christian bodies.

FP: For a moment, France looked like it was totally lost. But it seems to have adopted a new foreign policy, more oriented toward Europe. What is your view of this?

Bat Ye'or: France and the rest of Western Europe cannot change their policy anymore. Their future is Eurabia. Period. I don't see how they can reverse the movement they set in motion thirty years ago. Nor do Eurabians want to modify this policy. It is a project that was conceived, planned and pursued consistently through immigration policy, propaganda, church support, economic associations and aid, cultural, media and academic collaboration. Generations grew up within this political framework; they were educated and conditioned to support it and go along with it. This is the source of the strong anti-American feeling in Europe and of the paranoiac obsession with Israel, two elements that form the cornerstone of Eurabia. The new French orientation toward Europe indicates that France will work within Europe, and particularly with the new Eastern member states of the European Union, to convince them to forgo their Atlanticist vision and reorient their alliances toward the Arab Muslim world. This was French policy in the 1960s when Paris became the advocate of the Arab cause in the European Community. Until 1971, France had been isolated in the EC in its anti-Israel stance. European Community critics accused it of bias toward the Arab world. Faced with the oil crisis, the nine EC countries -- under French and German leadership -- unified their views regarding the Middle East conflict and this generated the Euro-Arab Dialogue's overall development.

FP: Tell us about the Prodi project where Tariq Ramadan and others have collaborated.

Bat Ye'or: Prodi's project is the fulfillment of Eurabia. It is called the "Dialogue between Peoples and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area."

It was requested by Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, and accepted at the Sixth Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Foreign Affairs Ministers in Naples on 2-3 December 2003. It represents a strategy for closer Euro-Arab symbiosis to be implemented by a Foundation that will control, direct and monitor it. Last May the European ministers of foreign affairs accepted the creation of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures with its seat in Alexandria, Egypt. Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, murdered by an insane man, was a key advocate of the Palestinian cause and the boycott of Israel. Lindh was known for her criticism of Israeli and American policies of self-defense against terror. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was a close friend, calling her a "true European."

The Foundation will endeavor through numerous means to reinforce links of mutuality, solidarity and "togetherness" between the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean, that is, Europe and the Arab countries. The authors of the project carefully avoid such characterizations since -- in the spirit of Edward Said -- they are judged anathema and racist. This is explained in the report's text, but I use them for clarification. It is the Eurabian context, representing a totally anti-American and anti-Zionist culture and policy, that explains the strong reaction against the war in Iraq -- itself integrated into the war against Islamic terrorism. A terrorism that Eurabia has denied, blaming Israel's "injustice and occupation" and America's "arrogance" instead. Eurabia has transformed Islamic terrorism into a cliche: "America is the problem" in order to consolidate the web of alliances that support its whole geostrategy.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15044