Posted on 05/11/2004 8:49:28 PM PDT by ambrose
Civilizational senility
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Pipes May. 11, 2004
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'Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam." So declares Oriana Fallaci in her new book, La Forza della Ragione ("The Force of Reason"). And the famed Italian journalist is right: Christianity's ancient stronghold of Europe is rapidly giving way to Islam. Two factors mainly contribute to this world-shaking development:
The hollowing out of Christianity. Europe is increasingly a post-Christian society, one with a diminishing connection to its tradition or its historic values. The number of believing, observant Christians has collapsed in the past two generations to the point that some observers call Europe the "new dark continent."
Already, analysts estimate Britain's mosques host more worshipers each week than does the Church of England.
An anemic birthrate. Indigenous Europeans are dying out. Sustaining a population requires each woman on average to bear 2.1 children; in the European Union, the overall rate is one-third short, at 1.5 per woman, and falling.
One study finds that should current population trends continue and immigration cease, today's population of 375 million could decline to 275 million by 2075. To keep its working population even, the EU needs 1.6 million immigrants a year; to sustain the present workers-to-retirees ratio requires an astonishing 13.5 million immigrants annually.
Into the void are coming Islam and Muslims. As Christianity falters, Islam is robust, assertive, and ambitious. As Europeans under-reproduce at advanced ages, Muslims do so in large numbers while young.
Some 5% of the EU, or nearly 20 million persons, presently identify themselves as Muslims; should current trends continue that number will reach 10% by 2020. If non-Muslims flee the new Islamic order, as seems likely, the continent could be majority-Muslim within decades.
When that happens, grand cathedrals will appear as vestiges of a prior civilization – at least until a Saudi-style regime transforms them into mosques or a Taliban-like regime blows them up. The great national cultures – Italian, French, English, and others – will likely wither, replaced by a new transnational Muslim identity that merges North African, Turkish, subcontinental, and other elements.
This prediction is hardly new. In 1968, British politician Enoch Powell gave his famed "rivers of blood" speech in which he warned that in allowing excessive immigration the United Kingdom was "heaping up its own funeral pyre." (Those words stalled a hitherto promising career.) In 1973, the French writer Jean Raspail published Camp of the Saints, a novel that portrays Europe falling to massive, uncontrolled immigration from the Indian subcontinent.
The peaceable transformation of a region from one major civilization to another, now underway, has no precedent in human history, making it easy to ignore such voices.
There is still a chance for the transformation not to play itself out, but the prospects diminish with time. Here are several possible ways it might be stopped:
Changes in Europe that lead to a resurgence of Christian faith, an increase in childbearing, or the cultural assimilation of immigrants; such developments can theoretically occur, but what would cause them is hard to imagine.
Muslim modernization: For reasons no one has quite figured out (education of women? abortion on demand? adults too self-absorbed to have children?), modernity leads to a drastic reduction in the birthrate. Also, were the Muslim world to modernize, the attraction of moving to Europe would diminish.
Immigration from other sources. Latin Americans, being Christian, would more or less permit Europe to keep its historic identity. Hindus and Chinese would increase the diversity of cultures, making it less likely that Islam would dominate.
Current trends suggest Islamization will happen, for Europeans seem to find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilizational senility.
Europe has simultaneously reached unprecedented heights of prosperity and peacefulness – and shown a unique inability to sustain itself (one demographer, Wolfgang Lutz, notes that "Negative momentum has not been experienced on a large scale in world history").
Is it inevitable that the most brilliantly successful society will also be the first in danger of collapse due to a lack of cultural confidence and offspring?
Ironically, creating a hugely desirable place to live would also seem to be a recipe for suicide. The human comedy continues.
The writer is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction).
Clash of civilizations ping.
Did Liberal Secular Humanism and its population control ideology pave the way for Islamo-fascism in Europe? Too late to change course?
Who knows? What I urge here is that we relearn what makes civilizations tick. That we live in a world where "gay marriage" seems like a good idea is truly a howlingly mind-bending absurdity.
Immigration from other sources. Latin Americans, being Christian, would more or less permit Europe to keep its historic identity. Hindus and Chinese would increase the diversity of cultures, making it less likely that Islam would dominate.
This is a bit like saying taking cyanide will prevent you from choking. True, in its way, I suppose.
I keep remembering the "liberal" sophisticates of Iran under the Shah -- western style cocktail parties, etc. But nothing would do but get rid of the Shah. They actually supported the ayatollahs, assuming (I've read) that they could manipulate them and get the real power for themselves. Well, they couldn't.
Guess where they'll flee to? America, naturally, to dilute us with their agnosticism and atheism as they did their own homelands and turn us into the next "new dark continent," after Europe. 'Course by then, muslims will have secured France's nukes and will be eager to use them against us.
The roots of this disaster can be traced to the Protestant Rebellion.
Protestant Rebellion > Enlightenment > Rationalism > Modernism > Relativism > Postmodernism
Is it too late? It sure looks that way. But anything is possible with God. A reasonable guess though is that Islam will grow within Europe to the point that there will be a clash of civilizations similar to what is taking place now in Nigeria. The real question seems to be whether this "fire" will serve to purify the Church in Europe or drastically reduce Its presence there.
On the positive side, it looks like Christianity is making great inroads into China, and the number of Christians gained in China will greatly exceed the number of Christians lost in Europe.
I remember in the early '80s discussions in educational circles about the baby boomer's declining reproduction levels. It's funny that it only grabs liberal attention usually with respect to funding social security. Typical.
Pipes raises some interesting points:
There is still a chance for the transformation not to play itself out, but the prospects diminish with time. Here are several possible ways it might be stopped: Changes in Europe that lead to a resurgence of Christian faith, an increase in childbearing, or the cultural assimilation of immigrants; such developments can theoretically occur, but what would cause them is hard to imagine.
Well, among other things, governments and corporations could assist in improving the standard of living to make having larger families more affordable. The liberal ideological assaults on Christianity also need to be curbed, at least in terms of public opinion and public consciousness. One suspects they are having a a hard time wrestling with these issues. Perhaps worry and panic are starting to set in. I found that recent pro-abortion march in Washington totally absurd, coming as it did during a war when Americans are being killed abroad. Who, in their right mind, recommends slaughtering their own unborn during a War??? !!! That the irony of that escapes them is quite revealing about their mental state.
Liberals, secular humanists, and the population control mafia must now admit they were wrong. That is going to be QUITE an ordeal for them.
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