Posted on 11/19/2006 6:47:36 AM PST by kellynla
Mark Steyn's America Alone is the jauntiest bit of doomsaying you'll ever come across. Part Philip Longman, part Samuel Huntington, part Robert Kagan, America Alone takes the two most important global trends - falling fertility and surging Islamism - and examines what the world around their intersection is going to look like.
Not that it takes much imagination. Throughout the developed world, birthrates are already falling to historically unprecedented lows. In Spain and Russia, for instance, fertility rates now hover about 1.1 births per woman - a number demographers call the "lowest low." (A rate of 2.1 is needed for a stable population.) The result is that populations in these countries and many others, ranging from Europe to Russia to Japan, will begin a sharp contraction during the next 40 years. In some countries, the decline has already begun.
The other trend, the rising tide of Islam, is also well in evidence. As Steyn points out, every year, "more and more of the world lives under Islamic law... . Today, there are more Muslim nations, more radicalized Muslims within those nations, [and] more and more Muslims within non-Muslim nations." Steyn notes that Islam is taking hold in the most unlikely places. What's the most popular baby boy's name in Belgium, Amsterdam, and Malmö? Mohammed.
Islam is, by definition, both a religion and a political system. As the population of Europe withers away, Muslim immigrants are amassing power, bringing the political culture of Islam into close conflict with Western liberalism. Steyn wonders what will happen when the laws of sharia smack up against the mores of Europe.
It is not an unfounded concern. Consider Bertrand Delanoë, who in 2001 became the first openly gay mayor of Paris. In October 2002, Delanoë was stabbed by a Muslim immigrant in the middle of a public festival. As Steyn writes, the good news is the would-be assassin wasn't a "terrorist." The bad news is he was merely a Muslim who hated homosexuals.
From the Danish cartoon riots to the persecution of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the murder of Theo van Gogh, you can hardly go a fortnight without seeing some story of Muslim aggression in Europe. While one could see such crimes as the inevitable result of large numbers of people suddenly thrust into an alien culture, Steyn sees a wider significance to them: Such incidents are the precursors to conflict between a declining population with one set of values and a rising population with very different ones.
The European reaction thus far has been accommodation. In 2005, for instance, England's chief inspector of prisons banned flying the flag of England on prison grounds, since it featured the cross of St. George, which might be offensive to Muslims. Britain's version of the department of motor vehicles has also banned the English flag, as has Heathrow Airport.
Yet none of this has helped Europeans avoid trouble. Take the words of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed to Lisbon's Publica magazine shortly after the March 11 terror attacks in Spain: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and noncivilians, innocents and noninnocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value."
As Steyn observes, there are no "root causes." There is only an ideology that requires submission of the host culture. Even in a country as amenable as France. The French are hostile toward both Israel and America, they were against the Iraq war, and they are in favor of allowing Iran to pursue its nuclear dreams. If you're an Islamist, what's not to like?
Yet five days before the 2005 Bali slaughter, Steyn writes, "nine Islamists were arrested in Paris for reportedly plotting to attack the Metro." When extremist terrorists attacked a French oil tanker, the group responsible, the Islamic Army of Aden, released a statement saying, "We would have preferred to hit a U.S. frigate, but no problem, because they are all infidels."
No problem! But the real problem is that capital-T Terrorists aren't the only problem. Steyn argues that "Islam itself is a political project." We see this reflected repeatedly in news reports from France, Denmark, and other European countries, in which disaffected Muslims chafe at the trammels of Western law. Such reports bring to mind the grim admonishment of James C. Bennett, businessman and president of the Anglosphere Institute: "Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism. Pick any two."
So where do we go from here? Steyn has some ideas. Noting reports that the majority of women in European battered women's shelters are Muslim, he suggests a serious push for women's rights in the Islamic world, which could fundamentally destabilize the Islamist project. Listing a number of Muslim terrorists who lived on the European dole - Muhammed Metin Kaplan, Abu Hamza, Abu Qatada, etc. - he posits that Euro-welfare should be remade. But ultimately, Steyn admits that Islam itself will have to be reformed if it is to become compatible with modernity.
Buried in America Alone is a question Steyn asks but leaves unanswered. Surveying the history of Islam as it has regressed over the last few generations, Steyn wonders: "We... talk airily about 'reforming' Islam. But what if the reform has already taken place, and jihadism is it?"
Some possibilities are too dark for even a book about the End of the World
Why we are putting up with it is troubling and disturbing. Its like we have no regard for Western Civilization, and would rather "switch than fight".
We are witnessing the greatest anti-truth, anti-freedom, anti-individual, anti-life collective in the history of civilization.
islam is a cult clear and simple.
Or maybe the second greatest, after Marxism.
I have come to realize that they've NEVER given up on that goal, not since their beginnings and certainly not now. I now see that the peaceful, non-violent muslims are what give the radical muslims their strength and power. We, the tolerant, must not let those peaceful exceptions blind us to the reality of the violent and their ambitions for worldwide shia law.
Can't happen here? Who would have thought it could happen in England? Imagine England's chief inspector of prisons banning flying the flag of England on prison grounds, since it featured the cross of St. George, which might be offensive to Muslims or Britain's version of the department of motor vehicles also banning the English flag, as has Heathrow Airport. We've opened the door and are inviting, if not begging for, the inevitable.
islam is represents hate, slavery & death.
I'm currently reading Steyn's book.
I'm afraid Sheikh Mohammed has stated above Islam's designs on Europe as plainly as those designs can be said.
There can be no wishing away of the future of Europeans once Islamics dominate there.
This posting will probably be removed by the moderators, but I'm going to post it anyway.
Faced with Islam's stated goals in Europe, there can be only two possible choices for white/Christian Europeans (other than to get out while the gettin' is still good):
Choice #1: buy burqhas
Choice #2: order boxcars and build new concentration camps.
How many years do Christianity and freedom have left in Europe?
- John
I picked this up last week, and it's in the queue, next up on the reading list...
A remarkably favorable review from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Not only does it sympathize with Steyn's book, it manages to put the basic issues on the table for any chance reader to think about. Something the MSM only very rarely permits.
Well written, too, and entertaining to read, which is important, because you can't instruct readers unless you entertain and please them.
In a word: Liberalism. They have imbued our nation with self-hatred, and now we have a lot in comman with the muzis.
Are you describing the modern Western welfare state ... or Islam?
Every American should read it.
Even Liberals
In Europe Christianity is a empty husk of once a thriving living faith. It is already 90 % dead, they just don't know it.
When what is left of Christianity is finally driven underground, freedom will also be dead.
20-30 years for the first countries to elect muslim majorities in their parliament.
The most popular commercial this year ant Cannes was the "Use condoms" video. Just google up "use condoms video". Its sort of amusing until you realize europeons *still* have this mindset despite plummeting birthrates, and what they're up against.
I'm a little less than 100 pages into the book and it is frightening and depressing. According to Steyn, current demographics give the planet to Islam by mid-century. He sounds utterly defeatist so far -- by the end of the book does he offer any hope? They've taken over Europe without firing a shot.
and their ability to drag freedom and prosperity - children of christianity - back into a thirdworld nation living under the 7th century conditions you stated
In the end, feminism, liberalism, and atheism will be the proximal causes of the west's decline. Islam is merely filling the void.
About the only people left in America who live like Christians should are Mormons.
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