Posted on 02/04/2005 12:49:22 PM PST by untenured
France, its Muslims, and the Future
Of late, it has frequently been suggested that France--and increasingly, not only France but western Europe as a whole--is heading for a Muslim majority. No longer will France be plausibly described as the "eldest daughter" of the Catholic Church; no longer will Luthers church have any sway in his homeland; no longer will local Christianities mark the daily lives of people in Spain and Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. Instead of church towers, we will have minarets. Instead of the code napoléon, we will have the sharia. Instead of women sunning themselves on Mediterranean beaches and same-sex marriage in the Low Countries, well have women forced to wear burqas and gays once again closeted. The past centuries of social liberalization in Europe will be brutally reversed, as Europe enters a new dark age. (But particularly France, since it has too many Muslims to be saved.)
Why? Well, rates of immigration are high enough, but the main factor is the high Muslim birth rate. In the context of a generalized European birth dearth, high fertility rates on the part of Muslim immigrants will inevitably lead to a replacement of the native European population by non-natives. Weve seen this before, of course, in such sterling examples as the success of the French Canadians in assimilating eastern Canada and New England, the Italian absorption of France and Argentina, the irreversible Russification of the outer republics of the Soviet Union, the ongoing Mexican conquest of California and Texas, et cetera.
First question of the day: Does anyone see a problem with the above historical summary?
The fact that the Roman Catholic Church is the single largest Christian denomination in the United States isnt often appreciated as the historical wonder that it is. The church is almost entirely a product of the United States' expansion. At first, this reflected territorial expansion into the two-thirds of the United States originally colonized by Catholic France and Spain). Later, this growth was produced by mass immigration--at first Irish and German, then French Canadian, Italian, and any number of central European nationalities, now Latin American and Asian.
The degree of American anti-Catholicism shouldnt be underestimated. In the colonial era, hostility to Catholic French and its perceived collaborators produced virulent anti-Catholic bigotry--much American opposition to the 1774 Quebec Act was based on hostility to the idea that the French Catholics of British Quebec should have political representation and civil rights. Later, in the 19th century, lurid tales were told--most notably those of Maria Monk--claiming rampant Catholic immorality and claims of an impending Catholic takeover. Differential fertility rates also came into play. And yet, somehow, the Catholic Church in the United States has become thoroughly assimilated, thoroughly accepted by Americans as a legitimate part of the religious landscape.
A question should be asked: Just why is Islam in 21st century France supposed to develop so differently from Catholicism in America? Even if you did accept the thesis--questionable, as I'll demonstrate--that France will shortly accumulate a huge Muslim minority, why should Islam not change over time like American Catholicism? After all, as I've pointed out already, Roman Catholic dogmas have as many problems with modernity as Islamic ones, yet they've changed.
But I digress.
The Atlas of the Arab World cites a population of two million Arabs in France circa 1989, reflecting the authors definition of an Arab as someone connected to an Arab "language and historical conscience" (106). The 1982 French census identifies 796 thousand Arabs as being of Algerian origin, 431 thousand as being of Moroccan origin, 189 thousand as being of Tunisian origin, and another hundred thousand or so coming from another six Arab countries (Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Mauritania, Syria). The difference between the two could be explained by a rate of population growth of 3.5% growth per annum between 1982 and 1990.
Figures of eight million French Muslims are regularly tossed around, based, it seems, on panicked fears of high Muslim immigration and a high Muslim birth rate. These figures are vastly overestimated, though. Figures on religious affiliation and ethnic background arent kept by the French government, as part of a long-standing reaction against the misuse of those figures by Vichy to deport immigrant Jews to the concentration camps. The suggestions of The Economist that there are a bit over four million French Muslims seem to be more sensible and generally accepted. This amounts to roughly 7% of the French population--a significant number, to be sure, but not an overwhelming majority.
If this minority population grew for the next 50 years at a rate of 2% per annum (a high rate, and one that doesnt seem to be supported by signs of an ongoing demographic transition), while the remainder of the population shrunk at a rate of 0.5% per annum (also a high rate of decrease, and one that doesnt seem likely to be achieved for a while given generally high French fertility rates), at the end of this 50 year period the total French population would have shrunk by 9%, and Frances Muslim population would amount to roughly one-fifth of the total. Youd have to wait for a century to approach a position of parity between the two populations, assuming the same unrealistic growth rates. This is definitely not any sort of imminent threat, nor as I shall demonstrate is it a very plausible threat at all.
If a given population is growing, growth can come from two components: an excess of in-migrants over out-migrants; and, an excess of births over deaths. Since the French Muslim community is ultimately of immigrant origins, and since its quite possible for a population to continue to grow based purely on immigration (Singapore may be the first society to experience this pattern of demographic growth), well start by examining the first component.
The French Muslim communities now in existence trace their origins to a wave of heavy immigration to France from throughout the western Mediterranean in the twelve years between 1961 and 1973. In the former year, France withdrew from Algeria. More than a million French citizens, Christians and Jews, migrated to France. In the current state of the French economy, such an influx would have vastly increased unemployment. Happily, France was then in the middle of the trente glorieuses, the generation-long economic boom which transformed France into a modern industrial power; if anything, France needed more immigrants. By this time, France had a long history of recruiting immigrants from Spain and Italy, but as those countries industrialized those sources of immigrants dried up. Portugal, at this time stagnating under Salazars dictatorship, ended up sending 8% of its population to France. The states of the independent Maghreb, however, particularly Algeria, ended up playing the dominant role in this wave of immigration, sending unskilled labourers to France.
With the oil shock in 1973, rising unemployment, and the first signs of native-immigrant tensions, immigration closed down. Precise numbers aren't available, given the presence of illegal immigration, but François Héran's January 2004 article "Cinq idées reçues sur l'immigration" from INED suggests that over the 1990s France received 65 thousand immigrants a year, including illegals, versus natural increase of 200 thousand people a year. This is a sizable number, but at ~0.1% of the French population its importance should not be overestimated. If all of these immigrants came from Muslim countries, it would boost their populatinos by an additional percent per annum. This, however, isn't happening, simply because people who aren't Muslims--Chinese, Christian Africans, people from the DOM-TOM, eastern Europeans--also immigrate to France.
There is, of course, the fertility differential. It has been noted that the immigrants in question have a higher birthrate than their nominal co-nationals. This isnt particularly surprising, indeed is part of a general trend towards immigrant conservatism. Immigrants leave their homelands at a relatively early date and are relatively isolated from the social changes taking place there, while the people remaining in the homelands feel relatively more free to innovate. Thus, for instance, the descendants of those Québécois who stayed in Québec live in one of the most secular societies in North America, but the descendants of those Québécois who moved to New England cleave more closely to the Catholic Church, and the descendants of those Québécois who went to Ontario and points elsewhere in Canada fall somewhere in between.
The French Muslim community, after all, is barely more than a generation old. In Tunisia, fertility rates have fallen below the levels needed to sustain the population over the long term; Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia, are not much further behind. There isnt any more reason to assume that French Muslim fertility rates will remain above replacement rate, after all, than there was to expect Western fertility rates to remain above replacement level. If anything, quite conceivably Maghrebin fertility rates could fall far below replacement levels. Societies with a certain minimal level of female autonomy, fairly low living standards, and access to contraceptive technologies can have rather low birth rates despite being generally conservative--look at Romania and Bulgaria, for instance, or Poland and China, or even Italy and Spain. It isnt difficult to imagine a situation where, one day, the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean will have a lower fertility rate than the countries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean. I have already. The impact that this will have, of course, on French Muslim fertility rates can hardly be anything but negative.
Almost two decades ago, Fernand Braudels The Identity of France referred to some interesting statistics:
By 1976, the number of immigrants was estimated at 3,700,000 or 7% of the total population. Of this total, Portuguese immigrants accounted for 22%, Algerian for 21%, Spanish for 15%, Italian for 13%, Moroccan for 8%, Tunisian for 4%, Turkish for 1.5%, and black African for 2.3% (figures from the 1975 census). Most of these immigrants were adults, men who had been selected (their mortality rate was well below the French average). The immigrant birth rate was high: immigrants from the three North African countries had an average of 5 to 6 children per woman, Portuguese 3.3, Spanish 2.5, Italian 2. 'On average in 1975, this indicator [the fertility rate] was 3.32 for all immigrants, as against 1.84 for the French and 1.93 for the whole population resident in France.' But once the immigrants have settled in France, their fertility rate, wherever measurement is possible, tends to 'fall in parallel' to the indigenous French fertility rate.
(Michel-Louis Levy, "Les étrangers en France," in Population et société, July-August 1980, no. 137.)
Comme en 1990, les étrangères vivant en France en 1999 ont en moyenne 3 enfants. Les Espagnoles et les Italiennes ont toujours moins d enfants que les Françaises, et les Africaines restent les plus fécondes. Plus l'immigration est ancienne, plus le comportement des étrangères tend à être proche de celui des Françaises. Comme les Françaises, les étrangères deviennent mères plus tard qu auparavant. Le calendrier des naissances des Algériennes et des Marocaines, qui était déjà voisin de celui des Françaises, évolue peu. Celui des Tunisiennes se rapproche de celui des Françaises.
As in 1990, foreigners living in France in 1999 have on average three children. The Spanish and Italians have fewer children than Frenchwoman, and Africans remain the most fertile. The older the immigration, the closer the behaviour of the foreigners is close to that of Frenchwomen. Like the French, the foreigners become mothers later than before. The schedule of births of Algerians and Moroccans, already close to that of Frenchwomen, has changed little. That of
Tunisians approaches that of Frenchwomen.
Admitting that compared to other believers Muslims are more keen on abiding by their religious teachings, the French experts claimed that only 10 to 20 percent of France's six million Muslims do so.
There are Muslims who drink and others who do not go to mosques, Ternisien said, arguing many members of the Islamic community in France are already "secularized."
According to a study published in 2001 by the French public opinion institute, 70 percent of France's Muslims fast during the holy fasting month of Ramadan but only 30 percent of them perform their prayers.
The study also argued that 70 percent of French Muslims do not go to mosques.
Your vast array of statistics is very interesting but I
fail to accept your conjecture that assimilation is
what the future holds. First, as Karl Marx said, after a
point quantity irrevocably changes quality. Christianity
is virtually deceased in Europe. Faced with a declining
and decrepit population Euros want to import cheap labor
to keep them in beer and clean cities after their pension
system collapses. I don't think past instances of assimilation that you've cited can be compared in size
to the sunami that is entering Europe. All the reports
I've read indicate that assimilation is neither desired
nor practiced (by Euros or immigrants) on a scale
necessary to make any real difference. We see a roughly
similar situation in the U.S. where illegals are not
being assimilated but are creating their own subculture
because true assimilation requires many factors that are
absent: (1) Time (2)language immersion (3) education
about the new culture (4) exposure and integration into
every aspect of the ambient economy.
Comparing the mixture of Muslims with Christians to the mixture of Christians with Christians expresses an ignorance that can not be understated.
Do you have an account with this blog? If so I would like to join to let them know how ignorant this article is. Please forward a code to join. Thanks.
I agree, and the fact is that tolerance is not one of the
Islamic "virtues", but is considered a Western vice and
a sign of decadence. The Islamofascists - since the
birth of Mohammed in c.570 A.D. - have perpetuated their
faith by violence and murder throughout the world. This is
certainly not PC speech but a recounting of the historical record -- check for yourself, going back as far as Edward
Gibbon who describes in "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire.." the "prophet" Mohammed as an illiterate, epileptic, barbarian. After you read these volumes, and
others, give me your opinion.
Sad but factual.
In your opinion do you believe a reform of the Muslim religion to allow coexistence of other faiths is possible?
I have my doubts as to whether Islam can reform itself
into a tolerant religious faith. When Christians had their
wars of religion in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries they were not nearly so violent and are now
universally recognized as being a PERVERSION of the faith.
Islam, on the other hand, has jihad as part and parcel
of its faith. It's INHERENT within the religion. Mohammed
was in fact the first to PRACTICE it by his massacre of
Jews and Christians. Can any sane person envisage Christ
as a warlord murdering masses of people? But that is
precisely what the Prophet did. I am afraid that some of
his followers always will. This whole situation is
exacerbated by the fact that most Islamic nations are
anti-democratic, tyrannical, and intolerant. Thus the
word "Islamofascist" has been invented to describe them.
How can they reform if the prophet himself was a murderer?...yet this is the hope of many.
Ignorant as it may be, we Christians don't like giving up on anyone just as Christ saw the potential in all. This could actually be our down fall unless we see mass conversion of Muslims to Christianity in the next fifty years and even that prospect is dismal with the threat of death to any Muslim that converts.
Do you see any way around a massive religious war?
I don't foresee any mass conversions to Islam. I can
see, however, a "clash of civilizations" (the title to a
great book, by the way). I think it will be a struggle
between the values of Western civilization and those of
certain Islamic forces. We tend to forget that to an
Islamic jihadist there is no fear of death if he believes
he is furthering the cause (look at 9/11 and the vast
array of suicide bombers in the Middle East). This is why,
to me, the most frightening member of the axis of evil
is Iran. The very notion of jihadist mullahs with their
fingers on the button is too scary to contemplate. Let's
hope Israel will take them out before their nuclear
weapons program is complete! Historically, sanctions
don't work nor will a bunch of "Inspector Cluzots" from
the U.N. I hope I'm wrong but I just can't see any reform
from within.
I actually didn't write this, but I did find it interesting as an attempt to estimate the future percentages in France and elsewhere in Europe that will be Muslim. There is a lot of alarming talk about this, but so far not much in the way of hard numbers. If anyone else has seen any projection of future ethnic/religious population composition in Europe I would be interested in seeing them.
To add a little flavor I have invented the word "Islamozoid" to express the extreme inhumanness of their kind. I am not exactly serious about the word but it tips over into the realm of realism.
I have read several articles in National Review over the
past several months but, most recently, I refer you to
the Dec. 2004 issue of Commentary and the article by
David Pryce-Jones, "The Islamization of Europe". Pryce-
Jones also wrote an excellent book, "The Closed Circle:
an Interpretation of the Arabs". It's difficult to
extrapolate future population growth of the Islamists
with great accuracy but given the rapidly declining birth-
rates of the EUROs and the large and steady influx of
Islamists the picture looks bleak for the natives. You
may have thought my comparison to our illegal sunami
was spurious but I see many parallels. We have, of course,
a population approaching 300 million so we can deal with
the problem better than the EUROs. Still, there is a very
serious problem with the massive influx of a subcultural
group that, at this point, is not being assimilated
(partly at their own desire, partly because of our many
PC absurdities re: multiculturalism). Part of the difficulty with making extrapolations is that we don't
even know how many are here! Recently, National Review
had an article (I think it was in the 12/31/04 issue)
saying that there is now every indication that the usually
cited 8-11 million illegals is more like 18-21 million!
And this in an age of international terrorism!
I think your word is better! Maybe we both can start
using it and coin a new word!
No.
Let's do it now, before they get the bomb.
Num. of Muslims in the U.S.: 7 million
Num. of American Muslims associated with a mosque: 2 million
Num. of mosques in the U.S.: 1,209
% of regular mosque participants who are male: 75%
% of regular mosque participants who are African-American: 30%
% of regular mosque participants who are Arab: 25%
Source: "The Mosque in America: A National Portrait," a study conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (April 26, 2001)
I did see some studies on the rate of immigration in france and the rate of birth of native french vs Islamic immigrants but I will have to dig them up.
From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/1796
Muslim Europe by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun May 11, 2004
"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 , or, "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 and its historic values. The numbers of believing, observant Christians has collapsed in the past two generations to the point that some observers call it the "new dark continent ." Already, analysts estimate Britain's mosques host more worshippers each week than does the Church of England.
An anemic birth rate. 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 a 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 E.U. 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 underreproduce at advanced ages, Muslims do so in large numbers while young.
Some 5% of the E.U., 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 &emdash; at least until a Saudi style regime transforms them into mosques or a Taliban-like regime blows them up. The great national cultures &emdash; Italian, French, English, and others &emdash; 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, the 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 under way, 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 birth rate. 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 , "Negative momentum has not been experienced on so large a scale in world history."
Is it inevitable that the most brilliantly successful society also will 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 seem also to be a recipe for suicide. The human comedy continues.
From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/1796
Counter-Jihad Education Taskforce
or
Excellent article and I think it supplements some of
my postings to untenured. By the way, one of my favorite
Soviet scholars is RICHARD Pipes. Do you know if he's
related to Daniel?
Uhmmm..let's look it up. Wouldn't that be interesting if true...
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