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Posted on 12/11/2006 10:22:42 AM PST by NYer
In Maclean’s magazine last month, Mark Steyn wrote a plaintive piece about how his new book, America Alone, was unavailable in Canadian bookstores — an apparent victim of a fear of militant Muslim reprisals.
The Chapters-Indigo chain subsequently insisted it wasn’t giving Steyn’s book the Mein Kampf treatment (banned from being sold in the chain by the boss, Heather Reisman), but that they hadn’t anticipated the popularity of America Alone (a best-seller) and hadn’t ordered enough copies.
Last I heard, the book was in its fourth printing and, happy to say, a phone check with Chapters indicates they’ve now got plenty of the books. Good news, because in my view, America Alone is not a polemic against Muslims in the way that the late Oriana Fallaci’s The Force of Reason or Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan are.
Rather, Steyn seems to be saying the rise of militant or extremist Islam is partly our fault – the non-Muslim world’s passivity or acquiescence to outrageous acts or intemperate demands.
True, he sees Europe being overwhelmed by Muslims — not because of violence, but because of Europe’s declining birthrate and the high fertility rate of Muslims. That’s a far cry from legions of jihadists sweeping over the continent, intimidating all in its path.
For a stable population — that is, no growth — a country has to have a fertility rate of at least 2.1 live births per woman. Of all developed countries, only the U.S. meets that standard. Canada’s fertility rate is 1.48 while Europe as a whole is even lower at 1.38. Japan’s is 1.32, Russia’s 1.14, and so on throughout Europe. Steyn calls it “the self-extinction of civilization.” In other words, there is no “population bomb” that many saw threatening the world and its resources.
But Muslim countries have a live birth rate ranging from five to seven per woman that already has had a dramatic effect on Europe.
For example, 10% of France’s population is Muslim.
Yet of citizens under the age of 20, 30% are Muslim.
In the cities that ratio rises to 45%. So when the “youth” of Paris and other centres erupt in violence and burn cars, rampage the streets, rape and vandalize, statistically it’s mostly young Muslims.
Huge problem
In Britain and Europe, around 15% of the population is under 15 years old, while in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, 40% to 50% of the population is under 15. It’s going to be a huge problem for all countries when the grandparents outnumber the grandkids.
Demographically, Steyn feels groups with soaring birthrates will eventually dominate today’s developed world. Without a shot being fired.
With the U.S. about the only country with a viable birthrate that will keep its population from stagnating, the developed world has virtually surrendered to Muslim militancy.
As a people, we may fret that moderate Muslims are reluctant to speak out against Muslim terrorism and intimidation when they occur, for fear of reprisals.
But non-Muslims are even more loath to risk controversy. So how can moderate Muslims be blamed for their silence?
Steyn is more hawkish than many, especially in the media. Generally, most of the media don’t want trouble, or to appear insensitive or intolerant. After 9/11, most media tried to keep things in perspective, and not incite vengeance or reprisals on Muslims.
Fair enough. World leaders made pilgrimages to mosques to set an example.
Cartoon fiasco
While that discouraged anti-Muslim hysteria, it didn’t alleviate anti-West passions. Rather, it increased intimidation — witness scurrying for cover over the Danish cartoons fiasco, which was never about religion, but about politics and ideology. Today, not much has changed.
We still try to show sensitivity and understanding.
Often, cowardice is camouflaged as principle. It’s also a rule of nature, that if you can be intimidated, you will be intimidated.
That doesn’t affect the demographic reality that the world’s population will peak before 2050 and then start to decline. Read Steyn’s book for his answer to the world’s most aggravating problem.
As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness.
At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs [Europe, Australia, USA and Japan]. Six percent of US prison inmates are Muslim. Like any other minority, they won’t integrate, but work to build their own separate community.
From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. South Africa's Muslim population is 2%, but they control 35% of the businesses, a large percentage of the banks and have five Cabinet seats while Christians (77% of the population) have none.
They will push for the introduction of halaal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves (along with threats for failure to comply).
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia; Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world, but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. (Ei: car-burnings in France last October.) Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats.
After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning (India, Mindanao, Philippines).
At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare [Indonesia].
From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya (infidel tax). (Sudan, Kosovo, Lebanon and Egypt).
After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide [Western Papua (New Guinea), Iran, Biafra, Turkey and North Nigeria].
100% will usher in the peace of "Dar-es-Salaam" - House of Peace - as in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Yemen
Such a shame that this is so little read, even by Catholics.
The article is too complacent about America.
"America" is indeed at 2.1 fertility - bare replacement rate.
But drill one layer deeper.
American WHITES have a fertility rate of 1.8, well below replacement. American blacks are at 2.0, ALSO below replacement. It is American Hispanics, and only them in any appreciable numbers, with their 2.45 fertility rate, who drag the American birth figures up to replacement rates.
What is happening below the level of "America" generically, WITHIN America, is that Hispanics are replacing the white and black population at about the same rate that Muslims are replacing the white European population.
So, the future of Europe will probably be Sharia, unless massive subsidization of the white birth rate is undertaken.
America's future is to be Latin America from the Arctic Ocean to Tierra del Fuego.
Demography is destiny, and the fecund do inherit the earth.
No, actually, it will be death by sharia.
I for one will go down shooting.... Got plenty of ammo and a good scope.... bring 'em on
Wouldn't it just be much easier and follow God's way: "Be Fruitful and Multiply", as expounded on in Humane Vitae?
Sure.... I'll buy that. For those that don't know the chain, Heather Reisman and her hubby are bigtime liberal/Liberal supporters. All one has to do is walk in the front door and all the tables down through the centre aisle are littered with Michael Moore and Al Franken books - one can't find a decent conservative title to save their life. Frankly, I'm very surprised that they are bothering to carry Stein's book even though it is obviously a good seller. The other day I tried to buy The Looming Tower there and of course they had never heard of it in the store ("you might be able to shop for something like THAT online"). I absolutely refuse to buy anything from them.
Even more relevant, perhaps, is the marital birthrate. And in the USA, it's way below replacement. American children --- of any race--- born in wedlock and raised by a stable, committed mother and father are the doers, the dreamers, the achievers, the builders of of our cities, our nation, our civilization.
Children born out of wedlock, or with fathers "missing in action," -- God bless them, God protect them, God help them! ---but they're far more likely to be alienated, sullen, predators and parasites, undereducated and unemployed, future converts to Islam and the burden of America's future.
This imperiled future is not something that was brought upon us by The Gay Agenda, or illegal immigrants, or Muslims. It's something we've brought upon our very selves.
Very true.
36 million dead babies and counting.
(Granted, had they been born, there would be probably an additional 30 million people on welfare...)
Contraception allowed for family-size stability and for women to stay in the work force en masse longer, and it allowed for a lot of pre-marital sex. But it didn't bring happiness at all, did it?
Yes. Far too often.
also, they don't want to offend their sponsors. Notice how many ads for "birth control" pills and devices sponsor the news programs.
America Alone Ping
The plain and simple fact is that Caucasian women, driven by the lie of feminism, no longer desire to be moms. They have morphed into Liliths from Eve and see the world's workplace as their oyster instead of the home. In another two or three centuries, who knows, the death of the world's premier culture (and race) may go the way of the ancient Egypto-Babalonian, Greco-Roman, and Cartha-Phoenician societies did.
The downside is that it may take some truly horrifying event here in order to produce another such boom.
Mark Steyn is my absolute favorite writer.
He's dead on right that western civilization is having it's own going out of business sale, declining birthrates are a prime indicator.
No matter what mental gymnastics it tries, the Catholic Church (of which I'm a member) cannot reconcile these obviously contradictory statements:
"The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life." (12)
"If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained." (20)
You cannot believe that you must, at all times, recognize and be open to procreation during intercourse and at the same time engage in intercourse, only at certian times, because you intend that there be no procreation.
It's not obviously contradictory. Openness to procreation has nothing to do with where the couple is vis-a-vis the fertility cycle when they have intercourse. NFP isn't foolproof, so even when one has the greatest chance of NOT becoming pregnant, an attitude of openness is still necessary, otherwise, conception becomes an "accident", which is never the case since God is the First Principle Cause of life. Can one increase/decrease the odds of conception by NFP? Sure. If I take a detour on my way home to avoid running into an annoying neighbor who I must be kind to, I still have to be open to being kind to that person if I happen to run into them anyway on my alternate route. I can't intend to kick him in the shin because I took a different way home. NFP is acceptable because it is part of the order of the reproductive cycle willed by God. Manipulating that cycle with synthetic drugs/contraceptives is
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