Misleading breeding stats are the new skull-measurement

[imomus]

There are few things more annoying than that breed of American right-winger who tells us -- at every opportunity -- that Europe is about to become a Muslim state. It's a meme circulated in right wing circles in Europe too -- in the idea of Eurabia, for instance, or in the book Londonistan by right wing pundit Melanie Phillips. These people have in common that they take Europe's current state of ethnic and religious pluralism and project it into a future where it becomes, suddenly, its opposite. Where one group -- the Muslims -- takes over, turning diversity into monoculture: a European muslim superstate. There's only one problem. The figures just don't add up.

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This argument is based on demographic statistics. "They" are breeding faster than "us", or immigrating and failing to integrate with "our" values, and therefore becoming a "state within a state". (Odd that Americans, who built their 20th-century pre-eminence on immigration, are so reluctant to see it happen elsewhere.) But -- as the BBC's statistics programme More or Less valuably showed this weekend -- the statistics used to create a sense of panic about Europe's racial and religious diversity are simply wrong. Here's the BBC's fact check on the Muslim Demographics video above:

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The really puzzling thing, for me, is how an argument so much posited on the fact of there being a "stark choice" between conflicting systems ends up taking so many of its cues from "the enemy". The blurb for the Muslim Demographics video, for instance, says "Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the gospel with Muslims." The message is that we must live as they live, otherwise we will be forced to live as they live.

A similar "let's copy the Muslims" philosophy comes through in the documentary Jesus Camp. Here's the trailer:

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Again, it's basically "let's be like them before they rise up and force us to be like them". The "them" is a reductive stereotype. As one of the trainers in the Jesus Camp doc puts it: "Where should we put our focus? I'll tell you where our enemies are putting it. They're putting it on the kids. You go to Palestine and they're taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible camps and they're putting hand grenades in their hands." A few seconds later we're seeing teachers in a Bible camp asking children: "How many want to be those who would give up their lives for Jesus?" A child's voice says "We're being trained to be those who'd be God's army." Hey, let's avoid falling under the yoke of Islamist terrorists by becoming something even worse!



The theory behind the Eurabia argument is as wrong as the statistics it's based on, and the praxis is illogical -- be like them so that we don't have to be like them. As a European who adores the strong and healthy Muslim presence here in Europe (and who even married, at one point, into a Muslim family), I'd like to advise these American right-wingers to cultiver their own jardin. You know, that superstate built on immigration and the idea that, wherever you came from, you're an American when you get to America. It's the same here: whoever is in Europe is a European by definition.

Resisting the Eurabians will be difficult, but ultimately I am optimistic. Sure, the Muslim Demographics video has had over ten million YouTube views and the BBC correction has had -- at the time of writing -- only 40. But growth rates on the BBC video are healthy. It is reproducing strongly. I believe that by 2050 the BBC vid will overtake and overwhelm the viewership -- and ethos -- of the Muslim Demographics film and rule it with a fist of iron. Well, a calculator of stainless steel, anyway.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

And yet surely the BBC vid is premised on the same fear. Only it's saying: "relax, it's not going to happen." Personally, I couldn't care less if Europe becomes predominantly Muslim. It might be a very good thing for both Europe and Islam.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's true that the BBC vid doesn't take the step you and I do, and say "So what if this happens?" But I think you have to read quite a bit between the lines to say that their correction of the stats contains the implication that it would be bad if it did. I think they probably believe in "healthy diversity" and "pluralism", which is official EU and even UK policy.

[(Anonymous)]

Stop screening!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's off now. The ILX and KGB invasions are hopefully over.

Yesterday's DDoS attacks -- which made it impossible for me to access Click Opera for most of the day -- were reported (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351329,00.asp) to be initiated by the Russian secret services to block just one Georgian nationalist from celebrating the anniversary of Georgian independence from Russia. They duly ended at exactly midnight, Moscow time, following the day of that anniversary. All they achieved was to make this man and his cause world famous.

[(Anonymous)]

I never knew people in the US cared about Europe turning into a Muslim state. Honestly, I've never once heard it talked about in the media in America, and I'm a news junkie.

I've only ever read about this in British and German papers, honestly. Not sure why you're pinning this one on the US ... if I were to make fun of any country for really, really caring about this subject to an absurd degree, I'd give it to England.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, Click Opera has regular commenters, based in the US, who promote these views, though they're otherwise jolly decent chaps.

I did, though, also cite Melanie Phillips, the columnist for UK papers The Daily Mail and The Guardian, and her book Londonistan.

[(Anonymous)]

Tolerant Guardian readers will find yourself in 'The Flying Inn' world at best. Muslims kills politicians in Netherlands and bombs tube in London, but you just close your eyes - it's not the proper theme to discuss.
But nobody in Europe likes such neighbours.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Here we go, you see. This Click Opera reader is using a Chicago ISP and thinks it's a jolly pressing danger for us Europeans. And you thought it couldn't happen here!

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly care what genetics make up the British population in the future, but I do care about the social values and political climate.

You can't really embrace Islamic values on one hand and reject far-right values on the other because the one thing these two views share in common is ultra-conservatism. Britain is a liberal, secular democracy, and as a gay man I personally wouldn't want to see Britain ruled as an Islamic state or under a far-right government. I'd say my main problem with the hypothetical significant Islamic population in Britain is the possibility of that population growing, gaining power, and making laws based on Islamic values. Oh no! Am I a racist for saying that? I'd even go as far as to say I'd rather Britain wasn't the home to Muslims who hold conservative, prejudice views, just like I'd rather Britain didn't have conservative Christians or neo-nazis.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The stats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country) say that less than 3% of the UK population is muslim. (Compare that with around 30% of the population of the particular borough of Berlin I live in.) A 3% population taking over the institutions of the UK (unless we're talking about Oxbridge graduates) is such a remote possibility it shouldn't even be on the table. It's clearly been put there by right-wingers desperate to stir people up to fear and xenophobia for their own purposes, and prepared to lie about the stats to do it.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joy of religious nutjobs. I figure a good chunk of the Eurabia nonsense emanates from the neurotic Washington chattering classes, who have a pathological need[*] for a shadowy oppositional superpower to measure their realpolitik machismo against; since the Soviets imploded they've been desperate to find a replacement, and Europe would fit the bill, if they could just somehow replace the fuzzy, boring EU with some kind of hostile ideological threat.

Meanwhile, have you run across the Quiverfull movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull)?

Putting two and two together, I perceive a faint whiff of projection ...


[*] "Pathological" insofar as the set-up is used to justify gigantic military spending and the odd invasion of some punk country, pour encourager les autres.

Which religious nutjobs?

[(Anonymous)]

Religious nutjobs come with Islam, too. As does machismo. A friend of mine used to point out the irony that George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden actually have more in common with each other than differences (i.e. conservative religious "values"). Think about it.

[(Anonymous)]

We've come a long way already but in 50 years from now Europe will most likely be secular anyway.

[scribbled-mess.livejournal.com]

great post. I used to go on the bbc faiths message board and one poster always complained abt the 'trojan horse' that had crept into Britain. It was like arguing with a brick wall. I hope ppl watch the bbc youtube response. The idea of an Islamic european state is so far-fetched as to be absurd.

[(Anonymous)]

somewhat off-topic- have you ever visited the mezquita at cordoba ( a remnant of islamic europe, naturally)?

truly a beautiful building.

the christian cathedral plunged into the middle of it just looks kitsch and silly by comparison

[(Anonymous)]

- GUIDE TO OVERTHROWING TOTALITARIAN REGIMES IN 2009 -

1) Facebook, Youtube, Movies, Porn, Books, Beer, Pussy, and X-Box are FUCKING AWESOME. 99% of kids in the world want these things.

2) ANY kids who are prohibited from having this shit because of their wack-ass religious or nationalist governments will eventually be willing to FIGHT and DIE to get these things, a.k.a. FREEDOM.

3) Totalitarian governments don’t want their kids to have this shit, because they feel it waters down their religious or nationalistic dedication and therefore makes them harder to control. (By the way, if these governments were smart, they’d learn that they can control their kids THROUGH this shit the way the US Gov’t does!)

4) Cool shit just keeps getting cooler, and communication technology just keeps rubbing it in these poor deprived kids’ faces harder and harder. There are also a LOT of women who are being treated like animals, and you don’t even need to tempt them with X-box - they’re ready to fuck shit up just to get the right to vote and read and wear what they want.

5) Therefore, as X approaches infinity, revolutions will happen in all of these countries on their own.

6) The ONLY thing that the US can do to FUCK UP these inevitable revolutions is to give these governments something to rally their people around, i.e. by playing into the role of “The Great Satan.”

7) Give these governments rope enough to hang themselves, and give them NO ONE to blame, and you will expose them as lying psychopaths and empower the people and their revolutions.

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

A fairly common right wing theme in the US media applies this idea to Latin American (chiefly Mexican) (illegal) immigrants. Because they are coming from predominantly Catholic countries, they have much higher birthrates than white Americans, whose birthrate is going down, so within X number of years, there will more of them than us, and they'll make Spanish an official language, mandate that tortillas replace Wonder Bread, and whatnot.

[(Anonymous)]

conveniently not noticing that catholics in rich countries are apparently very good at practising abstinence within marriage and have similar numbers of children as protestants

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Scratch the surface of any of these arguments and "and that's why we must exterminate the brutes" is always just under the surface. Eurabia, immigrant statistics etc is the intellectual justification for the genocidal kill-wish that seethes in the heart of conservatives of many stripes.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

(Odd that Americans, who built their 20th-century pre-eminence on immigration, are so reluctant to see it happen elsewhere.)

It's actually not that odd. The class of American who would make this argument is what you'd call a xenophobe, a racist, or more generally, a bigot. He/She is likely to possess any number of contradictory beliefs, and hold many irrational double-standards, of which this is one.

What it typically boils down to is this: immigrants who assimilate, who become one with the prevailing Anglo-Christian culture of America, are hailed as proud, salt-of-the-earth American citizens. Immigrants who don't assimilate become the targets of xenophobia, because the perception is that they are not coming around to American values, but rather that they are trying to change what America is. Unfortunately, even something as simple as looking different (i.e. having a different skin color, or foreign physical features, for example) is often, in itself, to demonstrate a person's failure to assimilate. These people, in essence, cannot assimilate, try as they might. They may be able to come close, if they start dressing in a very conservative manner, or if they become successful and wealthy in a typically Anglo profession. But even then, they are apt to encounter scenarios that no true Anglo-Christian need worry about (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Henry_Louis_Gates).

[realityclinic.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about robots and astronauts.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, the meme for Eurabia comes from American Zionist Jews and pro-Zionist Christians for the more or less explicit purpose of bolstering Israel as the sturdy bulwark who alone stands between Christendom and the global Islamic jihad. And, therefore, deserving of ever more US government aid (already in the billions), ever less criticism of Israel in the US media (and quickly shouted down as anti-Semitism when it does appear), and ever more support for the sort of neoconservative ( an almost entirely Jewish initiated and maintained movement, despite a handful of gentile front men) nation building that resulted in Bush's Iraq debacle (although this has considerably lost momentum for the obvious by now reasons, but still lingers in Obama's foreign policy). There is simply no mystery to this in the US among those of us who follow the money, so to speak. The main reason they are so concerned with Europe's demographic trend has less to do with regard for Europe's welfare (because they don't care, really) but to scare the crap out of Americans, especially American conservative Christians, and keep them on the bandwagon for more settlements on the West Bank, more harsh polices in Gaza, and more encouragement to nuke Iran.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

FEAR OF A BBC PLANET!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The BBC refutation video has jumped from 40 to 135 views. That's a 300% increase in one day!

Do you realise what this means? It means that, if current growth rates continue, this video will have been watched 23589898980980989236783274589237589279 times by 2020. Makes you think, doesn't it?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I only support the Islamification of Britain if it means Amina will come and tour here more often (Amina was rocking autotune way before Kanye West btw)

I see your Amina and raise you...

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

[endoftheseason.livejournal.com]

"It's the same here: whoever is in Europe is a European by definition."

Does this count for Americans who are in Europe, including those for whom it is next to impossible to obtain legal permission to live and work permanently in Europe? Can an American just show up in Europe, step off the plane or boat, proclaim, "Whoever is in Europe is a European by definition," and thus be granted all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of EU citizenship?

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

That's some pretty awesome literalism you're rocking there.

"Refutation" also misleading

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't your own position contradictory: I'm going to cosy up to religious extremists A because they are opposed to religious extremists B. We can talk about diversity of opinion within Islam but all Christians are Jesusfreaks and Christards.

Most of the critics of Eurabia theory seem to focus entirely on the muslim population currently in place, convergence of TFR, and assimilation. However, a very big wild card that is being ignored here is future immigration. It is too complex to predict one way or another what exactly what will happen, but there is a willing population and a level of immigration to support just about any Eurabia scenario you can imagine. To say that Eurabia is not going to happen is almost to implicitly endorse lower levels of muslim immigration.

I've read some of your prior posts in which you talk about Eurabianists as fascists trying to whip up the population to commit genocide against the muslim population. A minority of wackos are advocating mass forced deportation, much less genocide. Your typical Eurabianist is simply advocating a much lower and/or much more selective level of muslim immigration. Do you regard imposing lower levels of immigration of morally equivalent to genocide? The two are basically the same thing?

Also, any opinions on the following:

* The history of oppression of religious minorities within the muslim world.

* Also, not all Eurabianists are non-muslim conservatives. Anjem Choudary believes in Eurabia: "We do not integrate into Christianity. We will ensure that one day you to will happily integrate into the Sharia Islamic law."

* Homosexuality is illegal throughout most of the muslim world.

* The subordinate status of women within Islam.

* Most of the world religions initially grew organically by word of mouth while the initial growth of Islam was largely driven by warfare (conquests of the Levant, N. Africa, Spain, Peria, and India). There also seems to seems to be a double standard with regards to historical comparison of this expansion to the Crusades (Crusades = bad! Conquering India and massacring Hindus/forced conversions = good!)

* Buddhists are demographically under represented in Europe, how about bringing in 50 million Buddhists? I think that they would have a lot to offer Europe.

Re: "Refutation" also misleading

[jouis-sens.livejournal.com]

Your typical Eurabianist is simply advocating a much lower and/or much more selective level of muslim immigration.
Do you regard imposing lower levels of immigration of morally equivalent to genocide? The two are basically the same thing?

In fact, the two _are_, at their ontological heart, the same -- if what you're doing isn't the (still silly and problematic, but) more innocuous "imposing
lower levels of [overall] immigration," but rather the significantly less innocuous "keep these specific (usually brown) people out of my
(usually white) space." Advocating that people of a particular religion, race, etc, be kept out of your country tips one rather loudly over the line from
belligerent nationalism into full-blown crazytown xenophobia. And where does that often lead? Oh, right.. genocides. (Was it a "minority of wackos" who gassed and burned millions of people, or was it a minority of wackos with the complicity of an entire nation?) Prefacing calls for discrimination with the word "simply" doesn't magically render them morally acceptable, nor can it efface the reality that they are inextricably bound up with a much deeper and more dangerous phenomenon.

What's being astutely noted in this post and others on this topic is the way in which cultural hysteria about the Arab Other that manifests itself in, for
example, "reasoned" calls for immigration restrictions, is but the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg of deadly pathology in the western psyche.
That 'we are Us and they are Them' ideological chestnut - and the absurd fear-mongering that invariably attends it - is part of a continuum that has reliably been shown to result in Very Bad Things.

Anecdotally on Atheism & Apartheid

[jdcasten.livejournal.com]

I sort of find myself in the “What if? = So what!” crowd. People do have legitimate, non-xenophobic, concerns when it comes to immigration, such as urban sprawl… but losing cultural hegemony in a region seems less legit to me—and could lead to the sort of “apartheid-like” policies they have in Israel (which I do think has some claim to maintaining its “integrity”—a complicated issue, I think—since the notion of a racial state (but not a neighborhood?) is problematic.)

What I’d hope for is that the less attractive features of Islamic culture (or any culture for that matter… issues such as misogyny, homophobia, etc, are not monopolized by Islam) would evolve towards a future where xenophobia would have no legitimate grievances to support it.

I think it wrong to color this as a religious issue, Momus (as I think atheist activists such as Richard Dawkins or Daniel C. Dennett might like to as well)—religious infrastructures are used to transmit various phobias, but I think this would be true of almost any sort of organizing structure (e.g. political structures) in a culture rife with such fears. But the added zealotry probably doesn’t help—you’d think there are enough real problems in the world, such a dire poverty and ecological stewardship (and xenophobia!) that, “good” people who want to intervene in others’ gardens wouldn’t have time for less pressing, hot-button, issues such as abortion and Israel.

Re: Anecdotally on Atheism & Apartheid

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it. It's not as though England as room for massive growth to the same extent as, say, the United States. If England were to choke off global immigration numbers (i.e. reducing the number of immigrants from all countries, instead of just the ones that contain mostly brown people) for the purpose of reducing sprawl, preserving space, controlling economic factors, etc. I don't think anybody should have a problem with that. That's not xenophobic. It relates directly to the welfare of English citizens.

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

Tarahumara (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/tarahumara-people/kendrick-photography)

Nothing to do with Islamic cultural imperialism

[endoftheseason.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to know what you (Momus) think, if anything, about the little explosion of controversy caused by this Food Standards Agency's conclusion that "organic food provides no significant nutritional benefit compared with conventionally produced food":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/29/organic-food-nutrition-fsa


"This week the Food Standards Agency published a review paper showing that organic food is no better than normal food, in terms of composition, or health benefits. The Soil Association's response has been swift, and received prominent and blanket right of reply: this is testament to the lobbying power of this £2bn industry, and the cultural values of people who work in the media.

I don't care about organic food. I am interested in bad arguments. Theirs has three components.

Firstly, they say that the important issue with organic food is not personal health benefits, but rather benefit to the environment. This is a popular strategy from losing positions: 'Don't talk about that, talk about this.' . . .":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/01/bad-science-organic-food


"It's wrong to believe that nature is always best

At last, the myth about organic food being better for us has been exploded. Maybe now we can get down to the serious business of feeding our growing population":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/02/organics-food

Re: Nothing to do with Islamic cultural imperialism

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think we should get Dr Ben on the case!

I took this report quite seriously, BTW, and told Hisae about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Cultivar.

[(Anonymous)]

Jardín.

[georgesdelatour.livejournal.com]

Where does this survey fit in?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article5621482.ece

Saudi Yemen border

[(Anonymous)]

Saudi Arabia is constructing a border fence with Yemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-Yemen_barrier

Why are they doing it?

http://demographymatters.blogspot.com/2009/08/ticking-population-bomb.html

Is this also fascism?

[(Anonymous)]

The majority of xians are not zealots and the majority of muslims are not zealots. but they all do hold, by default, some rather conservative positions with regards to society and culture at large.