Thursday, September 17, 2009

REALLY?

Attempting to rebut Cal Thomas would be redundant, but his thoughts, if they could be called that, are still important to understanding the right in America.

Invasion by Immigration

Tribune Media Services

PORTSTEWART, NORTHERN IRELAND — The Daily Telegraph’s headline is meant to shock, or at least get the attention of Europeans apathetic about the threat they face: “A Fifth of European Union Will Be Muslim by 2050.”

In a related article “Muslim Europe: the Demographic Time Bomb Transforming Our Continent,” The Telegraph’s lead sentence summarizes the problem: “Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policymakers are talking about it.”

The late British parliamentarian Enoch Powell warned more than 40 years ago that Britain had to be mad to allow in 50,000 dependents of immigrants every year. Powell, who was denounced as a racist and a xenophobe by the intellectual elites, compared it to watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.

In retrospect, Powell looks like a prophet. According to Oxford demographer David Coleman, Britain’s non-white population is on course “to grow from 9 percent at the last census in 2001 to 29 percent by the year 2051.” Coleman estimates that if Britain continues at its current level of immigration — 191,000 per year by 1999 reports — its population could increase by 15 million by 2050, which will bring change most Britons don’t believe in.

In his new book, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West,” Financial Times and Weekly Standard columnist Christopher Caldwell lays out in undisputable terms and with irrefutable facts the threat faced by the West. He says it is worse than anything al-Qaida can deliver. Caldwell cites numerous reasons for the predicament faced by Europe (and the United States), including the idea of a European Union, which is quickly eliminating individual identity, culture and money (the one size fits all Euro). Without an identifiable culture, immigrants cannot be assimilated, even if they want to be, which in the case of radical Muslims, argues Caldwell, they don’t.

In addition to massive immigration, Caldwell says, the high birth rate among immigrants, coupled with the low birth rate among white Europeans (barely enough in some countries to replace those who are dying) means that soon 20 percent of Europe’s population would be Muslim.

The rapid population change, writes Caldwell, is startling when you consider that as recently as the mid-20th century there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe. At the turn of this century, there were between 15 million and 17 million Muslims in Western Europe, including 5 million in France, 4 million in Germany and 2 million in Britain. What is the attraction of these countries, which to some Islamic minds are full of idolatry, hedonism and secularism? All one need do is listen to the radical sermons and the vitriolic statements of certain Islamic leaders and spokesmen and to the radical Islamic media. They say their goal is to subjugate Europe and America to their religion.

At a recent conference near Chicago called “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam,” Imam Jaleel Abdul Razek responded to a question from the audience about whether the U.S. Constitution or Sharia law should rule the United States when Islam is in control. Razek said Sharia would rule and that the Constitution would have to go.

Caldwell writes that uncontrolled immigration without assimilation “exacts a steep price in freedom. The multiculturalism that has been Europe’s main way of managing mass immigration requires the sacrifice of liberties that natives once thought of as rights.”

Those who support immigration without assimilation claim the West needs more brainy people to run their computers and discover cures for diseases. Why can’t our school systems produce more intelligent people without having to import them? More than “brains” are coming to the West. Those with a radical theological and political agenda are infiltrating us more effectively than our enemies of the 20th century ever dreamed of doing.

Twice in the last century America has delivered Europe from homegrown evil. It won’t be able to do so again when that evil is imported and when America is dealing with immigration problems of its own.


11 comments:

Avi said...

It is not a matter of race, but rather one of culture. Most Muslim immigrants come from countries with no democratic background, that do not share the same values of tolerance and equality as Western countries do, view Western culture as hedonistic and empty and believe that they have a religious duty to conquer the world for Islam. If you have been to Europe, then you must be aware of the changing character of the Continent. Anti-semitism is rampant (in addition to the usual neo-nazis and white supremacists, most attacks are carried out by Muslims), homophobia is growing, attacks on women, Muslims dissidents, is widespread. Muslims continuously demand that European countries conform to Islamic standards.

Europe is quickly becoming Eurabia. It doesn't boast well for liberty.

Progressive Pinhead said...

This is utter nonsense. A 2006 study by the Pew Research Center found that in every European country surveyed more Muslims were concerned about extremism within their own religion than the decline of religion in general. Topping the list of worries was the same issue that drives immigration, not some conspiracy to take over Europe (which sound very much similar to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of a generation ago) but economic issues.

Now naturally there are anti-Semitic Muslims, just as their are anti-Islamic bigots in the Jewish community, but hatred of Jews is generally correlated to, though not as widespread as, hatred of Muslims in Europe. This would suggest that the same neo-Nazis, BNP members, La Pen supporters, etc. who hate Muslims are also the main advocates of anti-Semitic in Europe.

Here, you can read about it yourself.
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=262

There is really no basis for your claim that most Muslims wants to turn Europe into an Islamic state and even less basis for the idea that they would be capable of doing that. It really is remarkable how the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of a generation ago have been plagiarized by today's anti-Muslim fanatics.

And yes, it is about race. Thomas even mentions this directly in his article. He generally says Muslims, but he does slip once and mention the problem of the increase of Europe's non-white population. Furthermore, the speech of the "prophet" he quotes from is the Rivers of Blood Speech. In it Powell, Thomas's hero, bemoaned the fate of a white landlady who refused to rent to non-white tenets and was forced to close down after a law was passed making this illegal. The speech made Powell an outsider even in the British right and a hero to Britain's white supremacist's (who are typically also anti-Semites). In becoming the bed fellow of Thomas and his fellow white-supremacists you must be an odd position, forced to decide which you hate more; Muslims or anti-Semites. To bad the BNP and KKK don't like Jews, eh?

Paul said...

'And yes, it is about race. Thomas even mentions this directly in his article.'

It is about religon and culture not race. What race is Islam? True enough there are undoubtedly racial bigots, but they are a minority amongst Europe's indigenous population. Furthermore the UK along with most European countries actually has legislation to outlaw racial hatred.

You have chosen to largely ignore the issue. Just look at Europe's Muslim communities. Now of course they do not all want to implement Sharia. However according to you how many would you say are in fact Islamist? Ball park figure, 1%, 2& or 5%? Either way a figure (assuming whatever your answer is); so innocuous that it poses no potential problem and the majority of Muslims are opposed to it in your rose tinted view.

Disturbingly the extent of Islamist ingression is very high. Just look at this piece by Ed Hussein in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6180033/We-need-to-confront-Islamist-extremists-not-conciliate-them.html

Hussein is a courageous figure. He is a British Muslim and former member of the extremist Hizb Ut Tahir. As a founding member of the Quilliam foundation he seeks to encourage British Muslims to peacefully integrate and fully reconcile Islam with western democracy. He faces an uphill battle and admits HE is the minority not the extremists. It will always be like that sadly, whilst Salafist Saudi Arabia funds and provides the Imams for mosques in the west. Every time you fill your tank you help to fund that expansion of intolerance.

Looking at the results of Opinion polls conducted amongst British Muslims. The results would seem to bear out Bar's arguments rather than your own. Staggeringly according to one poll, 37% of British Muslims believe the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article727952.ece

According to the same poll 12% of 18-24 year old Muslims regarded suicide bombings against Britain as justified. A quarter regarded attacks against the UK's military as justified. It isn't just one poll that suggests all this YA. These results have been borne out by numerous such polls just Google them for a look yourself.

One factor that staggeringly illustrated the degree of hostility to democracy the west has imported was the 2006 crisis over the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark. Do you remember that? What did you think? Again sadly opinion polls showed a majority of Muslims favoured criminal prosecutions of those who blaspheme religon. Tragic. Read about it here:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100009307/why-the-row-over-the-danish-prophet-mohammed-cartoons-was-as-significant-as-911/

I wonder how many violent demonstrations amongst Christians in the west there would be if I published a Jesus cartoon? Read what Daniel Pipes has to say here and follow if you like the links to numerous opinion polls. One of which says 18% of Muslims in Denmark, where the cartoons were published wanted Sharia implemented. That’s a lot of people.

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/05/how-many-islamists

You may well come back and say 'well it's still a minority'. The fact remains YA that the majority amongst western Muslims do absolutely diddly to protest about the extremists in their mist. When I see Muslims marching with banners saying 'not in my name' about Jihadism and assuming such non existent protests are as vociferous and garner as much support amongst western Muslims as the cartoon protests did. Then you may have a point.

Have you been to Europe recently? You know what I'd swap places with you. A democracy with a constitution that guarantees secular democracy (although in the US it is still under threat) sounds like a good place to live.

Separately good post on Iraq by the way, I'll respond hopefully soon.

Progressive Pinhead said...

First I think we need to separate issues here. I will deal with the issue of Islamic extremism in Europe, but first I want to address the question of racism, jingoism, and xenophobia masquerading as concern for democracy.



Islam is certainly not a race, though it can be subjected to similar bigotries, however Thomas quotes approvingly from the Rivers of Blood speech, which as I am sure you are aware is a racist denunciation of immigration, in his article Thomas slips when he talks about the increase of the "non-white" population, Bar talks about the problem of Europe becoming "eurabia", which is a race. And, if you read Thomas's other articles you will find that he is also an advocate of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. He certainly is a racist. Even in this article he closes with a chauvinistic (and historically inaccurate) remark about the U.S singlehandedly saving Europe twice and an attempt to link the problem of Islamic extremism to immigration in the U.S. Hispanics, to whom he is obviously referring, are not Muslims, but they are not white either, they don't speak English, and they draw the same sort of nativist attacks as Muslims in Europe do. Clearly, this has nothing to do with extremism.

It sounds very much like these anti-German racist words spoken by one of America's founding fathers.

"Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious"

I agree that Muslim extremism is a problem, though we would perhaps disagree on the causes of that extremism. There are constructive ways of addressing that problem, engaging the Muslim community, addressing their legitimate grievances, and stopping the feeling of siege many are subjected to. You should watch the BBC show Blitz, about a fictitious family of British Muslims, one of whom becomes a intelligence operative for the government and the other whom becomes a suicide bomber. I think it explains a lot about the causes of extremism among the Muslim community. Anyways, that is how extremism in the Muslim community needs to be addressed. I am somewhat doubtful of your polls, though I will look at them in greater depth when I get a chance. I am a little skeptical of the numbers you provide, given that they are not reflected by a comparable number of violent incidents in the Muslims community in Britain, and I certainly wouldn't consider Daniel Pipes any more of a reliable source about Muslim extremism than I would regard the KKK as a reliable source about Catholic extremism.

However, the numbers are irrelevant to my point. It does not matter if the percentage is 1% or 91%. Using the problem of Muslim extremism as a fourm for expressing xenophobic and bigoted sentiments is disgusting, and it only esaperates the problems it claims to adress.

If the concern was really about extremism than it would only be nataraul to assume that extremists from all groups would be criticized, and the criticism would be proportionate to the threat they posed. In the U.S, for example, groups such as Christian Identity are essentially unheard of, even though they pose a far greater threat to the security of the present system of government Muslim extremists. Living in the American south I get a much better view of this than someone in Europe and I can say that Christian extremism is very, very scary, it is dangerous, it is violent, and it is the greates threat to western liberalism in this country. I cannot emphasise enough how scary of a phenomon is, but that does not justify the sort of attacks on Christianity that we have seen on Islam.

Progressive Pinhead said...

Again, in the case of viewing civilians as legitimate targets, I would propose that the number in western countries is certainly much higher than the 7% cited in the articles you linked to. I certainly remember during the attacks on Gaza there was very signifigant support for attacks on Palestinian civilians, and it was not at the fringes either. I didn't see many people protesting with the "not in my name" banners you are looking for (though if you look harder there were spontaneous mass street demonstrations against 9/11 in Pakistan and Iran and I am sure there have been others since then) outside of the left, which I consider myself a member of.

It even had a tactical justification, deterrance it was called. We need to make voting the wrong way in a free election painful enough for the civilian population that they will not do it again.

Extremism is a problem, it is a problem in every group, but singling out one group for criticism, while ignoring every other act of violence is not only irresponsible and indicative of bigotry, it is counterproductive, it makes the targeted group feel even more under siege, more isolated, less willing to assimilate, and more inclined towards extremism. Islamic extremism is enough of a problem already, it would be a disaster to allow western bigots to further englare it.

Looking forward to your response to my Iraq post, particulalry in view of your experiences there.

Progressive Pinhead said...

As an afterhtought, you mentioned correctly that Saudia Arabia is largely responsible for the proliferation of Islamic extremism, across the world. But where do they get the money to do that from? Who is their principle international supporter? That source of extremism could be very easily and quickly shut down by the west, of course it should be obvious why that will never happen. Even the the problem of Islamic extremism is not only with Muslims.

Paul said...

Again YA you start well and post some meaningful if flawed comments. Then again you ruin it by saying something silly and descending into facile relativity with this:
'Again, in the case of viewing civilians as legitimate targets, I would propose that the number in western countries is certainly much higher than the 7% cited in the articles you linked to. I certainly remember during the attacks on Gaza there was very significant support for attacks on Palestinian civilians, and it was not at the fringes either. I didn't see many people protesting with the "not in my name" banners you are looking for'.

This is pure bunk. For one thing I don't know actually of anyone who proposed and supported the idea of attacks on civilians amongst westerners. However I do recall numerous demonstrations. Many of which were violently anti-Semitic. This latter point seems to bear out the opinion poll I quoted above. The one where 37% of British Muslims, favoured attacks on Jews as a response to actions in the Middle East.

A note on sources. I quoted Daniel Pipes. You immediately cried he was some kind of racist. But did you check out his sources. The sources for the opinion polls I quoted were ubiquitous. They included ICM, The Guardian (surely that at least is right up your street), the Daily Telegraph. In short these polls were conducted by numerous bodies. So it does carry weight when one is concerned for the impact upon Liberal democracy of mass Islamic immigration. When polls show support amongst a majority of Muslims for suppressing freedom of speech, what should we think? Again the Mohammad cartoons demonstrate this. In 2006 harmless cartoons led to violent protests and hundreds across the world died. Yet when a guy called Muhammad organised for planes to fly into buildings in Manhattan and murdered millions, what was the Muslim response? Sadly YA we have still yet to see in any meaningful or actual convincing way for Muslims to condemn Jihadism in any large numbers. Certainly they have not done so on a par with the way they sought to destroy democracy for shock horror a few cartoons.
'In the U.S, for example, groups such as Christian Identity are essentially unheard of, even though they pose a far greater threat to the security of the present system of government Muslim extremists. Living in the American south I get a much better view of this than someone in Europe and I can say that Christian extremism is very, very scary'

A few people have echoed your concerns here. However a simple answer is to analyse recent events globally before looking at America? How many people have been killed by Christian nut jobs in Europe? Practically zero. How serious an attempt has been made by Christian groups in Europe to subvert democracy and replace it with 'Christian' law? Again there is none in any plausible way as Christianity as a spiritual religon does not have laws in that regard anyhow.

Onto the US. Your point about Christian right wing groups requires us to ignore 9/11 and the numerous terror plots uncovered since then.

But let’s just look at the law. Also let’s look at the responses mainstream Churches have had with regards to acts such as the shooting of abortionists. It is clear at a glance the mainstream Churches condemn such activity. Furthermore I can see little prospect of the US Constitution being undermined. Please correct me if I'm wrong but these lobbyists have yet to overturn Roe Vs Wade.

Paul said...

True enough the Islamists in America have yet to have much success. But what of the scale? They are exceedingly well organised and like in Europe will mount legal challenges to secular laws. Indeed an example of such a scheme is outlined by the Muslim Brotherhood here:

http://www.investigativeproject.org/document/id/20


It may seem crazy at this stage. But the Muslim brotherhood with links to CAIR certainly has a plan. In it's own words:

'The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'
http://www.investigativeproject.org/document/id/20

They will mean that as a Jihad allied with sympathetic leftists to install a theocracy. Such a thing is ongoing in Europe. It is taking root in America. Although unlike Europe you do have a powerful constitution at least for now to protect liberty from such tyranny.
On a separate note I agree with you entirely with regards to SA. I have stated before that we should not buy oil or sell them weapons. In fact it's crazy to do that IMHO.

Paul said...

'Yet when a guy called Muhammad organised for planes to fly into buildings in Manhattan and murdered millions, what was the Muslim response?'

Typo I meant thousands.

Progressive Pinhead said...

And if you want an example of a mainstream westerner who supports and rationalizes attacks against civilians look up Alan Dershowitz. During the 2006 war I recall him saying that because 87% of Lebanese supported Hezbollah they were all legitimate targets for Israeli attacks.

Paul said...

Regardless of what Dershowitz has said. He did not do so without considerable criticism. However again where are the 'not in my name' Muslims? Why are such protests so mute (if they even occur) compared to say protests over Cartoons?