Item — HN Reader

Reminder: we are talking here about Europe not the overall world population. Moreover whatever some moderate Muslims say, Islam is fundamentally intolerant of other religions and atheistic values. In case you doubt it take a look at Islamic societies across the globe.

The much enhanced birthrate of Muslims in Europe does therefore present us with a serious question as to how Europe will change as a result of this once Muslims are democratically able to alter national goals and cultural norms. This is nothing to do with racism or bigotry.

2 comments

Let's see.

Since (all ?) europeans countries birthrates are agnostics, they include the recently immigrated people as well. Therefore, they include the muslims people. If everything above is true, and the birthrates are still low, then the article contradicts itself when it says : "[...] — mostly Muslim — who have yet to be infected by the modern malady called family planning [...]".

It appears on the contrary, according to our low birthrates, that they don't have as much childs as we fear. Whatever the reality is, there is a logical fallacy somewhere.

Since the science of demography knowns only 2 factors : (1) birthrates (2) migration flows (wich are continuous), we are left with the only other explaination.

Maybe you understand now why you are deluding yourself if you study demographics without considering the whole world population, because this is what is feeding the migration flows. Whatever the laws you pass, you won't be able to stop people from all over the world to try to escape their life of misery, people who have such hopes for a better life that they take insane risks to make it and more than often die in the journey. The first waves of US immigrants were people fleeding oppression too.

But the true problem isn't even here. The demographic doxa wich states that we should have everlasting high birthrates is closely tied the Economic Growth paradigm, and it is the true responsible for the great post-war immigration policies that european countries engaged in. This doxa (more people = more consumers = more taxpayers = more economic growth) is the true responsible for the situation you describe. If you're looking for an ennemy, then fight this doxa.

Maybe we can live in a world where "less is more". Malthus would have been probably right if he lived today : our earth has limited ressources and our problems are just starting as a lot of emerging countries are catching up with the Occidental lifestyle. A lot of our current problems could be solved by having less people around (from education to transportation and ravaged landscapes).

Even if our technology allows us to make it, there is no philosophical nor practical reason to be 20 billions on earth instead of 6 or 3 or even 1. Especially if the conditions of life are greater, common sense would suggest less quantity for more quality. Less misery in black Africa, less hopeless immigrants, and why not, less malls in Occident.

The more people reproduces in poor countries, the more they'll take their shot at trying to reach richer countries. That's just, well, human. In trying to produce too much wealth, the process just becomes destructive for the cultures at some point and benefits to nobody.

the parent isn't really coherent.

for example, could someone clarify/explain the following:

"Since (all ?) europeans countries birthrates are agnostics, they include the recently immigrated people as well."

"It appears on the contrary, according to our low birthrates, that they don't have as much childs as we fear."

"This doxa (more people = more consumers = more taxpayers = more economic growth) is the true responsible for the situation you describe. If you're looking for an ennemy, then fight this doxa."

I'm going to assume english isn't your native language. Please try to express whatever it is you were trying to express again. It reads like it was (poorly) translated by a machine.

Sometimes my english is really poor indeed, it is unfortunate because when you want to explain reality you also have to deal with complexity, this is where you need a very sharp usage of words.

I'll only explain the birthrates part, after a good night of sleep :)

The article states that muslims "have yet to be infected by the modern malady called family planning", wich roughly translates to : they make a lot of babies and will outnumber us in a few generations. This is a recurring argument.

But the article warns about the low birthrates in Europe. This is a contradiction, because europeans birthrates include the babies of everybody, including the recently immigrated people, wich means that if the muslims were making as much babies as they say, then our birthrates would not be so low.

There is a logical fallacy in this argument. Wich is confirmed by the fact that nearly all muslims societies are experiencing a decline in their birthrate, and some have even "catastrophic" (it's their word, not mine) low birthrates (Iran for example).

I hope it was clear.

Well, but it also doesn't have very much to do with Islam, which is why all of these sorts of things do pander a bit to a prejudiced bent. The social patterns of say, Turkish in Germany (where I live now) and Mexican-Americans in the southern US (where I grew up) are roughly comparable and all of the specifically "Muslim" traits can be more effectively explained in socio-economic terms.

Islam, like all of the major world religions, has shown remarkable flexibility in adapting to the societies where it has spread. One way you can pretty easily see this is that despite the four countries with the largest Muslim populations not being in the Middle East or northern Africa, "muslim" culture, in this context, is almost always referring to those regions.