Muslim Europe

[Gob]

In the zero migration scenario, the Muslim population in Europe is expected to rise from 4.9% to 7.4%.

In the medium migration scenario - perhaps the most likely - Sweden would have the biggest share of population at 20.5%. The UK’s share would rise from 6.3% in 2016 to 16.7%. Finland’s Muslim share would grow from 2.7% to 11.4% and most western European countries would face a big jump.

If high migration continues until 2050, Sweden’s Muslim share will grow to 30.6%, Finland’s to 15% and Norway’s to 17%. In eastern Europe, most countries will continue to have a relatively low Muslim share of population, with only Hungary and Greece seeing significant increases from 2016.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... han-double

I cannot make out if the "high migration" scenario is just a bit too far-fetched. Personally, I cannot even see the medium figures being achieved.

[rubato]

The durability of demographic panic as a way of promoting racism is absolutely a phenomenon (I'm not saying that was your intention Gob). Americans, different groups, have used it to focus fear and hatred on many minorities, Jews, Irish, Italians, Catholics in general, "immigrants", Mexicans, Chinese &c. And it is popular internationally as well. Part of the motive for genocide against the Rohingya (sp?) is the false belief that they will out-breed and displace Buddhists. The hard right in Israel has promoted the idea that Palestinians (both Christian and Muslim) will displace Jews and used it to get approval for policies which force non-Jews out of Jerusalem which are narrowly legal but harmful in intent. ( In spite of the evidence that it is the ultra-orthodox who outbreed nearly everyone)

The GOP has worked hard pumping fear of all immigrants using this same meme for 30 years and it was a big part of the irrational fear driving Brexit.

There are several problems with this. The first is assimilation, which goes both ways. The longer people live in contact with each other the more they become like each other and the less they are seen as "other, scary, alien". one Historian of China said that the miracle of the Middle Kingdom was that after each wave of Mongol invasion and conquest the Mongols became gradually sinisized, they became Chinese, so when the next Mongol invasion came they WERE Chinese. There are a few examples of communities who have kept themselves apart from the larger world. In the US they have been Hutterites, Amish, Ultra-orthodox Jews, But a feature of being successfully separate is they learn how to 'keep the peace' between their communities and the larger society and are thus harmless.

Another problem is that they get the demographics wrong, nearly always. https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... th/545318/ In the US it is true that first-generation immigrants have larger families second and third generations become more like the surrounding community because they are influenced by the same economic and social pressures which controlled their birth rate. This is longish but describes the transition starting in the late 18th century to the present in reducing parity it is one of the most interesting things I have read in two years: https://theviewfromhellyes.wordpress.co ... -memeplex/ And it details how both Mormon and Roman Catholic birth rates have rapidly shifted towards the community averages.

And the final problem is that it all begins with a subtle lie. It asserts difference between human beings who are really a lot more alike than different. But it is the assertion of difference which creates the foundation for oppression and brutality. We only OWN our own personal histories. The history of our nations and tribes belongs to everyone equally as both warning and aspiration.

But fear is a powerful tool for manipulating people and "fear of the other" is deeply rooted in the most primitive parts of human brains so I don't think it will go away.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

An abstract from the article I linked above. Ok," end of civilization as we know it" sounds a little dire. But I am an optimist and believe we can solve our problems once we see them.

The History of Fertility Transitions and the New Memeplex
October 18, 2014 birguslatro

Sarah Perry, October 2014

Abstract

European cultures have historically prevented people from restricting family size within marriage. The European marriage pattern allowed for the control of fertility only through delaying and restricting nuptiality. A new pattern, allowing for controlled fertility within marriage, simultaneously originated in New England and France in the late eighteenth century. The new pattern traveled with a new set of values, including suffrage, democracy, equality, women’s rights, and social mobility. Its main mechanism of spread was education, the availability of which also incentivized the new fertility pattern’s adoption by providing a clear way for parents to compete for the future status of their children by having fewer children. The new pattern spread across Europe, North America, and Australia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, encountering temporary, partial resistance from some groups. Even Catholics and Mormons worldwide adopted controlled fertility by the early twentieth century or earlier. As the new pattern grew to dominate the western world in the twentieth century, Asia and Latin America transitioned to the new pattern. Sub-Saharan Africa entered a fertility transition beginning in the 1980s that is ongoing. In each of these transitions, when controlled fertility was adopted, the pre-transition positive (eugenic) relationship between fertility and wealth became a negative (dysgenic) relationship. Only tiny pockets of culture that maintain extreme separation from the new pattern – especially through refusing outside education and preventing women from contact with the outside world – have fertility patterns plausibly consistent with uncontrolled fertility. These may include the Amish and Hassidim in the United States. Once the fertility transition to controlled fertility occurs in a population, its fertility generally continues to decline until it is below replacement. The benefits of the new pattern are increased material wealth per person, a reduction in disease, starvation, and genocide, and upward social mobility. The main drawback is the onset of a dysgenic phase that may end civilization as we know it.

[Gob]

The durability of demographic panic as a way of promoting racism is absolutely a phenomenon (I'm not saying that was your intention Gob).

yrs,
rubato

Thank you, I accept, and appreciate, that.

However I should point out that the article is from the UK's most left leaning newspaper.

[Econoline]

rubato - great post!

Gob - as a left-winger, I have no problem with calling out "left leaning" sources when they're wrong.

[rubato]

However I should point out that the article is from the UK's most left leaning newspaper.

The highest form of propaganda is the one which gets your natural opponents repeating it.


yrs,
rubato