The future belongs to Islam

[SOO MAAL]

Book

 

October 20, 2006

 

The future belongs to Islam

 

The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It's the end of the world as we've known it. An excerpt from 'America Alone'.

 

MARK STEYN

 

Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you'd said that whether something does or does not cause offence to Muslims would be the early 21st century's principal political dynamic in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, most folks would have thought you were crazy. Yet on that Tuesday morning the top of the iceberg bobbed up and toppled the Twin Towers.

 

This is about the seven-eighths below the surface -- the larger forces at play in the developed world that have left Europe too enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into Eurabia and that call into question the future of much of the rest of the world. The key factors are: demographic decline; the unsustainability of the social democratic state; and civilizational exhaustion.

 

 

 

 

 

Let's start with demography, because everything does:

 

If your school has 200 guys and you're playing a school with 2,000 pupils, it doesn't mean your baseball team is definitely going to lose but it certainly gives the other fellows a big starting advantage. Likewise, if you want to launch a revolution, it's not very likely if you've only got seven revolutionaries. And they're all over 80. But, if you've got two million and seven revolutionaries and they're all under 30 you're in business.

 

For example, I wonder how many pontificators on the "Middle East peace process" ever run this number:

 

The median age in the Gaza Strip is 15.8 years.

 

Once you know that, all the rest is details. If you were a "moderate Palestinian" leader, would you want to try to persuade a nation -- or pseudo-nation -- of unemployed poorly educated teenage boys raised in a UN-supervised European-funded death cult to see sense? Any analysis of the "Palestinian problem" that doesn't take into account the most important determinant on the ground is a waste of time.

 

Likewise, the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies. What's happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history: most of us have seen a gazillion heartwarming ethnic comedies -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its ilk -- in which some uptight WASPy type starts dating a gal from a vast loving fecund Mediterranean family, so abundantly endowed with sisters and cousins and uncles that you can barely get in the room. It is, in fact, the inversion of the truth. Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of "lowest-low" fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece's fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1. Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have "big" families these days, it's the anglo democracies: America's fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand a little below. Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling.

 

As I say, this isn't a projection: it's happening now. There's no need to extrapolate, and if you do it gets a little freaky, but, just for fun, here goes: by 2050, 60 per cent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. The big Italian family, with papa pouring the vino and mama spooning out the pasta down an endless table of grandparents and nieces and nephews, will be gone, no more, dead as the dinosaurs. As Noel Coward once remarked in another context, "Funiculi, funicula, funic yourself." By mid-century, Italians will have no choice in the matter.

 

Experts talk about root causes. But demography is the most basic root of all. A people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we live in.

 

Demographic decline and the unsustainability of the social democratic state are closely related. In America, politicians upset about the federal deficit like to complain that we're piling up debts our children and grandchildren will have to pay off. But in Europe the unaffordable entitlements are in even worse shape: there are no kids or grandkids to stick it to.

 

You might formulate it like this:

 

Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;

 

Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.

 

By "will," I mean the metaphorical spine of a culture. Africa, to take another example, also has plenty of young people, but it's riddled with AIDS and, for the most part, Africans don't think of themselves as Africans: as we saw in Rwanda, their primary identity is tribal, and most tribes have no global ambitions. Islam, however, has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents -- in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere.

 

Islam has youth and will, Europe has age and welfare.

 

We are witnessing the end of the late 20th- century progressive welfare democracy. Its fiscal bankruptcy is merely a symptom of a more fundamental bankruptcy: its insufficiency as an animating principle for society. The children and grandchildren of those fascists and republicans who waged a bitter civil war for the future of Spain now shrug when a bunch of foreigners blow up their capital. Too sedated even to sue for terms, they capitulate instantly. Over on the other side of the equation, the modern multicultural state is too watery a concept to bind huge numbers of immigrants to the land of their nominal citizenship. So they look elsewhere and find the jihad. The Western Muslim's pan-Islamic identity is merely the first great cause in a world where globalized pathologies are taking the place of old-school nationalism.

 

For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different world view.

 

Which brings us to the third factor -- the enervated state of the Western world, the sense of civilizational ennui, of nations too mired in cultural relativism to understand what's at stake. As it happens, that third point is closely related to the first two. To Americans, it doesn't always seem obvious that there's any connection between the "war on terror" and the so-called "pocketbook issues" of domestic politics. But there is a correlation between the structural weaknesses of the social democratic state and the rise of a globalized Islam. The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood -- health care, child care, care of the elderly -- to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. In the American context, the federal "deficit" isn't the problem; it's the government programs that cause the deficit. These programs would still be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a cheque to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen's sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree. Big government is a national security threat: it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you'll be able to summon the will to rebuff it. We should have learned that lesson on Sept. 11, 2001, when big government flopped big-time and the only good news of the day came from the ad hoc citizen militia of Flight 93.

 

There were two forces at play in the late 20th century: in the Eastern bloc, the collapse of Communism; in the West, the collapse of confidence. One of the most obvious refutations of Francis Fukuyama's famous thesis The End Of History -- written at the victory of liberal pluralist democracy over Soviet Communism -- is that the victors didn't see it as such. Americans -- or at least non-Democrat-voting Americans -- may talk about "winning" the Cold War but the French and the Belgians and Germans and Canadians don't. Very few British do. These are all formal NATO allies -- they were, technically, on the winning side against a horrible tyranny few would wish to live under themselves. In Europe, there was an initial moment of euphoria: it was hard not be moved by the crowds sweeping through the Berlin Wall, especially as so many of them were hot-looking Red babes eager to enjoy a Carlsberg or Stella Artois with even the nerdiest running dog of imperialism. But, when the moment faded, pace Fukuyama, there was no sense on the Continent that our Big Idea had beaten their Big Idea. With the best will in the world, it's hard to credit the citizens of France or Italy as having made any serious contribution to the defeat of Communism. Au contraire, millions of them voted for it, year in, year out. And, with the end of the Soviet existential threat, the enervation of the West only accelerated.

 

In Thomas P. M. Barnett's book Blueprint For Action, Robert D. Kaplan, a very shrewd observer of global affairs, is quoted referring to the lawless fringes of the map as "Indian territory." It's a droll joke but a misleading one. The difference between the old Indian territory and the new is this: no one had to worry about the Sioux riding down Fifth Avenue. Today, with a few hundred bucks on his ATM card, the fellow from the badlands can be in the heart of the metropolis within hours.

 

Here's another difference: in the old days, the white man settled the Indian territory. Now the followers of the badland's radical imams settle the metropolis.

 

And another difference: technology. In the old days, the Injuns had bows and arrows and the cavalry had rifles. In today's Indian territory, countries that can't feed their own people have nuclear weapons.

 

But beyond that the very phrase "Indian territory" presumes that inevitably these badlands will be brought within the bounds of the ordered world. In fact, a lot of today's "Indian territory" was relatively ordered a generation or two back -- West Africa, Pakistan, Bosnia. Though Eastern Europe and Latin America and parts of Asia are freer now than they were in the seventies, other swaths of the map have spiralled backwards. Which is more likely? That the parts of the world under pressure will turn into post-Communist Poland or post-Communist Yugoslavia? In Europe, the demographic pressures favour the latter.

 

The enemies we face in the future will look a lot like al-Qaeda: transnational, globalized, locally franchised, extensively outsourced -- but tied together through a powerful identity that leaps frontiers and continents. They won't be nation-states and they'll have no interest in becoming nation-states, though they might use the husks thereof, as they did in Afghanistan and then Somalia. The jihad may be the first, but other transnational deformities will embrace similar techniques. Sept. 10 institutions like the UN and the EU will be unlikely to provide effective responses.

 

We can argue about what consequences these demographic trends will have, but to say blithely they have none is ridiculous. The basic demography explains, for example, the critical difference between the "war on terror" for Americans and Europeans: in the U.S., the war is something to be fought in the treacherous sands of the Sunni Triangle and the caves of the Hindu Kush; you go to faraway places and kill foreigners. But, in Europe, it's a civil war. Neville Chamberlain dismissed Czechoslovakia as "a faraway country of which we know little." This time round, for much of western Europe it turned out the faraway country of which they knew little was their own.

 

Four years into the "war on terror," the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: "the long war." Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower. The longer the long war gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable on their post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that, if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.

 

Almost every geopolitical challenge in the years ahead has its roots in demography, but not every demographic crisis will play out the same way. That's what makes doing anything about it even more problematic -- because different countries' reactions to their own particular domestic circumstances are likely to play out in destabilizing ways on the international scene. In Japan, the demographic crisis exists virtually in laboratory conditions -- no complicating factors; in Russia, it will be determined by the country's relationship with a cramped neighbour -- China; and in Europe, the new owners are already in place -- like a tenant with a right-to-buy agreement.

 

Let's start in the most geriatric jurisdiction on the planet. In Japan, the rising sun has already passed into the next phase of its long sunset: net population loss. 2005 was the first year since records began in which the country had more deaths than births. Japan offers the chance to observe the demographic death spiral in its purest form. It's a country with no immigration, no significant minorities and no desire for any: just the Japanese, aging and dwindling.

 

At first it doesn't sound too bad: compared with the United States, most advanced societies are very crowded. If you're in a cramped apartment in a noisy congested city, losing a couple hundred thousand seems a fine trade-off. The difficulty, in a modern social democratic state, is managing which people to lose: already, according to the Japan Times, depopulation is "presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labour force." For one thing, the shortage of children has led to a shortage of obstetricians. Why would any talented ambitious med school student want to go into a field in such precipitous decline? As a result, if you live in certain parts of Japan, childbirth is all in the timing. On Oki Island, try to time the contractions for Monday morning. That's when the maternity ward is open -- first day of the week, 10 a.m., when an obstetrician flies in to attend to any pregnant mothers who happen to be around. And at 5.30 p.m. she flies out. So, if you've been careless enough to time your childbirth for Tuesday through Sunday, you'll have to climb into a helicopter and zip off to give birth alone in a strange hospital unsurrounded by tiresome loved ones. Do Lamaze classes on Oki now teach you to time your breathing to the whirring of the chopper blades?

 

The last local obstetrician left the island in 2006 and the health service isn't expecting any more. Doubtless most of us can recall reading similar stories over the years from remote rural districts in America, Canada, Australia. After all, why would a village of a few hundred people have a great medical system? But Oki has a population of 17,000, and there are still no obstetricians: birthing is a dying business.

 

So what will happen? There are a couple of scenarios: whatever Japanese feelings on immigration, a country with great infrastructure won't empty out for long, any more than a state-of-the-art factory that goes belly up stays empty for long. At some point, someone else will move in to Japan's plant.

 

And the alternative? In The Children Of Men, P. D. James' dystopian fantasy about a barren world, there are special dolls for women whose maternal instinct has gone unfulfilled: pretend mothers take their artificial children for walks on the street or to the swings in the park. In Japan, that's no longer the stuff of dystopian fantasy. At the beginning of the century, the country's toy makers noticed they had a problem: toys are for children and Japan doesn't have many. What to do? In 2005, Tomy began marketing a new doll called Yumel -- a baby boy with a range of 1,200 phrases designed to serve as companions for the elderly. He says not just the usual things -- "I wuv you" -- but also asks the questions your grandchildren would ask if you had any: "Why do elephants have long noses?" Yumel joins his friend, the Snuggling Ifbot, a toy designed to have the conversation of a five-year old child which its makers, with the usual Japanese efficiency, have determined is just enough chit-chat to prevent the old folks going senile. It seems an appropriate final comment on the social democratic state: in a childish infantilized self-absorbed society where adults have been stripped of all responsibility, you need never stop playing with toys. We are the children we never had.

 

And why leave it at that? Is it likely an ever smaller number of young people will want to spend their active years looking after an ever greater number of old people? Or will it be simpler to put all that cutting-edge Japanese technology to good use and take a flier on Mister Roboto and the post-human future? After all, what's easier for the governing class? Weaning a pampered population off the good life and re-teaching them the lost biological impulse or giving the Sony Corporation a licence to become the Cloney Corporation? If you need to justify it to yourself, you'd grab the graphs and say, well, demographic decline is universal. It's like industrialization a couple of centuries back; everyone will get to it eventually, but the first to do so will have huge advantages: the relevant comparison is not with England's early 19th century population surge but with England's Industrial Revolution. In the industrial age, manpower was critical. In the new technological age, manpower will be optional -- and indeed, if most of the available manpower's Muslim, it's actually a disadvantage. As the most advanced society with the most advanced demographic crisis, Japan seems likely to be the first jurisdiction to embrace robots and cloning and embark on the slippery slope to transhumanism.

 

Demographic origin need not be the final word. In 1775, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to Joseph Priestly suggesting a mutual English friend might like to apply his mind to the conundrum the Crown faced:

 

Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is £20000 a head... During the same time, 60000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and the expense necessary to kill us all.

 

Obviously, Franklin was oversimplifying. Not every American colonist identified himself as a rebel. After the revolution, there were massive population displacements: as United Empire Loyalists well know, large numbers of New Yorkers left the colony to resettle in what's now Ontario. Some American Negroes were so anxious to remain subjects of King George III they resettled as far as Sierra Leone. For these people, their primary identity was not as American colonists but as British subjects. For others, their new identity as Americans had supplanted their formal allegiance to the Crown. The question for today's Europe is whether the primary identity of their fastest-growing demographic is Muslim or Belgian, Muslim or Dutch, Muslim or French.

 

That's where civilizational confidence comes in: if "Dutchness" or "Frenchness" seems a weak attenuated thing, then the stronger identity will prevail. One notes other similarities between revolutionary America and contemporary Europe: the United Empire Loyalists were older and wealthier; the rebels were younger and poorer. In the end, the former simply lacked the latter's strength of will.

 

Europe, like Japan, has catastrophic birth rates and a swollen pampered elderly class determined to live in defiance of economic reality. But the difference is that on the Continent the successor population is already in place and the only question is how bloody the transfer of real estate will be.

 

If America's "allies" failed to grasp the significance of 9/11, it's because Europe's home-grown terrorism problems had all taken place among notably static populations, such as Ulster and the Basque country. One could make generally safe extrapolations about the likelihood of holding Northern Ireland to what cynical strategists in Her Majesty's Government used to call an "acceptable level of violence." But in the same three decades as Ulster's "Troubles," the hitherto moderate Muslim populations of south Asia were radicalized by a politicized form of Islam; previously formally un-Islamic societies such as Nigeria became semi-Islamist; and large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration.

 

On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Time for the obligatory "of courses": of course, not all Muslims are terrorists -- though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists -- though enough of them share their basic objectives (the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America) to function wittingly or otherwise as the "good cop" end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine. But, at the very minimum, this fast-moving demographic transformation provides a huge comfort zone for the jihad to move around in. And in a more profound way it rationalizes what would otherwise be the nuttiness of the terrorists' demands. An IRA man blows up a pub in defiance of democratic reality -- because he knows that at the ballot box the Ulster Loyalists win the elections and the Irish Republicans lose. When a European jihadist blows something up, that's not in defiance of democratic reality but merely a portent of democratic reality to come. He's jumping the gun, but in every respect things are moving his way.

 

You may vaguely remember seeing some flaming cars on the evening news toward the end of 2005. Something going on in France, apparently. Something to do with -- what's the word? -- "youths." When I pointed out the media's strange reluctance to use the M-word vis-à-vis the rioting "youths," I received a ton of emails arguing there's no Islamist component, they're not the madrasa crowd, they may be Muslim but they're secular and Westernized and into drugs and rap and meaningless sex with no emotional commitment, and rioting and looting and torching and trashing, just like any normal healthy Western teenagers. These guys have economic concerns, it's the lack of jobs, it's conditions peculiar to France, etc. As one correspondent wrote, "You right-wing shit-for-brains think everything's about jihad."

 

Actually, I don't think everything's about jihad. But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 per cent of everything's about demography. Take that media characterization of those French rioters: "youths." What's the salient point about youths? They're youthful. Very few octogenarians want to go torching Renaults every night. It's not easy lobbing a Molotov cocktail into a police station and then hobbling back with your walker across the street before the searing heat of the explosion melts your hip replacement. Civil disobedience is a young man's game.

 

In June 2006, a 54-year-old Flemish train conductor called Guido Demoor got on the Number 23 bus in Antwerp to go to work. Six -- what's that word again? -- "youths" boarded the bus and commenced intimidating the other riders. There were some 40 passengers aboard. But the "youths" were youthful and the other passengers less so. Nonetheless, Mr. Demoor asked the lads to cut it out and so they turned on him, thumping and kicking him. Of those 40 other passengers, none intervened to help the man under attack. Instead, at the next stop, 30 of the 40 scrammed, leaving Mr. Demoor to be beaten to death. Three "youths" were arrested, and proved to be -- quelle surprise! -- of Moroccan origin. The ringleader escaped and, despite police assurances of complete confidentiality, of those 40 passengers only four came forward to speak to investigators. "You see what happens if you intervene," a fellow rail worker told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. "If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive."

 

No, he wouldn't. He would be as dead as those 40 passengers are, as the Belgian state is, keeping his head down, trying not to make eye contact, cowering behind his newspaper in the corner seat and hoping just to be left alone. What future in "their" country do Mr. Demoor's two children have? My mother and grandparents came from Sint-Niklaas, a town I remember well from many childhood visits. When we stayed with great-aunts and other relatives, the upstairs floors of the row houses had no bathrooms, just chamber pots. My sister and I were left to mooch around cobbled streets with our little cousin for hours on end, wandering aimlessly past smoke-wreathed bars and cafes, occasionally buying frites with mayonnaise. With hindsight it seemed as parochially Flemish as could be imagined. Not anymore. The week before Mr. Demoor was murdered in plain sight, bus drivers in Sint-Niklaas walked off the job to protest the thuggery of the -- here it comes again -- "youths." In little more than a generation, a town has been transformed.

 

Of the ethnic Belgian population, some 17 per cent are under 18 years old. Of the country's Turkish and Moroccan population, 35 per cent are under 18 years old. The "youths" get ever more numerous, the non-youths get older. To avoid the ruthless arithmetic posited by Benjamin Franklin, it is necessary for those "youths" to feel more Belgian. Is that likely? Colonel Gadhafi doesn't think so:

 

There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.

 

On Sept. 11, 2001, the American mainland was attacked for the first time since the War of 1812. The perpetrators were foreign -- Saudis and Egyptians. Since 9/11, Europe has seen the London Tube bombings, the French riots, Dutch murders of nationalist politicians. The perpetrators are their own citizens -- British subjects, citoyens de la République française. In Linz, Austria, Muslims are demanding that all female teachers, believers or infidels, wear head scarves in class. The Muslim Council of Britain wants Holocaust Day abolished because it focuses "only" on the Nazis' (alleged) Holocaust of the Jews and not the Israelis' ongoing Holocaust of the Palestinians.

 

How does the state react? In Seville, King Ferdinand III is no longer patron saint of the annual fiesta because his splendid record in fighting for Spanish independence from the Moors was felt to be insensitive to Muslims. In London, a judge agreed to the removal of Jews and Hindus from a trial jury because the Muslim defendant's counsel argued he couldn't get a fair verdict from them. The Church of England is considering removing St. George as the country's patron saint on the grounds that, according to various Anglican clergy, he's too "militaristic" and "offensive to Muslims." They wish to replace him with St. Alban, and replace St. George's cross on the revamped Union Flag, which would instead show St. Alban's cross as a thin yellow streak.

 

In a few years, as millions of Muslim teenagers are entering their voting booths, some European countries will not be living formally under sharia, but -- as much as parts of Nigeria, they will have reached an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the "tolerance" of pluralist societies. In other Continental countries, things are likely to play out in more traditional fashion, though without a significantly different ending. Wherever one's sympathies lie on Islam's multiple battle fronts the fact is the jihad has held out a long time against very tough enemies. If you're not shy about taking on the Israelis and Russians, why wouldn't you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Spaniards?

 

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

 

Reprinted by permission of Regnery Publishing from America Alone © 2006 by Mark Steyn

 

To comment, email letters@macleans.ca

[- Femme -]

Thank you so much for sharing the article SOO MAAL. I was actually reading it today in the library and since I didn't have a library card, I had to leave it half finished and wait to read the rest until monday.

 

I was so shocked that McLean's would publish such a blatantly racist, Islamophobic article. Not even subtle, blatant. I know what the author is trying to imply and the guy is a scary nutcase. I worry how many people think like him. Yet, I was happy. I'm glad they're worrying about the Muslim population - maybe they'll think twice from now on.

 

P.S.

 

Africa, to take another example, also has plenty of young people, but it's riddled with AIDS and, for the most part, Africans don't think of themselves as Africans: as we saw in Rwanda, their primary identity is tribal, and most tribes have no global ambitions.

This comment gave me chills walahi. Will the west try to curb Muslim or Non-Western populations by introducing more disease and illnesses to wipe them out like they did in the past? Will there me mass, secret sterile surgeries given to women under the pretext of 'helping' them? This is not the first time that the west has been overly concerned with the rising population of Non-Western people? The question is, how far will they go to even things out?

[Nur]

SOO MAAL bro and Femme sis

 

In Geneva, Switzerland, a white man approached me as I was walking to the train Station, He was a Diplomat working with International organizations in Europe, he asked me if I was Somali, I was surprised, he went on to tell me that the white race is dying and unless it breeds with the colored races, it will vanish. I was shocked, it was a first for me!

 

While ultra racists are afraid of blacks and brown people taking over their continent, some whites feel that a colorful Europe is indeed a preservation mechanism of a dying race, not due to AIDS, like the case in Africa, but due to affluence, Europeans want to have fun and enjoy all the wealth they have accumulated over the years, which does not leave time for caring for children, that is why in Europe and Japan, there is a growing business of Dog Hotels near busy Airports that cost anywhere from $60 to $200 per night,( Massage and pet walking is an extra )

 

A blind man can only discuss issues from darkness point of view, the writer sees the threat of poor non-whites, non Christian immigrants moving to rich Europe and North America, while at the same time, the birth rate of the WASP ( White Anglo Saxon Protestant ) are all time low, a slow death as he put it.( Catholics used to make babies for the white race in America, Robert Kennedy was father for 11 Children, what happened to the Italian and Spaniards fertility ? ),

 

The writer simplistic analysis did not try to explain why this great white population decline is taking place at a time when its the wealthiest and most advanced in technological terms.

 

One clue the writer forgot to mention was that the White west is dying because of lack of spirituality, since the rise of secularism and Democracy in Europe, the march was toward material dimension, complicated by the absence and weakness of Christianity to address vital issues facing Europe at the time, such as Industrialization which at the time exploited women and sent them to the factories where liberal sexuality norms was cultivated, the Churches stagnant and wrong view of Science and Research added to the problem further, eventually leading to the Churches marginalization and imminent decadence.

 

The Church in Europe was based on the pagan Roman account of the bible, a dead helpless God, and a powerful Roman Kings, a bible that was written by unknown authors, a book of mammoth contradictions and a contradicting lifestyle of its clergy that created a mass loss of interest in Christianity, to the point that today, Church attendance is the lowest as morality of the church staff itself is questioned ( Molestation of kids and the increase of homosexuality as a result, read Congressman Foley's Childhood Molestation account ) . Which is another factor of decline in birth, homos and lesbians can not have children, lewd sexual behavior is thus threatening the west not Muslims nor colored people.

 

Now, how can a western culture that worships the individual's freedoms, to the point of spending on dogs the equivalent of the expenditure of a Ugandan village, cope with fleeing immigrants to its borders seeking a dogs treatment in Europe?

 

The writer has further ignored the stressful, fast paced productivity driven Western lifestyle that robs women of their fertility according to research on fertility, women's core responsibility of family was substituted by a demanding business life that has either delayed the child bearing age or made her barren.

 

The Western liberal lifestyle can not be ruled out as another reason of decreasing fertility in the western hemisphere, some STD ( sexually Transmitted Diseases) are known to cause infertility to both men and women.

 

Another factor the author simplified version omitted is that the capitalist west's past crimes of stealing the third world is catching up with it in the form of refugees to its gates and the curse of dwindling white population. The west in its quest to steal Africa and the third world of its natural resources, has supported dictators who secured the flow of the resources to the west at the lowest price ( Or is it?) , which created a vast gap in wealth and development between the west and the Third World.

 

The amount of Bank deposits of Third World " leaders" in secret Swiss Banks is equal to the combined Third world nations debt to the west, a zero sum indeed, which explains that the Third World is further burdened by paying for a debt that never reached its shores, How? well by selling more of its natural resources to the Western Nations, which is impoverishing and already robbed people.

 

Another funny factor the author does not know how to explain , is the fact that in Europe the Muslims fertility rate is so high while the Belgians and the French have such a low birth rates, The real reason: is racism, racism denies equal opportunity for jobs to qualified immigrants with Masters and PhD who end up driving taxis for a living, and a great majority of immigrants end up unemployed which allows them plenty of time to make babies, therefore one way to correct the child birth disparity is to give the immigrants jobs with long work hours.

 

 

The West has now reached a point of moral self correction, just like stock markets, the material aspect of its rise is ironically becoming the very reason for its own decline, the west is suffering from a moral decay and spiritual bankruptcy, utter individuality, exploitation of the ignorant, insatiable search for enjoyment at the cost of the suffering of the Third World, how long can it run away from its maker's accountability?

 

Well, at last there is some help on the way, Allah loves the west, he is sending ambassadors for good will, Islam is the one-stop-shop for all of the Wests woes and fears, with the west's technological prowess and Islam's cohesive force, the West can extend its rise and build on top of the first material curve, a spiritual curve that will further propel it to new heights. The West can take advantage of the new comers from the Muslim world, they are god sent ready made resources, they can inject the badly needed dosage of spiritual awakening for a sick West.

 

 

Nur

[Abu-Salman]

Bro Nur,

 

the demography factor here is heavily mitigated if not irrelevant sometimes, ie Muslims in France generally hardly promote a positive image of our faith or prove to be as coherent as other Muslims in the West even though they represent approximatively 10% of the population.

 

How could they convince their hosts if they are living themselves in a moral vacuum characterized by readily assimilated Western materialism, deep-seated inferiority complex and the concomitant acculturation ?

 

More fundamentally, is not living among kuffars strongly condemned by Islam and pose a formidable challenge to even the most pious of us who can not accept to compromize their ethics?

[Nur]

Dj-S bro

 

Although the Demographic factor is over emphasized by the Right Wing, their Islamophobe fear has already claimed the death of thousands in the Balkans, Muslims in Bosnia and Kossovo were victims of that unfounded fear and the ethnic cleansing. Today, Bosnia and many other Balkan countries are witnessing a return to their forgotten heritage as a result of the unfair treatment, likewise, Muslims who have settled in France and who have willingly accepted to adjust to the western norms found themselves in the cold, unwanted and unappreciated, which is , once more, attracting them to their roots.

 

As for living with the Kuffar, the world is no longer separated along faith lines, its a nationalist world, even in the so called "Muslim World" nationalism is the defacto faith, therefore, those Muslims who are finding themselves in the west do have a great value if indeed they set a good example of our faith to attract the westerners to Islam. The second coming of an Islamic Sovereign State could well be from the west, Islam does not have a permanent homeland, it has a permanent fellowship, and its no wonder that Islam is once finding home in the west, I pray that Muslims behave as model citizens in these countries even under unfair practices, many people in the west need to know about Islam, and without a living model, it would be hard to convey its message to an audience in dire need to be delivered to salvation.

 

 

Nur

[Abu-Salman]

Well, Muslims' awakening in the West has not yet materialized spiritually even though some are valuing again their identity.

 

More prcisely, there is a world of difference between the quest of an identity or political consciousness and an authenticate retur to the roots, ie the Salafs way of living in every sphere: spiritual, social, economy ect

 

As for living among Kuffars in the hope of generalized conversion or Western Caliphate, It is not that I lack of optimism but is not a fact that Ulemas vehemently condemn the very fact of living among them ?

 

Should we not separate therefore between the Islamic elite supposed to deliver Da'awa and the masses who are themselves in great danger?

 

Obviously, many Islamic countries fail to actually implement the Shariah and nationalism is compounded by cultural Globalization which is synonym of Americanization.

Nevertheless, the fact remain that they are still considered as Muslims and statistically Somalis families, for instance, are much more likely to behave Islamically there than say in Toronto...

[Nur]

DS walaal

 

The problem with some of the fatwa is that it lacks credentials laid by Sheikh Ibn Qayim Al Jawzia in His famous masterpiece book " Iclaamul Muwaqiciin" in which he set two main conditions for any fatwa to be correct:

 

1. Knowledge of Sharia

2. Knowledge of Facts on the ground

 

Unfortunately many scholars who pass fatwas fail the command of the latter condition, making their fatwas lack a fundemental pillar for its acceptability.

 

Somali refugees have yet to be given a refuge in any country in which these fatwas have emanated, yet the hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees fleeing from the civil war have been given homes in western countries and places as far as New Zealand, providing these refugees with all the humanitarian needs they require. The west has also a benevolent side, and if radical Right wings and zionists were not influencing anti islamic policies i the west, the world would have been a peaceful place in which people could excahange viewpoints, not all Kuffars are our enemies, they are also victims as we are, accusing them to be behind all of our problems is not a fair judgement.

 

We have to be just, first with ourselves, and then with those we disagree on faith.

 

 

Allah says:

 

"O You who believe, be Qawwamiina bil qist (ALWAYS BEING ON THE SIDE OF JUST CAUSE), Shuahaadaa lillah ( Witnesses for Allah) wa low calaa anfusikum ( even against yourselves"

 

 

Eid Mubaarak

 

 

Nur

[Abu-Salman]

The problem with some of the fatwa is that it lacks credentials laid by Sheikh Ibn Qayim Al Jawzia in His famous masterpiece book " Iclaamul Muwaqiciin" in which he set two main conditions for any fatwa to be correct:

 

1. Knowledge of Sharia

2. Knowledge of Facts on the ground

 

Very informative, bro Nur.

This very fact of "compartmentization of knowledge" is more relevant than ever as it seems hard to find ulemas competent in both Shariah and other worldly sciences.

 

However, one reasonable premise is to give precedence to those most learned in Shariah sciences.

 

Indeed, I was very pleased when I have read the collection Fatawa Islamiyah, Islamic Verdicts of Bin Baz, Al Uthaimin and Al-Jibreen edited by Darussalam in which many dark areas are clarified and "progressive" thinking is apparent;

eg Bin Baz seems to encourage Islamic Media to actively engage in Da'awa ect.

 

Therefore, I came to the conclusion that as long as a scholar is well-versed in his field and intelligent enough to grasp World realities, both your aforesaid premises are satisfied.

 

Somali refugees have yet to be given a refuge in an y country in which these fatwas has emanated, yet the hundreds of thousands have been given homes in places as far as New Zealand, providing these refugees with all the humanitarian needs they require

It would be immensely unfair to compare Western ageing country who prey on cheap labour to exploit to developing countries whose recent boom is precarious and totally artificial

 

Although this is altogether another topic but just one fact among so many others: when the USA adamantly oppose to comply with the UN recommendations to allow at the very least 0,50% of their GDP to Aid, countries starting from scratch like Saudi Arabia where routinely dedicating 10% of their fragile resources to help needy countries without any conditions, not mentioning private donations who set new generosity standards in the World.

 

At any rate, Somalis in the West are hardly the most deserving of need to use an euphemism and an "open doors" policy, if ever realistic, would certainely signal the vacation of wholes Muslims lands nearby.

 

Nevertheless, that by no means entitles us to live among kuffars and the huge majority could relocate in other Islamic countries if they can not stand their peaceful Hargeysa, booming Bossaso and the new Eldorado Xamar has become...

[Nur]

DS bro.

 

You write:

 

Therefore, I came to the conclusion that as long as a scholar is well-versed in his field and intelligent enough to grasp World realities, both your aforesaid premises are satisfied.

 

Brother, Imam Shaafici was known to have changed his Fatwa when he moved to Egypt, in a nutshel:

 

The facts on ground have a time factor, a place factor and a consideration of the Maqaasid of Sharica ( Moral of the Law) of which preservation of faith comes as the priority # 1.

 

A Fatwa is therefore based on the context of the Hadeeth or verse that is used as a proof, place, time and prioritization according to the moral of the law. ( We can not use the law to beat the purpose for which it was laid down )

 

The source that is used as a proof for a given case has two attributes;

 

1. Validity ( Thubuut)

2. Relevance ( Dalaalah)

 

The attributes above can in turn have two attributes:

 

1. Certainty ( Qadci)

2. Ambiguity ( Dhanni)

 

From the above, we form a matrix of possibilities for any source, the Quraan's Validity is always Qadci, however a Hadeeth's Validity can either be Dhanni or Qadci, depending on the ISNAAD of the Hadeeth (please read eNuri pieceL: Hadeeth Science)

 

The possibilities are

 

1. Qadciyu Thubuut, Qadciyu Dalaalah

2. Qadciyu Thubuut, Dhanniyu Dalaalah

3. Dhanniyu Thubuut, Qadiciyu Dalaalah

4. Dhanniyu Thubuut, Dhanniyu Dalaalah

 

The first one is unanimous, no two scolars disagree on it

The rest three cases; scholars disagree on its usage as a proof on a given issue.

 

The above is only a classification of the evidence of a source . To see if the proof of a source is relevant to a specific case, we have several conditions for the Mufti:

 

1. Practical knowledge of the circumstance in which the problem has taken place. ( Must have lived the conditions that are calling for the fatwa himself, a heresay does not saffice )

 

2. A sound knowledge of the circumstances in which the hadeeth or verse that is being used as evidence ( Xukum) was revealed or said by the Prophet SAWS ( precedent judgment)

 

3. A fiqh ( Specialized art of research and intuition) of how to connect between evidence and the Xukum ( Judgement), in this case a Hadeeth.

 

4. Neutrality of The Mufti ( no external nor internal conditions that can threaten his Neutrality, eg. He should not have any direct or indirect interst in the Fatwa, even for fear of being hurt ) Allah SWT says, " wa laa yudaarra kaatibun walaa shahiid (No Notary Public. nor a witness should be subjected to harm in line of their respective duties )

 

Finally we have to see a little farther and ask these questions:

 

For example, when scientists come up with a theory, they ususally test their theory by applying them in real situations to see if it holds true, likewise, in Islam, we need to ascertain that a fatwa holds for the situation under question.

 

It was reported that the companions have given a fatwa to another companion that led to his death, the Prophet SAWS was very upset, its reported that he said " Qataluuh, qatalahumu Allah" they have killed him, may Allah Kill them" in anger, that incident shows that we need to look an issue from many aspects:

 

1. Would this Fatwa if applied lead to the spreading of the messge of Islam? or would it harm it?

2. Would it harm the faith of the Muslims?

3. Would it harm their life?

4. Would it harm their properties and wealth?

5. Would it harm their Nasl ( progeny, kids)

 

 

As we can see, not all of the above bear the same weight for reason of prioritization, I mean that preservation of faith bears the heaviest weight, and it has two dimensions.

 

A. The preservation of the faith of the Muslim in the non Muslim country.

 

B. The preservation of the Dawa work ( Preaching) in the non Muslim country.

 

Now, historically, we know that islam spread in many eastern countries by virtue of Muslim traders who have lived with non Muslims in far East Asia, it was the effort of these traders and their akhlaaq ( Character) that attracts these non Muslims to embrace Islam, I can assure you that it was not through Al Azhar Sheikhs or Sheikhs from Madina who were sent there to make Remote Controlled Dawa Work.

 

I respect your opinion, because, the diversity of opinions in islam is a great virtue that is not appreciated as it should be of late, it invites all of us to come up with solutions and utilizes our utmost creativity to solve problems that are real.

 

As long as our efforts are toward the good of Islam, its guaranteed that we will see things in different ways, and when that happens Allah instructs us:

 

" If you differ on an issue, then refer to Allah ( Quraan) and to the Messenger ( Sunnah)"

 

 

Nur

[Khalaf]

For those of us living in non-Islamic West and keep to Islam I remember the imam at my masjid explaining this Hadith, I can not explain well maybe inshallah Nur can help us:

 

 

Narrated AbuTha'labah al-Khushani:

AbuUmayyah ash-Sha'bani said: I asked AbuTha'labah al-Khushani: What is your opinion about the verse "Care for yourselves".

He said: I swear by Allah, I asked the one who was well informed about it; I asked the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) about it.

He said: No, enjoin one another to do what is good and forbid one another to do what is evil.

But when you see niggardliness being obeyed, passion being followed, worldly interests being preferred, everyone being charmed with his opinion, then care for yourself, and leave alone what people in general are doing; for ahead of you are days which will require endurance, in which showing endurance will be like grasping live coals. The one who acts rightly during that period will have the reward of fifty men who act as he does.

Another version has: He said (The hearers asked:) Apostle of Allah, the reward of fifty of them?

He replied: The reward of fifty of you.

 

And Allah knows Best

[Nur]

Khalaf bro.

 

One must read this hadeeth with great care, there is also a verse in Quraan in which Allah says " O You who believe, care for your own very selves, those who go astray, would not harm you" the verse is Mansuukha, meaning that it was superceded by another one which ordained Amr bil Macruuf, and nahy canil munkar.

 

Likewise, the hadeeth has to be used in CONTEXT, meaning that its dalaalah ( relevance) is tied to conditions that prompted it in the first place, and I do not have it handy now, we need to look it up.

 

 

Nur

[Nur]

Nomads

 

Globalization (Business), New World Order (Political), and The Internet (Infomtion Flow) are bringing cultures and faiths much closer, at times too close for comfort, which is causing the current birthing pains, as Islam and the West come closer, each side will come face to face with the good aspect of the other and the bad, as such, like two gasses or liquids in a container, the diffusion will change the final form of both, and depending on their respective concentration and resilience, their mixure will produce the final phase for an equilllibrium, also known as PEACE!

 

Until then, it should be expected some form of political and cultural turmoil to take place, the prelude of which we are living today.

 

 

Nur

[Nur]

The Rape Of Europe!

 

I recieved this article from an aquaintance, its an interesting read.

 

 

Sarkozy: “Arabic Is the Language of the Future”

From the desk of Tiberge on Tue, 2008-10-14 11:14

 

The French government is strongly advocating the teaching of Arabic language and civilization in French schools. Not surprising, considering the number of Arabs and Muslims in France, and the unctuous deference with which they are treated by officials, beginning notably with Nicolas Sarkozy, who cannot praise enough the splendor of Arabic contributions to the world.

 

The French National Assembly was the scene of a meeting earlier this month of the first Conference on the Teaching of Arabic Language and Culture, attended by a variety of interested parties. There was much wearisome blather about the need for "dialogue."

 

In his message to the participants, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Arabic the "language of the future, of science and of modernity," and expressed the hop that "more French people share in the language that expresses great civilizational and spiritual values."

 

"We must invest in the Arabic language (because) to teach it symbolizes a moment of exchange, of openness and of tolerance, (and it) brings with it one of the oldest and most prestigious civilizations of the world. It is in France that we have the greatest number of persons of Arabic and Muslim origin. Islam is the second religion of France," Sarkozy reminded his listeners.

 

He proceeded to enumerate the various "advances in terms of diversity," the increase in Muslim sections of cemeteries, the training of imams and chaplains and the appointments of ministers of diverse backgrounds.

 

"France is a friend of Arabic countries. We are not seeking a clash between the East and West," he affirmed, emphasizing the strong presence of Arab leaders at the founding summit of the Union for the Mediterranean, last July 13. "The Mediterranean is where our common hopes wer founded. Our common sea is where the principal challenges come together: durable development, security, education and peace," added the French president.

 

Source:

http :// www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3591

 

 

 

The Rape of Europe

 

From the desk of Paul Belien

 

The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.”

 

Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. “I am too old,” he said. However, he urged young people to get out and “move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable.”

 

Many German and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder’s advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. It is expected to double in twenty years. By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other major European cities.

 

Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization. “The dominant ethos,” he told De Volkskrant, “i perfectly voiced by the ****** blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death.”

 

In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared “humanist”) author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder’s interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like “a process of mourning.” He is overwhelmed by a “feeling of sadness.” “I am not a warrior,” he says, “but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

As Tom Bethell wrot in this month’s American Spectator: “Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working.” But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to “enjoy” freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight. Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist.

 

“If faith collapses, civilization goes with it,” says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means “submission” and the secularists have submitte already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it.

 

Some of the people I meet in the U.S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit.

 

This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European “islamophobes” who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission (islam) or death. I fear like Broder, that they have chosen submission – just like in former days when they preferred to be red rather than dead.....

[Nur]

Nomads

 

Finally there is some hope for the Wests dwindling birth rate. Researchers found a close correlation between the Dow Jones and hits on dating websites, when the Dow Jones was down by more than 100 points, hits on dating websites remarkably increased, which means, tough times remind singles to share costs and their lives with the other sex as a security, which leads to marriage, and possibly the next baby boom, just like the baby boom during the last economic depression of the thirties.

 

May be, this economic downturn is a blessing in disguise for the Wests woes. It's Allah's way of correcting the West' decadent lifestyle, with morality championed my Decent Christians, Jews and Muslims.

 

 

Nur