An acquaintance sent me a link to an article about the future of Europe and asked me for my opinions in response. As someone with a reputation for having an opinion (usually a fairly inflammatory one) about everything, I find myself untypically, and perhaps rather annoyingly, equivocal. But this is entirely due to the fact that I am unsure whether or not this kind of thing can or should be taken seriously:
How quickly is Europe being Islamized? So quickly that even historian Bernard Lewis, who has continued throughout his honor-laden career to be strangely disingenuous about certain realities of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, told the German newspaper Die Welt forthrightly that “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.”
Or maybe sooner.
I have heard such sweeping assessments before, courtesy (mostly) of some of the more intemperate conservative blogs and websites. But is there any substance to the claim?
On the face of it, it appears both alarmist and far-fetched. Just taking the EU countries alone, I believe that there are, at most, some 20 million Muslim people out of a total population in the region of 470 million. Less than 5%.
But, let us suppose that some profound demographic shifts over the next few decades result in Muslims outnumbering non-Muslims. Does it automatically follow that Europe will then be ‘Islamic’? And, if so, what type of Islamic? Are we talking about the arid, monochromatic, repressive Saudi ‘Wahabbi’ version or the more secular and easy-going Turkish variety? Or could it be some newly-manifest and unique ‘European’ version of Islam?
Also, and given much of Europe’s descent into post-modernist torpor, would any of these scenarios (assuming they came to pass) necessarily be a bad thing?
So many questions with no answers. Or no satisfactory answers at any rate. My own inclination is to regard the article with a high degree of skepticism. Human affairs are sufficiently fluid to make predictions about the next week seem foolhardy, let alone the next century. However, it is worth bearing in mind that North Africa (the Maghreb) was once as European as France or Italy is now and that fully two-thirds of what was once the Roman Empire is now a part of the Islamic world.
But the past is not necessarily a guide to the future, so that just leaves me back where I started. In short, I just do not know and I am hesitant to venture any sort of opinion more definite than that.
On the basis that all vacuums are filled, it would seem quite natural that the religious vacuum that now exists in Europe will eventually be filled by a version of Islam.
Somehow atheism just doesn’t quite fill the need that most people have to ‘believe’. And I can’t see the Wiccans or the devotees of Kabbalah gaining much ground either.
None of us can foretell the future, but a ‘Golden Age’ must rank pretty low on the scale of probablities…
Reproduction: below replacement rate for non-Muslims and like way far above replacement rate for Muslims.
David, Five percent of the population in Christian (or post-Christian, if you prefer, but not Dark Ages) Europe has already bludgeoned the indigenes to much insanity. Pork should not be displayed in school cafeterias (or even, in some instances, served, and in some instances, in supermarkets). Jews have never asked for this outrage against the host country and they’ve been part of our culture for far longer.
School libraries take ‘The Three Little Pigs’ off the shelves for fear of offending Islamics. Islamics are jumping up and down not to have their photos taken without their ridiculous hijabs. It’s as though the Queen refused to have her photo taken unless she was wearing a headscarf and jodhpurs. The hijab has no religious significance whatsoever, except what the eager dhimmis accord it. So Islamics feel their women should be photographed for their drivers’ licences as black blobs. It is too Monty Python.
“Excuse me, black blob, but we’re looking for a black blob harbouring bombs under its burkha, if you’ll excuse the term. Ha ha.”
(unintelligable as spoken in a primitive language the policeman has failed to study in his diversity training courses… )
“Right. Well, we’ll have to look under your burkha, love.”
(unintelligable as spoken in a primitive language ….)
“No, no! I’m not going to examine you! I’d rather get AIDS. We’ve got a female police officer here to look under your burkha, sweet’art.”
(unintelligable squeaks of outrage…) … “Oh. You can’t be touched by an infidel, is that it? Oh, all right the, carry on.”
Islamics set themselves up above the host country by requiring special times for prayer. Their god is more special than our God and needs more ego massaging. They need special prayer rooms in hospitals. Why? Jews, a far more powerful religion, do not make such Mickey Mouse demands.
The Islamics are in a twitter because France bans little girls from wearing Islamic headscarves to school on the grounds that they are being forced to wear them by the older males in their families as a political statement. (No little girl, trust me, wants to look different from her schoolmates. It is actually cruelty to children, although who would dare bring charges?)
The Islamics in Germany are trying to demand that state employees can wear their ridiculous (non-religious, but good rallying issue) hijab to work on public premises like town halls.
They’ve got themselves set up with ‘Islamic Councils’ of Britain, France, Holland, Norway, you name it and expect to be consulted on news issues and let the world know what is the Islamic point of view. Like anyone except politicians gives a shit.
They are bold enough to refuse to condemn terrorism in the name of their allah.
David, think what’s going to happen when they breed themselves into 10% of the population. Then 20%. And they will. Their women, in the main, are not allowed out of the house to work. Their job is to breed. And stupid British and European governments give ‘family entitlements’ to help them breed in comfort.
European schoolchildren are getting special instruction in Islam. Why? Why aren’t the incomers getting special instruction in Christianity and the traditional civil liberties of the West in which they find themselves?
Study everything and see the Islamic encroachments on civil liberties (don’t display pork) they have tiptoed through in the West. Little by little, the enlightened West is allowing itself to be governed by Islamic religious restrictions.
Unless Europe and Britain rally themselves from this curious socialist (all are equal) torpor, the camel will get its nose under the tent to keep its nose warm. Then its head under the tent to keep its head warm. And then it will get under the tent and kick the inhabitants out.
The people who developed the countries that are so desirable the Islamics fight their way in by dishonourable and illegal means will, of their own accord, be dhimmis, bowing ever lower in bids to please the invaders and their alien beliefs. And no, it’s not a religion of peace. It’s a religion of conquest for their allah character.
Susan is much, much, due to her personal circumstances, more informed about these tactics than I am and I hope she comes onto this thread.
I just threw a little math at this, to satisfy my curiosity.
Using the well-known exponential population growth equation (n = Ne^rt), and David Carr’s round number of 5 percent of the EU population being Muslim, in 100 years the Muslim population would equal the non-Muslim population if the Muslim growth rate exceeds the non-Muslim growth rate by 3 percent. “Growth” in this case would be any form of growth in either camp: birth rate less death rate, immigration less emmigration, and conversion. (I’d appreciate it if someone would verify that for me, as I’m not an expert in the use of this equation.)
For the Muslim population to be double the non-Muslim population in 100 years the difference in growth rates would have to be 3.7 percent.
I haven’t found any information on the difference between the Muslim and non-Muslim growth rates in the EU. I think it’s common knowledge that the non-Muslim growth rate is low, or even negative. But I have no idea what the EU Muslim growth rate is. Anybody have any data on that?
Havent we had this conversation recently?
Islam would lift Europe out of its torpor? Islam would make Europe just as poor, technologically backward, overcrowded and violent as the rest of the Islamic world. Kiss democracy goodbye, kiss equality under the law goodbye, kiss Beethoven goodbye, kiss Shakespeare goodbye — heck, kiss modern plumbing goodbye. The proper sunnah for relieving oneself is a hole in the ground.
An Islamic Europe? No, non, nein. For god’s sake, Europeans, find the will to save yourself. As a member of the European diaspora I find the situation in my ancestral homelands extremely distressing and upsetting.
Susan – welcome. You are far, far more informed than I am. Threads like this need to be made confrontational rather than academic. You can ‘prove’ anything in academia.
Verity,
Thanks. I don’t know what to add. I see signs all around that ordinary Euros have woken up, but the power elite still blathers the same old “Islam is peace” /Eurabia aplogia.
62 percent of Germans have a negative view of Islam
Verity,
Thanks. I don’t know what to add. I see signs all around that ordinary Euros have woken up, but the power elite still blathers the same old “Islam is peace” /Eurabia aplogia.
62 percent of Germans have a negative view of Islam
Sorry for the dupes — had trouble posting.
I can’t see this as a definite trend. Yes, the birthrates aren’t enough to keep up. Yes, immigrants tend to have lots of children. Yes, Islamic immigrants are particularily worrisome.
But I think many things can happen over decades. Europeans may start to want more babies. And they might even have them.
Immigrants from other countries could dilute the Muslim influence. Mexicans and Latin Americans could start moving to Italy and France just as easily as Arabs: fewer language hurdles, similar religious backgrounds, and the United States might even be wiling to subsidize their boat trips rather than simply deport them for the umpteenth time. India might have a large exodus of people yearning to work their asses off. Same goes for non-Islamic parts of Africa.
The Islamic experience in Europe may also change many Muslims. Women won’t all live in the bedroom and the kitchen. The men won’t all expect it, either. I’m not expecting them to start wearing berets and quoting Voltaire more than Mohammed, but over decades a lot can happen.
Plus, as has happened all over the world, many immigrants move back. I can think of many scenarios in which this could happen dramatically, but they all involve good, stable democracies being introduced into the Arab world. We all know that ain’t a sure thing. At least not right now.
Jon’s wish list has a lot of very big IF’s, and interesting how many involve more of the same mass immigration that created the problem in the first place.
This is the money quote from the article:
“Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmø, according to the Swedish Aftonbladet, has become an outpost of the Middle East in Scandinavia: “The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations’s third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants.
Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don’t know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help.”
On behalf of the European peoples of the world I want to thank the leftists, liberals, libertarians, and all the lunatic advocates of open borders/mass immigration for this wonderful example of multiculturalism.
On second thoughts, could you all just stand in a line on front of the bullseye?
Because the west is apparently “post-Christian”. It seems we don’t need any sort of moral code any more, and certainly not the Christian one. We’re so smart, we have outgrown it. We’ve replaced it with a much simpler one – get rich, do whatever you want, and to hell with anyone else. There is no God but the Self.
From their point of view, are they going to be receptive to the “civil liberties” of the west which have destroyed the family, which support homosexual marriage, which result in widespread social problems like vandalism, petty crime, drug abuse, etc, and which have produced a lack of interest in or understanding of basic morality? No, they’re not.
Many Moslems see contemporary western culture as immoral and degenerate. They have a point, but I don’t think the answer is Sharia. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have any other answer, since we have abandoned the basis of our morality.
Whatever the atheists and relativists might think, many (probably most) people actually want some form of moral guidance they don’t need to think too deeply about. Atheism doesn’t give it. Elevating money and its pursuit to a moral good doesn’t give it. Assertive individualism ( = selfishness) doesn’t give it.
Unfortunately for us, the only thing we seem to have in our midst which is half-way capable of this is Islam. We just don’t have any other answer.
I suspect that when one moral system decays and falls into disrepute or ridicule, another will replace it. So far it appears to be a one camel race. If the Moslem immigrants do turn out to be a bit less repressive and primitive in some areas, yet retain a rigourous code of private and public morality, I would expect over time that western Europe very probably will drift over to the Islamic moral way. It answers questions and provides moral rules – sometimes they may be the wrong answers, but as I said in another thread a while ago, it does at least address the question, which our society simply doesn’t do.
EG
This all assumed that none of the ‘Islamic’ folk end up assimulated beer drinking Chelsea Football Club supporters who just happen to be called Abdul and short skirt wearing party-girls with Essex accents who just ahppen to be called Fatima. That is actually the natural way of things.
Admittedly the only thing slowing that process from that happening (and thus the ‘problem’ of Islamic immigration being solved by simply turning THEM into US) is the lemming-like governments of Europe are trying to use the law to actually prevent assimulation, which is pretty much the most idiotic state of affairs since… well… ever?
The state is not your friend.
Verity and others:
Please stop panicking. It is meaningless to talk about British moslems as though they are a homogenous bloc intent on the destruction of British liberal values. The middle class Pakistanis are highly successful accountants, lawyers and doctors. The Mirupuris in Bradford are orthodox and backwards, just as they were in Pakistan. The children of the poor Bangladeshis in the council estates in Kings Cross are turning into clones of the local white underclass – thuggish vandalistic drug dealers. The rich arabs in Maida Vale and Knightsbridge are, well rich and arab. Some bring desirable traits. Others bring undesirable traits. Some integrate well – the majority as far as I can see – others not at all. There is no general pattern. There is no conspiracy.
Yeah, we really need more of them, don’t we? Let’s turn the ideal of western femininity into the estuarine scrubber, as typified by “Posh” Spice, who’s about as posh as a jellied eel.
Many of us know Moslems who drink, smoke, even do drugs to some extent or another. I know people like this, and I don’t imagine I’m an exception. It’s not that there are no people like this, it’s that there are not *enough* people like this. Sufficient numbers of Moslems don’t assimilate for this to be a problem.
State interference in the form of multiculturalism is a problem, but it isn’t the only problem and simply ending it isn’t going to end the problem. Other than a selfish, vapid materialism, what is the big idea of western civilisation that (a) counters the Big Idea of Islam and (b) is actually attractive to sufficiently large numbers of Moslem immigrants? These people come, frequently, from cultures which value the family and which have a strong moral ethos – whether you agree with the morality or not is irrelevant, the fact is that there is a morality there. Where is it in the west? What has happened to cause the decline of the western family?
Perry, I know you have negative views on the utility of the “traditional” western model of family, but irrespective of that the institution is actually important – as is marriage. Morality matters, like it or not. Many, and I think most, people would like to conceive of something beyond the selfish accumulation of money, which, although it is useful, is not the most important thing in the world.
EG
I suspect the situation in the UK is more complex than is being suggested. While it is true that there are many young Moslems who smoke, drink, take drugs and generally behave like the natives, that doesn’t appear to preclude them from instant conversion to radical behaviour when the mood takes them. Who were throwing the stones during the Bradford riots?
Adopting a Western lifestyle is more or less permissible for many young Moslem men – but absolutely taboo for their sisters. And that Western veneer is soon stripped away when Fatima decides she is more attracted by the delights of Max Factor than Mecca, because it is likely to be her drinking, smoking brother or uncle who threatens to slit her throat.
The Westernisation of many young Moslem males is more apparent than real.
And I’m sorry, but I find comments like those from Jon and Julius hopelessly naive. Liberal propaganda has been telling us that immigrants would assimilate into British society ever since the first ones arrived here. In some cases, and to some extent, this has been true and where it has happened it has been all to the good – only a hopeless bigot would find anything to complain about with the vast majority of Jews and Hindus. But the sheer repetition of the problems caused by Moslem immigration across Europe suggests to me that there genuinely is a clash when Islam meets secular, Western society. To pretend otherwise is to be at best naive and at worst mendacious. Fortunately, I don’t believe people who have to live alongside it are taken in any longer, as is being seen in otherwise impeccably liberal countries like Holland and Sweden.
GCooper
“But the sheer repetition of the problems caused by Moslem immigration across Europe suggests to me that there genuinely is a clash when Islam meets secular, Western society. To pretend otherwise is to be at best naive and at worst mendacious.”
I don’t know about the position in the rest of Europe but over here (London) I genuinely do not see either a “clash” or a “sheer repetition of problems” involving moslems. It is just a non-issue. What are these so-called “problems”? Yes there are some nasty Bangladeshi gangs roaming around in Kings Cross, but they are as nothing compared to the white gangs nearby.
All this talk of a clash of civilisations looks like utter bunk seen from the perspective of those of us who live in places like London; and is huge distraction from the real social problems caused by the endlessly expanding megaState.
No doubt Verity will just respond by calling me a dhimmi. Sigh.
Jon – someone above posted that you are hopelessly naive and I would like to second that motion.
Immigrants from Mexico and [other parts of] Latin America are suddenly going to develop a yen for life in France and Italy – neither of whose language they speak? Latins who speak a second language have the good sense to speak English. If they have any dreams of immigrating, it is north and overland.
BTW, what do France and Italy have that would motivate Latins to cross the world to move there?
Also, they don’t have right of abode in Europe, even if they had the vaguest interest in leaving their homes. Which they don’t.
And the US is going to break its own Immigration laws and “subsidise the boat trips” of illegals? Are you mad? And you think this is the early 20th Century and immigrants arrive in boatloads, as they did to Ellis Island a hundred years ago?
Shawn writes: “Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don’t know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help.”
Must be an ancient Muslim religious rite because they do the same thing in France. When the fire fighters respond to a call in the banlieus, they throw pot plants and small appliances at them. Ah, the Muslims! Their rich culture has so much to teach us!
Perry, another problem with Fatimah is, after three generations, she’s still called Fatimah instead of Carole. Small problem with assimilation here. Same goes for the hundreds of thousands of Alis and Mohammads and Iqbals, which they continue to use whatever country they are squatting in. So, except in Scandinavia, anywhere in Europe you are unlikely to run into someone called Anders. Except in France, you are unlikely to run into a man called Jean. But in every country in Europe, you’re going to get the Mohammads, the Alis and the Iqbals.
Julius, read G Cooper’s post. He is correct. The men can boogie, take drugs, knock up white slappers just like genuine British louts. But it is skin deep. As G Cooper said, let their sister date a Brit and there will be a sudden disappearance explained to neighbours as a sudden trip to Pakistan to visit a dying grandmother.
As I posted above, through the whip of “multiculturalism”, which no one in Europe asked for, Europeans and Americans are being increasingly obliged to live under Muslim “cultural” restrictions. Make no mistake; it will get worse unless the people in the West have the will to pull it to a grinding halt. These people came to our shores as colonisers. They should be seen off smartish. If they have a yen to immigrate, let them move to Saudi Arabia. It’s big, it is jammed with people who are as stupid as they are, so they won’t feel inferior, there is no personal liberty, so they’ll never have to make a decision, and they obligingly shroud the decor of the human race, women, in black curtains and masks, just in case anyone thinks of having a good time. And they believe there’s a bigoted nitwit in the sky called Allah.
I see Whirlpool, in the US, has won a case (brought, need I add, by a Muslim employee) because they refused to give her an extra half hour off work in the afternoons so she could pray. Needless to say, she is running off at the mouth about religious repression.
There is not a “clash of civilizations” at all. There is Jihad, an offensive war of Islam versus all. The first (VII-VIIIth Centuries) was begun with Muhammad and his hordes, and reached from Occitania (southern France) to the Hindu valley. We are suffering the third Jihadi wave, which, according to Mr. James Levi Barton, begun in 1780 as a mystical revival of Islam.
Related to “Muslim civilization”, in example, see this revealing link, debunking the mythical “Muslim civilizational advancements” in medicine, mathematics, et caetera :
“What Arab Civilization?” by Peter BetBasoo (an exiled Assyrian).
Islam has proven –through history, jurisprudence and “theology”– to be barbarism running amok, a harsh fact willingly camouflaged by islamists, and frequently denied by the fearful, opressed dhimmi.
It’s healthy to tell it like it is.
On the other hand, 50% of French Muslim women supported the ban on the hijab ( probably more than the percentage of libertarians who supported it – come to that), and only 100 schoolkids are in contravention of the ban. It seems to have created less public disturbance than the fox hunting ban in the UK. Of course the French would deny being multiculturalist – a secularist French colleague of mine describes multiculturalism as being “Anglo-American”, a description which should be oxymoronic, but isn’t – from what I hear and see of American universities in particular, it is apt.
David,
Rather than your misguided, sedating “the past is not necessarily a guide to the future(Link)“, I prefer the realist, Shakespearean “past is prologue” (Link to a Dr. Bat Ye’or’s conference on the issue.)
Whatever the atheists and relativists might think, many (probably most) people actually want some form of moral guidance they don’t need to think too deeply about. Atheism doesn’t give it. Elevating money and its pursuit to a moral good doesn’t give it. Assertive individualism ( = selfishness) doesn’t give it.
There is nothing stopping people from finding moral guidance in a free society. What is wrong is the nanny state forcing it down their gobs come what may.
Assertive individualism ( = selfishness) can give it if you make it clear that their are responsible for their actions. The moral decline, as you phrase it, is actually an offshot from a blameless society rather than selfishness. People are encouraged by the state not to take responsability for their actions.
In the end everyone is selfish and saying otherwise is a nonsense. Selfishness was not invented by atheists or agnostics. It is basically our natural instinct for self-preservation. There is no action done by a human being that is not selfish is some way or other.
eoin – it wasn’t 50%. It was more like 43% of those surveyed (with no Muslim men around to tell them what to say). This 43% would be young mothers who were themselves born in France and were themselves forced to wear the hijab to school when they were little girls.
These women will remember the humiliation of being singled out; they will remember the agony of not being able to wear popular hairstyles and hair clasps, bows, beads – whatever was the latest – in their hair like the other girls. They will remember the sense of isolation – which, incidentally, is the point of the hijab; it’s a barrier – and they do not want it for their daughters.
There are parts of the south of France where it is most unusual to see a little girl wearing a hijab – despite a high population of N Africans. In those places, you see groups of schoolgirls walking along the pavements together, giggling, shoving – in other words, normal – and there will be one or two N Africans in the group. Where the hijab is worn, you do not see mixed groups. The hijab’s intention is to isolate little Muslim girls and keep them out of the mainstream.
That so few are in contravention of the ban is a tribute to the absolute determination of the French government to get rid of the oppressive use of this item of clothing. The Muslims know the government intends to use its might to enforce this law come hell or high water. It is the fathers and brothers sending little girls to school in headscarves. It is not the choice of the children.
I’m no friend of the French, but I think they have been magnificent over this headscarf ban, and the whole thing was driven through by Jacques Chirac and Jack Lang and they accepted absolutely no equivocations.
“There is not a ‘clash of civilizations’ at all. There is Jihad …” Well said, Joel Catala!
Verity,
Actually I think that Jon’s post has some good ideas. I wouldn’t mind paying for the US to subsidize trips to Europe for our excessive numbers of aspiring Californios and Tejanos. After all we are spending huge bucks to track them down and deport them — why not transfer that money into a constructive use? After all an Islamic Europe would probably be a security risk for the US that would cost us a hell of a lot more money to defend against than a few plane trips.
Regarding Latin American immigrants — they ARE immigrating to Europe — most specifically, and logically, to Spain. Then there’s the Italian Argentines who have “returned” to Italy after the free-fall in the Argentine economy — and after three or four generations. Several hundred thousand have made the trip, according to one article I’ve read. Unfortunately, Italy’s economy is so crap that they probably can’t afford to take in all who want to come.
Spain, unfortunately, seems to treat its Latin American immigrants rather poorly, while bending over backward to accomoodate its Moroccan illegals. Which is sort of analgous to what is happening in the UK according to my understanding: the loyal and assimilating Hindus, Jews and Sikhs are ignored while the UK government bends over backwards to give special privileges to the trouble-making you-know-who.
Of course, enacting such measures would mean that Western governments would have to acknowledge that Islamic immigrants aren’t the “blessing” that the multicultis keep saying they are. It would mean discriminating in favor of one class of immigrants over another. Such things do not seem politically possible in any Western government today, including the US. Heck, Colin Powell is on record as saying the US needs MORE Islamic immigrants, to show the Islamic world what a great place we are.
Jon writes: “I don’t know about the position in the rest of Europe but over here (London) I genuinely do not see either a “clash” or a “sheer repetition of problems” involving moslems. It is just a non-issue. What are these so-called “problems”?”
You should broaden your horizons. Try travelling up the M1 to Luton. From there, it’s but a short hop to Birmingham – which is in an even worse state.
But I dispute your assertion about London, anyway. Parts of South London are major hotbeds of Islamist activity, North London has the notorious Finsbury Park mosque and only yesterday did a report appear warning that one of Al Queda’s head goons had just “activated” cells operating in England. Meanwhile, where was the hapless moron Richard Read converted and radicalised? Dear old Brixton.
If you think there is no problem with Islam in the UK then it is time for an appointment with the optician of your choice. Those rose-tinted glasses are clearly in need of replacement.
here’s some stats about Latin American immigration to Southern Europe, if anyone’s interested:
http://www.americas.org/item_15237
Andrew, there’ll always be a portion of those “good Christians” who’ll automatically blame the atheists among us for all the ills of society. They always have, and they always will.
Yet most of them will conveniently forget that these immigrants place SO much stock in their Christian “morality” and “family values” (which did SO much to make their home countries such wonderful places to live in in the first place*sarcasm*) that they saw fit to hold their noses and make their way to the “Godless West” to live and prosper. I’m sure the stench of us non-believers is negated by the expensive AC systems they can now afford in their homes.
Some times I wonder what scares some Christians more; living without their freedoms or enjoying them alongside a non-Christian majority.
When they start looking for “dual legal systems” like they’re doing in Canada and turning sections of the nation over to their theocratic codes, then it’s time to stop talking and start seriously cracking skulls.
And that applies to both our Muslim *and* Christian friends….
GCooper
“You should broaden your horizons. Try travelling up the M1 to Luton. From there, it’s but a short hop to Birmingham – which is in an even worse state.”
If you live in Luton or Birmingham, mad moslems are the least of your problems.
I don’t approve of theocracy of any stripe. However, if the west does not manage to find some form of public morality other than do-what-you-will individualism, i.e. something that actually *works* in reducing the incidence of vandalism, petty crime, drug abuse and general yobbery, then sadly you will find yourself in a theocratic system sooner or later. It will be an Islamic one.
I think this is one of the most significant factors in the development of any potential United European Emirates. It seems that only Islam is willing to offer a moral code which addresses these social problems – and people want answers, so they will tend over time to listen to whatever answers are offered. I find it vaguely unsettling that even non-religious people I talk to frequently admit that the Moslems have a point when they complain of western moral degeneracy.
EG
Verity,
“Perry, another problem with Fatimah is, after three generations, she’s still called Fatimah instead of Carole. Small problem with assimilation here. Same goes for the hundreds of thousands of Alis and Mohammads and Iqbals, which they continue to use whatever country they are squatting in.”
hmm, let me see… if you said this about a young lad called Jacob for instance whose ancestors have lived for centuries amongs us, but still ‘refuse to adopt proper names’ what would you be referred to as?
Most of the time when people abandon their traditional names, it’s cos they’re a bugger for locals to say; nowt to do with religion either way. Do you think the Hindus who you seem to love so much in comparison are all called John, Henry & Adam now?
Everyone knows there are Islamic extremists, perhaps even quite a worrying number of them (well, any number is worrying really), but to suggest, as you constantly do, that most muslims who’ve come across here are on some sinister, slant-eyed mission to undermine our society from within is paranoid & stupid. For a start, how can you comment upon the state of UK society when you’ve barely seen it in ages, having been scared off by moustached men ‘fiddling in their pajamas’ at the airport? Next…
Secondly, how common are these things you & GCooper refer to? Do I believe that hundreds of girls are killed or abducted every year in the UK for their family’s ‘honour’… hmm, possible but having trouble believing.
As for the “they’ll booze & ogle topless women, but want their girls to be virtuous” issue… how would this be different if they ‘assimilated’ fully? That seems to be the behaviour of a fair number of pearly-white-skinned brits, and indeed of people all round the world. It’s male hypocrisy, & by all means rail against it; it’s utterly ridiculous, but acknowledging that it’s a societal issue which is much more widespread that just among muslims might be a good start.
I think my thinking aligns most closely with Andrew Dodge. The issue is not the Muslim immigration or conversion, so much as it is the State’s coddling of them. Even the idea of assimilation would be far more likely if groups were not catered to or protected by some self-claimed moral authority that the staes beleives it is.
All people have a beleif system, and within certain groupings of those beliefs there are individuals who try to force their beliefs on others, thinking that they have “got it right”. I would contend that there is a need for a moral code, and the parts of that moral code that seem most useful can be found in individualism, be it atheistic or not, as well as parts of Islam, Christianity, etc. Christianity, with the exception of some denominations, believes strongly in free will, that is the entire basis of the creation story. Religious leaders, however, corrupt the idea in their search for power, thereby giving their religiona bad name. Basically all religions turn bad when they become a thocracy, and try to force their morality on others. Atheism would make no better a theocracy than any other religion, the key to it all is freedom.
Not everyone has the will to be individualistic, which is why religions have blind followers, and why democratic states become socialist leaning behemoths. The key is to focus on individual responsibilty, and to give people freedom, and all the oportunity and risk that comes with it. That way, people have to be individualistic, whether they want to or not, and religious groups have limited power, and gain little traction because they have no legal recourse to force others to follow or make way for their beliefs.
Euan, But those same people are perfectly able to identify Western, specifically European, degeneracy without the help of muslims. That they agree when the muslims bring it up is a side issue.
Frankly, I think the muslims are as degenerate as it’s possible to get. I find that few civilised, moral people commit mass murder. Similarly, people with a code of ethics do not behead people, do not make videos of themselves beheading people and do not show videos of themselves beheading people on TV. These are moral degenerates. Similarily, mutilating the genitals of little girls is a habit I find decadent in the extreme. I also find the requirement for women to walk behind men, like cattle, decadent, not to say totally insane.
Western degeneracy is unpleasant, but it’s a phase. It was ever thus. But fighting a war to impose your deity on unwilling converts for TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS is not a phase. It is obsessive.
Well, Susan, I never encountered a single Latin American in France and if they’re there, they’re there illegally. France doesn’t need any more labourers. They flood in illegally from Algeria and Morocco and the economy does not need them. There’s no work for them. (Note: Moroccans are better at finding jobs than Algerians.)
BTW, NAFTA is working in Mexico. Where I live is fairly prosperous – in comparison to what it was 10 years ago. People have jobs. The daily line outside the US Consulate is instructive. These are people who are applying, and expect to be accepted, to visit the United States legally.
But Euan, that “public morality” IS the problem.
Public morality is an old Christian ideal. But crucially, it’s very much part of ISLAM also. This idea that you have to be attached to some package of religious ideals and moral teachings that can’t be taken piecemeal is the problem, not the cure. The worst elements of Christianity were removed because we moved from the literalist, all-or-nothing creed to much more moderate “pick-and-choose” forms.
I don’t know about where you’re living, but here in Ireland, land of the Celtic Tiger and the “me, me” culture, that “assertive individualism” you so decry is held *in the vast majority* by Christians in a vastly Christian nation. And funnier still, the’re Catholics! They’ve thrown the guilt out and replaced it with individualism (to some extent), and I can assure you this is a damn sight better a place to live now than it was 20 years ago.
We need to get the message out to their women that they can be every bit the kinds of women that Western females are. Think a Margret Thatcher could come about in a strict Muslim or Christian society? Not a chance. She’d have ended up in the burqua or in the kitchen. If we can liberate the most repressed citizens of Islam, then we can break it, just like we did with Christianity.
We need to bombard them with the strong, sexy, sassy, trampy yet powerful, thoughtful yet playful images of what any woman can be. Both the Playboy Poser and the Professor and everything in between. They need to see the “Sex in the City” and the Captain Janeway women that our society is capable of breeding.
Much better that than hold up the Madonna or the Burqua as ideals of womanhood to be strived for.
You’ll admit that, for the most part, it doesn’t matter much in societal terms whether one is a Christian or not these days, true? Differing faiths and those of none can pretty much get along the same in our nations, and generally have the same opportunities. This has come about from not enforcing one overall set of religious ideology on the populace, but from the al-la-carte approach.
We need to TAME Islam, not cower behind the “ol’ time religion” of Christianity.
And if parts of England are “Dhimmi no-go” areas, that’s a failure to respect to the rule of law, NOT a failure to respect to the rule of a God.
A_t – It must be something in the water down here, because I have to admit you have a point. You are correct when you assume I wouldn’t think twice if I met a British Jew named Jacob. This is partly because I feel benign about in the main and believe their presence benefits society at large. But there is also the fact that indigenous Brits have also adopted Jewish names. How many British (meaning Anglo-Saxon or Celts in this specific instance) Davids do you know, for example? An ancient Jewish king. And most of us will have known a Rebecca who didn’t have a drop of Jewish blood. So with the Jews, there’s been a kind of reverse assimilation, which is a hoot.
And yes, you are right that I quite like a lot of Indian names, and their continued usage in Indian families certainly does not imply an unwillingness, or inability, to assimilate and excel in the host culture.
I don’t see Pakis as ‘slant-eyed’. There are a lot of very handsome Chinese men with ‘slant eyes’ (Chow Yun Fatt springs nimbly to mind) – and beautiful women, too – but even then, their eyes aren’t really slanted. It’s the extra layer of fat in the eyelid.
You have no idea when I was last in the UK. Just because I refuse to go through the Third World horror of Heathrow doesn’t mean to say there aren’t other ports of entry.
Obviously, I can’t speak for G Cooper, but I don’t think he has ever implied in any of his posts that there are “hundreds” of muslim girls killed or abducted each year, and neither have I. My estimate is between 15 and 30, although this may be low, given that the Muslim neighbours don’t report them missing and pretend to believe that they’ve “gone to Pakistan”. And school teachers are so accustomed to these girls being yanked out of class for whatever reason – off to marry their first cousin, whatever – I’d be surprised if they reported their absence. In fact, the Muslims probably have them trained to believe that asking questions about missing girls is culturally intrusive.
But I do suspect that around 30 girls are murdered or shipped quietly off to Pakistan for a life of servitude to some ox and that, in a civilised country, is appalling.
James,
How about a ‘cultural code’, based not on any particular religion, but based on a mutual respect for each other, and other peoples property?
Your obvious distaste for any religion may suit you, based, no doubt, on your personal experiences, however that does not apply to everyone else. It may surprise you that having a ‘faith’, and therfore something to believe in, is a great comfort to many.
Your confusion between a ‘public morality’ and religion, is understandable, but some sort of communal ethic is required for us all to live ‘cheek by jowl’ with each other. That religion begets such a morality does not mean that it is the only source of such a code.
Your freewheeling type of society is fine – if you are young, fit and well able to defend yourself, but for the elderly and less fit it could be a nightmare.
Call it ‘The Ten Commandments’, or whatever, some sort of basic public morality is one of the basics of living in a civilised community.
Some important philosophical points to all non-Muslims, obviously including atheists, related to morality and the need we humans have of it.
All humans need a moral system. But there are “amoral moral systems”, ethical systems that are objectively amoral, as the Islamic and the Aztec cults. (In a strictly ideological scope, the same can be said about Communist and Nazi ideologies.)
Judeo-Christianity (and I guess Hinduism, too) recognizes that Mankind is a unity. That implies that all humans have equal right to life and liberty. Remember “Love thy neighbor as yourself”, that logically includes people who is not Jew or Christian. Christians are allowed to proselityze, while Jews can’t proselitize.
The important point is that, in Jewish and Christian societies, prosecution or forced conversion of non-followers and atheists (for the fact of being so) is immoral.
Differently, a Muslim is one who submits to Islam (Islam means “submission”, not a very libertarian term.) According to Islam, the only fully-humans are the Muslims, members of the umma –the Islamic community–, and once you are Muslim, if you reject any portion of Islam, you face an automatic condemnation to death. If you are not Muslim if you deny the tenets of Islam––, authomatically you are guilty, and Muslims are compelled to enslave you, convert you to Islam, or kill you –Muslims can choose.
Atheists now will see that they need to defend themselves from Islamic intolerance, too. An intolerance that is deep-rooted in Islamic tenets and jurisprudence.
Don’t forget, the basis of our culture, i.e. Christianity, was largely derived from Judaism. So names such as Jacob and Benjamin, David etc. really are not so strange as Mohammed or Ali.
Mind you, it did take 2000 years!…
[I’d be the keener to admit it if you didn’t use the non-word “societal” – the word you are groping for is “social”.]
Of course it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. I am not trying to argue that the western world should adopt fundamentalist Christianity as a response to the threat of fundamentalist Islam – I mean, you *did* read what I wrote about disapproving of theocracy?
The point is that *some form* of common public morality is needed. Whether you like it or not, it is a feature of all healthy societies and its absence is a feature of all decaying societies, and it has ever been thus.
Good luck if you think you can. People have been trying for a few centuries now.
Where did I say we should? Did I even say I was a Christian? No, so please don’t imply that this is what I’m advocating.
Some public morality more effective than greed and selfish materialism is needed. Right now, it seems Islam is the strong, growing and confident society. I presume you don’t want to grovel before the mullahs, just as you don’t want to cower behind Christianity? Think harder, James, selfish materialism works for economics, but not for morality.
EG
Verity writes: “Obviously, I can’t speak for G Cooper, but I don’t think he has ever implied in any of his posts that there are “hundreds” of muslim girls killed or abducted each year, and neither have I.”
As you say, I have suggested no such thing.
What A_t has done is set up a straw man – and not for the first time.
Even if it were true that “only” thirty girls were abducted each year, can you imagine the howls of outrage if they had been abducted by, oh, I don’t know… shall we say white Republican supporters of George Bush?
As usual, the reverse racism of liberals comes into play saying, in effect: well, you can’t expect proper standards of Pakistanis, can you? Thirty isn’t bad, after all.
And even if Verity’s guesstimate were correct, what about the hundreds of thousands of women living in this country who are forced to abide by a system which treats them as essentially inferior to men? Does this not matter, simply because they are Asians?
Or is it only because they are women that it doesn’t count?
I think we should be told.
Euan,
Islamia is NOT really a “confident” civilization. Otherwise they would not need to continue to issue death fatwas on anyone who dares to criticize their system. In truth, Islam is a very brittle system that can’t take outside criticism, self-examination, or any other measurements of maturity and self-confidence. Don’t mistake arrogant and loud braggadocio and tirumphalism for “confidence.”
Verity,
If you’ll read the article I posted, it said that most Latin American immigrants were headed for Spain and Italy. No real reason to go to France, as that country’s presence in Central and South America during colonial times was basically nil.
I agree with you that Mexico will shortly become a fully industrialized country quite soon — not just because of NAFTA but also because of the proximity to Anglo civilization and Anglo culture. Evangelical Protestantism is spreading in Mexico and other parts of Latin America rather rapidly, for example. When that happens the US’s problems with illegal immigration will be much relieved. I don’t see the Islamic world joining the Industrial Revolution anytime soon, however. So the Islamic invasion of Europe will unfortunately continue as the impoverished hordes will continue to seek a better standard of living rather than try to build a decent society on their own.
G Cooper,
The number of honor killings and forced marriages in Europe will undoubtedly go up as the Islamic population increases. What you are now seeing is with only 3 percent of the population in the UK being Islamic — what happens when the population triples?
In the Middle East the estimated number of deaths from honor killings is 5,000 – 6,000 per year. This includes “liberal” and supposedly “Westernized” Jordan (whose king is half-British and whose dowager Queen is an American) — and where the legislature recently rejected attempts to stiffen the laughable “penalties” (about six months in jail) currently extant there for honor killings.
By a confident culture I mean one that is expanding, more or less aggressive, convinced of its own superiority and with widespread support at home. Much like the Europeans in the 19th century or America in most of the 20th.
Islam and China are today’s Europeans, as it were – brash, assertive, confident even despite lingering insecurities. But then, insecurity can drive you to do great (or terrible) things.
If it wasn’t confident in this sense, I doubt we’d be having this discussion since the Islamic world would be as much a threat as Africa.
EG
Susan – I must confess I didn’t read the article you posted. Of course, they speak Spanish and obviously, Spain would rather have its own than muslim dingbats. What Italy’s motivation for accepting them might be, who can guess? They’re already trying to shovel out the hundreds of thousands of illegal Albanians.
Euan – I think Susan’s adjective of ‘brittle’ was apt and knowing.
Islam “brash, assertive, confident”? I think not. Far from being brash, they are cringing and secretive. Assertive? They’re obsequious, always presenting themselves as having reasoned arguments to persuade, when they have none … when what they really want to do is bomb the world into accepting them as the dominant beings. (God, could anything be less likely?)
Confident? Only insofar as they think they’re the ones with the secret message and the rest of us are doomed, but in their interactions with the rest of the world, they bluster with insecurity and a total lack of understanding of the world outside Islam. This is why they videotape themselves beheading people. They’re just so confident.
Verity – So why the hell are they a problem and why are we worried about it if they are so insecure, brittle and fragile?
EG
Euan,
As long as the multicultis shield Islam from criticism, it is dangerous. But if the multicultis allowed free criticism, and did not pander to Islamic demands Islam would quickly lessen as a threat to Western Civilization. There are already a few brave people who are willing to criticize Islam in the West despite massive opposition from both the multi-cultis/tranzis and from Islamic terrorists; may their small tribe increase.
Verity,
I know you are skeptical about immigration into Europe in general but I think that Europe doesn’t really have much of a choice. Either Europeans recruit immigrants from more assimilable cultures, have more babies (on a massive scale), or become part of “Eurabia.” There is no other “out”. Alternatives #1 and #2 sound a lot more attractive to me than #3.
I’d say it’s dangerous anyway. Like the Christian church at its peak of intolerance in the Middle Ages, Islam will punish dissenters where it can and ignore them where it cannot. It is not possible to engage in a rational, critical debate with fundamentalist zealots, whether Christian, Jewish or Moslem.
Yes, there is. The existence of lavish welfare systems is the principal reason why immigrants do not need to assimilate. Remove the welfare crutch and people have to engage far more fully with their host societies in order to earn money, and it is this engagement which promotes assimilation. Furthermore, the welfare system encourages the “wrong” type of immigrant – the indigent rather than the industrious.
However, given the western addiction to “free” money and generous subsidy, the probability of welfare being voluntarily abandoned or radically scaled back seems slight. We’ll just have to wait until the economy collapses, I suppose.
EG
Euan,
You are definitely right about the welfare part of it. Removing it from non-contributing immigrants would go a long ways towards forcing assimilation and cooperation in Europe. But doing that would mean admitting that welfare statism can be harmful and bad — something I don’t think much of Europe is really capable of doing .
Euan talks about “public morality” but does not really spell out what that morality would look like. Judging by his remarks, he seems to tilt towards authortarian conservatism to me, such as banning relationships which he deems unnatural, like gay marriage. Part of the argument seemed to be that folk need an easy-to-understand moral code of the sort religion provides.
A code of values is indeed necessary for a successful, happy life. But as the ancient Greeks realised and as the late Ayn Rand pointed out, a morality that works for human beings and enables them to be happy and flourish has to be grounded in an honest grasp of human nature and the requirements humans have to get along. Yes, grasping reality can be hard, but it is a dereliction of duty to take the easy way out and tout religion simply because it can appeal to the masses without thought.
It is an old canard that atheists destroy the foundations of morality. A great deal of ethics were developed long before Christianity, Judaism or Islam existed.
Don’t we have that to some extent? And if not, how do you intend to force it on people?
Clever, but no cigar. It doesn’t suit me as an atheist to have a distaste for religion. I’d much rather have NO reasons to consider them distasteful.
So what? I thought we were talking about a robust enough system of values to face off the Islamic threat, not what “is a great comfort to many”. Many Muslims say their religion brings them “comfort” too.
I’m not confusing them, I’m pointing out that others seem to automatically conflate them.
Agreed. I’m not arguing that we need not respect our neighbours property or personal rights, there are limits and checks, of course.
I’m not sure what you mean by “freewheeling”. I’ve never advocated anarchy, if that’s what you mean. We’ve moved away from Darwinian existence with good reason.
Understood, but again I’d ask what will be the content of this code? Respect your neighbours property line? Don’t swear in mixed company? Keep holy the sabbath? What exactly is it that’s needed that isn’t currently codified in our laws?
Perhaps because he’s not actually trying to promote a specific moral code. Which he thinks should have been tolerably clear from his comments.
They do. This doesn’t mean it has to *be* religious, of course, but it does have to have that kind of simplicity and authority.
Then we need to find something else that can appeal to the masses without much thought. People *en masse* aren’t terribly clever and don’t particularly want to figure out a personal moral code for themselves from first principles.
I agree, and I didn’t say they did. My point is that secular materialism is an inadequate replacement for the Christian moral code which was formerly widely accepted as reasonable but which has now become unfashionable (at least in the west). We need an adequate replacement – possibly religious, possibly not. But it needs to work.
I am aware of this and not unfamiliar with the literature. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that very much predates Judaism, though.
One can see the Christian morality (not the mystical elements of the religion, though) as something of a blend between Judaism and Graeco-Roman ascetic philosophy, specifically Stoicism. It’s not a bad way to live (and here I am confining myself to the *moral* elements) and has generally proved fairly successful in establishing sane and stable societies. However, since Christianity is uncool in the west, the question is to find something at least as good, capable of doing the same job at least as well, capable of being absorbed by people easily without much thought, and capable of providing answers to the social problems we face. Otherwise, it’s kind of hard to answer the Moslem charge that western society is crumbling, degenerate and rotten.
EG
The moral question is not “what is codified in the law?” but rather “WHY is it codified in the law?”
EG
If I knew the what I could probably figure out the why.
Then let me re-phrase. It’s not so much adding something new to the law, which I think is quite unnecessary, but rather coming up with a moral justification for that law.
So if you take the “what” as being what is already there, perhaps you can postulate the “why” from a non-religious moral point of view and in a form easily understandable to anyone?
No, because they’d be paying tax, employing people and contributing to the economy. Why would that piss anyone off?
EG
Same old ad hom.
Isn’t “Arab multi national” a contradiction in terms?
That would amaze me, frankly.
Granted, however, understand that dereliction of duty IS part of an honest grasp of human nature some of the time. If all of humanity were inspired to think and hold a proper perspective on reality then pure democracy would work, as would many other forms of social order. Even Rand often left the emotional side of humanity out in her theorems, a mistake that appeals to me because I often have little use for it myself, but its existence and influence cannot be done away with or ignored.
That is not to say that religion must be found, nor does it imply that atheism is the cause of moral decay, particularly considering that I find atheism to be a religion with its own gods and beliefs, etc. The issue is that the equilibrium of social interaction that always forms in a society, simply because mankind is a social being, is destroyed by centrally planned social systems. Theocracies, socialist systems, and dictatorships are the most guilty of attmpting to force a pre-planne dsocial system on a society. In a free system, where there is no legal favoritism, nor financial support for certain groups, an equilibrium will be found such that codes of ethics will be the most productive for the society in question. Any society that does not find such an equilibrium will not last. The free market works in the social world too, not simply the financial one.
I think Euan is right about one issue but wrong on a couple of others.
First, as a social conservative I agree that the West needs a strong moral and values system. And as a Christian I would like that system to be the Judeo-Christian one, in part because I believe it to based on Truth, and in part, because of its historical developement within the Greek- Roman culture, it is best suited to Western peoples.
But, and this is vital, such a system must come about voluntarily, it must not and cannot be imposed by the state. I dont have a problem with the kind of ceremonial state religions of Britain and Scandinavia, but in general alliances between the state and the church are a bad idea, not least because they undermine the nature and mission of the church.
Atheists and secular humanists are not to blame for the state of society. The church dropped the ball in the 1950’s with the adoption of liberal-left ideology and the “social gospel”. Since then the traditional mainstream Western churches have been in decline. For the church the answer to this is neither liberalism nor simple minded fundamentalism. What the church needs is a return to a broad minded traditionalism that is rooted in the historic faith and traditional morality but that embraces culture, science and the arts. A progressive traditionalism if you like. At its best Christianity is not about moral legalism, but about God’s redemption incarnated in creation, history and the human person of Christ. While I want to see a rebirth of traditional values, especially with regards to marriage and family, we must as a society avoid any puritanical moral legalism, not least because Christ condemned it. Legalism kills, freedom gives life.
Finally, the adoption of any kind of Islam is not the answer.
James,
What exactly is it that’s needed that isn’t currently codified in our laws?
Well, if you need a law book to tell you how to socialise or otherwise behave in any sort of civilised manner, then I pity you for being yet another mindless barbarian.
The whole point is that such a consensual code is one of the basics for a vibrant culture, it should be ‘second nature’, and be passed down by example, as much as by dictate. As I pointed out, it does not have to be religiously founded.
As a basis for civilised existence there would be no need to force it on people, the advantages of compliance would be, and indeed are, so obvious as to need no coercion. All of which makes the current state of affairs rather puzzling.
This is rather my point – if in the west we don’t voluntarily come up with an answer, we may find ourselves having to accept an imposed one.
This is what I think may happen, and I agree it is NOT the answer. I fear we may in the long run have no choice, though.
EG
Euan Gray:
“Some public morality more effective than greed and selfish materialism is needed”
How about respect for personal and property rights and avoidance of coercion except in self-defence (aka libertarianism)?
Johnathan said:
Certainly, Ayn Rand could have said that. But remember she used to get irrational when dealing with the possibility of eternal patterns of reality.
I think that ethics is actually an eternal feature of reality, as the laws of physics are. If you follow them, you are in accord with reality, and you evolve for better.
Some points on the history of ethics:
1) Since its appearance, Islam developed no humanly acceptable new “ethics”; it developed a system of arbitrary, barbaric rules;
2) Christianity is an ofshoot of Judaism, and it developed no new ethics (Jesus himself was an observant Jew);
3) before the Jewish enactment of the Torah (the Pentateuch), there were developments of ethics, but…
A) The most famous code, the Code of Hammurabi, which predates the Torah, was a consequential (utilitarian) code. If it includes some “ethical components” –and I have my reasonable doubts on that–, they also predate that Code!
B) Up to my knowledge, the first code of ethics are the seven “Noachide Laws” (also gathered in the Bible):
i.- Do not murder.
ii.- Do not steal.
iii.- Do not worship false gods.
iiii.- Do not be sexually immoral.
v.- Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed.
vi.- Do not curse G-d.
vii.- Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.
“Do not murder” has three exceptions:
1) Killing animals (for food.)
2) Self-defense.
3) To combat evil.
We can say with full confidence that the two last points give legitimacy to our war of self-defense against Islamicist agression.
I think that’s fully reasonable, and thus a good base for the sustainment of our civilization: human civilization.
No problem. Now please come up with the easy-to-understand moral justification for it (i.e. why should this be the code) that the average Joe can take on board and believe without too much thought.
EG
“believe without too much thought” (?!)
Euan, do you think you are a libertarian? Then you will dare to take a look to Ludwig von Mises’
“Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis”,
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS.html ,
a scientific development of the commandment “You shall not streal”.
Related to the “average Joe”, Margaret Tatcher said:
“There is no such thing as society.”
(And that’s not the same as that we all are isolated individuals.)
No. I describe myself as a socially conservative minarchist. Others describe me as a proto-fascist psychopath, but there it is 😉
There is, however, such a thing as a Prime Minister who, whatever her undoubted merits, did make the odd mistake.
EG
Euan,
How about, ” Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”.
I am sure that is easy enough for your average stupid moronic barbarian to understand and appreciate…
Euan:
“No problem. Now please come up with the easy-to-understand moral justification for it (i.e. why should this be the code) that the average Joe can take on board and believe without too much thought.”
With appologies in advance to Perry for straying way off-topic, I’m sceptical about justifications, moral or otherwise, so I’m afraid I can’t do it. Anyway, there isn’t much point in spending time trying to persuade the average Joe of the philosophical merits of libertarianism. However, what I would say to Joe is that in the real world (as opposed to the silly world of philosophical extreme cases), keeping to libertarian rules would make us all better off – and who wants a world where people are worse off when they can be better off? I think that is something people can understand and it avoids arguments about natural rights and such-like dubious notions.
Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law
Crowley
To this phrase I would add: “just remember its not others responsibility to clean up any messes you may cause. Its yours!
This article isn’t alarmist at all. Europe has lost its religion and it WAS the Judeo-Christian ethos that underpinned our society, our civilization. The values that illuminated our culture from within are now gone. The lights are out. The solution is spiritual renewal, but that’s not going to happen.
Ideologies like Libertarianism ( please forgive me Perry!) are part of the probleme because they perpetrate the mindset and the mechanisms that put us in this mess in the first place. Perry takes the laissez-faire approach and assumes that the market or some other ‘unseen hand’ will solve this probleme, but Islam has the firm intention of eliminating “the market” altogether. They believe that capitalism’s operating principles are in conflict with the ‘will of god’……and you can’t argue with the divine will now, can you? All it’ll take is a single fatwa from some clueless cleric declaring “economic liberalism” ( libertarianism?) the ‘enemy of God.’
Europe is not necessarily doomed, but it IS condemned to a very violent medium term future as people come to grips with, and begin to fend off the aggressive islamization drive. A lot of blood is going to be spilled.
Europe’s business community imported these people as cheap labour for profits. Europe’s Left, being dunces to the end, provided the ideological spin-doctoring that made this cynical grab for profits palatable to the European public. All the blah, blah, blah about refugees and human rights victims and asylum seekers is just so much window dressing designed to hide a process driven purely by greed. But we felt warm and fuzzy and moral, didn’t we?
If you’ve any doubts about this, then take a gander at George Bush’s amnesty granted to 11,000,000 illegals. He rewarded people who had broken the law with the gift of American citizenship. Left-wing groups like the ACLU , Sothern Poverty Law Centre, as well as leftist Bush-hating academics all applauded loudly. The interests of both dovetail nicely, and there is NOTHING, when push-comes-to-cheap-immigrant-labour-shove, that distinguishes the one from the other. Both shill for the Saudis, and both spout the byline that “Muslims are folks just like us”.
This is what is driving Euurope’s rapid Islamization, and the only way to oppose it is through a reawakening of our Judeo-Chirstian values.
Ideologies like Libertarianism ( please forgive me Perry!) are part of the probleme because they perpetrate the mindset and the mechanisms that put us in this mess in the first place.
Sorry, but this is not the case. It may be that Judeo-Chirstian values need to be reawakened, but the way to do this cannot be accomplished by any method other than freedom. All people have a set of values, that they have decided on by some means or other. You cannot force values, as in a theocracy, and you cannot otherwise force them. You can teach values, but again, that requires freedom.
Libertarianism is the freedom to choose your own values, as well as the lack of protection against the results of your value choices. Honestly, libertarianism is one of the few ideals that does not rail against some part or other of Biblical principle. The failing of our values resulted from a combination of corruption in the church and the laziness of collectivism. In scripture, God himself creates man with freedom of choice, particularly the freedom to choose good or evil, life or death. Any who would take way that freedom, by legislation, by brainwashing, or by other means of force, set themselves against the will of God and pretend to be higher than him.
Food for thought to those who think too highly of judeo-christian traditions and religion. Make sure that you are consistent within your own principles. Contradictions do not exist….
“Posh” Spice, who’s about as posh as a jellied eel.
Technically she’s from Goffs Oak in Hertfordshire – while it’s East Herts and close to the Essex border, she’s a sub-lifeform called a Hert’s Cockney. As it happens, Goffs Oak is quite posh, at least by the standards of Cheshunt, the nearest town.
Susan is quite correct about Latino’s wanting to move to Spain. I just got back from 2 weeks in the DR where we met a few people who were thinking about Spain to spend some time in the EU to earn some “real” money.
When I lived in the North there were a lot of pool playing, beer drinking pakistani and bangladeshi lads who’d be in the quieter pubs pretty much every evening. I’m with Perry on this one.
We’re also assuming that birth rates stay high in Muslim communities in western European countries. IIRC the birthrate in Turkey has halved in the last 25 years and is continuing to drop as wealth and life expectancy rise.
There is currently a dichotomy of thoughts. One is that Islam is a fraud and is totally unreformable and one should strive to work towards it’s eventual extinction. The other is to support those elements within Islam ie. the progressive liberal elements to work towards reformation . One should open the gates of Ijtihad or re-interpretation of their ‘holy’ scripture/Quran ( and assumably the Ahadiths and Sunna). As long as muslims adhere to the literal rather than metaphorical interpretation of their ‘holy’ script this will always result in ‘holy’ terror .
The problem with fomenting the growth and influence of liberal/progressive Islam is that there seems to be a built in mechanism in the superCult of Islam where violence is used to suppress and eliminate any change to the status Quo – ‘liberal’ muslims are thus always accused of being western Quislings and oftentimes are persecuted or summarily liquidated. The Qadiyanist/ Ahmadiyah reformed islamic movement which eschews violence against non-muslims and believe in the freedom of religion for others are currently considered pariahs and outcasts and ‘non-muslim’ by the majority of islamdom.
Given the tract record of Islam re: internecine violence and violence among different sects of Islam , I do not see any realistic and immediate possibility of reformation of Islam from within Islam itself.
Regarding the ‘attractiveness’ of Islam as a substitute for ‘moral code’ in supposedly ‘decadent’ Europe or industrialized country, i notice that many bloggers are limiting themselves to the judeo-christian tradition versus Islam. I would like to remind bloggers that Buddhism offers an attractive alternative to the supposed ‘moral vacuum’ that some bloggers claim are so rampant in european or industrialized society LOL.
Buddhism is applied psychology ( although some would categorize it as a ‘religion’) which is non-theistic/or could be theistic depending on your definition of God-head……..and it has evolved a highly superior guideline to morals and ethics witihout depending on superstitions and revelations.
check out link:
http://home.btclick.com/scimah/ ( Buddhist Spirituality versus Materialism – Essays on Modern Buddhism, Philosophy and Science)
I have many friends who are Muslims and I respect them and they respect me. I do not see a reason why Muslims and Christians can not live together.
But I do not accept Islamists trying to change the Western system, to change Europe. I do not want my kids having to wear headscarfs in future because Muslims think that is right.
I do not think that is right.
I like it that I can go to church whenever I want, not because I have to. I like it to see pretty women in the streets. I like it to eat pork because it tastes good. I like it to drink beer because it is part of my culture, and I learned to handle it when I was little which protects me from becoming an alcohol addict.
Europe is great like it is, with all its different countries, with its natural diversity, with its great heritage.
We had bad times, we had good times, but Europe as a composition of different cultures who are Christian based, but open to other religion is worth to be protected!
It is always difficult to protect a free society against radical people and thoughts. We in Germany have our own problems fighting against those stupid fashists, but we should wake up and also start fighting against radical islamist who only have one goal:
Convert Europe into an Islamist country!
The current (fortunately failed) attacks on German trains by Lebanese terrorists prove that they are not fighting against the USA or England because of the Iraq war, but they are fighting against the Western world as a whole. Germany was not part of that war and still we are being attacked by Islamists.
It’s time that we wake up, and I strongly appeal to Muslim people living in Western countries especially in Europe to help fight the Islamists, as the Islamists are the enemies of not only the Western world, they are the enemies of freedom.