Harry’s Place

David, I’ll look forward to reading your similarly sympathetic profiles of girls from working-class backgrounds who end up as prostitutes, strippers, drug addicts, sex slaves etc.

“How is this going to happen?

First of all, the birth rates of Muslims will outstrip those of non-Muslims indefinitely.

Secondly, all Muslims will demand, and subject themselves to Sharia.

Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but nobody will leave Islam.”

Muslim immigration to Europe? Doesn´t matter?

Oh, I’ve had mates who have worked as pole dancers or rent boys or what have you, for a short time. It isn’t the worst thing in the world. Lots of people pass through this sort of thing. I don’t think that it is intrinsically worse than, you know, sweeping the streets or working on a building site. Most of the problems relating to sex work stem from the lack of employment protection, unionisation, health and safety, etc.

There’s this general notion that what is particularly bad about sex related work - and lets face it, occasional pole dancing isn’t particularly hardcore - is that it ‘despoils’ a woman.

That’s very dubious, frankly.

I have a mate who was a rent boy for a few years, for example. He now works in a homeless shelter in a management position.

“Muslim immigration to Europe? Doesn´t matter?”

Irish immigration to Britain? That’s why we’re all speaking Gaelic, dontchaknow.

“Irish immigration to Britain? That’s why we’re all speaking Gaelic, dontchaknow.”

Good answer.

I’m not denying the possibility that a small, successful social and religious tradition could sweep a region in a short time. Christianity managed this: through a combination of factors, including not practicing infanticide, solidarity, and ultimately state sponsorship.

However, these factors together do not inevitably lead to the successful transmission of cultural and religious norms. People are rebellious. You have to work quite hard to stop persuading those who simply won’t be told what to do, that they have to toe the line or else.

Here’s Iran, for example. Thirty years of theocracy, and this is what they have to do to persuade women to wear veils in the street.

http://www.iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/hejab-police?page=2

Whether pole dancing or prostitution or whatever is demeaning to women or not, all those industries should be legalised and the sex workers unionised and put on a level footing with all other workers.

If you want to refute the “Eurabia thesis”(of which I am no proponent) you`ll probably have to deal with its main point of consern: Muslim immigration.

Each of those premises is dubious.

Yet each is currently on track. What is going to stop it, David? Other than the BNP, of course. With people like this against those who would stop it, the problem is more than just Islamisation.

“Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but nobody will leave Islam.”

Seems unlikely to me.

“Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but few will leave Islam and be able to leave a normal life”
More likely.

“Irish immigration to Britain? That’s why we’re all speaking Gaelic, dontchaknow.”
Most Irish people don’t speak Gaelic so that seems a strange comparison.
“And are we all in thrall to Popery?”
Fortunately the RC stopped supporting violence to convert people sometime ago. Of course when it did support violence against the English and UK Government catholic immigration was not encouraged.
I wonder why?

“With people like this against those who would stop it, the problem is more than just Islamisation.”

Yeah, but that rally was, in fact, a rally of the far Right, wasn’t it? Vlams Belang were there, along with other fascist parties, including - officially or unofficially - the BNP.

Benji

You have had certain dealings with prostitutes.

Do you want to retell your story?

I think EUrabia is a silly, apocalyptic idea.
Perhaps we’ll end up with some kind of EUgoslavia - mostly integrated, with some areas demographically less mixed. Plusses: we wont have the terrible history. Minuses: race will correlate to religion, and race seems to be good at keeping people divided over successive generations. (unlike in the case of Irish immigration). A globalised world and continued immigration (Ireland was never multiple times more populous than the UK) will make integration much less neccessary than in the past.
So, somewhere between the Pollyannas’ and the Doom-mongers’ predictions.

“Oh, I’ve had mates who have worked as pole dancers or rent boys or what have you, for a short time. It isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

No. And it isn’t the greatest either.

But I particularly love your “I had a friend who was a rent boy for a while and he’s fine now” bit. What, so that means you think being a rent boy is okay? That you don’t think that, for the vast majority, being a rent boy isn’t actually squalid, miserable and utterly demeaning? It’s just like filling shelves at Tesco, right? Just another job.

im not sure which i find a more depressing aspect of my country - the radical cleric or the pole dancer. what does the Gaelic ananology is supposed to mean? that muslims will westernise like the irish anglicised? can hardly compare religion/culture with language, especially not a billion-strong, highly aggressive religion with a language that by the time of Irish immigration to England was already on its knees.
If there is some sort of Eurabia it wont be just Musliim immigrants or high birth rates but white Brits disaffected with the tedium and meaningless of secular society.

If there is some sort of Eurabia it wont be just Musliim immigrants or high birth rates but white Brits disaffected with the tedium and meaningless of secular society.

If only the people with no imagination convert, the rest of us will be able to handle them just fine.

I’m pleased to say that I know loads of big Catholic families (not solely or principally of Irish origin) of my generation in the UK. (Ok five to seven children, rather than the ten to 13 of my parents’ generation - but still, thankfully, well above the UK average).

But I don’t think the comparison is a good one for other reasons: in the last 15 years Ireland has (one must hope temporarily) collapsed into a hateful secularist anti-Christian miasma, whereas in the principal sources of Islamic culture that influence the UK (ie Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia), Islam is more or less in the ascendant (not a good thing, but a fact).

Unfortunately, the Catholic church (unlike some protestant ones, and unlike some of the more noxious strands of Islam) is currently crap at proselytizing (and seemingly unwilling to do much of it), having had its central nervous system weakened over the last half-century by foolishly responding to proponents of bigoted secularist-induced liberal guilt that it really ought to have fought against rather than absorbed into its system or otherwise tolerated.

IN any case, what makes you think that this woman will not return to (some form of) religious practice and praxis once she gets her life back together again, with her preconceptions that the values of the contemporary western liberal world are, ultimately, incarnated by the decadent anti-culture of all about pole dancing, strengthened rather than annulled?

“Yasmin, currently dating a 26-year-old satellite TV installer, is still thought to observe the Ramadan fast and abstain from eating pork in line with the Muslim faith.”

To be honest, neither seems to me to any sign of particular devoutness. Ramadan seems to be observed by liberal Muslims even in the way that liberal Catholics regard the Lenten fast - as more good for your self-control than your soul. And a taste for pork seems to be an acquired thing; if you haven’t eaten it all your life, it’s quite a pungent taste (none of my non-Muslim Malaysian in-laws like it).

Good article - whatever happened to failed theatre critic and purveyer of urban legends, Mark Steyn?

Talking to a Muslim friend recently, the date for Ramadan comes 11 days earlier each year, so after 2011 it will fall in Western countries during the height of summer. After 17 hours without food, expect people to be passing out in the street unless they cheat a little.

P.

in the last 15 years Ireland has (one must hope temporarily) collapsed into a hateful secularist anti-Christian miasma

You are joking for comic effect, I hope. Or you have turned into John P., in the way that Neo jumped into Agent Smith’s body.

P.

IN any case, what makes you think that this woman will not return to (some form of) religious practice and praxis once she gets her life back together again

Well, in that case, you might want to pay her a visit, with a Bible.

The Romans said similar things of the Jews in the common era. In the end it wasn’t Judaism that overtook them but Christianity. I am not sure Islam per se is a ‘threat’. It will be something else. Related but, at the same time, profoundly hostile.

I too wish Yasmin well in her difficult situation. But there are others with less celebrated connections who are also struggling to retain a sense of self and real identity against a backdrop of conditioning and racism. I have heard of many others and I feel the Eurabia term should be covered by some warning text. It was minted by neo-conservatives and their fellow travellers in the US media.

PS This Common Era … Would that be the one which is dated exactly the same as the Birth of Christ? Anno Domini?

Venichka is David Lindsay and I claim my £5

I really don’t understand all this BCE / CE nonsense.

“in the last 15 years Ireland has (one must hope temporarily) collapsed into a hateful secularist anti-Christian miasma”

If only, Ven. If only…

Yeah, but that rally was, in fact, a rally of the far Right, wasn’t it?

A rather lame Ad Hominem response, if I may say so. And again the unthinking use of the term “Far Right”, which you are unable to characterise as anything other than Neanderthal, scarcely a cause to attract intellectuals.

You have here the shrill, blind hatred of the Antifa, with tacit support from the Mayor, and inaction from the Police against a small minority who called a meeting to oppose the building of a Mosque. Do you even know the agenda of this meeting or who would speak? Thanks to its suppression by violence, we shall not now know what may have been said, and those who called it will be less likely to call peaceful meetings in future.

“Successful” stifling of peaceful dissent - even if it be somewhat intolerant - is rarely something to be applauded. Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. - Karl Popper.

“Talking to a Muslim friend recently, the date for Ramadan comes 11 days earlier each year, so after 2011 it will fall in Western countries during the height of summer. After 17 hours without food, expect people to be passing out in the street unless they cheat a little.”

What will they do in places like the North of Scotland and even better Northern Norway etc? Surely if Mo had been a prophet he would have forseen this problem?

Mass Irish immigration ended a fair bit before 1990. There were beliefs that the Papists were going to overwhelm at the time.

If only the people with no imagination convert, the rest of us will be able to handle them just fine.

People “with no imagination” can be surprisingly inventive when it comes to violence, and violence is quite persuasive.

We have hired him … Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into the corner that he’ll squeak. - Franz von Papen, German Aristocrat in 1933.

1985
I think the idea that one day we will have a serious problem with Islamic terrorism here is silly.

2008
“I think EUrabia is a silly, apocalyptic idea.”

“If only the people with no imagination convert, the rest of us will be able to handle them just fine.”

That’s unlikely I’m afraid. The converts ive meet have been quite sensitive, inquisitive souls. the mongs whove become famous by failing to set off bombs are only a small minority of the 60,000 white British converts. most are teenagers who feel there’s more to life than having the right clothes or being a rapper or drug dealer.

Is that 1985 quote real or made-up?

So do most non Muslim teenagers, Kirk.

I think the Irish analogy is interesting. In my home town the population is about 40% Roman Catholic and Irish immigration shows that immigrant groups can melt into society within one generation - although there were many problems in Victorian times. This is mainly because British and Irish cultures are virtually identical apart from a variation in their interperatation of Christianity. It is also interesting to note that pre 1921 many Irish immigrants supported the IRA - and there has been sectarianism in liverpool and Glasgow for many years.

I don’t believe in the whol eurabia thing but it is important to note that institutions such as faith schools impede integration and some 2nd gen muslims are more religious than their parents. The most imporant thing is that we prevent the emergence of seperate and divided cultures in the same nation.

Well I also know Irish families of 10 person, including my son’s mother in law, and hardly any of their offspring have large families.

More interestingly I was on holiday in a remote part of Turkey a few years ago, and got talking to the local carpet seller who had been a guest worker in Germany. He said that despite the Saudi influence (paying for mosques on every street corner etc) the Turks of his generation wanted a better life than kowtowing to the mullah and although he and his wife were from large families (I suppose he was then in his mid forties) they had chosen to have a small family themselves (they had two daughters) as had their siblings, because this gave them a much better quality of life on a limited income and in a small house.

The interesting question, to me, in the UK, is the extent to which “devout” educated moslems will be able to repress their educated wives. While arranged marriages continue and ill educated young women from Pakistan are married off to repressive young Muslim men, (and let us not forget subject to the rule of repressive grandmas) things will only change slowly.

Once women get educated, with some exceptions, they want a better quality of life for their children, including their daughters than that offered by repressive Islam. (I am talking about the UK where it is possible not about countries like Saudia although even there there is pressure from women for change). This is why I am concerned about Islamic girls only schools.

‘We have hired him … Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into the corner that he’ll squeak’ - Maven’s motto

But Alcuin, surely VB are far leftist, akin to the Carbonari or the Babeufists or what ever your odd unsubstantiated politcal framework chucks out in the way of comparison.

The myth of Eurabia is more than just the demographics, it is a classic conspiracy, where Gordon Brown, Paddy Ashdown George Soros and Romani Prodi are committed to advancing the Eldars of Mecca’s deadly scheme. It is a fine example of the mobilizing mythology that Sorel advocated as the secret of revolutionaries. It divides the healthy from the decaying, makes clear the battle lines and make conflict all the sharper

Alcuin - do you believe in the Eurabia theory?

Different interpretations in Christianity plus national/cultural distrust were sufficient to keep sectarianism alive for centuries. The idea that there’s an intrinsic affinity between those who have a genetic line on this island group, or even Europe, unlike recent arrivals is… well… racist.

“I don’t believe in the whol eurabia thing but it is important to note that institutions such as faith schools impede integration and some 2nd gen muslims are more religious than their parents. The most imporant thing is that we prevent the emergence of seperate and divided cultures in the same nation.”

How many terrorists have come from Muslim schools then? the faith schools as divisive is a myth. mixed secular schools in London do not produce tolerant, liberal people. tolerant people are far more likely to go to faith schools, which give them good a-level results and university, where they really do make friends from other faiths.

Alec,

“The idea that there’s an intrinsic affinity between those who have a genetic line on this island group, or even Europe, unlike recent arrivals is… well… racist.”

And if a migrant from, say, China or Pakistan were to feel some kind of preferential affinity for their country of origin - where the majority of friends and relatives may live - this would be… what, exactly?

If this poor young woman is assaulted or even murdered by acolytes of Bakri the snitch boyfriend and the Sun will bear responsibility.

Currently hardline conservatives can scare the populace with the fear of “Eurabia”. Similar fears were dominant during the period of mass migration from Ireland. Catholics then like Muslims now had larger families. But just as the social lives of Catholics did not remain static, Muslims will change.

Anyone going into institutes of higher education can see that many young British Muslim females are going places. I just don’t believe that all of them will accept to stay home and raise huge families when they can become the lawyers, doctors, teachers and business professionals of tomorrow.

And if you go to a confirmation or baptism ceremony in any urban church you will see a small but growing number of people called Mohammed, Abdul, Fatima who are converting to Christianity. A far greater number of those born to British Muslim families are worshipping in the cathedrals of secularism - nightclubs, pubs, shopping malls, football stadiums, and even lap-dancing bars it seems.

The drive for Eurabia is fuelled largely by Saudi petro-dollars and either through the drying up of oil reserves or through the evolution of new fuel technologies that flow of money will start to dwindle mid way through this century.

In 50 or 75 years Britain’s Muslims will be no different from those who are descended from Irish, Jewish and Huguenot descent - and the “sharia” project will be a chapter in our history.

In my home town the population is about 40% Roman Catholic and Irish immigration shows that immigrant groups can melt into society within one generation

You would have to take into account that in the period roughly 1760-1860 that most town dwellers of English origin were also virtually immigrants themselves (from the countryside.)

And if a migrant from, say, China or Pakistan were to feel some kind of preferential affinity for their country of origin - where the majority of friends and relatives may live - this would be… what, exactly?

In the same way you may feel one to white inhabitants of Australia or North America? Not those with Asian or African heritage, of course. You genocidal racist, you.

You will note that I did not suggest it was racist to feel an affinity to those from similar *cultural* backgrounds. I was referring to the post hoc attempt to dismiss the attested fears of an Irish tide in the 19th and 20th Centuries because of a *genetic* link. Rather like that flash of alarm Ford Prefect felt at being light-years away from his birth planet.

Bakri’s daughter’s position is in some ways analagous to the son of Martin Bormann/ daughter of Albert Speer etc. Certainly in the case of Bormann junior he was brought up in elite SS schools but later became a priest and has had (I think) many worthwhile and helpful contacts with the Jewish community. Certainly he never became a nazi and there is no reason why even the children of Islamists should become Islamists themselves.

I’d have to agree with paul on the sex work by the way.

Normal service has resumed. Graham pipped me to the post with that point.

Large scale Muslim immigration has been going for 50 years. We’re still not past 3%. Only another 2,000 years to go!

Suffolk. The most fantastically optimistic statement I’ve ever read. There are Muslim converts to Christianity - very few, and according to a report earlier this year, 3,000 of them are in hiding. As for this:

“In 50 or 75 years Britain’s Muslims will be no different from those who are descended from Irish, Jewish and Huguenot descent - and the “sharia” project will be a chapter in our history.”

No they won’t. Ive heard the Huguenot case brought up ad naseum. No one ever mentions that even at their peak Huguenots were 0.25% of the British population. Propotionally there are more Somalis in Britain and even more north Africans than there were Frenchies. The figure for Pakistanis and Bangladeshi-Britons is far bigger.

Secondly, the Huguenots were Protestants fleeing Catholic enemy terror. They were therefore already integrated when they arrived, and their language was the language of Europe and of England’s upper classes (which Arabic, Urdu etc are not). A better analogy with today would be with Middle Eastern Christians fleeing Islam.
Thirdly the Irish, Huguenots and many Jews were of identical physical appearance to the natives. I know it might seem tacky to bring up race but it’s a physical, unignorable fact. Most Muslims are not white and so for another reason separatedness remains stronger in the next generation.

Which point?

If you mean the one about immigration then it is probably always worth bearing in mind that all English cities were “fluid” for at least a century. That the large scale Jewish immigration to London circa 1900 was the first to really inspire a “racist” mentality amongst the combined Normans/Romans/Hugenot’s and Irishmen etc who make up “The English” and that only from the 1930’s to the early 70s could anyone get away with selling the English (or British) as some kind of homogenous mass. Nowadays the most complaints I hear are from settled black British people about Eastern Europeans.

(Please feel free to challenge/flesh out that potted history anyone…)

Alec,

“You will note that I did not suggest it was racist to feel an affinity to those from similar *cultural* backgrounds.”

Ah, thanks. That wasn’t clear. To me, at least.

The left, as usual, hides its head in the sand and refuses to accept facts.
Irish Catholics never had an agenda that demands conversion of everyone in Europe (well, the world) to Catholicism, by the sword if necessary.
They never demanded their own religious courts.
Whatever one’s feelings about Irish Catholicism, it is not a Stone Age sect in the most literal sense of the word.
And so on.
The analogy is a complete straw man.

Kirk, what makes you certain that 150 years ago, someone seeing a white face would have immediately considered it one of their own? We live in mass-media and exposure to other cultures/societies. It’s possible we judge primarily on social behaviour. Just like with the Huguenots.

Graham, the one about migration to towns.

the combined Normans/Romans/Hugenot’s and Irishmen etc who make up

Bloody anti-Briton propaganda.

Fair enough, David.

The girl’s done well for herself, considering she went to Salisbury School, not one of the London Borough of Enfield’s finest institutes of learning. I read the story in the Sun, browsing it in Southgate Asda this morning, Bakri said that she was the responsibility of her husband’s family and not his, and that God forgives everything except for renouncing Islam, so that’s allright. Another Murdoch paper had several pages devoted to articles about the plight of women in British Muslim families ie how the men think it is okay to batter them around. The more light that is shone on the peasant lives of these people the better.

Nearly, the Irish Catholics owed, or were thought to owe their allegiance to an authority which ran contrary to the political entity (the CofE) which had, just a few years before been the only method to achieve political office or franchise.

Irish Catholics never had an agenda that demands conversion of everyone in Europe (well, the world) to Catholicism, by the sword if necessary.

Oh yeah, the Catholic Church was never interested in conversion. All those missionary schools must be simply a figment of my imagination.

Meanwhile, Britain is chock-full of door-to-door Muslim preachers.

P.

I meant to say as well that I wouldn’t call internal mobility ‘immigration’, as far as I know, ‘immigration’ or ‘migration’ means moving to another country. As for the Ramadan thing, yesterday in the Times (Murdoch again) there was an article about how fasting in the heat of Ramadan cause the crime rate to rise as people become irritable and dehydrated. It told the story of a man who killed his brother in Morroco. He was genuinely remorseful afterwards, you’ll be glad to know. There were no hard facts and figures but I suspect this is because Islamic societies don’t do those sort of statistics.

Nearly, the Irish Catholics owed, or were thought to owe their allegiance to an authority which ran contrary to the political entity (the CofE) which had, just a few years before been the only method to achieve political office or franchise.

…and which until 1870 (our grand-parents’ lifetime) was an intolerant political state in Italy. For example, Rome had the last ghetto in Western Europe - one which had been abolished during the Roman Republic, but which was re-instituted in 1848:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ghetto

One wonders, if Italy had not managed to capture the Papal States, how long would the ghetto have lasted?

P.

I meant to say as well that I wouldn’t call internal mobility ‘immigration’

Moving from a pastoral village which relied on the seasons in (say) Dorset in the 18th century into a steam-driven London where everything was done by the clock would surely have been far more like “moving to another country” than moving from karachi to Birmingham today.

“Kirk, what makes you certain that 150 years ago, someone seeing a white face would have immediately considered it one of their own?”
im not sure what a Victorian would have thought about anything, but there certainly would have been no way of knowing if someone’s dad had come from La Rochelle, the Pale or, for that matter, beyond the Pale. to separate integration from cosmetic issues just seems naive.

As for the “Irish Catholic” thing people seem to be talking about two different historic issues. Catholicism was only a sensitive issue from 1571, when the Pope issued a fatwa against the Queen, to the French Revolution, when Catholicism as a major force and threat was overturned and France became an anti-Catholic state. Irish immigration only seriously began in the 1840s and the Irish Question was rarely, if ever about religion. Anti-Irish xenophobia was motivated by plain old xenophobia towards a perceived inferior race but especially, after the Fenians in the 1860s, by politics. Irish republicans generally hated the RC Church because it had so many dealing with the British state. provos certainly have never made any difference between an English Protestant and an ENglish Ctaholic.

“Is that 1985 quote real or made-up?”
I thought that in 1985 as did most other people!

Just thought I’d take this opportunity to say, grow up, Nearly. No, dry the spittle from your screen. Think, cogitate, compose a reply, re-examine, remove any screed, submit.

It’ll make you a much happier person.

Kirk, that may be historically accurate, but was it known/appreciated at the time?

GO, please provide contemporary quotes and analysis to back this up. Death of a Princess was produced five years previously.

Interesting post, but I’m too busy to comment. Fucking time zone difference always means I’m late into the fray.

I know Muslims like this girl….quite a few actually…and they’re open to new faiths.

Sympathise with her because after all I, too, am a Pole dancer, or dancing Pole…er something.

You hope things pick up for her eh?

One look at her photo and something picked up for me, that’s for sure…

Alec: have you ever lived in a predominantly non-white country? I can assure you that a camaraderie develops between people of the same ethnicity and those who wouldn’t be friends in there own societies become bosom buddies and reliant upon one another. I imagine it is the same with immigrants to this country, probably moe so as they rely on each other for money-lending, marriage, work, carrying presents and messages back home etc. And, there has not been large scale Muslim immigration into England for the last 50 years. It is only in the last ten to fifteen years that large numbers have arrived due to civil wars in their own countries and the opportunities afforded in an industrial society. It is true that in the textile towns up North there are settled communities but certainly one hardly saw them outside of those areas.

Did any hugenot leader ever talk about wanting the UK to be a protestant state - oh I forgot it already was?
Comparing a small number immigrants of the same religion to a large number of a different is a strange comparison.

Sue, I am not claiming that doesn’t exist. What I am saying is that retrospectively examining population movements from 150 years ago and applying today’s attitudes towards race and Christian denominations is, shall we say, fraught with difficulties.

How many terrorists have come from Muslim schools then?

The jihadist, Moazzam Begg went to a jewish school.

Secondly, the Huguenots were Protestants fleeing Catholic enemy terror. They were therefore already integrated when they arrived, and their language was the language of Europe and of England’s upper classes

There were anti-Hugenot riots in the East End

Most Muslims are not white and so for another reason separatedness remains stronger in the next generation.

The highest intermarriage rate is that of afro-caribbeans.

After a bit, you stop regarding skin colour as particularly determinative of anything.

Irish Catholics never had an agenda that demands conversion of everyone in Europe (well, the world) to Catholicism, by the sword if necessary.

I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should
Ever
Be
Forgot

PS: We’re about to make it legal for the King to be or marry a Catholic, if he so chooses.

Did any hugenot leader ever talk about wanting the UK to be a protestant state - oh I forgot it already was?

Which Muslim leader has? I mean, real leaders which more than, say, 5% of Muslims follow. Not makie-up ones.

I don’t know why anyone is talking about “white” faces etc. Yasmin Fostok looks like virtually every other girl of any ethnic background around here and I for one would have had no idea of her religion.

Most Muslims are not white

Like the young women being discussed?

“The highest intermarriage rate is that of afro-caribbeans.
After a bit, you stop regarding skin colour as particularly determinative of anything.”

I agree. religion/culture is more powerful at stopping integration than race, but you cant discount race as a factor. no society in human history that we know about has been colour-blind, and when two groups with different religions and cultures also appear different it makes integration just that little bit more unlikely.

“Most Muslims are not white
Like the young women being discussed?”

and she’s integrated very well. but most Muslims are not Syrian by parentage

Toquemanda: The England of the 18th century was a more unified culture than you appear to think it was. Yes, the countryside was predominantly rural and agricultural (that’s the point of it) but there was much more movement around the country than you seem to think. There are no major physical impediments to travel in England (Britain), no mountain ranges to cross, the climate is generally mild (no harsh snowstorms), one language, even our dialects are close to each other (unlike many European countries where they can be mutually unintelligble). Everyone was a member of the CoE as well, so there were common beliefs and practices which is why the arrival of Catholics and Jews was so noteworthy. People did travel extensively. Near to where I live there was a famous case in the 18th century were a serving maid from Houndsditch in the City of London disappeared for ten days. When she eventually reappeared she claimed that she had been kidnapped and held prisoner by three ‘gypsies’ in Engield Lock (the Elizabeth Canning case). The reason I mention this is because the accused claimed that there were in Somerset at the time, and didn’t come up to London until a week later. It’s also interesting because the calendar changed that year, 12 days were taken out of the year to regularise the calandar, and the ‘gypsies claimed that they celebrated ‘Old Christmas’ in Somerset but came up to London for ‘New Christmas’. I take it from this that there was actually a lot of wandering around the country.

Why are people trying to compare Muslim immigration with Irish or Hugenot immigration, rather than the obvious comparison with Hindu and Sikh immigration?

“in the last 15 years Ireland has (one must hope temporarily) collapsed into a hateful secularist anti-Christian miasma.”

I remember going to Dublin in the early nineties and at an arts centre there was a gay film festival and condom machines in the toilets. Thoecracy retreating! Yay!

Toquemanda: The England of the 18th century was a more unified culture than you appear to think it was. Yes, the countryside was predominantly rural and agricultural (that’s the point of it) but there was much more movement around the country than you seem to think.

Actually there was very little movement amongst the poor for the basic reason that unless you remained in the parish where you were born (and baptised) then you were not entitled to any help from parish funds (or a burial). Taking a risky farm job elsewhere meant that were you to break a leg the parish commisoners would probably let you starve to death (that is if they had not already driven you out of town on arrival as a potential claimant on the goodwill of the parish commisioners.)

Well I have spoken to them, David. I think they are in a terrible bind. Caught in the middle of the ‘moralists’ of the left and right, the police, govt, the punters. A way to address these problems is through legalisation and empowerment of the workers. Not perfect. But it would be a start.

It doesn’t take 100% of Muslims asking for Sharia to get Sharia; just enough, way less than 50%. How many Russians asked for Communism? Or Germans for Nazism? With < 2% of the population in Britain, the British government seems hell bent on sucking up to the most extreme groups. What will happen when they are 10 or 20%?

As for Muslims leaving Islam, yes, some do. No one knows how many because they are usually killed unless they flee. Non-Muslims suffer greatly in a Muslim majority (or even a plurality) area.

And of course, as others have mentioned, what of immigration? What is the attraction of admitting so many Pakistanis or Bangladeshis into England? Is their culture that wonderful? There is not a Muslim majority country in the world which is not a hell hole for non-Muslims. Why won’t that be repeated in England?

Kirk

How many terrorists have come from Muslim schools then?

I didn’t mention a link between terrorism and faith schools. I said faith schools impede integration. When I was growing up all my friends were Catholic because I went to a Catholic school - I don’t think the British state should be segregating kids along religous lines. If you want to see the damage that faith schools can do then you should study Northern Irish society.

“mixed secular schools in London do not produce tolerant, liberal people. tolerant people are far more likely to go to faith schools, ”

Evidence?

“Irish Catholics never had an agenda that demands conversion of everyone in Europe (well, the world) to Catholicism, by the sword if necessary.

I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should
Ever
Be
Forgot”

I agree - although they were not Irish. However Irish immigration came to this country after the RC decided to stop trying to conquer it. I doubt large scale catholic immigration in 1588 would have been allowed.

“I didn’t mention a link between terrorism and faith schools. I said faith schools impede integration. When I was growing up all my friends were Catholic because I went to a Catholic school - I don’t think the British state should be segregating kids along religous lines. If you want to see the damage that faith schools can do then you should study Northern Irish society. mixed secular schools in London do not produce tolerant, liberal people. tolerant people are far more likely to go to faith schools, ”

England is not Northern Ireland, Chris. I went to a Catholic comprehensive in London which was very multi-racial and produced well-educated, tolerant people. Apart from me, obviously.

People seem to have this idea that Catholic schools are run by a Da Vinci Code-like cabal of sinister Empire Strikes Back extras. It’s in your imagination (as for Catholic school girls being sex mad, I certainly missed out on that stereotype if theres any truth in it)
its the sink schools (which are on the whole secular) that produce failures. those failures are more likely to cause trouble, whether it’s terrorism or crime.

I remember going to Dublin in the early nineties and at an arts centre there was a gay film festival and condom machines in the toilets. Thoecracy retreating! Yay!

Must have been the mid-nineties, unless said machines were illegal (possibly), as condom machines were only legalised in 1993.

One story I remembered today was Sheila Hodgers, a woman who died in 1983, screaming from excruiating pain from cancer, because the Catholic-run ethics committee of her hospital refused to treat her as it might harm her unborn child, including providing painkillers.

Great days, I’m sure Venichka will agree.

P.

socialrepublican

I don’t know much about VB or their ilk in other countries, though when I read what (say) Geert Wilders actually says, I hear a deep and sincere concern, and it resonates. My “odd unsubstantiated politcal [sic] framework” is essentially Darwinism, moderated by a Christian upbringing which imparted a strong sense of decency. I have little time for any political theory, particularly the unsound Marx, Engels and the Frankfurt school.

Herman

“believe in” … hmmm. It is a theory, which has some foundation. If Europe does not start to stand up for its own values, stop its moral relativism and start saying an unequivocal “No” to demands for Sharia Law, separate development (viz. Apartheid), and special dispensations like allowing burials on Saturdays (when others are so prohibited), then Eurabia will happen, due solely to demographics.

If our leaders do not start to stand up for what they believe in, then the likes of the BNP will. You only have to read the comments on blogs (including this one) when the issue of Islam in Europe comes up, to see that there is growing frustration and exasperation with the Elite, and their inaction and silence. A growing tinder, ready for the next spark.

Was there an agreement between Europe and the Arabs in 1979, as some have reported? I don’t know. It seems like a rather crass and short-sighted move on the part of the Europeans.

Another Murdoch paper had several pages devoted to articles about the plight of women in British Muslim families ie how the men think it is okay to batter them around. Sue R

Are yes but Sharia tribunals will sort all that out won’t they (HPBNP Please note this is said sarcastically ).

You are leaving out two very important factors in your analysis (not all of which I agree with - I feel pretty certain if we match birth rates with GDP we will find that Muslim nations far outstrip equivalent GDP Non-Muslim states).

1. Kaffir Flight. Christians, Jews, Hindus, gays, atheists and others aren’t going to hang around to have their lives made hell under Shariah. Once it’s clear the way things are going, they will up sticks and leave for America, Australia, South Africa, Spain, Israel, India - anywhere that will take them. This has been the pattern in so many Muslim dominated countries which have seen their non-Muslim populations dwindle over time. Only now with jet travel millions could go into exile in as little as 5 or 10 years. You might have a population of 15 million Muslim in a country of 60 million, but if 10 million non-Muslims emigrate you go from 25% to 30%. And that increase might itself start a runaway process.

2. Muslim exploitation of democracy. Muslims, because they tend to block vote, punch above their weight politically. With a population of say 20% Muslims then it is quite plausible that they could maybe have 10% of seats in parliament in a “Muslim Democrat Party” and be able to hold the balance of power, extracting various concessions as we have seen ultra right religious parties in Israel do.

Which leads on to the point someone else made: Muslim immigration. As it is there’s hardly a Pakistani Muslim in the country who doesn’t go abroad to get married and then bring back their spouse. Well I don’t actually know the figures - but it is a v. common practice. But a government under the influence of a Muslim party might well relax immigration rules.

“Talking to a Muslim friend recently, the date for Ramadan comes 11 days earlier each year, so after 2011 it will fall in Western countries during the height of summer. After 17 hours without food, expect people to be passing out in the street unless they cheat a little.”

Er … aren’t there loads of Muslims in the Middle East?

1985
I think the idea that one day we will have a serious problem with Islamic terrorism here is silly.

2008
“I think EUrabia is a silly, apocalyptic idea.”

2008
“I think the idea that Aliens are going to invade in 2030 is a silly idea.”

Ahhhh! Ahah! See!

Yep. Cast iron logic.

Yeah, but that rally [Cologne] was, in fact, a rally of the far Right, wasn’t it? Vlams Belang were there, along with other fascist parties, including - officially or unofficially - the BNP.

Yup. The organising group, Pro-Koeln, for all its parading of token Jewish members (a la the BNP), is led by former members of the far-Right Republikaner Party and the outrightly neo-Nazi NPD. The ultimate irony is that the main financial backer of Pro-Koeln, Gunther Kissel, owns the construction company that built the equally controversial Merkez Mosque in the Duisburg suburb of Marxloh.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,526225,00.html

Graham: You are right, that the system of parish relief and being labelled a vagabond did not encourage people to tramp around the country, however, the fact is that the English poor and peasantry were still part of a ‘national’ culture with bonfires lit to celebrate the deliverance of the King from the nasty Catholics, with the celebration of another King hiding in a tree to escape his nasty enemies (Oak Apple Day), or later celebrating victories over external enemies ie Trafalgar Day. The Dissolution of the Monastries meant that landowners ie aristocrats would often have scattered estates and would travel between them. The emergence of towns, starting from the Middle Ages meant that many people had already left the land and fled to the nearest town even before industrialisation and enclosures got underway. Don’t forget that Pilgrimages were very popular in the Middle Ages (although the Protestants did away with them). Wealthy Catholics would travel all over Europe and the Middle East.

The point about immigration is that it is fuelled by economic necessity. The Irish came here in large numbers because they were impoverished and starving back home. They were hated when they first came (cf Frederick Engels ‘Conditions of the Working Classes in Manchester’.). The West Indians came for the same sort of reason. What frightens me is that many of the people coming to this country now have not chosen to come here ie Somalians, they have just been resettled here. I also thing the only thing that will stop this squabbling is economic development of their own country, but that is the last thing their elites want.

What worries me most, to be frank is that the London Review of Books/Guardian/Hay on Wye Book Festival type of Left (not to mention members of revolutionary far Left groups) are clearly of the view that Britain is a shit place, with a shameful history, of which we should be hugely ashamed.

How - and why - would you develop a sense pride of belonging in this country, if that’s the attitude of the intellectual ruling classes.

Irish Catholics never had an agenda that demands conversion of everyone in Europe (well, the world) to Catholicism, by the sword if necessary.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. By the sword? How unlike pre-war Poland or wartime Croatia.

They never demanded their own religious courts.

Someone had better tell the Church then.

The point about immigration is that it is fuelled by economic necessity. The Irish came here in large numbers because they were impoverished and starving back home.

This is precisely why English workers left the countryside to come to towns Sue. The “Vagabondage” laws of the tudors were designed to punish people who were driven off farmland due to the huge increase in sheep farming. Eventually of course these people would be funneled into towns to form a basic “working-class”

I’m not sure what you mean by before “enclosures got underway”. The earliest enclosures were authorised by the Statute of Merton (1235) and the Statute of Westminster (1285) (under Catholic Monarchs in other words) . Likewise the travels of wealthy catholics in the middle-ages (or the likes of Daniel Defoe much later) are really as relevent to mass movement of the population as would be Richard Branson’s flying schedule today. In 1600 the population of London was around 200,000 (most of whom would have grown up in the country) by 1800 it was 1 million (who would still mostly have come from a very different life in the countryside.) By 1900 (when we can perhaps say that mass immigration had just begun to slightly impinge on our figures) it was 6.7 million many of whom would still have begun life in a very different and more pastoral England.

How - and why - would you develop a sense pride of belonging in this country, if that’s the attitude of the intellectual ruling classes.

Do you think the vast majority of immigrants (or pole dancers for that matter) ever come into contact with “the intellectual ruling classes?)

millions could go into exile in as little as 5 or 10 years.

Muslims, because they tend to block vote

there’s hardly a Pakistani Muslim in the country who doesn’t go abroad to get married

It can’t be racist cos Muslims aren’t a race!

Hay on Wye Book Festival type of Left

Well admittedly Hay on Wye is a rather successful and popular book festival. Perhaps you can name more a more politically correct one then David?

They never demanded their own religious courts.

You know, Muslim clerics have never used religious law as an excuse to avoid prosecution for paedophile rape in the secular courts:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/connell-in-the-name-of-god-go-504412.html

P.

Don’t be silly Benji - it is merely a shorthand.

That you don’t think that, for the vast majority, being a rent boy isn’t actually squalid, miserable and utterly demeaning? It’s just like filling shelves at Tesco, right? Just another job

Well Blow Me! I’ll steer well clear of young Tesco shelf-stackers.

They may blow you if you don’t.

“Do you think the vast majority of immigrants (or pole dancers for that matter) ever come into contact with “the intellectual ruling classes?)”

No

I do think that they come into contact with teachers and university lecturers, who will share this outlook.

They also may well read the Guardian and the Independent, or watch adaptations of Robin Hood, which are rendered as allegories of wicked Neocon racist domination in the 21st century.

David T: “I’m not denying the possibility that a small, successful social and religious tradition could sweep a region in a short time… However, these factors together do not inevitably lead to the successful transmission of cultural and religious norms.”

They do if the resident culture refuses to oppose the imposition of those norms, or to support the primacy of its own norms. It’s the lack of willingness of the Govt and the authorities to tackle cultural Islamism that, to me at least, is the most worrying factor.

As for cultural and religious norms…well, a year ago we were sneering at the Archbishop of Canterbury for suggesting that the introduction of sharia law in the UK was “inevitable”. Even Leftist commentators were declaring No Passaran! This month, we learn that five officially-sanctioned sharia courts are already up and running and denying, to Muslim women, those equalities enshrined in law for their non-Muslim sisters.

In the first decade of this century, Muhammad has gone from being the obscure figurehead of a religion little-known of in the West, to becoming - in Western societies - the real-life equivalent of Voldermart: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Salman Rushdie and the Danish Cartoons saga demonstrated the very real danger that faces anyone brave enough to challenge this unofficial orthodoxy, while Ben Elton and Grayson Perry have spoken of the reluctance to even consider such a challenge in those normally fearless taboo-shattering spheres, the media and the art world.

The idea of a “Eurabia” dominated by Muslims is hard to see, at least in our lifetimes and for a long time after. But there is a very real possibility of a Europe that has disowned much of its own cultural heritage being cowed into submission by the sensibilities of a growing, ambitious and aggressive Muslim minority-within-a-minority.

I do think that they come into contact with teachers and university lecturers, who will share this outlook.

Possibly, and I am not going to push it, but it was my experience when working for Brent adult Education that this type of teacher preferred to work somewhere less edgy and with fewer problems.

What I mean is that its kind of hard to live in a dreamworld when the reality is right in front of you.

Its idle speculation, but only slightly off-topic. The historian Edward Gibbon said of the Battle of Poitier 732AD:
“A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet”
I wonder if this had happen whether European culture would not have developed along the same individualistic, scientific and libertarian way that it has done? Basically that a European Islam would have been more European than Islamic. Medieval Christianity for all its tortures didn’t stop the development of European culture so would Islam? I am sure PhDs have been written on this topic, perhaps Christianity has special charcterisitcs that allowed European/Western culture to develop as it has? I would be interested in opinions as I think it has some bearing on the Eurabia thesis.

Graham

Yes but presumably if Hay on Wye is full of horrible Guardian lefties, there are other book festivals that feature people with political persuasions more to David’s taste?

“In the first decade of this century, Muhammad has gone from being the obscure figurehead of a religion little-known of in the West, to becoming - in Western societies - the real-life equivalent of Voldermart: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Salman Rushdie and the Danish Cartoons saga demonstrated the very real danger that faces anyone brave enough to challenge this unofficial orthodoxy, while Ben Elton and Grayson Perry have spoken of the reluctance to even consider such a challenge in those normally fearless taboo-shattering spheres, the media and the art world”

Some of that is lack of knowledge and background. It’s easy enough to take the piss out of Christianity, or far leftism, or the Women’s Institute or whatever because you know something about it. Taking the piss out of Islam is difficult because you haven’t got the vocabulary and background. That will have to come from those who are brought up within it.

Though I was relieved when shortly after the 7/7 bombings the comedians on Radio 4’s Now Show were making jokes about the mindset that carried out the bombings.

Yes but presumably if Hay on Wye is full of horrible Guardian lefties, there are other book festivals that feature people with political persuasions more to David’s taste?

I don’t think he is saying these people are horrible Benji - just deluded.

Deluded then. Same question.

Large scale Muslim immigration has been going for 50 years. We’re still not past 3%. Only another 2,000 years to go!

Well Alec, between 1981 and 2001 Canda’s Muslim population passed from a mere 98,000 to nearly 800,000. That’s a factor of 8.

If the trend continues, and with large numbers of boomers about to pop their clogs, what will that number be 20 years hence? And what pourcentage of the population will they constitute?

And as compared to other ethno/religious groups, Muslims, or rather the people Muslims so passively allow to be their spokesmen, have cause a great deal of commotion and disruption.

Just yesterday several Muslims extremists were convicted of planning mass murder in Toronto and were handed very lengthy prison terms.

They were nabbbed just in time.

And Alcuin’s points about the affair in Cologne are worth taking to heart. I find it appalling that the old hippies running europe can suspend the right to free assembly at will simply by calling in a bunch of 60s redux ‘anarchist’ thugs.

People, in this case ‘progressives’, who prevent a democratic assembly by people not advocating violence aren’t battling fascism, they are fascism!!

Meanwhile in other european capitols rabid Islamists hold aloft signs calling for the beheading of those who “insult” islam, and these fascist nutcases do so with impunity.

What happens when the beards start holding signs saying;”behead anarchists who insult islam”?

May sound droll, but at some point it’ll happen.

That cowardice has to be denouonced, and if *hippie* ( like the dickwad mayor of Cologne) can’t bring his drug-addled brain to challenge the fascism of people who just happen to be non-white, and who just happen to be non-judeo-christian, then Europe is in deep, deep shit.

I don’t believe in Eurabia. However I would feel a lot happier if someone who had predicted our current problems 15 years ago also did not believe in it.
I know that 15 years ago I could not see suicide bombers etc. Who could ? So how do you know you are right about Eurabia?

It is a common presumption of sections of the political liberal/Left (and elsewhere) that Islam will become ‘benign’ over future years, as other religions have become.

The evidence that Islam (and not simply a ‘tiny minority of extremists’) is the key exception, is inclined to be dismissed, despite the stark activities of Islamic jihad globally, and the campaigns to implement Shariah law in the West.

Bat Ye’Or’s ‘Eurabia’ thesis seems to be substantiated in practice.

“Fjordman: The European Union and the Islamization of Europe”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/019873.php

And we are at the stage where it is becoming impossible to criticise the dangers of the Islamization of Europe, as illustrated in Cologne last weekend:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/09/fjordman-on-freedom-fighting-fascists.html

@ KirkLazarus - yes, you are right that I am offering a very optimistic vision, and I have moments when I am less hopeful.

I accept that the comparison with Huguenot migration is not a good one on numbers, but I was making greater comparison with the Irish waves of migration. The Irish came in larger numbers and the hostility to Catholicism in Protestant UK in centuries past was very strong. Also Irish Republicanism was involved in terrorism and violence in the UK.

I accept that the issue of radical fundamentalist Islam is different in many ways, but I believe fundamentalism, whilst being very strong, is actually rather brittle. I am increasingly of the view that radical Islam will collapse from within.

Taking the piss out of Islam is difficult because you haven’t got the vocabulary and background. That will have to come from those who are brought up within it.

Salman Rushdie was raised as a Muslim, and had the “vocabulary and background” that you deem necessary for critics. It is not lack of cultural knowledge that prevents the criticism, depiction, or even at times the very mention of the figure of Muhammad in our societies - it’s the very real possibility of becoming a target for murderous religious fanatics if you do. That threat extends to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, so don’t expect a sweeping counter-reaction from secular Muslim critics and artists any time soon.

By the way, if anyone is under the deluded impression that this whole Eurabia bollocks is actually a significant issue then they need to read this paper:

Westoff, C.F. and Frejka, T. (2007) Religiousness and Fertility Among European Muslims. Population and Development Review, 33, 785-809.

Based on official data on religion, national origin, and other indicators of ethnic origin, Muslim fertility in 13 European countries is higher than that for other women, but in most countries with trend data the differences are diminishing over time. Fertility varies by country of origin of immigrants. Various European survey data show that higher proportions of Muslim women are married and their commitment to traditional family values is greater than among other women. Muslim women are more religious than non-Muslim women and religiousness is directly associated with fertility. Among Muslim women, religiousness and commitment to family values are equally important for fertility, while for non-Muslim women religiousness is much less important.

It’s one in the eye for the Mark Steyn fanboys. A summary can be read here:

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx?p=1

I agree with David re the “intellectual” elite. It’s similar over here in mainland Europe, yet I can’t help feeling the rest of the EU, for all its faults, is not quite as “far gone” as the UK.

Quite frankly the many nations I spend time in, including France, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Poland, seem a lot more comfortable in their culture than we Brits (yes, even tormented wee Belgium!) and a lot less inclined to put up with the kind of exceptionalism that IMHO will lead to a UKabia - there may be more Muslims in France but if they want to get along they had damn well better fit in!

I remember, was it Adam Mars-Jones?, writing a piece in the Grauniad about Muslim terrorists nuking Paris cos of the headscalf ban, whereas in right-on multi-culti Britain we were one big happy family. How smug we were then!

Yes there are exceptions and the liberals are doing their best to destroy themselves here too, but I suspect the kind of national pride we loathe in ourselves still rules in much of the EU - rearing its ugly head in the far right sometimes, admittedly - but despite the tut-tutting of Grauniadistas at the “bigotry” of Italians blocking mosques for example when the local Muslims won’t sign an equality statement (can you imagine that in the UK - wot about MY rights?!) this kind of line drawing will help forestall a EUrabia, while Liberal Britain experiences another strange death.

“Do you think the vast majority of immigrants (or pole dancers for that matter) ever come into contact with “the intellectual ruling classes?)”

Yes, every day. It’s called the mainstream media.

There are a lot of comparisons with earlier migrations on this thread. I don’t consider them entirely relevant. Not all cultures and religions are the same. If you survive scarlet fever, it isn’t a rationale for welcoming the advent of typhoid.

We should be concentrating on the ideology that is islam, and why the greatest resistance to any form of assimilation is coming from muslims themselves. That resistance isn’t racism on their part, it is an important part of their doctrine. They are following their script. We should all know, by now, what it says in that script. And it is time to stop kidding ourselves that our wonderful liberal democratic rainbow culture will be enough to make them want to integrate. The muslims who grew up surrounded by that culture are the most extremist, militant, and hostile population we have ever had in our midst. This is not the traditional pattern for immigrant communities, it is a precise inversion of that pattern.

I have seen, in recent days, a film clip of Bernard Lewis, in which he points out that we in the west have a fight on our hands, to save our own civilisation. I have never seen him use such terminology before. But perhaps we had better be listening now.

Well, Joseph K, give it a few years and there will be a Muslim Philip Roth and Woody Allen and Steven Berkoff and Arnold Wesker. That may just be a pious hope of mine, of course.

I heard on Radio 3 a serious analysis of what it’s like being a Pakistani immigrant in Britain by the novelist Nadeem Aslam, which I transcribed here:-

http://rosiebell.typepad.com/rosiebell/2008/08/immigrant-song.html

He said things that few non-Muslims would say.

As far as criticism or satire or depiction of any group or community or country the best work comes from the insider. The outsider often has a crude and uninformed view.

We wouldn’t have to debate this at all if we hadn’t been stupid enough to allow mass immigration, But we westerners are so selfish here we are keeping all the multicultural multiethnic goodness for ourselves when we should be spreading it to our muslim brothers, After all what could be finer then that they allow massive immigration of foreigners of a totally different religion into their hitherto exclusivley muslim lands with full political and legal rights.

Fair’s fair after all, I mean if multiculturalism is such a great thing other countrys should be falling over themselves to implement it, especially boringly monocultural muslim countrys, So why don’t they cut themselves a bit of multi culti action?, Any guesses?

I agree - although they were not Irish.

So, is it alright to discriminate against English Catholics?

However Irish immigration came to this country after the RC decided to stop trying to conquer it. I doubt large scale catholic immigration in 1588 would have been allowed.

Just as soon as you’ve given those quotes to support your previous assertion, perhaps you can tell us why titular head of all Muslims is calling for this.

Alternatively, you could stop talking rubbish.

or watch adaptations of Robin Hood,

I’m watching the one with Michael Praed and Jason Connery on ITV3. Bloody good.

It manages to have good Saracens and Christian monks.

“Large scale Muslim immigration has been going for 50 years. We’re still not past 3%. Only another 2,000 years to go!”

Because islamic population growth is following an exponential law, and indigenous communities are barely reproducing themselves, we will see the results a lot sooner than that.

Also, with regard to this young woman.Are we supposed to be impressed? Her new-found career as a pole-dancer is hardly helpful. Being in a rather smutty tarty occupation doesn’t make her any more of an Englishwoman, in fact it sets her apart, just as her father’s disreputable “piety” set him apart.

The proportion of women in this country who participate in the sex industry is vanishingly small. Our womenfolk take part, and apply their skills, to every aspect of our existence, from the midwife, to the funeral director, and everything in between. Just as they should.

I think the islamists have defamed us, particularly our women, and we shouldn’t accept that. We aren’t answerable to islam or the muslims, for the way we live, in our own country. We aren’t peasants, we don’t get obsessed with our own personal “honour”, and we tend to retain our composure at times of crisis. If they don’t like it they should go berserk and pound sand somewhere else.

What Monty said. It’s titillation material, and I can see pa’ declaring, look at the dancing slags our women turn to when they leave the faith.

The high Muslim birth-rate is mainly confined to Bengalis and Pakistanis and is subsidized by welfare payments. If child Benefit was not paid after the third child or if local councils stopped building 4 and 5 bedroom houses it would drop very sharply very quickly.

Young Muslims often marry a spouse from the Indian sub-continent for racial/cultural/financial/religious reasons. If citizenship was granted to spouses on a proportional basis, ie, Bengalis make up 0.5% of the population so they can only be 0.5 % of foreign spouses and if such a policy was backdated then the Muslim population of the UK would decline.

Well, what he said the second time. Humans aren’t hypothetical rabbits.

Oh yeah, the Catholic Church was never interested in conversion. All those missionary schools must be simply a figment of my imagination.

Which part of ‘by the sword if necessary’ didn’t you understand?

Bored, go fuck yourself, you pretentious jerk.

Benjamin once tried to rescue me, and offered me a bag of chips.

Quite so, Phil. Unfortunately, we have been governed by demended morons for the past 11 years.

Paul, I am as far from being a fan of Catholic clerics as one can be, but the point is that Islam is dangerous to this country, whereas Catholicism isn’t.

Develop some manners, you little cunt.

Paul, I am as far from being a fan of Catholic clerics as one can be, but the point

No, the point was from the start that the rhetoric expressed against Irish immigrants in centuries past was, as much as two events centuries apart can be, the same. For real and imagined reasons, Irish and RCers immigrants specifically were assumed to be plotting social take-overs and bloody violence. Some were, 19 of 20 weren’t.

is that Islam is dangerous to this country, whereas Catholicism isn’t.

Tell that to the children who’ve been abused by priests who were then protected by the local bishop. It’s clear you loath the powerless and lower-classes, but you could at least pretend not to be such a Les Ross.

Which local councils are building four or five bedroom houses?

Come to think of it, which local councils are building public housing full stop?

I very rarely say this, but it is time Nearly was either banned or subjected to deletions. He adds nothing to the debate, and almost always spoils it with childish tirades which veer between the repellent tone of Daniel Davies and efforts at control of Richard Farnos. Zin, at least, can be charming and actually quite agreeable.

“What Monty said. ”

Don’t you dare agree with me in that tone of voice!

Patronizing nonsense, Monty. Are you a Left wing wanker? When I decide to take orders from you, cock, I’ll stop ordering everyone else about.

Which part of ‘by the sword if necessary’ didn’t you understand?

If in your simply universe, Muslims are the ones that who convert by the sword, and Christians aren’t, can you explain how the Ottoman Empire managed to be 40% non-Muslim, while Christian countries like Spain were burning heretics at the stake and expelling Jews?

P.

Paul, I suspect Nearly will now bring up the matter of the Armenians, and insist that the expulsion from Spain was in the past, unlike the Armenian… er… or his previous insistence that Catholicism never wanted to convert by… ah…

The Ottoman empire managed to be 40% non-Muslim because an elaborate millenium old system of treating non-Muslims as second class citizens who lived relatively precarious lives kept them in subjugation and indeed made them a nice little earner by means of the extra taxes they paid (not to mention the old system of seizing Christian sons for forcible conversion and inclusion in the corps of janissaries).One thing that could happen to their daughters is described in the opening pages of ‘Auction of souls’ by Mardiganian and Gates:
“In Armenia, the Mutassarif, or Turkish commandant, is an official of great power. He accepts no orders, except those that come direct from the Sultan’s ministers, and, as a rule, he is cruel and autocratic.

It is dangerous for an Armenian father to displease the Mutassarif. When this representative of the Sultan sees a pretty Armenian girl he would like to add to his harem, there are many ways he may go about getting her. The way of Husein Pasha was to bluntly ask her father to sell or to give her to him, with a veiled threat that if the father refused he would be persecuted. To make the sale of the girl legal and give the Mutassarif the right to make her his concubine, it was necessary only for him to persuade or compel her to forswear Christ and become Mohammedan.”

It was originally entitled ‘Ravished Armenia’ about a woman’s experience of the 1915 genocide. I wonder if every single suitably aged female fatality caused by the Spanish burnings at the stake and expulsion of the Jews was also a rape victim, as attested by German observers at the time.

So, Wally, why did Catholic Spain not do the same?

“So, Wally, why did Catholic Spain not do the same?”

I’m sure you are dying to tell us, so fire away….

KB Player: “I heard on Radio 3 a serious analysis of what it’s like being a Pakistani immigrant in Britain by the novelist Nadeem Aslam, which I transcribed here“

KB, thank you for your link, and especially for going to the trouble of transcribing the broadcast.

Naseem Aslam offers a useful analysis and one that certainly deserves a wider reading. Having lived in East London all my life, I recognise his description of the entrenched, isolationist attitude of a good-sized portion of the Pakistani immigrant community, and know well the frustration and conflict that it causes their educated and Westernised contemporaries.

Despite what I wrote, I’m not a believer in the “Eurabia” theory, and it’s a shame that so many obsessives propagate it as it distracts from genuine and legitimate concerns. My reply to David T was merely to highlight that two Islamic cultural norms are already in place in the UK: one formally - and shamefully - backed by the Govt, and the other informally agreed upon through fear. Not sure which I find more disturbing.

Out of interest, do you watch More4 news? It had an interesting report last night about Muslims who confront extremism, and featured a local youth worker, Hanif Qadir, speaking out at an Islam4uk (aka Al-Muhajiroun) meeting in Walthamstow. It was heartening to see how he stood up to them, despite the [verbally and physically] violent reaction that he provoked. Link below for anyone interested.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/religion/facing+down+extremism/2475257

(Nice blog, KB, btw.)

Secondly, all Muslims will demand, and subject themselves to Sharia.

This hardly has to be the case for Sharia to become pre-eminent.

Do you really think that ALL Muslims, even in Muslim countries, want and demand Sharia?

But yet they’ve got it anyway, haven’t they.

I’d argue that you don’t even need a majority of Muslims to be pro-Sharia, just a determined minority, who aren’t shy about stiffling dissent within their own ranks.

“I very rarely say this, but it is time Nearly was either banned or subjected to deletions. ”

I usually haughtily ignore abusive trolls and wish everyone else would too and not give them the oxygen of attention, but I do wish Nearly O would Totally, Thoroughly, Absolutely and Completely disappear.

Thanks Joseph K. I didn’t see the More 4 programme and my computer won’t let me replay Channel 4, telling me that my operating system is dodgy. But I’ve heard of similar cases and such changes are far better coming from within. Muslim women campaigning against Sharia law and informing those who may be victims of it of their rights are likely to have a better effect than crticism from outside.

Re censorship, there was a bit on Today this morning about it being 40 years since theatre censorship was lifted, and the guys that were interviewed saying that the most worrying trend was the censorship of the play about Sikhs by the Birmingham Repertory theatre - censorship by religious extremists. They blamed the craven behaviour of the Home Secretary of the time for not condemning root and branch the actions of the extremists. I think all it needs is some playwrights and theatres taking a stand on this in the knowledge that any physical threat to them will be properly dealt with for this kind of censorship to cease to exist.

The piece is worth listening to hear how much attitudes have changed in forty years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7638000/7638553.stm

When Phillip Roth’s first books came out a lot of conservative Jews, rabbis etc were upset at his less than flattering view of them, thinking it showed them in a poor light. Now you could say that having someone of his stature being born among them does them honour.

James Joyce’s books were banned in Ireland. Now he’s one of Ireland’s most honoured sons and is officially celebrated.

Attitudes change.

“PS This Common Era … Would that be the one which is dated exactly the same as the Birth of Christ? Anno Domini?”

The word Christ means God. It’s not a surname. No one except the Christians believes that God was born on a specific date. In addition, the birth of this chap that the Christians think is God initiated a long period of particularly malevolent and mad persecution of the Jews. So for Jews to use this Christian reference for dates goes against the grain.

Steve F is having a laugh. He references the following link

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx?p=1

as support for his contention that the Eurabian thesis is a fantasy.

He doesn’t actually quote from the article, with good reason perhaps:-

“The study confirms the perception that Muslim women have more children than non-Muslims in Western Europe, but shows that the gap is not as large as many believe. And, similar to other immigrants in other countries, Muslim fertility rates tend to fall over time, narrowing the gap with the non-Muslims who make up the vast majority of the European population now, and for the foreseeable future.”

So the study CONFIRMS that Muslims have more children than non-Muslims. All it says is that the gap is closing. It doesn’t claim - because the claim would never be credible. All it says that things are not going to change radically for the foreseeable future (but fails to
define foreseeable future).

The study appears to rely heavily on the experience of Turkish women - among the most westernised and least Islamic in the Muslim world. We see with Moroccan women that the gap remains huge - their birth rate is some 63% higher than of non-Muslim Dutch women. Incidentally, the important point here is to talk in terms of percentage differences - the average lay person thinks the gap between 1.7 and 2.9 isn’t much because the figures sound low in themselves.

The study also excludes the effects of immigration (particularly illegal immigration which may not show up in the figures for some years) and the continuing inflow of people from Muslim-dominated societies through marriage abroad.

I think this is a load of soft left-liberal soap.

For yours we’ve had this applied to the body politic - eventually the polticians realised that people were not prepared to tolerate it any more and we have had a more serious debate about mass immigration.

But as anyone who saw a Newsnight programme from a few weeks ago will know there are many routes into the UK for illegal immigrants still.

Sorry typing too fast -

Meant to say the study does not claim the gap will be closed.

And towards the end that should be “for years”, not “for yours”.

” “So, Wally, why did Catholic Spain not do the same?”

I’m sure you are dying to tell us, so fire away….” Monty, above.

The difference, I assume, was that catholic Spain was a Christian polity. The Koran , or at least its last word on the subject, instructed Muslims to give the infidel the ultimatum of converting, submitting to dhimmi status or dying. The manner of subjugation was later formalised in the so called pact of Omar.
Christianity, not being a political and legal system as well as a religion, had no divinely revealed set of procedures for dealing with non-Christian subjects. Seven or eight hundred years is a long time to be occupied by a group that formalises oppression in the way that Islam does: I suspect that it had a distorting effect on the behaviour of the Christians as well as the fact that Xtianity went through a rather murderous phase between 1500 and 1650 - it’s partly why there was an enlightenment in reaction. Proto-fascistic actions such as the expulsion of the jews and later the moors might be looked on as an over-reaction to the past, but the latter could also be seen as an admission that Muslims make unreliable citizens whose religion tells them that they should dominate and not be dominated. I’ve no desire to defend the inquisition, either, but it killed less people in a century and a half than 19 Muslims managed to kill on one day in September 2001.

Thanks Joseph K. I’d written you a reply but it got lost in cyberspace.

I haven’t watched the snippet on Channel 4 but I will. I’ve seen/heard similar things where brave people have faced down the extremists. That kind of thing is best done by insiders, just as the most effective opposition to Sharia law will be from Muslim women campaigning and informing those who are pulled into it about their rights under British law.

There was a bit on Today this morning about how censorship laws applied in the theatre up to 1968. The guys who were interviewed agreed that the new censorship came from religious extremists citing the Sikhs protesting about the play that depicted them unflatteringly at the Birmingham rep, with death threats to author and theatre personnel. They were scathing about the cravenness of the home secretary of the time for refusing to condemn this root and branch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7638000/7638553.stm

It needs some brave artists, theatre producers, publishers and a strong stance from the government that this kind of threatening behaviour will not be tolerated to defeat the power of the extremists.

I’ve just heard that some guys have been arrested for trying to burn down the publishing house that is picking up the historical novel about Mohammed that Random House dropped.

However, things change. Phillip Roth aroused a lot of anger from conservative Jews, rabbis etc about his unflattering depiction of Jews in Portnoy’s Complaint. Now he’s acknowledged as one of the USA’s best novelists. James Joyce was banned in Ireland, now he’s one of Ireland’s most honoured writers and his Dublin is a tourist attraction. Attitudes change.

This is the third time I’ve tried to post a comment. What’s going on?

Thanks Joseph K.

I haven’t watched the snippet but I will. I’ve seen/heard similar things where brave people have faced down the extremists. That kind of thing is best done by insiders, just as the most effective opposition to Sharia law will be from Muslim women informing those who are pulled into it about their rights under British law.

There was a bit on Today this morning about how censorship laws applied in the theatre up to 1968. The guys who were interviewed agreed that the new censorship came from religious extremists citing the Sikhs protesting about the play that depicted them unflatteringly at the Birmingham rep, with death threats to author and theatre personnel. They were scathing about the cravenness of the home secretary of the time for refusing to condemn this root and branch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7638000/7638553.stm

It needs some brave artists, theatre producers, publishers and a strong stance from the government that this kind of threatening behaviour will not be tolerated to defeat the power of the extremists.

I’ve just heard that some guys have been arrested for trying to burn down the publishing house that is picking up the historical novel about Mohammed that Random House dropped.

However, things change. Phillip Roth aroused a lot of anger from conservative Jews, rabbis etc about his unflattering depiction of Jews in Portnoy’s Complaint. Now he’s acknowledged as one of the USA’s best novelists. James Joyce was banned in Ireland, now he’s one of their most honoured writers and his Dublin is a tourist attraction. Attitudes change.

This is the third FOURTH time I’ve tried to post this comment. What’s going on? FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

Thanks Joseph K.

I haven’t watched the snippet but I will. I’ve seen/heard similar things where brave people have faced down the extremists. That kind of thing is best done by insiders, just as the most effective opposition to Sharia law will be from Muslim women informing those who are pulled into it about their rights under British law.

There was a bit on Today this morning about how censorship laws applied in the theatre up to 1968. The guys who were interviewed agreed that the new censorship came from religious extremists citing the Sikhs protesting about the play that depicted them unflatteringly at the Birmingham rep, with death threats to author and theatre personnel. They were scathing about the cravenness of the home secretary of the time for refusing to condemn this root and branch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7638000/7638553.stm

It needs some brave artists, theatre producers, publishers and a strong stance from the government that this kind of threatening behaviour will not be tolerated to defeat the power of the extremists.

I’ve just heard that some guys have been arrested for trying to burn down the publishing house that is picking up the historical novel about Mohammed that Random House dropped.

However, things change. Phillip Roth aroused a lot of anger from conservative Jews, rabbis etc about his unflattering depiction of Jews in Portnoy’s Complaint. Now he’s acknowledged as one of the USA’s best novelists. James Joyce was banned in Ireland, now he’s one of their most honoured writers and his Dublin is a tourist attraction. Attitudes change.

This is the third FOURTH time I’ve tried to post this comment. What’s going on? FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!

Try again for the FIFTH time and shorten the comment.

Thanks Joseph K.

I haven’t watched the snippet but I will. I’ve seen/heard similar things where brave people have faced down the extremists. That kind of thing is best done by insiders, just as the most effective opposition to Sharia law will be from Muslim women informing those who are pulled into it about their rights under British law.

There was a bit on Today this morning about how censorship laws applied in the theatre up to 1968. The guys who were interviewed agreed that the new censorship came from religious extremists citing the Sikhs protesting about the play that depicted them unflatteringly at the Birmingham rep, with death threats to author and theatre personnel. They were scathing about the cravenness of the home secretary of the time for refusing to condemn this root and branch.

What do you know? The comment got through. Is there a word limit operating?

It needs some brave artists, theatre producers, publishers and a strong stance from the government that this kind of threatening behaviour will not be tolerated to defeat the power of the extremists.

I’ve just heard that some guys have been arrested for trying to burn down the publishing house that is picking up the historical novel about Mohammed that Random House dropped.

However, things change. Phillip Roth aroused a lot of anger from conservative Jews, rabbis etc about his unflattering depiction of Jews in Portnoy’s Complaint. Now he’s acknowledged as one of the USA’s best novelists. James Joyce was banned in Ireland, now he’s one of their most honoured writers and his Dublin is a tourist attraction. Attitudes change.

What do you know? The comment got through. Is there a word limit operating?

Not that I know of. I think it is just this bloody wordpress which has already caused me to give up the idea of writing a couple of posts this morning (trying to get a picture in was dangerously raising my blood pressure.) Joyce at least did not have to deal with the Kafkaesque levels of censorship imposed by our own ignorance of bloody computer programmes.

There is nothing such Eurabia except in the mind of some conspiracy theorists.

“Muslim immigration to Europe?” (thomas k)

Why not. Let try the math.

There is currently 800 million peoples in Europe, less than 50 million of them being Muslims.

Suppose 200 million Muslims immigrate to Europe. Total population: 800 + 200 = 1000 million. Muslim population: 50 + 200 = 250, that is 25%.

Suppose 800 million Muslims (60% of total world Muslim population) immigrate to Europe (which obviously will not append). Total population: 800 + 800 = 1600 million. Muslim population: 50 + 800 = 850, that is 53% of total, still far from 80%.

Case closed.

“between 1981 and 2001 Canda’s Muslim population passed from a mere 98,000 to nearly 800,000. That’s a factor of 8.” (John P.)

Are you claiming there will be 1400 million × 8 = 11200 million Muslims on Earth in 2028?

“Bat Ye’Or’s ‘Eurabia’ thesis seems to be substantiated in practice.” (Jack R)

Bat Ye’or is a conspiracy theorist when she claim that a secret pro-muslim government is ruling European Union, thus she use the same method that many antisemite before her (see also “This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea”, “Bat Ye’or follows in notorious [antisemite] footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims”, “Stripped of its Islamic content, the broad contours of Ye’or’s preposterous thesis recall the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the first half of the twentieth century and contemporary notions of the ‘Zionist Occupation Government‘ prevalent in far-right circles in the US.”, “a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca.”).

“So the study CONFIRMS that Muslims have more children than non-Muslims.” (field)

Indeed.

“the gap is closing”

Indeed.

“the gap between 1.7 and 2.9 isn’t much ”

Indeed. Lets try the math. Let’s assume there are 16 million Muslims in European Union, with an average fertility rate of 3 children per woman, and lets assume it imply a 50% grow each 25 years. 16 × 1.5 × 1.5 = 36 million Muslims in EU in 2058, that is 7% of current total population.

So, for Europe becoming Eurabia because natural grow, case closed.

KB Player: “I’ve just heard that some guys have been arrested for trying to burn down the publishing house that is picking up the historical novel about Mohammed that Random House dropped.”

I saw that story. It’s a depressing confirmation of my earlier point about Muhammad having become a taboo figure here in the liberal West. Coincidentally, this month marks the 20th anniversary of the publishing of The Satanic Verses.

Graham - yes, I spent a horrible evening trying to get photos out on Wordpress. I knew what I wanted to do, but f***ing Wordpress was a lousy old retainer, surly unco-operative piece of software. Send it to the workhouse!

“between 1981 and 2001 Canda’s Muslim population passed from a mere 98,000 to nearly 800,000. That’s a factor of 8.” (John P.)

Are you claiming there will be 1400 million × 8 = 11200 million Muslims on Earth in 2028?

You’re piss-poor at mathematics.

I’m not ‘claiming’ anything; I’m stating that census stats show an 8 fold increase in Canda’s Muslim community

Canada’s Muslim community has grown, primarily as a result of uncontrolled immigration, by a facto of 8 in the 20 years between 1981 and 2001.

Understand?

If that trend continues, and if uncontrolled immigration remains uncontrolled, then we could easily see the country counting several miillion of them in 20 years time.

Case closed.

You second point is one of utter dishonesty.

Canda’s Muslim commuinity is the result of immigration whereas the total number of Muslim worldwide is the result of natural grow.

Need I point out the stupidity of taking a immigration/demographic statistic particular to Canada and then projecting that statistic on the entire world-wide Muslim community as a measure of its potential natural growth?

Case closed

Indeed. Lets try the math. Let’s assume there are 16 million Muslims in European Union, with an average fertility rate of 3 children per woman, and lets assume it imply a 50% grow each 25 years. 16 × 1.5 × 1.5 = 36 million Muslims in EU in 2058, that is 7% of current total population.

Would you do some fact-checking. There are already 50 million ( you say so yourself, idiot) Muslims in Europe with millions more, some legal, others illegal, pouring in every year. Their birthrate is twice that of native europeans, and this at a time when europeans, now rapidly ageing, are about to go into steep decline.

Many rabid Islamists, some sporting western names, have stopped boasting about their numbers in Europe, and have now adopted the tactic of playing those numbers down so as to not inadvertently arouse the natives to the impending threat.

When that very real and impending threat is raised, those doing so are portrayed as paranoid by islamists, as though the truth of straighforward and irrefutable population facts could ever be the product of mental illness.

Case closed ‘Nicolas’.

Alec (who stalks me from thread to thread with abusive posts) and KB and other sad tossers like them exemplify perfectly the ‘open-minded” ‘inclusive’, ‘progressive’ left: screeching when someone comes from a different perspective and dares to have different opinions, and demand that they be muzzled and censored.

Develop some manners, you little cunt

Look in the mirror, you sad waste of protoplasm.

Tell that to the children who’ve been abused by priests who were then protected by the local bishop

Which part of ‘I am far from being a fan of Catholic priests’ are you having such difficulty understanding?

It’s clear you loath the powerless and lower-classes

It’s clear, from your stupid statement, that you can’t get your brain in gear without a lot of outside help; so here it is using simpler words: I am on the side of the powerless (the term ‘lower classes’ is a dead giveaway that you are a condescending champagne ’socialist’ who thinks that some classes are ‘lower’ than others - I haven’t seen this disgusting term used without irony for decades).
I detest priests who abuse children. But to the best of my knowledge, there are very few Catholic priests these days who call for the wholesale undermining of the culture of this country and the imposition of a totalitarian Catholic theocracy. However, there are many Moslem priests who came to this country from Asian hellholes and are calling for - and acting to promote - the imposition of a totalitarian Moslem theocracy on the native population. If you support them, and/or regard them as not quite as bad as Catholic priests who abuse children, perhaps you should come right out and say so.
In other words, put up or shut up.

Marge,
Christ does not mean ‘god’. ‘Christos’ is the Greek for ‘anointed’, i.e. messiah (from the Hebrew mashi’akh, literally ‘anointed’).

Nicholas Krebs -

Please don’t misquote people. It’s confusing and doesn’t help you forward your own arguments.

I never said the difference between 1.7 and 2.9 birth rate isn’t much. I said that’s what the lay person perceives, but in fact it is a huge 63% difference.

I have never advised looking at this issue purely in terms of birth rate. You have to look at legal immigration, illegal immigration, where the population is concentrated, and how they vote in a democracy. You also have to look at what other communities are growing.

My primary concern being a UK citizen is the position in the UK.

The UK is fractured. There are various competing ethnic groups now. In London, back in 2001 the official figures give the non-white population as being 29% already. It’s probably closer to 35% by now I would guess. I mention this not because I am a racist but because it’s an indicator of change. There is an assumption in everything you write that the non-Muslim population is part of an integrated culture that enjoy hegemony over the Muslim population. But that is not true. With the possible exception of the African-Caribbean community, most immigrants are not very sympathetic to the majority culture (a kind of Christo-secular-pagan amalgam).

I don’t know what the Muslim population in London is at the moment but I would guess about 10-20%. The way to look at the Muslim minority is more as a very strong minorities among other, weaker minorities.

Anyone who has lived in the provinces will know how London dominates the life of the country. These are the realities we need to address, the fact that at least two of our main urban centres in England (London and Birmingham) will soon be Muslim dominated and that others may follow.

“between 1981 and 2001 Canda’s Muslim population passed from a mere 98,000 to nearly 800,000.” (John P.)

According to the 2007 CIA World Factbook, there were 630,000 Muslims in Canada in 2007, that is a decrease of 26% in 6 years. Amazing, isn’t it?

“I’m stating that census stats show an 8 fold increase in Canda’s Muslim community

Canada’s Muslim community has grown, primarily as a result of uncontrolled immigration, by a facto of 8 in the 20 years between 1981 and 2001.

Understand?

If that trend continues, and if uncontrolled immigration remains uncontrolled, then we could easily see the country counting several miillion of them in 20 years time.” (John P.)

So:
1981 100,000 Muslims in Canada
2001 800,000 Muslims in Canada
2007 1,492,852 Muslims in Canada
2008 1,656,424 Muslims in Canada
2021 6,400,000 Muslims in Canada
2041 51,200,000 Muslims in Canada
2061 409,600,000 Muslims in Canada
2081 3,276,800,000 Muslims in Canada
2101 26,214,400,000 Muslims in Canada

Amazing, isn’t it?

“You second point is one of utter dishonesty.”

Proponents of the Eurabia theoy are the first being dishonest.

“Would you do some fact-checking. There are already 50 million ( you say so yourself, idiot) Muslims in Europe with millions more, some legal, others illegal, pouring in every year.”

Let’s do the math: 50 million Muslims in Europe + 50 million more/year = 250 million Muslims in Europe in 2108, that is 25% of total european population. Amazing, isn’t it?

But maybe you were claiming of more than 2 million every years? 10 million? This would imply an increase from 50 million Muslims in 2000 to 130 million in 2008. Without anybody notice?

“Their birthrate is twice that of native europeans, and this at a time when europeans, now rapidly ageing, are about to go into steep decline.”

And Mark Steyn is the smartest guy on Earth.

“When that very real and impending threat is raised, those doing so are portrayed as paranoid by islamists, as though the truth of straighforward and irrefutable population facts could ever be the product of mental illness.”

In Western Europe it’s called “racism” (and is prohibited/prosecuted at least in France, you can ask Brigitte Bardot). I don’t like being called üntermensh, and I don’t like fanciful theories claiming I am an üntermensh.

It look like you have not understood my comparaison between Bat Ye’or and european antisemitism (which is seen as the most evil on Earth in many western countries, even in USA), so I put it again: Bat Ye’or is a conspiracy theorist when she claim that a secret pro-muslim government is ruling European Union, thus she use the same method that many antisemite before her (see also “This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea”, “Bat Ye’or follows in notorious [antisemite] footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims”, “Stripped of its Islamic content, the broad contours of Ye’or’s preposterous thesis recall the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the first half of the twentieth century and contemporary notions of the ‘Zionist Occupation Government‘ prevalent in far-right circles in the US.”, “a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca.”).

“Please don’t misquote people.” (field)

Sorry, I made a mistake.

“You have to look at legal immigration, illegal immigration”

As stated above, even with 1 million Muslim immigrating into Europe every years, it worth nothing and would nead a century to turn Europe into Eurabia (which don’t exist except in the mind of some conspiracy theorists).

“My primary concern being a UK citizen is the position in the UK.”

I am sorry (again), but I don’t care about UK. You elected Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair, transforming the country into a tax haven without social cohesion neither strong industry, taking the money of oils cheiks, letting the infrastructure going down, selling the country to foreigners, and (last but not least) being frightened by a few Islamists. Even the French and the Spaniar do better.

arthur koesler wrote that the phoneme fr the islamic god had caused the death of 30 million people( a huge under estimation) and likely to causemany more.there will be a period when people may not be nimble with their change of”cloth” and may pay with their life. the west has lost the war. only mopping up remains.

Early on in proceedings, the point seemed to be made that because Irish immigration did not bring about any great lurch away from the way that British people lived, then similar fears about muslim immigration were unfounded.
The Irish are of these islands. Before they came to Britain, they already shared so much of our history, and most notably they shared our religion. To equate one episode of immigration with another so different and so much larger as to qualify as a colonisation, is quite simply to fail to deal with reality.

Krebs,

You make clear you have no concern for the fate of the UK, which is fine.
I remain concerned as a UK citizen - and sorry to disappoint you but that is my right.

You seem to have a mania for numbers, not that you use that to good effect.

But what you seem not even to begin to appreciate is that even if Muslims are no more than 5% of the population, they can have an effect on our culture. We now live in a culture where many people are afraid to publish books for fear of physical attack and the recent attack on the Gibson Square publisher, will do nothing to reverse that. We are living in a country where people turn up to go swimming in their public swimming baths, but can’t because there is women-only bathing or Muslim only bathing.

And with only 5% of the population we are now experiencing constant pressure for Shariah law to be introduced in civil cases.

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet 1990)
Man, you ain’t gotta worry ’bout a thing
‘Bout your daughter, no, she’s not my type
(But suppose she said she loved me?)
Are you afraid of the mix of black and white?
We’re livin’ in a land where the law say
The mixing of race makes the blood impure
She’s a woman, I’m a man
By the look on your face I see ya can’t stand it

Black man, black woman, black baby
White man, white woman, white baby
White man, black woman, black baby
Black man, white woman, black baby

Man, you need to calm down, don’t get mad
I don’t need your sista
(But suppose she says she loves me?)
Would you still love her or would you dissmiss her?
(Hey!) What is pure? Who is pure?
Is it European state of being, I ain’t sure
If the whole world was to come through peace and love
Then what would we be made of?

same fear different target

@field
“Krebs,

You make clear you have no concern for the fate of the UK, which is fine.
I remain concerned as a UK citizen - and sorry to disappoint you but that is my right.

You seem to have a mania for numbers, not that you use that to good effect.

But what you seem not even to begin to appreciate is that even if Muslims are no more than 5% of the population, they can have an effect on our culture. We now live in a culture where many people are afraid to publish books for fear of physical attack and the recent attack on the Gibson Square publisher, will do nothing to reverse that. We are living in a country where people turn up to go swimming in their public swimming baths, but can’t because there is women-only bathing or Muslim only bathing.

And with only 5% of the population we are now experiencing constant pressure for Shariah law to be introduced in civil cases.
”
Such a good post deserves repeating.

George, the man is an idiot, e.g. when he writes:

Proponents of the Eurabia theoy are the first being dishonest

Jonathon -

Not sure what your point is.

If you are talking about mixing of Muslims and non-Muslims, well for the most part that only happens on Muslim terms i.e. children are raised as Muslims, so there is no real mixing.

Fear of Islam - a perfectly genuine and rational state of mind, as is fear of Nazism, fear of Fascism, fear of the KKK, and fear of Communism - has nothing to do with fear of non-European races. Some of the worst Jihadists have been Europeans. Also, despite Islam being, in theory a non-racist ideology, in practice it is often Muslims from Arabia, South Asia and East Asia who look down on Black people and - in the case of Sudan - murder and persecute them. Despite there being many black people in the Middle East I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in a prominent position in government. I may be wrong of course, but they would seem to be rare.

Of course rational fear of Islam can become mixed up with irrational fear of non-European races because in the UK most Muslims are from abroad. As we know racists and apologists for Islam do their best to conflate them for their own reasons.

“that is a decrease of 26% in 6 years” (Nicolas Krebs)

Typo, should be “that is a decrease of 21% in 6 years”

“50 million Muslims in Europe + 50 million more/year ”

Typo, should be “50 million Muslims in Europe + 2 million more/year ”

“Muslims are no more than 5% of the population, they can have an effect on our culture.” (field)

Indeed. According to Randy McDonald, “couscous is apparently a favourite national fast food in France, on par with curries in Britain.”

If people are scared to print novels because of Muslims - then they are affecting our culture. Surely must people can understand that.

@field
“Of course rational fear of Islam can become mixed up with irrational fear of non-European races because in the UK most Muslims are from abroad.”
Actually the people who are most open about fear of Islam are Indian immigrants - probably because they don’t want what is bad about their own country here.

Nicholas Krebs -

People in the past developed a taste for coffee and turkish delight - didn’t mean they wanted to be overrun by the Ottoman Empire and have their children abducted into the Janissary armies.

George Orwell -

Yes, the most outspoken comments about Muslims that I have heard in this country came from a Hindu friend.