Brother, it ain’t all bad.

What’s Europe done for us, after all? Dragged us unto not one but twoworld wars? Inflicted on us murderous political philosophies from Czarism to Fascism to Nazism to Communism? Carved up the world in such a way as to guarantee misery for the bulk of humanity for centuries? Yes, Europe’s done all that.

But then there were Greece and Rome, England and Switzerland. Leonidas’ three-hundred and the even more admirable seven-hundred Thespians. Salamis and Platea. Horatius Cocles. The Parthenon and the Pantheon. William Tell and the Magna Carta. Sempach and Stirling Castle. Roads, laws, engineering, science, philosophy. Democracy. Us.

Only a cold blooded, ungrateful bastard wouldn’t shed a tear when only the barbarian foot trods the pass at Thermopylae. That, or someone like left wing icon Susan Sontag, who said:

“Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches,Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.”

Note that the late Ms. Sontag once did apologize for that remark, but only to the cancer.

*****

This is probably as good a time as any to say that most Moslems in Europe today are not nuts. Anecdotally, I offer into evidence an achingly beautiful Turkish girl named Lale whom I met and chatted with once in Schiphol Airport, just south of Amsterdam, in 1999. Lale was Turkish only by parentage. She spoke German primarily and very little Turkish. She’d been a model for German magazines. She was dating or engaged to a German (I misremember which) and intended to be a German.

I don’t think Lale was all that atypical. Many, perhaps even most, Moslems in Europe might like to become Europeans, insiders rather than outsiders, given the chance. It’s not clear they are, or will be, given that chance.

*****

But is Europe, qua Europe, going under? It’s a very good question.

As of this writing (11 September, 2007) Brussels is the capital of the European Union. Brussels is ruled by the Socialist Party. Of the eighteen members of the Brussels City Council who are in that ruling Socialist Party block, ten are apparently Muslim. Does this prove Brussels is majority Muslim? No, not at all. If Muslims made up a majority this little tidbit wouldn’t be so interesting. Rather, it shows that something considerably less than a majority is required to rule a political entity.

As Brussels, the capital of the EU, goes, so goes…

*****

Leaving aside a couple of fringe stands, there are basically four theories on the future of Europe. These are:

1. Differentials in birthrates condemn Europe to a) a Muslim majority and b) non-Muslim Europeans to second class citizen status and barbarism, more or less soon. This is Mark Steyn’s position for a), and absolutely the position of the Koran, the Sunna, and the Hadiths for b).

2. The Europeans are nuts. However weak they may seem now, before they go under they’ll go fascist, if not outright Nazi. The Moslems are heading for the ghettoes and the gas chambers, not rule over the Continent. I think this is, more or less, Ralph Peters’ position.

3. Europe will become majority Muslim, but it will be okay so long as we’ve treated them well while we were the majority. This is basically the progressive position.

4. Problem? What problem? So long as I get my five weeks paid vacation yearly, guaranteed job security, universal health care, etc. – all of which are my right because I am in the position to rob the future for them – there is no problem. Let the future care for the future; I got mine. This appears to be the basic European citizen’s position, with some not inconsequential dissent. (Note: for some of the dissenters, check the obituaries.)

So who’s right? I don’t know. Nobody does. All we can do is calculate the odds, while noting that 4 is the refutation of 2 and 1 is the refutation of 3.

Question One: if Euro and Muslim birth rates don’t change, will Europe become Muslim majority?

Answer: Clearly, at some point in time, if we leave aside the question of Muslims assimilating to European culture. Let’s try some rough figures. Assume, not unreasonably, that culturally European birth rates continue to hover around a low of 1.6 children per woman (it’s actually quite a bit lower in some places), and that these women will have their children later in life, giving three generations in a century. (Remember, those are rough figures.)

What that means, over a century, is that 100 Europeans, half of them female, will have 76 children, that those children will have about 61 children, and that those 61 will have about 49 children.

Let’s look at the other side. Assume 4.2 children per Muslim woman and four generations in a century, since they marry younger and have children younger. (Again, “rough,” I said.)

Ten Muslims, half female, will have 21 children, who will have 44 children, who will have 92 children, who will around the end of that century have about 193 children.

From this point on, if nothing else changes, we’re only arguing about the timing. When two populations have that much disparity in birthrates, and if that disparity doesn’t change, and if the death rate of the second population doesn’t change (the Peters’ gas chamber hypothesis), and if the assimilation rate (which will effect birthrate) doesn’t change, then population B will at some point in time overtake population A.

*****

There’s an amazing amount of intellectual dishonesty floating about on the subject, most (maybe not all) of it on the progressive side. Yes, yes, some of that is just idiocy and some of it is the very human phenomenon of accepting without criticism that which we desperately want to believe. (“Communism’s just never been done right!”)

Example: in the book Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, Canadian authors Nadeau and Barlow claim that half of immigrant men in France marry non-immigrant women, and that one-quarter of immigrant women marry non-immigrant men, for a total intermarriage rate of roughly 40%. (I’m indebted to world famous literary critic, Randy McDonald, for this little tidbit.)

End of problem, right? The Muslims of France, and Europe, will assimilate and all will be well, right?

Wrong. What Nadeau and Barteau did there (and what some seem desperately not to want to see that they did there) is an insupportable bit of sleight of hand. You see, the word “non-immigrant” does not mean culturally French, or assimilated, as they want you to simply assume. The word non-immigrant simply means born in France.

But what if those people born in France do not consider themselves French, have been unofficially ghettoized in a banlieu, have no loyalty to France, despise French culture, and loathe French liberalism and secularism? What if the immigrant, marrying a non-immigrant, is an Arab marrying another Arab in the banlieues? What if the non-immigrant, marrying the immigrant, is an unassimilated Arab, marrying his first or second cousin imported from Algeria for the purpose? What if the non-immigrant has done this several times, importing and marrying a girl, then divorcing her under French civil law and remarrying another import, while leaving the French welfare system (no great shakes perhaps, lifestyle- wise, but inarguably better than a poor village in Algeria) to pay to bring up his children who are legitimate under Islamic law?

Is that what’s happening in France? It’s not just hard to say, definitively; it’s impossible. Why? It’s impossible because the French go out of their way not to permit much in the way of such statistics to be gathered. They have some sound reasons for this; it isn’t, or isn’t entirely, that many of them wish to lull the people into that long cultural goodnight. (Though Sontag had her French adherents, as well…and likely still has.)

Yet there are some indicators we can look to, some questions we can ask. What are the odds of a culturally Arab girl, living in the banlieues outside Paris, controlled by her family from morn to night, not speaking French comfortably, burka-clad and veiled, and herself brought up in an unquestioning faith in the superiority of arranged marriage…what are the odds she meets and marries a culturally French, non-Muslim man? Perhaps by the romantic light of the burning Peugeots?

Yeah…pull the other one. Just because the French government has good reasons not to permit the collection of some important statistics doesn’t also mean that there are not people trying to make up nonsense statistics to console or delude the French as they head into that long cultural goodnight. Why should they do this? Oh, perhaps they, as Susan Sontag did, simply feel that moral people will try to eliminate cancer where possible.

*****

Statistics are an interesting thing. Their absence can be even more interesting. Example: it’s common knowledge that the French have about the highest birthrate in Western Europe, something near replacement level, about 1.82 children per woman or perhaps a bit over. This is often touted as something approaching proof that there is no threat of an Islamic majority in France and, by extension, Europe.

Question Two (and here’s some more kitchen math): if 10% of the women of a country are bearing 4.2 children each, and the total for all women in that country is 1.82, what does that mean the other 90% are bearing? Answer: a bit over a kid and a half. See Question One, above, for what this means.

*****

Then again, maybe they will assimilate, after all, and all those nominally Muslim births will become French, or Dutch, or Belgian, or – as with the setting for this book – German.

A couple of interesting anecdotes / tidbits:

From Expatica Magazine, 23 May 2007

Wuppertal, Germany (dpa) – A 42-year-old man with ingrained traditional Turkish views was jailed for 54 months in Germany for the attempted manslaughter of his teenaged daughter after a row over family “honour.” The girl, 16, had been forced to marry and later rebelled. Witnesses described how her father lifted her over a fourth-storey balcony, with another family member prising apart her grip on the rail, and threw her down.She survived the fall onto a garage roof. The family had accused the daughter of being “dishonourable” because she opposed her father’s will, the court in the city of Wuppertal was told.

Passing judgement, a state court judge told the accused he lived in a “parallel world” dominated by Turkish concepts although he was. the third generation of a family that had resettled in Germany. (The italics are mine. Fifty-four months for attempted murder? Oh, yeah, there’s some protection from the law, for you.)

Or this one from that notorious neo-Nazi rag, Der Spiegel:

29 March, 2007

Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel SocietyBut German law requires a one-year separation before a divorce can be completed — and exceptions for an expedited process are only granted in extreme situations. When the woman’s attorney, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, filed a petition for an expedited divorce, Judge Christa Datz-Winter suddenly became inflexible. According to the judge, there was no evidence of “an unreasonable hardship” that would make it necessary to dissolve the marriage immediately. Instead, the judge argued, the woman should have “expected” that her husband, who had grown up in a country influenced by Islamic tradition, would exercise the “right to use corporal punishment” his religion grants him.

The judge even went so far as to quote the Koran in the grounds for her decision. In Sura 4, verse 34, she wrote, the Koran contains “both the husband’s right to use corporal punishment against a disobedient wife and the establishment of the husband’s superiority over the wife.”

So much for the lure of liberalism, or for the liberal society’s ability to assimilate the immigrants. They’re supposed to respect a law, or want to be a part of a society, like this?

*****
A few bits of wisdom from those who see no problem, perhaps somewhat scathingly paraphrased:

1. “But immigrant reproductive rates will drop. They always do. They’re dropping in the countries the Muslim immigrants come from even as we speak.”

This one’s partially true, but mostly just tempting. There are a number of factors that go into female reproductive rates. Of those, the biggest single correlation with that rate isn’t poverty, or religion, or culture, but the educational status of the female. Muslim girls in Europe are typically somewhat educationally deprived, on average. Moreover, while the reproductive rate in, say, Algeria, may be dropping, there is never any explanation given for why it must then drop in France. Could there be other factors at work in Algeria than in France? It seems likely, especially since the rate does not seem to be dropping in France. Perhaps this is because France provides free health care of a much higher quality than can be found in Algeria, along with all the other entitlements of the modern social democratic welfare state.

It does no good to say, for example, that “the reproductive rate of Catholics in America dropped,” without at least looking at why this happened, and at the religious and cultural differences between, say, Irish or Italian Catholicism and, say, Algerian or Tunisian Islamism. Hmmm…when did the Italian-Americans and Italian–Canadians let their women stop wearing burkas and veils? When did the Irish- Americans and Irish-Canadians cease their honor killings of girls who refused arranged marriages? Purdah was a Scottish institution, right?

2. “Europe’s had a population drop before and survived it.” This is very true and also very meaningless. It’s worth noting that Europe did not at the time of, say, the Black Death, have another burgeoning population already on hand, within the borders, not subject to the Black Death, and, so, ready to take over. Nor was it then democratic, such that a change in demographics could be used to change law to both further change demographics and prevent assimilation. Nor was Europe then secular (since religion, too, seems to play some part in reproductive rates).

3. “But they’re assimilating to our values even as we speak.” In 1989, according to Le Figaro, 60% of Muslims in France observed fasting for Ramadan. This year it will be 70%…and from a considerably larger group. This year saw parts of the United Kingdom assimilating to Muslim values, as non-Muslims were cautioned not to eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan. This year saw western newspapers violate their own codes of free speech lest they offend radical Muslims. They’re not assimilating to you; you’re assimilating to them.

4. “You’re a racist bastard, Kratman.” A bastard I may well be, but since when is Islam a race?

*****
Ralph Peters thinks the Europeans will revert to type and crush the Muslims long before it becomes a problem. To this I think there are two answers.

One obvious answer is that Islam is already a problem, in many places (my Quija board says Theo van Gogh and Pym Fortuyn will vouch for that much), and there appears to be no crushing in the offing. The other answer, perhaps in its way more obvious, is that one must have a commitment to the future to fight for that future…or to commit genocide for it. Where is the broad-based European commitment to the future? They grant themselves insupportable largesse from the public fisc because they’re committed to the future? They have short work weeks and long vacations because they’re committed to the future? They meet their self-imposed Kyoto goals because they’re committed to the future? (Look, I think Kyoto is absolute bullshit, complete and utter nonsense, but that’s not important. What is important is that the Euros don’t think it’s nonsense. They signed onto the treaty, and they still won’t do something theyconsider critical for the survival of the human race.) They have an average of at least 2.1 children per woman because they’re committed to the future?

On the contrary, the average, typical and normal European is committed to hedonism and the sense of security in the present and could care less about the future. This is the stuff death squads and Einsatzgruppen are made of? Puhleeze! Where are the children who will form those death squads? The Euros couldn’t be bothered having them.

*****
It might actually be much worse, or quicker, anyway, than I’ve described. One of the constants of mass psychology is that, for example, when the Huns show up, the Goths move on looking for greener pastures without any Huns. In the United States we can see this, in proto form, in California, where the population of the culturally Anglo are leaving in greater numbers than are coming in.

Be it noted, here, that outside of perhaps those of New England, California is our most “European” state. Note further that the phenomenon can be seen in multicultural Belgium where Rhode-Saint-Genese Mayor Myriam Delacroix-Rolin observed recently that the increase of Flemish speakers was driving out the French speaking Walloons from her village. Lastly, note that Bethlehem, with one of the oldest Christian communities (and majorities) in the world, is now majority Muslim. And no, it wasn’t all birthrate differential. The Christians have, by and large, packed up and left.

In Europe, I would suggest that there will be two factors at work to drive young, productive and fertile people out. The first of these is that, as with the Goths and the Californians, when your homeland ceases to be your homeland, ceases to be comfortable and homelike, there will be a temptation to leave. When your homeland becomes oppressive or dangerous, that temptation will grow strong. (America was settled, after all, by people, many of whom had this in their hearts and minds.) When tax rates reach a certain point (and the French government already takes over half, with the German not all that far behind), and one can make more, and keep more of what is made, somewhere else, forget temptation – buy an airplane ticket. “Go west, young man.” More significantly, go elsewhere, young woman.

(By the way, Fascism, being at least as strange and uncomfortable as Islam, would cause approximately as many to flee. No help there.)

*****
I began with talking about the odds. That’s the way I think the odds lie. No, not a certainty but the way to bet it: Europe probably will fail to assimilate its Muslims. It will lack the will (and the children) to eliminate them. Muslim birthrates will remain fairly high, whatever may happen in the Islamic world, because they’ll be able to feed, for a while, at the European social democratic teat, even while Europe will not be able muster the will to protect, modernize and educate Muslim women. Thus, at some point in time Europe is very likely to become majority Muslim.

I hope I’m wrong; but I think it’s going to happen sooner even than Mark Steyn believes, precisely because, as Europe becomes both strange and even more overly taxed, young Europeans will begin to leave. The more leave; the fewer will be born; the stranger it will become to those who remain and the faster it will become strange. The more leave; the heavier the burden of taxation…the more will leave.

*****
So is there anything Europe can do, anything besides the not-very-likely and even less savory return to Fascism predicted by Ralph Peters? Nothing seems very probable but, just for the sake of completeness, I’ll offer a few suggestions.

1. Shit rises to the top. By this I mean there is a tendency for peoples to gravitate toward extremists. It’s not clear Europe can do much about the tendency, but it could at least deport or imprison the extremists. Yes, I mean pretty much forever. They won’t get better with age.

2. Go back and reread the fourth paragraph of this afterword. Then go read more of your history. STOP reading anti-European, racist, leftist cant. Then go look in the mirror and realize that, world view of the left notwithstanding, you are not a cancer. You have a history and a culture worth defending. You won’t defend it unless you know it’s worth it.

3. Besma (and Lale) need your help. Defend women, and especially Muslim women. If you want to assimilate them, reach out for the mothers and the girls who will be mothers. They need you and you are abandoning them to tyranny.

4. Intermarry. Don’t convert when you do.

5. Stop the process of professionalizing your armed forces. Reinstitute conscription. The armed forces, left to their own devices, are all you have left, institution-wise, with the will and the means to assimilate non-Europeans. Let them do so. Use them to do so. And don’t let your non-Muslim men weasel out of it.

6. Do not give up an inch in kowtowing to Islam. It only makes you seem contemptibly weak while making the more lunatic imams look correspondingly strong.

7. Do give Muslims in your countries a fair break for education and jobs. Perhaps you can (read: I think you should) tie this to honorable completion of military service.

8. Fix your economies. Cut regulation. Cut taxes. Cut the welfare state for those who neither sew nor reap. If you have to transfer income, transfer it to those whom you need to bear children. As a matter of fact, do whatever you must to get culturally European women to bear children in at least replacement numbers.

9. Stop or reduce immigration for a while. You can’t assimilate Muslims as well when there’s a continuing stream of new ones, full of old ideas. 10. Stop tolerating intolerance.

Not that I think you’ll listen.

*****
So what’s all this mean to the United States and our non-European allies? Three things, I think. One is that our own progressive movements – basically Marxist but also anti-white, racist (remember that “cancer of mankind” line) Euro clones, anyway – will be discredited. I don’t consider this bad. Another is that it’s time and past time to begin writing Europe out of our strategic calculations. We cannot save them and, as written above, the odds are that they won’t save themselves. The third is that, at some point in time, and if my reading of the odds is correct, we will need to watch immigration from Europe very carefully. Sometime in that progressive wave of continuingly reinforcing emigration, even the Euro left will begin to become uncomfortable and look for greener pastures.

Yet there is no reason to believe that the mere fact of discomfort, even when they vote with their feet, will take away the leftist, multicultural, Tranzi views that robbed them of their own homelands in the first place. After all, as mentioned above, we regularly hear the defense of communism, “But it’s just never been done right.” One would think that after perhaps two-hundred million political murders and negligent homicides committed by communism in the 20th century people would realize that murder isn’t a perversion of the system; it’s a feature. But, no, “it’s just never been done right.”

This is the plaint of a movement and outlook incapable of accepting reality. It’s never been done right because it can’t be done right. It’s like saying, “There’s nothing wrong with fascism; it’s just never been done right.” Some philosophies are just wrong (unworkable, false, dangerous, evil) from the get go.

Moreover, they will still think the white race is a cancer, even though they are themselves white. These are not people we should wish to have the slightest, tiniest, inkling of influence over our country and people. These are not people we should permit in. It seems that ex-fascists can learn from their mistakes. I don’t know that multiculturalists can.