| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| The west's inexorable and irresistable influence on islam |
| 2011-04-05 |
| According to a familiar stereotype, Europeans have lost the long term vision that would make them want to have large families, and religion no longer provides such an incentive: the closer a woman lives to Rome, the fewer children she has. In just the last thirty years or so, Middle Eastern countries that used to teem with children and adolescents have gone through a startling demographic transformation. Since the mid-1970s, Algeria's fertility rate has collapsed from over 7 to 1.75, Tunisia's from 6 to 2.03, Morocco's from 6.5 to 2.21, Libya's from 7.5 to 2.96. Today, Algeria's rate is roughly equivalent to that of Denmark or Norway; Tunisia's is comparable to France. Counter-intuitively, that remark about "the closer to Rome" also holds good on the southern, Muslim, side of the Mediterranean. Just what is happening here? Everything depends on the changing attitudes and expectation of the women in these once highly-traditional societies. Demography is destiny. The first commandment in the Bible: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #7 This opinion piece is a bit to much, "Don't worry be happy" about the Islamic world. Did not the leaders of Germany and France(?) recently say that multiculturalism had failed? That their Islamic immigrants were not joining with the European culture in any meaningful way? So what if their birthrates are declining? Mark Steyn argues that demographics is a game of last man standing. Anyway, what could happen is that all of Europe becomes like the Balkans with religious and nationality and ethnic enclaves striving for power and influence that occasionally breaks out in some type of violence up to actual war. See Israel and Gaza. Rifle 308 |
| Posted by: rifle308 2011-04-05 13:22 |
| #6 > .I believe that's filed under - the more you subsidize the more you get of something You forgot the most important bit, subsidy always enhances production at the cost of quality. Welfare state kids are low quality (from an employment point of view, perfect if you're a marxist looking for a client state) |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-04-05 12:08 |
| #5 I'll believe it when I see resort hotels and discotheques full of party people alongside empty mosques all along the southern Mediterranean coast from Gibralter to Tel Aviv |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-04-05 12:06 |
| #4 Much of the decline in the fertility rate in the mideast arab countries is due to the urban housing shortage. Young men can't afford to get an apartment so they don't get married. |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2011-04-05 10:48 |
| #3 It is well established in demographics that when a nation reaches a particular economic plateau unique to that nation, that it suddenly undergoes a precipitous drop in its reproductive rate, usually from 6-8 children per family to about 2.1-2.3. This happened most recently in Mexico, where they had a typical drop. But it was noted that Mexicans living in the US did not have an equivalent drop. It was suggested that this was because, while Mexicans in Mexico had reached Mexico's economic plateau, those living in the US have not reached the US economic plateau. This raises the theory that while Muslims in a host country might keep their own nations birthrates until they have reached their new nation's plateau; those in their home country might reach for virtual parity with their nations popular destination country. That is, compare countries and their birthrates: France's (1.96) Muslims are mostly of Algerian (1.75) (down from 7 in 1970) and Moroccan (2.21) (down from 6 in 1970) origin. In Germany (1.41) most Muslims come from Turkey (2.15) (5.6 in 1970). In the UK (1.91) from Pakistan (3.17) (down from 7 in 1970). And in Spain (1.47) from Morocco (2.21) (down from 6 in 1970). |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-04-05 10:30 |
| #2 ...I believe that's filed under - the more you subsidize the more you get of something. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-04-05 09:05 |
| #1 Muslims living in Europe still breeding like crazy. I guess it's all a matter of who picks the tab. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-04-05 02:50 |