Steyn, Europe and Immigration

Mark Steyn wrote a book, America Alone. In it, he hypothesized that Eurpoeans aren't having children and at the same time Islamic nations have procreation rates that are off the charts. Many of these folks are using Europe's lax immigration policy and their welfare system to move in and live off the state. He believes that this sort of social engineering will change European societies dramatically and in upredictable ways.

Since the publication of the book, many have challenged his thesis. The debate picks up with his latest piece. It turns out that an obscure social welfare agency named the Department of Work and Pensions ruled that polygomous males were entitled to the spousal welfare benefits of each wife. Now, Steyn, in the book and beyond, has been painstakingly finding examples of so called tolerance in European society that lead to Islamification in Europe. This is just the latest example.

Steyn puts the whole in perspective...

When these issues come up, the spokespersons for the political class focus
on the question of taxpayers’ money: Start handing it out to guys for third
wives and to child brides for hymen replacement, and there goes any budgetary
restraint. But they don’t seem willing to contemplate what it means for the
broader society a decade down the road. When Islam is your major source of
population growth, well, then your country is going to be more Muslim. That’s a
given. Critics of my book think that I don’t take into account the assimilatory
powers of western society, and it’s certainly true there’s an element of
cultural cross-pollination going on: You can’t get polygamous welfare benefits
in Waziristan, and you can’t get free hymen replacement in Saudi Arabia. East is
east and west is west and, though the twain do meet, a polygamist on welfare and
a teen who sleeps around before going back to the old country for her arranged
marriage would seem to be almost parodic definitions of the worst of both
worlds.

and then acknowledges a common objections and breaks it down...

Other Steyn naysayers think I’m carelessly assuming Muslims are an homogeneous bloc. Not at all. But the running is made by the most determined elements of the community, and the rest string along. So relatively few British Muslims are polygamous in practice, but even fewer will object to it in principle. Muslims have lived in the west a long time but it’s only in recent years that they’ve demanded, say, foot-washing facilities in public buildings. And, on the whole, a multicultural society is happy to accommodate them, even to the point of pre-emptively giving up on stuff they haven’t yet objected to – like the British prize judges who recently nixed a new version of The Three Little Pigs on the grounds that it might offend Muslims.

It is in the end difficult to argue with Steyn's hypothesize. The numbers are on his side. Traditional Europeans are having children at alarmingly low rates and Islamic nations are having children at alarmingly high rates. What is both fascinating and scary is the consequences of Steyn's thesis being correct. If Steyn is right then Europe will become dominated by Islamic forces. Things like Sharia Law would become a staple. The archbishop of canterbury has already said that Britain should look into incorporating Sharia Law.

These sorts of things will only become more prevalent as the population evolves. As Europe embraced secular progressivism, by extension, things like child rearing became blase. It can't be understated that the combination of the European open borders policy and their social welfare state act as an explosive combination.

The book is an interesting read. I recommend it to all.