Reverend Peter Marshall's Commentary Archive

The Global War Against Islam - Part One

     In the commentary two weeks ago (see Midsummer Musings, August 7, 2008) I wrote about Mark Steyn's ordeal at the hands of a British Columbia human rights tribunal because of excerpts from his book America Alone that had been published by Canada's Maclean's magazine. It seems that Muslims in Ontario complained about supposed "hate speech," even though he had not done anything but quote their own words in the book. What this proves, gentle reader, is that Muslims around the world are engaged in playing offense - attacking anyone who dares to speak the truth about their commitment to bring the whole world under the rule of Allah. If you think that last sentence is an exaggeration, you don't understand Islam.

I have had Steyn's book for many months, but it remained unread while I have finished up the revision of The Light and the Glory. This week I decided to read it. Although the book desperately needed some good editing (why is it that editing has become a dying art at publishing houses?), I can state categorically that America Alone is a must read for anyone concerned about the future of Western civilization in general, and America in particular.

This week we'll begin looking at the threat of global Islam, and then next week we'll draw some conclusions and consider some solutions.

Mark Steyn is a young Canadian who has become an American, and speaks to us with a special love for this nation that seems to belong only to English speaking former subjects of Her Britannic Majesty's (late) Empire. He writes with a caustic wit, turns phrases with a deft hand, and lightens the treatment of his deadly serious topic with an occasional hilariously funny paragraph.

His opening thesis, and it's one I basically agree with, is that demography rules. Nations with a large percentage of young people in their populations have historically been able to project power and influence to a greater degree than others. He points out that Britain was the first nation to conquer infant mortality (in the early 18^th Century), so that by 1820 half of the population was under 18 years of age. Because of this, the British were able expand their Empire - settling Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and providing administrators and military for the outposts of the Empire in India, the West Indies, East and West Africa, and Asia. He makes the point that the greatest asset a society has is not its wealth or its military power or its natural resources, but its children. For without a growing population of young people to provide its manpower and its creativity, a society will begin to decay.

Europe is literally dying. In order to maintain parity in a population, the birth rate has to be 2.1 babies per family. Europe as a whole has 1.38. Spain is the worst, at 1.0, followed by Italy and Russia at 1.2. There is only one country in all of Europe that has a replacement birth rate over 2.1, and that country, friends, is Muslim Albania. Japan's birth rate is 1.32, and Canada's is 1.48.  In contrast, America's birth rate is holding steady at 2.1 - just barely maintaining parity. It is quite safe to say that were it not for the high birth rates among our Hispanics, including the legal (and illegal) immigrants, we would be slightly under the maintenance rate ourselves.

When one examines the demographics of Europe the inescapable conclusion is that Europe will be semi-Islamic in one generation. The Muslim population of Rotterdam is 40%. The most popular baby's name is Mohammed in Malmo, Sweden, in Belgium, and in Amsterdam. Three years ago, in 2005, it was the fifth most popular name in Britain. If a burgeoning number of youths indicate the potential strength of a nation, consider the percentages of populations under 15 for the following countries: Spain and Germany each have 14%; and the UK has 18%. America is slightly better at 21%. But look at these: Saudi Arabia - 39%; Pakistan - 40%; Yemen - 47%. In France, only 10% of the population is Muslim - as yet. But, 30% of those Muslims are under 20 years of age. And in some urban areas it's 45%.

For the European nations hovering together at around a 1.3 baby per family replacement rate, they are on course to have their populations halve in about 35 years! But it will actually occur faster than that, because who wants to live in a dying population? Young people will leave. And young educated Chinese and Indians are not likely to immigrate to the dying societies of Europe.

In Russia, 70% of all pregnancies end in abortion. Tuberculosis is spiraling upward, there are serious outbreaks of viral hepatitis, and the growth of their HIV rate is the highest in the world. One percent of the population is now infected, which is a sub-Sahara African rate. The life expectancy of Russian males is now 58.9 years - lower than Bangladeshis! At this rate, Russia will have only 50 or 60 million people by the end of the century - a third of the population alive when the Soviet Union fell. The government is now offering huge tax credits to have babies, but once you pass the death spiral birth rate (1.3 babies per family), it is virtually impossible to pull out. Though 80% of Russia's natural resources are in Siberia, there are only 16 million people there, and they're dying fast. Next door are 1.5 billion resource-poor Chinese. Guess where they're going to want to go?

The problem in Europe is that people simply don't want to have babies - it is too much of an interruption to their hedonistic and totally self-absorbed lifestyles. It is just out of fashion to have babies in Europe. A telling symbol of this was the 2005 German election campaign for Prime Minister. The people had the choice of voting for a childless man (Schroder) or a childless woman (Merkel)! With six-week paid vacations, a 35-hour work week, lavish unemployment benefits, and state pensions, the citizens of Europe are addicted to social programs which will literally put their countries out of business. By 2040, Germany will spend 25% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for pension liabilities, in contrast to the U.S., where the projected figure for that year is 6.8%. Too few workers to support too many old folks.

But, unfortunately, the current attitudes tend to be "as long as the benefits keep coming while I'm alive, who cares? I'll be dead by then, anyway." This kind of dependency on the Nanny State taking care of people from cradle to grave puts everyone to sleep. It breeds ennui, softens people, and robs them of the initiative needed to wake up and deal with the crisis. Europe's population is dying, and their welfare societies are spending themselves into oblivion. In this crisis, they have only two choices: dismantle the welfare state, or import Muslims to provide the workers that Europeans can't be bothered to produce by having babies. Guess which one they'll choose? And by the time there are enough Mohammeds cleaning their houses, waiting on their tables, staffing their hotels, and working in their offices to sustain their welfare state, there will be enough Muslims to elect a Mohammed as Prime Minister.

It's true that by 2050, the Muslim birthrates will be in decline as well, mostly because many of them will be living in developed countries, and even Muslims tend to reproduce at a lower rate when their standard of living rises. (Note that the old saw about the world's population exploding at unsupportable rates is absolute statistical nonsense - world population is actually on a declining rate curve - even China's). But, the Muslim populations will begin declining after the declines of Europe, Canada, or the U.S. So this is the time for the Muslims to make the most of their population advantages, because the only other source of power for them - their oil reserves - will be pretty well gone by 2050. Don't think they don't know this!

How much of a threat is Islam, really? Isn't it true that most Muslims just want to be able to raise their kids in peace, and to be left alone to practice Islam just like Christians want to practice Christianity and Jews want to practice Judaism, etc?

Not exactly.

The problem is that global Islam is being rapidly taken over by an extremely radical and militant strain called Wahabism. The chief bankroller, advocate, and perpetrator of this movement is Saudi Arabia. Wahabi Muslims consider "secular" Muslims - those who aren't particularly religious in their practices or evangelistic about their beliefs - to be apostates. Souleiman Ghali was born in Palestine, and raised to hate Jews and Christians. When he immigrated to America, he turned away from his old hates and helped to found a mosque in San Francisco which he hoped would promote compassion, respect, and love. But in 2002, when he fired an imam (Muslim cleric) who was encouraging California Muslims to become suicide bombers, he was sued by the imam for wrongful dismissal and forced to cough up $400,000 (welcome to the People's Republic of California!). But, because of the popularity of this imam, Mr. Ghali was forced off the board of the mosque he founded, and refused any leadership role. Still think these people are no threat to America?

In the current explosive rise in income for the Saudis because of the rise in oil prices, they have been banking about an extra half billion dollars a day. Have they been spending that extra money on diversifying their economy or improving the infrastructure of their desert Kingdom? Nope. They have been spending it funding madrassahs (mosque schools) in Western Europe and North America which uniformly teach hatred of Jews and infidels (that's us). With our oil money they are creating a fifth column of young Muslims dedicated to bringing down Christian civilization - on our soil!

Yes, there are moderate Muslims, but they are still Muslims first, before they are Americans or Canadians or Brits. And Islam itself is not moderate. Every strain of Islam pushes for Sharia law (which allows execution for adultery, chopping off hands for theft, and execution for the female victims of rape) and endorses violent jihad. 25% of young Muslims in America under 30 years of age said after 9/11 that suicide bombing was sometimes called for, and 40% didn't believe that Arab men were behind the attacks! On the first anniversary of the July 2005 Tube bombings in London, a poll of British Muslims found that 13% thought that the four men who carried out the attacks should be regarded as "martyrs," and 7% think that suicide bombing "can be justified in some circumstances." There are about one million Muslims in London, and 7% is 70,000 potential suicide bombers. September 11, 2001 took nineteen men. Do you think that the radicals could recruit 20 or so out of 70,000? 

And then there's Nada Farooq, who in 2004, as a high school student in Mississauga, Ontario, started an Internet forum for Muslim teens. One posting thought it might be neat to talk about what made Canada unique, but Nada's response was: "Who cares? We hate Canada." Raised by "moderate Muslim" parents, she is fiercely jihadist. "May Allah crush those jews," she wrote. "Ya Allah make their women widows and their children orphans." Her favorite website viewing was the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq. Two years later her husband and sixteen others were arrested in a terrorist plot planning on blowing up the Toronto Stock Exchange, seizing Parliament in Ottawa, and kidnapping and beheading the Prime Minister.

"Moderate" Muslims can find no formal and recognized Islamic authority to support their moderation. There are none. Islam itself, in regard to the way it has spread through the centuries, is anything but moderate. Islam does not spread by missionary efforts, but by conquest, by taking over societies and making them Islamic. Wahabi Islam is a pan-global ideology that has no boundaries; it trumps all claims of nationality or citizenship. It is a political movement that is fueled by a religion, or better said, the religion itself is a political movement. There is no separation of Mosque and State in Islam - the Mosque is the State. It does not have a common allegiance to compassion for humanity with other religions - it has one agenda, and one agenda only - and that is to conquer. The whole world must submit to the rule of Allah.

And it will go to any lengths to accomplish its aims. Steyn tells the story of the supposedly moderate mullah, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, (who was the favorite imam of London mayor Ken Livingstone) was invited to speak at a 2004 "Our Children Our Future" conference sponsored by Metropolitan Police and Britain's Department for Work and Pensions. Here's the imam's quote on how he thinks their children should be used for the future: "Israelis might have their nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb, and these human bombs must continue until liberation." That remark probably put a bit of a damper on the evening.

We are in a different world now - far removed from the old Cold War, and the struggle against Soviet Communism. This is a truly Satanic cold-bloodedness that trumps in horror the worst practices of the Soviet gulags (concentration camps).

Next week we will consider the fact that so far the main response to the threat of Wahabi Islam in Europe and North America is appeasement, and look at some solution guidelines.

To be continued.

Copyright, 2008, Peter J. Marshall.  All rights reserved.

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