Love him or hate him, Steyn knows how to start a good argument!
Europe is Finished, Predicts Mark Steyn
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
November 14, 2006
Mark Steyn, political columnist and cultural critic, has written a remarkable book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (Regnery). He combines several virtues uncommonly found together – humor, accurate reportage, and deep thinking – then applies these to what is arguably the most consequential issue of our time: the Islamist threat to the West.
Mr. Steyn offers a devastating thesis but presents it in bits and pieces, so I shall pull it together here.
He begins with the legacy of two totalitarianisms. Traumatized by the electoral appeal of fascism, post-World War II European states were constructed in a top-down manner "so as to insulate almost entirely the political class from populist pressures." As a result, the establishment has "come to regard the electorate as children."
Second, the Soviet menace during the cold war prompted American leaders, impatient with Europe's (and Canada's) weak responses, effectively to take over their defense. This benign and far-sighted policy led to victory by 1991, but it also had the unintended and less salutary side-effect of freeing up Europe's funds to build a welfare state. This welfare state had several malign implications.
* The nanny state infantilized Europeans, making them worry about such pseudo-issues as climate change, while feminizing the males.
* It also neutered them, annexing "most of the core functions of adulthood," starting with the instinct to breed. From about 1980, birth rates plummeted, leaving an inadequate base for today's workers to receive their pensions.
* Structured on a pay-as-you-go basis, it amounted to an inter-generational Ponzi scheme, where today's workers depend on their children for their pensions.
* The demographic collapse meant that the indigenous peoples of countries like Russia, Italy, and Spain are at the start of a population death spiral.
*It led to a collapse of confidence that in turn bred "civilizational exhaustion," leaving Europeans unprepared to fight for their ways.
To keep the economic machine running meant accepting foreign workers. Rather than execute a long-term plan to prepare for the many millions of immigrants needed, Europe's elites punted, welcoming almost anyone who turned up. By virtue of geographic proximity, demographic overdrive, and a crisis-prone environment, "Islam is now the principal supplier of new Europeans," Mr. Steyn writes.
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30 comments:
While we're on the subject of demographics, the blogger Shuggy has some bad news for the Dawkins style Darwinists out there:
"Religious people have more sex. Or at least of the kind that produces children. This is the finding of Eric Kaufmann in this piece for Prospect. Among the points of interest in the article is the observation that it is religiosity per se - and not just the expression of it through formal membership of a confessional group - that makes people more likely to make babies:
"Throughout the world, the religious tend to have more children, irrespective of age, education or wealth. "Secular" Europe is no exception. In an analysis of European data from ten west European countries in the period 1981-2004 I found that next to age and marital status, a woman's religiosity was the strongest predictor of her number of offspring."
There's a number of obvious reasons why this is so. Religious people are more likely to get married than non-religious people. Moreover, all other things being equal, they do so younger; stay together longer; and are less likely to use contraception or have abortions. So they have more babies.
In the case of the United States, Kaufmann argues that breeding is responsible for around 75% of the growth in Evangelical Protestantism in recent years. He suggests that a similar trend could be felt in Europe too:
"Over the longue durée, the fundamentalist component of Europe's population may begin to increase for the same demographic reasons as in America. The diversity of religious groups in Europe will guarantee a separation of religion and state, but this cannot protect secular public policies from being eroded by a coalition of religious groups who have agreed to submerge their differences. Religious lobbyists, couching their claims in the rhetoric of relativism and diversity, will ask why the secular point of view on issues like abortion, blasphemy, pornography and evolution is the only one taught, aired or "respected."
I'm not sure about some of Kaufmann's conclusions. Establishing that the religious have more children is straightforward enough - but since he's already pointed out that it is religiosity as such that has this effect, it can't follow that this should necessarily translate into a growth in 'fundamentalism'. Nor does it explain the increasing tendency for the religious to become politicised in the first place.
Still, anyway you slice it, this demographic phenomenon has to be a problem for people who favour the Dawkins-style monist application of evolutionary biology to all matters of human conduct, surely?"
I haven't read the book myself, but from the reviews I have read Dawkins new book 'The God Delusion' seems to posit that there is, maybe, a primitive genetic or biological explanation for Religious belief.
And, after all, religiosity in the UK (and Europe as a whole, according to the crux of the arguments in this thread) are in decline.
Well, that's the point: that birth rates in Europe are falling generally apart from in Religious groups. It's connected to the Steyn arguement: that there is a parallel between the fall in birth rate amongst indigenous Europeans and that same decline in Religiosity. Steyn also believes that the demographic trends in Europe favour rapid expansion of the fastest growing Europeon Religion, Islam.
Rereading my previous post I'm not sure if my first point was clear. It was in response to Wembley's point that "Dawkins himself doesn't apply evolutionary biology to all matters human.". My point was that as far as I understood it Dawkins does see a evolutionary biological basis for Religious belief. I think this is what Shuggy means by a "Dawkins-style monist application of evolutionary biology to all matters of human conduct"
I think there are (at least) two ways evolutionary theory applies to religion. The first is to try to explain the origin of the religious impulse:
The Evolutionary Psychology of Religion
Steven Pinker
Harvard University
October 29, 2004
The second is an application of evolutionary theory to the reproduction of *cultural*, rather than *genetic* information (and of course religion is also a subset of culture):
Meme - Wikipedia
I think Wembley is right that Steyn's theory may be a bit too simplistic (that's as based on the Pipes summary I can't comment on Steyn's book as I haven't read it).
The Blogger Shuggy (who incidently is very secular and sympathetic to Dawkins' pov) is merely pointing out that these demographic results are a dilema for Darwinists who see society evolving in a linear fashion away from Religion.
Also, did anyone else shudder at this prospect:
"Religious lobbyists, couching their claims in the rhetoric of relativism and diversity, will ask why the secular point of view on issues like abortion, blasphemy, pornography and evolution is the only one taught, aired or "respected."
I do not see demographics and religiosity being able to subsume and destroy such deeply rooted and grounded cultural traditions... any more than it has done for the past millenium.
I'm pretty sure (no stats at hand!) that the period of European world domination (roughly 1500 - 1914) coincided with a big expansion of European population, both in comparison to its historical levels in Europe *and* relative to other parts of the world. Additionally, for much/all of this time, Europe was a net exporter of people as well as ideas.
So while I hope Wembley is correct in his scepticism, you cannot argue inductively from historical success during a period of population expansion to future success during a period of population decline.
Religion, bar possibly the protestant work ethic, barely rates a mention.
Since almost everybody during this period was religious there wouldn't be anyway to compare religious groups with non religious groups. That's not to say Relgion necessarily was a factor or that the growth of technologies didn't play a crucial role in the expansion of the European population though.
I have a nit I’d like to pick and a hair I’d like to split. It concerns the term ‘Darwinist’, the use of which reminds me that battle for the acceptance of evolution is far from won. Personally, I would prefer to avoid this label as I feel it concedes too much ground to the creationists. It makes it sound like just one of many competing theories, inextricably tied to an emblematic individual – similar in this sense to other ‘isms’ such as ‘Marxism’. Generally, when a scientific argument is won it is the theory, not the author that passes into common usage. A belief in Einstein’s theory of relativity does not make you an ‘Einsteinist’; people who accept that there is a force we call gravity are not generally classed as ‘Newtonians’. When a particular scientist is named alongside their theory it is usually either as a mark of respect for the achievement (Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’) or because the science has moved on from the author’s original observations and a distinction is being drawn between the first articulation of the theory and what we know now. Hence you might read a critique of ‘Newtonian physics’ or ‘Freudian analysis’. I was reminded of this today, reading an obituary of Milton Friedman. Unlike Keynes, Friedman did not give his name to any theory – could this be because as one commentator writes today, Friedman’s ‘argument has been won’?
The wonderful thing about science is that it is devoted to the pursuit of truth. If new evidence comes along that successfully challenges the theory of evolution, then science will grow and accommodate it. I doubt that scientists will continue to be ‘Darwinists’ if the theory is disproved. But as of today, evolution is looking like quite a good bet. I sometimes get the impression that the religiously inclined think that if God ever manifests Himself science will scurry off into the darkness and apologise for having bothered everyone. But if God exists, science will try to explain His existence. The problem thus far is that (unlike for evolution) there is no (reliable) evidence.
My second point is more a request for clarification. I don’t really understand why the higher birthrate is a dilemma or ‘bad news’ for people who accept the scientific basis for the theory of evolution. Is it just in the sense that there’ll be more people around who stop their ears and shout ‘Na na na, I can’t hear you’ in the face of scientific evidence? I suppose that would be slightly depressing, but I still don’t see why it’s a dilemma. If there is an evolutionary basis for religious belief, then it may well be that the ‘religious gene’ is quite a successful one and that natural selection has favoured the religious. After all, religions have been rather good at getting people to band together, to think about the survival of their community and so on. One of the things that amazes me about religions is how they have at times been a vehicle for advice that is quite sound even when you strip away the ‘big man in a beard says you MUST do this' aspect. I would have thought circumcision had some definite health benefits going back a couple of millennia; ditto avoiding pork and shellfish. I don’t necessarily see a contradiction in a higher bithrate in people who dismiss evolutionary biology being explained by evolutionary biology itself. An irony perhaps, but not a contradiction.
Finally, I’d like to turn to grumpy old Dawkins himself. I’ve noticed that it is increasingly fashionable for people who (as far as I can tell) have not interest in actually arguing with his atheist position to nonetheless condescend to and generally sneer at him. (It reminds me of leftists who broadly agree with Michael Moore but still feel the need to point out that he’s fat, American and a bit vulgar.) Some commentators react to Dawkins as if loudly proclaiming THERE IS NO GOD, while probably true, was somehow bad form; as if he were charging around school playgrounds yelling ‘There is no Santa Claus’. (Libby Purves, Oliver Kamm and the Fink, excellent writers though they may be, have all been heading in this direction.) But I think we are not children who need protecting from unpalatable comments (truths). And indeed, were the children of the world to start killing each other in the name of Santa Claus, I think we would move to disabuse them of their belief in Kris Kringle PDQ. I have written elsewhere of Dawkins’ shortcomings as a TV presenter, but in times of violent protests against cartoons and plays, not to mention an active terrorist campaign, all in the name of God, I think a man who puts forward the (commercially successful) idea that, um, there is no evidence for the existence of the deity in whose name said violence is carried out, is to be applauded. I can understand why the religious would take issue with him. What baffles me is why Dawkins bashing is so popular with many people that profess to agree with him. (I think it comes down to - he's a bit arrogant and not very likeable.)
Phew. I'm glad it's of my mind at last.
Off.
Not of.
(Sloppy typing in last sentence. Divine retribution?)
Um... I think so. I'm not sure if I've comletely understood you. But if you mean 'darwinism' makes sense in (for example) the phrase 'social darwinism' then I agree. And by the way, I can see why the label has an attraction elsewhere, but I personally will not describe myself as a Darwinist because I want to remove any connotations of cult of personality from what seems to me a perfectly rational acceptance of the scientific consensus. Or am I missing the point? (I often do.)
I thought it might be interesting to read a critique of Dawkins from someone both inteligent and religious. Being neither myself I went looking for someone who was.
And I think I've found her: Marilynne Robinson is both a celebrated writer and a Christian.
Here is her review of Dawkins book 'The God Delusion'. She doesn't prove the existence of God but she does deliver a strong critique of Dawkins' book.
Christopher Hitchens gives Mark Steyn's 'America Alone' a positive review.
Hi praise from me for Mark Steyn's America Alone. It's a rip-roaring read.
Here's a review at Amazon that sums it up:
Those familiar with Steyn's written style and sense of purpose will enjoy the book even though many of the arguments are already well known. It is good to see them as a whole. He presents a future scenario where the world familiar to us from the later half of the 20th century has been transformed by ideological forces riding on massive demographic transformations.
Europe has an elderly native population living under the influence of a more fecund, self contained and more youthful Islamic community. The Islamic community sees no advantage in honouring the social costs or pensions that the indigenous thought were theirs by right. They also continue the process of common interest with the greater Islamic community instead of the rational, secular and `westernised' world we are accustomed to seeing as the model of all future development.
At the same time, China has suffered a population collapse, Africa is increasingly unable to lift itself from the stranglehold of corruption, tribal conflict and Islamist incursion. Russia too is just a hollow shell due to high mortality, abortion and a very low birthrate. A hollow shell that is being filled by Islamic expansion from the south. With South America continuing as a collection of uncooperative states with no global influence or reach it leaves only North America alone. More specifically, with Canada heading down the European model of self-destruction, it leaves only the United States (and probably Australia) as the last fragile enclave of the liberal, rational and tolerant world built by Christianity and the Enlightenment. Needless to say, the USA is no longer a global super-power.
The most disturbing part of this book is that Steyn does not just paint a scenario from thin air. That could be dismissed as `gloom-mongering'. He describes how that scenario is being constructed right now before our eyes...brick by well-meaning brick. His scenario is not what could happen so much as what will happen if the enlightened world does not change its mental habits and develop confidence and a sense of self-preservation.
And here's a quote from the closing pages of the book that made me laugh/cry, which is typical of the book as a whole:
Egyptians were polled about who they thought was responsible for the Dahab bombings [that killed a large number of tourists]. 4% thought it was al-Qaeda; 21% thought it was internal terrorist groups; 49% thought it was the Mossad. Denial really is a river in Egypt.
PS Thanks for the loan of the book, Andy!
Europe's Stark Options
by Daniel Pipes
National Interest
March-April 2007
Europe's long-term relations with its burgeoning Muslim minority, the continent's most critical issue, will follow one of three paths: harmonious integration, the expulsion of Muslims, or an Islamic takeover. Which of these scenarios will most likely play out?
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Johann Hari takes down 'America Alone' by Mark Steyn in this review. Hari can write a fair amount of rubbish but I think he makes a strong arguement here. (One small gripe - this line in the review really irritated me:'Mark Steyn - an uneducated former Disk Jockey turned pundit' it suggests that Johann thinks you needed to have been to a Top University before he will take your arguement seriously.)
The central point of Hari's review is that he thinks Steyn's demographic predictions are wrong. Since this is central to Steyn's thesis if Hari is right Steyn's whole arguement would collapse.
Hari has some fun along the way recalling some of the other predictions Mark Steyn has made: 'In December 2003 he wrote that "another six weeks of insurgency sounds about right, after which it will peter out"; and the following March he insisted that: "I don't think it's possible for anyone who looks at Iraq honestly yp see it as anything other than a success story."
Still, I didn't like that 'uneducated' putdown, felt a bit snide.
Yup, interesting, guess we have to keep an eye on the demographic debate. Here's one to start with:
A Crescent Over Europe?
Peter Grier
Air Force Magazine
July 2005
As far as Steyn's figures go, fingers crossed he is wrong. However one comment at the referenced Steyn and his numbers strikes a chord with me:
40% by 2025 is ridiculous. But 25% in countries such as France or Holland is quite possible. This will make a difference, considering that concentration will mean Muslim populations in certain urban areas will be 40% or more. Enough to change elections. Steyn’s larger point is that *something* will happen if there are two populations in an area, one well below replacement rate fertility and one well above. Especially when, as you say, a nation is unable (due to the self-censorship of multiculturalism) to state what it means to be to be a citizen of that nation
Of course, Islamists have already affected one election in Europe, in Spain. And it is hardly only Steyn who warns about Eurabia, though interestingly the meaning of that word has mutated since its invention.
Of course, Islamists have already affected one election in Europe, in Spain.
A small clarification, but in the context of the above comments JP's remark may be construed as a suggestion that Islamists affected an election due to their demographic prowess. The election, of course, was affected by bombs on trains, the government and media's response to the bombs, and then in turn, the public's reaction to said response.
If Labour lose the next election it may well be said that Iraqi insurgents have affected the outcome, but it will not be the sole factor.
Yes, absolutely. But that observation makes the point that for anyone who would attack Steyn's views as simplistic, the contrary view that "no demographic issue, so no issue" is equally simplistic.
Theodore Dalrymple on Mark Steyn's America Alone:
'But I think Steyn is mistaken, or at least fails to make a proper distinction, when he says that Islam is ideologically strong and confident. Shrillness and intolerance are not signs of strength, but of weakness; fundamentalism is a response to an awareness that, if the methods of intellectual inquiry that were used to challenge Christianity were permitted in the Muslim world, Islam would soon fall apart. But if Islam fell apart in the Islamic world, what source of self-respect would be left to the population? Their backwardness and mental impoverishment would then be exposed in all nakedness.
The ideological weakness of Islam was exposed in France, when two satirical papers there, Charlie Hebdo and Le Canard enchaîné, published cartoons after the Danish crisis that were infinitely more disrespectful of Islam and Muslims (and funnier) than the Danish cartoons had ever been. But apart from a failed attempt by a Muslim organization to get them banned by the French courts, they aroused no response: because, of course, the editors had shown that they were not going to be intimidated, and that there was more mockery where the cartoons came from. And there was no possible rejoinder to it. This is precisely why President Bush's response to the Danish cartoon crisis was not only foolish, but contemptible, and actually of far greater importance in the long run than his Iraq policy.'
Mark Steyn is getting nervous. Very nervous. He has been accused of racism and islamophobia by the Canadian Courts. In a special edition of the American journal New Criterion Steyn reflects on the court's statement, 'Islamophobia' and Free Speech.
The article is only available to subscribers but here are some selected quotes from the piece:
"As some of you are aware, the Canadian Islamic Congress complained about an excerpt from my book America Alone published in Maclean’s magazine. They took the complaint to three of these cockamamie “human rights” commissions they have in Canada. So I was facing three trials: before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In civilized justice systems, double jeopardy is a no-no, but triple jeopardy is apparently fine and dandy. Yesterday, the Ontario Human Rights Commission announced belatedly that they’d decided not to hear the case. Since it emerged that they were considering hauling into court not just me but Canada’s best-selling news weekly over an excerpt from a book that was a number-one bestseller in Canada, they’ve had the worst four months’ publicity in their existence. So they decided, in effect, they’d had enough and to quit while they were behind. That’s the good news. The bad news is they decided to issue a verdict anyway. They declared my article and my magazine to be “racist” and “Islamophobic,” and “strongly condemned” it. Over the years, I’ve written in newspapers and magazines in dozens of countries and have attracted my share of legal problems. But yesterday was a first for me. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, having concluded they couldn’t withstand the heat of a trial, decided to cut to the chase and give us a drive-thru conviction anyway. If I’m charged with holding up a liquor store, I enjoy the right to the presumption of innocence and to defend myself in court. But when it comes to so-called Islamophobia—a word which was only invented a few years ago and which enjoys no legal definition—all the centuries-old safeguards of English Common Law go out the window."
[...]
"How many roads of inquiry are we prepared to block off in order to be "sensitive"? And, once we've done so, will there be anything left to talk about other than Paris Hilton and Jamie Lynn Spears? Holocaust denial should be ridiculous and contemptible but not illegal.
If the objection is that hate laws would have prevented the rise of Nazism, well, pre-Nazi Germany had such laws. Indeed, the Weimar Republic was a veritable proto-Trudeaupia of Canadian speech restrictions. There were more than 200 prosecutions for anti-semitic speech, and a fat lot of good it did. In 1925, the State of Bavaria issued an order banning Adolf Hitler from making any public speeches. The Nazis responded by distributing a drawing of their leader with his mouth gagged and the caption, "Of 2,000 million people in the world, only one is forbidden to speak in Germany." In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor and introduced the Enabling Act restricting certain liberties, the Social Democrats packed the Reichstag and their chairman Otto Wels made a powerful speech in defense of freedom. And Hitler smirked and quoted Schiller: "Spaet kommt ihr, doch ihr kommt." he tittered - which means more or less "You're late arriving, but you got here at last." And then added "You should have recognized the value of criticism during the years we were in opposition when our newspapers were forbidden, and we were forbidden to speak." Those who constrain speech in free societies are always stunned to find that one day the wind has changed direction and those speech constraints are now being used against them."
Scary YouTube vid about the Muslim demographic threat: Muslim Demographics
The stats attacked on the excellent More or Less show:
Welcome to Eurabia?
More Or Less
Friday, 7 August 2009
Debunking a YouTube hit
BBC News Magazine
7 August 2009
I think there's plenty to be worried about, but exaggerating the figures doesn't help the cause.
Oliver Kamm doesn't like Daniel Hannan. At all. He thinks Hannan's praise of Enoch Powell is a scandal and that the Conservatives should withdraw the whip. Note the piece below is an extract; follow the link to read the piece in full.
"Hannan and Powell: yes, it is a scandal
I've written before of the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan and his silliness problem. He's a foolish ideologue and a liability for his party. He's demonstrated these qualities once more by praising Enoch Powell in an interview for Reason TV in the US:
'He told reason. TV: “[Powell] was somebody who understood the importance of national democracy, who understood why you need to live in an independent country and what that meant, as well as being a free marketeer and a small government Conservative."
'Tory sources said that Mr Hannan would not be disciplined over his latest remarks, as his praise for Powell had not referred to the late politician’s views on immigration.
'But Labour seized on his words. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said: "Yet again, we are seeing the two faces of the Conservative Party. The one they want to present to the public and the one which attacks the NHS and praises Enoch Powell.” '
What to make of this? Mandelson, being a brilliant politician, is obviously stirring. There was till fairly recently a nasty racist element in the Conservative Party, such as the MP who claimed that Britain was turning into a "mongrel race". It would be stupidly sectarian to deny, and I don't deny, that the party has jettisoned that fringe and represents mainstream and civilised views on race, sexual equality and homosexual rights. It was a big shift, it needed to be done, and it has been done.
But Hannan's comments ought to be taken more seriously by his party: Hannan ought to be disciplined for them.'
By the way, if you read the Oliver Kamm post in full there's a hidden shot at Mark Steyn in there too (hint - you'll need to follow one of Kamm's hyper links).
Sweary blogger Mr Eugenides weighs in on the Daniel Hannan/Enoch Powell debate:
"Lots of mock outrage on the left over Dan Hannan's warm words for Enoch Powell - despite the fact that Hannan made no reference to Powell's views on immigration, but rather referred to his belief in small government and national independence from the EU. "Dog-whistle politics indeed", as Sunny puts it at Liberal Conspiracy:
I suppose praising the BNP, as long as it's not immigration related, is ok too? After all Nick Griffin must be a lovely chap as long as you ignore his mad, racist conspiracy theories. Why not invite him around for tea Mr Hannan?
Ignoring what must be the mother and father of all straw men here, one can't help noticing the lack of such outrage when Southall MP Virendra Sharma praised the pro-independence Indian leader, Subhas Chandra Bose. Indeed, Sunny leapt to his defence against the "misrepresentations" of Iain Dale:
Bose was never a fascist, though he did want to work with the Japanese and/or Germans to get rid of the British.
This is a little like saying that Enoch Powell was never a racist, though he did want to get rid of all the darkies. So I went to visit Bose's Wikipedia page, which Sunny linked to in his post, and which paints quite a vivid portrait:
Bose's correspondence (prior to 1939) reflects his deep disapproval of the racist practices of, and annulment of democratic institutions in Nazi Germany. However, he expressed admiration for the authoritarian methods (though not the racial ideologies) which he saw in Italy and Germany during the 1930s, and thought they could be used in building an independent India.
Bose had clearly expressed his belief that democracy was the best option for India. [...] However, during the war (and possibly as early as the 1930s) Bose seems to have decided that no democratic system could be adequate to overcome India's poverty and social inequalities, and he wrote that an authoritarian state, similar to that of Soviet Russia (which he had also seen and admired) would be needed for the process of national re-building.
It seems clear to me, from the little I know of him, that had Bose lived (he died in 1945) and achieved the prominence he sought, he would have done far more harm to Indians than Powell and his acolytes ever did. One is tempted to ask whether a man who can simultaneously express admiration for both fascism and Stalinism is the sort of person who Sunny would "invite round for tea", but that's not really the point.
Nor should we forget, at this point, to remind readers of Harriet Harman, Sunny's "second choice" for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who last year described Fidel Castro as a "hero". That caused a marked lack of offence on the Left - some might even have described it as a "dog whistle" - but I suppose that's not really the point, either.
My point is, rather, that while one would hardly expect the editor of [the ever-readable] Pickled Politics to hold warm childhood memories of Enoch Powell, you can't have it both ways. If it's OK for a Labour politician to cite the influence of a controversial figure from the past, while trying to ignore their darker side, then it's OK for a Tory, too.
Lefties have spent August going after Hannan in the hope of making the mud stick on Cameron, too. But they have gained little traction; even one in four Labour voters think the Tories would make a better fist of running the NHS than Labour. People are not stupid; they know the Tories are not going to "privatise" the NHS, no matter how many times Labour drones keep insisting that they will.
I myself view neither Powell, Castro nor Bose as political heroes. But if we're really going to go down the route of choosing our leaders based on their views about divisive hate figures from the past, I'm afraid it's not much of a horse race. Give me the one who supports the democrat over the ones who support the dictators every time."
Swiss vote to ban minarets on mosques
Jonathan Freedland comments on the Swiss minaret ban:
"It's a crude reaction but it's the first one I had on hearing that the Swiss had voted to ban the building of minarets on mosques – the same reaction I have to the increasingly-frequent stories like it: how would I feel if this were not about them, but us? How, in other words, would I react if this latest attack were not on Muslims but on Jews?
It's crude because no two situations are ever exactly the same, and Muslims and Jews have different histories – in Switzerland and everywhere else. But it's useful, allowing the testing of any proposition against an almost instinctive yardstick of decency.
So how would I react if the Swiss voted to restrict the way synagogues are built? With horror, of course. Indeed, the mere hint of such a proposal in the heart of Europe – given the blood-soaked history of the 20th century – would send a shudder down the collective spine. That reaction alone would tell me that, on this proposal, there was only one decent place to be – against it.
Or take Jack Straw's campaign against the niqab in 2006. He and his supporters made what they hoped was a subtle, nuanced case against women wearing the full veil, but my first thought was much simpler. What if a government minister told ultra-orthodox Jewish men that, in their full beards, it was hard to tell them apart, or that he disliked the custom that commands ultra-orthodox Jewish women to cut off their hair, covering their heads with either a wig or a hat? No matter how subtle or nuanced his reasons, I would feel that this was, at best, an act of bullying directed at a vulnerable minority or, at worst, the first step towards something much more menacing.
I'm clearly not the only who thinks this way, submitting proposed anti-Muslim actions to an informal "Jewish test". It seems the proponents of the minaret ban proceeded the same way. According to Tariq Ramadan, the initial target of the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) campaign was due to be the Islamic method of animal slaughter – until the UDC realised that Jews, who also rely on ritual slaughter to produce kosher food, would immediately feel threatened. So they moved onto minarets, apparently confident that they had found an issue with few Jewish resonances (synagogue buildings rarely have an impact on the skyline and are often pretty inconspicuous).
Of course, not everyone who voted yes on the Swiss referendum was some Islamophobe or racist. Some, as Joan Smith argues, had wholly admirable secularist motives. Indeed Smith makes a strong case for holding a larger discussion about the role of religion in public life and expresses frustration that we cannot seem to have a mature conversation about, for example, which symbols belong in public and which don't. I would welcome that conversation. I think we should have it. But here's a suggestion. Let's make sure that, for once, it doesn't start with the Muslims.
For example, here in Britain, we should have that debate about faith schools. But let's begin with a proposal to close down the 7000 Christian schools in the state sector – and then move onto the Muslim schools. Or do I sense that there will be rather fewer takers for that conversation?
What passionate secularists and atheists need to understand is that what seems to outsiders like a religious affiliation is, for many millions, only partly about faith. It's often partly, even largely, about identity. How can I be so sure that's true of Muslims? Because I know it's true of Jews.
Which leads me to guess that the minaret ban will have one consequence its advocates did not predict. I reckon there'll be rather more Swiss Muslims going to the mosque this week than there were last. That's how people react when they're threatened. Don't ask me how I know."
Oliver Kamm comments on the Swiss ban on Minarets and takes a swipe at Mark Steyn:
"Writers such as the Canadian conservative Mark Steyn talk of a European “demographic time bomb” of Muslim immigration and high birthrates.
This is nonsense. Muslims are a small minority in Western Europe and their median fertility rate is declining. The secularist position seeks to remove religion from government, not to drive it out of civil society.
The ramifications of the Swiss vote will evoke comparisons with the diplomatic isolation of Denmark after the newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. There is no genuine analogy at all.
The Danish Government valiantly upheld freedom of expression against attempts to stifle it. The Swiss electorate has, by contrast, struck a blow against freedom of association and conscience. It should be speedily overturned."
This is Peter Hitchens take on the Minaret ban (personally, I think there's a contradiction in his argument):
"Swiss aren’t the intolerant ones
Nobody ever asked us if we wanted a country full of big mosques, asserting Islam’s confidence in our cities. So that is what we have. But they asked the Swiss and they said ‘no thank you’. Is this bigotry? I don’t think so. Where Islam is in power, it restricts the building and repairing of Christian churches, the ringing of bells and the holding of processions. Christians are second-class citizens. Western liberal prattle about Islamic ‘tolerance’ is based on ignorance.
The Muslim threat to this country does not come from a few swivel-eyed, blowhard preachers. It comes from our own willingness to drive Christianity out of schools, government and broadcasting, and our feeble refusal to require migrants and their descendants to respect and accept our culture and faith. We could be well on the way to becoming a Muslim country by the end of this century. The noisy Left-wing atheists will miss the Church of England, once it is replaced by the Mosque of England."
Here's Oliver Kamm expounding on his differences with Mark Steyn (although, some have unfairly commented that Kamm has one of the most pompous byline photos going, he's articulate, smart and always worth reading):
"I don't think this is online (at least for non-subscribers), but a reader has kindly sent me an article by Mark Steyn from National Review. I criticised Steyn this week for his view that there is a "demographic timebomb" of Muslim immigration and fertility rates. He writes:
'In the Times of London, Oliver Kamm deplored the results of Switzerland’s referendum, consigned it to the garbage can of right-wing populism, and for good measure dismissed my analysis of Euro-demographics (“This is nonsense,” he pronounced magisterially). Instead, Mr. Kamm called for a “secularist and liberal defense of the principles of a pluralist society.”
"That’s not the solution to the problem, but one of the causes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for liberalism and pluralism and whatnot. And, in the hands of a combative old bruiser like Christopher Hitchens, they’re powerful weapons. But most people are not like Mr. Hitchens. And so in much of the post-Christian West “a pluralist society” has subsided into a vast gaping nullity too weak to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. In practice, the “secularist and liberal defense” is the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated."'
He's right that most people are not like Christopher Hitchens. That's about it.
I'm in favour of a vast gaping nullity. That's the type of arrangement where citizens can choose the good for themselves rather than be regimented into other people's conception of it. Secularism is the best defence against absolutist religious claims, because it relegates religion to the private sphere. I'm resigned and unfazed that the rest of this sentence will be quoted out of context, but I'm hostile to Islam. I reject - in the sense that I'm antagonistic towards them, not just that I don't acept them - all religious claims to truth. Though I'm a contributor to the Jewish Chronicle, I have no interest at all in the fortunes of Judaism. My interest is limited to the welfare of persecuted peoples. Hence I'm a friend and supporter of the Jewish state, and I favoured military intervention to rescue Bosnia's Muslims from the depredations of Slobodan Milosevic.
I'm hopeful that what are known as the great monotheistic religions will die out in a few hundred years, just as many polytheistic ones have vanished. Their intellectual foundations have been shaken by scientific discoveries about the age of the Earth and evolution by natural selection. It's likely that scientific advance in the study of human consciousness will deprive religion of any support for the notion of a soul. I can't claim that I regard religious believers with indifference so long as they leave me alone: on the contrary, I'm incredulous that an intelligent and rational person could subscribe to religious notions of first and last things.
But secularism means removing religion from public life, not driving it out of civil society. The Swiss vote has nothing to do with the essential secularist principle of godless government: it's an attack on religious liberty. I defend the liberal rights of people whose political views I find obnoxious, such as the Holocaust denier David Irving. Similarly, I will defend freedom of worship and association that doesn't infringe the rights of others.
I am, incidentally, dead chuffed to have been nominated as Secularist of the Year alongside (seriously) Pope Benedict XVI and John Keats, as well as some more intuitively plausible nominees."
Mark Steyn posts this comment in the comment thread of Oliver Kamm's blog:
"By the way, since you keep putting my name next to the words "demographic time bomb" in quote marks, when exactly did I use this expression?
Posted by: Mark Steyn | 7 Dec 2009 05:44:07"
To which Oliver Kamm then posts his own reply:
"Mark Steyn: 'By the way, since you keep putting my name next to the words "demographic time bomb" in quote marks, when exactly did I use this expression?'
Here: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2JmOTY4MGNkMWYyMmVmNzY5NzVmZjQwNzQ4MzgwZGM=
I'm assuming that the title of your blog post, unlike the title of a newspaper article, is your creation rather than a sub-editor's. If it's a sub's, then you might wish to consider why National Review has summarised your position in the phrase "demographic time bomb", quotation marks included (and it's not a quotation from anyone else), and take it up with your editor rather than with me.
Posted by: Oliver Kamm | 7 Dec 2009 07:15:57"
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