Mark Steyn Predicts the Collapse of "The West"--Sadly, I Agree

Last April, in a post entitled, "Is Europe As We Have Known It Beginning To Disintegrate?" I predicted the collapse of Europe as a distinctly Western culture within the next 25-30 years. Today, in a long, rambling article entitled, "It's the Demography, Stupid--The Real Reason the West Is In Danger of Extinction," Mark Steyn predicts the same thing and for the same reasons.

In April I wrote,

National (European) identities seem to be hanging by a mere thread in countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands. As immigrant "minority" groups grow in strength (particularly Black & Arab Muslim) they have begun flexing their muscle and letting the rest of their "countrymen" know how much they dislike those who have treated them so condescendingly for so long . . .

Clearly the Arab Muslim communities pose the greatest threat to the political, economic and social stability of Western Europe. Many local Imams regularly preach that Europe must and will become a Muslim continent. Given the continuing influx of Muslims into Europe and their high birthrate compared to the negative birthrate of the historically European peoples, something is going to have to give sooner or later. It looks like it is starting to happen sooner!

In today's article, Steyn begins by bluntly stating what, for many of us, has already become obvious,

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries.

For Steyn, the reason is two-fold:

1. The Western liberal embrace of secular multi-culturalism has created a culture of short-sighted "live and let live" mentality coupled with a complete inability to judge one cultural world-view as being "better" or "worse" than another.

This cultural relativism has left the liberal West (including most of Europe and Canada) with a philosophy of existance founded upon the premise of non-judgemental embrace and toleration of virtually every cultural, political or religious view EXCEPT for those that created Western civilization in the first place. To endorse Western civilization would be, of course......well.....it would be bad....very bad!

2. The birthrate in Western nations have fallen either below or very below the rate necessary to sustain an idiginous population. As Steyn puts it,

When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 . . .

Steyn tells us that it takes 2.1 children per female to sustain a population. He then gives us some numbers to digest:

Some countries are well above (2.1): the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%, Bulgaria's by 36%, Estonia's by 52%.

The bottom line is this. Europe and the West need sustainable populations to sustain their economies. Immigration will be necessary to provide the labor force. This labor force has and will continue to come from Third World countries, especially (in Europe's case) from the Muslim world.

The Muslim birth rate is extremely high. It is already the driving force for population increase in Europe today.

While Mr. Steyn does not put it this way, it could be said that, what the Arab Muslim world failed to do in its failed attempt to conquer Europe by force in the 9th-15th centuries, it is today on the verge of doing quitely and simply by immigrating and having babies.

If folks believe that one culture is no better or worse than any other then this should not be any cause for concern. If Europe and West becomes dominated by Muslim religious and cultural beliefs, then....maybe that would be a good thing!

If, however, folks (like myself) believe that there is a great deal of difference in values between one culture and another and that some values are worth preserving, then this current state of affairs should be a cause for great concern indeed.

In Pakistan last year (which is, by the way, Muslim but not Arab) there were over 800 cases of physical gang rape against women and girls in order to shame, punish or "send a message" to others concerning behavior not acceptable to the men in the family. Many, if not most of these cases, enjoyed the support of the local Imams.

This version of Sharia (Qur'anic) Law is growing in popularity among Muslim populations not only in the Middle East and South-East Asia, but in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and Canada.

It will become the law of the land unless enough folks who value Western culture and values (derived from Christianity) stand up and, with determination, devise some strategy of opposing what will otherwise become the inevitable suicide of Western civilization.

As I put it nearly a year ago,

. . . by 2030, Muslims could potentially become the majority population of......Sweden! Yes, I said, "Sweden!" Say good-bye to those thin, trim, long-haired, blonde, tanned, blue-eyed Scandinavian girls. If some of the "new Europeans" have their way they will be wearing burkas in less than 25 years.

While Steyn lays out the problems and, with a certain sense of defeatism, hopes for some plan of response, I would like to offer him some concrete encouragement with the same specific suggestion I made last April.

I am not trying to sound some sort of alarm (for that alarm has already gone off and nations are either trying to deal with it, as in the Netherlands; compromising with it, as in Spain; pretending that "it will never happen to us because we're the French," as in.....well.... France; or simply being too overwhelmed by a dizzying myriad of social fragmentations to know what to do with any of it, as in Germany).

I am also not trying to stir up distrust, hate or bigotry against Arabs or Muslims. I am simply pointing out that it is the (mostly Arab) Muslims who are becoming the primary provocateurs (the French do seem to have the vocabulary for this sort of thing, don't they?) of social unrest and conflict throughout Western Europe.

It is vital that we in the United States should strive mightily to prevent this sort of "Balkanization" of the population to occur here. There must be a concerted emphasis (in education especially) to balance out the current bias towards "diversity" with at least an equal dose of "unity." As Lincoln once famously said (paraphrasing Jesus), "a nation divided within itself cannot stand."

As I have said many times as a church Pastor, what holds us together as a church is our unity of faith. It is what we hold in common that unifies us...whether as Christian believers or as members of a bridge club or as citizens of a nation. "Diversity" always divides and separates people from one another into "us" and "them." Unity turns everyone into a "we."

Whatever it is that has inspired us to say, "We, the people of the United States of America...." must be distilled and taught and ingrained in every one of us regardless of what our age, race, faith or culture might be....

That's all I have to say on the matter today . . . except to encourage you to read all of Mark Steyn's article alongside all of mine. Then I would ask you to seriously consider whether there is anything is Western civilization that you believe is worth saving...and, perhaps, even laying down your life for.

In the not too distant future it may well come down to that.

ht:Hugh Hewitt