Racial Suicide Bombers

Lost in all the international frothing about freedom of expression and hate speech over the contentious 2006 Macleans' excerpt of Mark Steyn's America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is what the man was essentially saying:

What's happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history: most of us have seen a gazillion heartwarming ethnic comedies -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its ilk -- in which some uptight WASPy type starts dating a gal from a vast loving fecund Mediterranean family, so abundantly endowed with sisters and cousins and uncles that you can barely get in the room. It is, in fact, the inversion of the truth. Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of "lowest-low" fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece's fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1. Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have "big" families these days, it's the anglo democracies: America's fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand a little below. Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling.

<SNIP>

On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Time for the obligatory "of courses": of course, not all Muslims are terrorists -- though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists -- though enough of them share their basic objectives(the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America)to function wittingly or otherwise as the "good cop" end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine. But, at the very minimum, this fast-moving demographic transformation provides a huge comfort zone for the jihad to move around in.

Of course, Steyn isn't the only one to raise such fears. Even the Ku Klux Klan got into it.

All of which led to the criminalization of abortion in the U.S.

By the 1840s, abortions had become common not only for unwed girls “in trouble” but among married women, and not just any married women but white, Protestant, native-born married women of the middle and upper classes. While many husbands were accomplices, even instigators, other white, Protestant, native-born men were outraged. Immigration was on the rise. Catholics were not only taking up residence, they were producing broods of offspring, while native-born women were committing “racial” suicide.

One group of men also had a vested interest, and therein lies the story of the first abortion revolution that criminalized the procedure in America. As late as 1800, not a single jurisdiction in the United States had a statute on abortion. By 1900 every state in the Union had an antiabortion law except Kentucky, where state courts managed to criminalize it in practice.

As for Canada, it was only two years old when Parliament banned it.

But back to racial suicide bombs, and the subject of today's treeware column.

Global warming means nothing to those who are concerned about "demographic winter."

<SNIP>

Never mind that the human population expands by 78 million a year, with one in three doomed to live in slums without clean water, plumbing or electricity.

Forget that wars are being tripped by land shortage. Don't think about people in Haiti literally eating mud pies. As for people abandoning their children to the street or selling them into slavery because they can't afford to keep them, well, that's not our problem, is it?

People are rioting for bread and rice. Prices are skyrocketing. Meat production is hitting record levels, and soybean crops, which should be feeding people, are instead going to livestock. The fish are disappearing and forests are being laid waste.

And, of course, carbon is spewing into the atmosphere, turning up the temperature, raising the sea levels and causing natural disasters on a terrifying scale.

But these problems are nothing in comparison with the coming decline in babies which will mean there will be nobody to "man the factories" – as if all the factories haven't moved to China, the oil to run them isn't running out and the dwindling population will be around to buy the manufactured goods.

According to Steyn: "The environmentalists may claim to think globally but act locally, but these guys (Muslims) live it. They open up a new front somewhere on the planet with nary a thought. Why? Because they've got the manpower. Because in the 1970s and '80s Muslims had children (those self-detonating Islamists in London and Gaza are a literal baby boom)."

Baby boom. Haha. Get it?

Doing the rounds right now in conservative circles is the documentary Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family, an alarmist documentary that makes last year's dark Children of Men look like a comedy.

See the trailer here.

Screened by right-wing think tanks and pro-life organizations, it argues that the only way to combat the disappearance of homo sapiens – as if we aren't already killing ourselves by fouling our nest – is by bringing back "the intact married family," eliminating extramarital sex and banning contraception.

It always comes down to confining women, doesn't it?

The not-so-funny thing is, these people are constantly railing about how girls in less developed countries breed at a young age – which is, sadly, true – but complain about how women here wait too long, inviting fertility problems.

And so, the very thing they despise in other cultures is the exact same thing they would like to bring to ours – and then they have the nerve to accuse feminists of not standing up for women in Muslim countries.

This isn't demographic winter. It's brain freeze.

Comments

[sooey]

The people opposed to women's rights really do see them as a threat to their own rights. That's the mindset we're up against. And there's no reasoning with them because they're not reasonable. That's why when you actually analyse the writings of someone like Mark Steyn it's such a shock to realize we're having this debate at all. It's "The Emperor's New Clothes" over and over and over, a swirling vortex of stupid with Mark Steyn strutting around in all his glory and the rest of us trying to keep our skirts from flying up over our heads.

[Ric Gerace]

Jeff Jacoby has a silly column on the so-called Demographic Winter in today's Boston Globe. And The Lion couldn't resist taking him down a peg or two at Grumpy Lion. Unfortunately Jacoby promised to write a second column on the same subject.

[koby]

Steyn is right in one respect. A coming demographic crunch is the biggest threat facing Canada. The average Canadian in 2004 was 39.7; in other words Canada is one of the oldest nations on earth. However bad things are now things promise to get a lot worse. The percentage of Canadians over 65 is set to go from 14.7 now to 27.6 in 2050. If the situation was ever allowed to get this bad, the economy would be in sharp decline, the federal government would surely be in deficit, and virtually ever public entitlement program would have collapsed or would be close to. Public health care system would surely have collapsed under the demands placed on it.

Canada is not alone in having to deal with aging population. Some European countries have it even worse.

"World Bank projections show that the working-age population of the present EU will drop from 230m now to 167m by 2050, a fall of 63m. Most of this is concentrated in the 12 current euroland countries, where working-age population is projected to drop from 186m to 131m. The worst-hit individual countries are Italy , with a 15m, or 42% fall, from 36m to 21m, followed by Spain and Germany. Britain is not immune but fares relatively well. The World Bank projects a 5m fall in working-age population, from 35.2m to 29.9m In general, though, Europe's position is dire. As Lombard Street Research writes: "The last demographic shock on a similar scale was the Black Death of the late 14th century. Even two world wars did not stop Europe 's population rising by nearly a fifth in the first half of the 20th century."

If Europe continues on as it is, the median age in Europe will go from 37.7 today to 52.3 by 2050!

As professor Charles Kupchan notes,

"today there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers within the European Union. By 2050, current demographic trends would leave Europe with 75 pensioners for every 100 workers and in countries like Italy and Spain the ratio would be 1 to 1."

Steyn's remedies on the other hand border on the ridiculous. Does Steyn and company honestly believe that an increase in teenage pregnancy is something Canadian society should strive for and that it matters not whether a baby was actually wanted or was a result of limited excess to sex education, contraception and abortion? No matter how you slice it an individual’s misfortune is not Canada good fortune.

Anyway, Canada's birthrate is simply not going to turn around overnight and it likely never to reach replacement levels again. Kids simply cost too much. The only realistic option Canada is left with is to greatly increase the number of immigrants Canada lets in each year and make sure that these immigrants are younger than ones we have been letting in. The average immigrant to Canada (37.1) is not much younger than the average Canadian (39.7). The situation is akin to baling out a boat by moving water from one part of the boat to another. The average immigrant to Canada needs to be under 30 and Canada should aim to let in 500,000 plus economic class immigrants a year while sharply reducing, the less economically successful, family class immigrants and refugees.

So long as economic inequality does not build geographic and more importantly social barriers between various ethnic communities, Canada's laws and economy will insure that the immigrants flooding into Canadians major cities will negotiate informally with existing communities to create a new common Canadian identity. Common life experiences will create a common culture. Integration is not a cultural issue or a religious issue it is an economic one.

[Antonia]

Thanks Ric. You should have included the link.

http://grumpylion.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/jeff-jacoby-shallow-again/

[Adam]

I've never really been big on race. The decline of certain groups of people is an interesting train of thought that seems legit enough statistically. Fact is, certain groups have low birth ratios attached to them, while others have large ratios. It's a matter of mathematics to see which will "win out".

I could care less if 50% of Canadians when I'm 45 years old are of Middle-Eastern descent.

What I do care about is the potential religion card they could bring. I don't want to live under sharia law, or be forced into customs I don't follow. I don't think that in my lifetime, the laws will be Islam based here in Canada or USA. I don't believe that at all, although other countries will definitely be largely influenced by it by the time I die.

I don't want to live in a society that despises me and wants to cleanse the world of my being...well, any more than it already is. Transsexuals don't get all that much support, and I've read what's done to those like me in some other countries. In general, I don't want to live in a country where religion trumps my right to live.

Not that I likely will. I don't see demographics changing as much here as in Europe. Nor do I see Islam tromping all over Christianity here in North America.

Women deserve the right to do what they want with their bodies. If they don't want kids, I don't see why anyone(or anything) should force them to have any. I mean, the common idea would probably be to let more people immigrate in to fill the holes we can't fill, or leave empty, but I don't know if that would fly.
The causes of a lack of fertility do tend to involve the last couple of decades of change that sought equal rights for women, and changed people's perspectives on life. I mean, it's not like men or transsexuals can give birth. Women are strapped with that ability alone, unless some scientific miracle occurs. People are going to want women to have more babies, whether or not the women themselves do.

I'm pro choice here. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of debate on this issue in years to come, nation-wide and worldwide. I don't even know which court the ball is in, so to speak.
I just hope no rights are lost due to some radical decision by a higher up. I don't see why equal rights and freedom from religion can't be accomplished.

[mozo]

sooey wrote: "The people opposed to women's rights really do see them as a threat to their own rights." How then do you explain REAL Women and their fellow travellers, or would you deny them the right to be wilfully oppressed by the patriarchal monster?

koby thinks that a shrinking working demographic is necessarily a bad thing. Seeing as so much manufacturing work is leaving Canada I see it as a possible positive. Fewer younger workers will mean higher wages and lower unemployment.

Also, one of the causes for our older average age in Canada is being driven by our immigration policy of family reunification. Namely a 30-something couple and their kids settle here then bring over their parents and sometimes grandparents who are now past working age. This is putting a strain on our health care and social service costs. I'm not saying it must be stopped entirely but it should be looked at closely.

[sooey]

REAL women can restrict their own rights as much as they like. Go for it, Grrls. It's when they want to roll back MY rights - in law - that I say, "No".

[koby]

Canada let in some 50,000 immigrants per year from the Middle East and Africa between 2004 and 2006 and Canada’s Muslim population is puny.

The application for Sharia based provisions in Ontario hinged upon their being special provisions for Judaism and Catholicism. The same went for Tory’s plan to fund religious schools. However much it may displease the religious right, the only way to prevent such applications in the future is to insure that no special provisions exist. What is good for gander is good for the goose.

>>>> Fact is, certain groups have low birth ratios attached to them, while others have large ratios. It's a matter of mathematics to see which will "win out".

The fact is that every study that has looked into the issue has found that no matter the birth rate in their country of origin the birthrate among immigrant groups, is no higher than the Canadian population as a whole.

>>>>> koby thinks that a shrinking working demographic is necessarily a bad thing.

I am worried about that too, but the real problem is the changing demographic profile of Canada. It is the ratio of workers to seniors that is the issue. The baby boom was the last time that Canadians had babies well above replacement levels and their aging is what threatens Canada and Europe.

>>>>> Also, one of the causes for our older average age in Canada is being driven by our immigration policy of family reunification.

That is part of the reason and is one of the reasons why I would like to see family reunification limited to spouses and dependents under 18. The ability of people to sponsor their parents let alone their grandparents is pure idiocy. The other reason is that the point system favors older applicants. Work experience, marriage garner one points and stupidly a 25 year old receives the same number of points for age as a 49 year old.

[tim]

I'm not worried about the Muslim threat here in Canada but in Holland the most common name for newborns is Mohammed-it makes you think.
And yes it bothers me that our number-people of European origin
rapidly declining and no one seems to care.We worry about the
spotted owl going distinct -how about us? I blame the feminists for brainwashing women into believing that if they give birth to and raise more children their lifes is wasted.
The whole culture is against normal families.We shun the mother and worship the whore.
As for the problems the Third World faces like food shortage
etc. there is one answer family planning and birth control-now!
We do our share in the West.

[jb]

Uuuhhh, Tim, last time I checked, feminism did not teach women that having children was wasting their lives. Feminism teaches women that they have the right to make their own choices about their bodies and their lives, not that one way is correct and another is wrong, or a waste as you put it. There are many, many proud feminist mothers out there teaching their daughters that they deserve to be respected and treated equally. Just where are you getting your information from, Tim?

[jb]

One more thing, Tim... feminists are not responsible for the fact that our society 'shuns the mother and worships the whore'. I think we can safely say that men are responsible for that one. It's one of the biggest issues for feminists: fighting the objectification of women, and the idea that women's only role in society is sexual. Blaming feminists for the 'whore worshipping' in our society on feminists is classic projection.

Also, the spotted owl is in danger of becoming extinct, not distinct. I won't even start on your grammar!

[arthurdecco]

Interesting exchange. Thanks to all.

Expecially jb - I was nodding along, approving, envious even for the insight, intelligence, passion and eloquence on display in your last two posts. U wuz rockin!

I wish you hadn't typed the last paragraph...

(comment made by someone who has done exactly the same thing countless times - and who has always ruefully regretted it after the fact.[wink])

Antonia, a tour de force. “This isn't demographic winter. It's brain freeze.”

Word sculpture – sculpture chiseled, and then polished, by honest thought.

Thanks.

[The_Stygian_and_his_Shemitish_Dogs]

"It always comes down to confining women, doesn't it? "

Not exactly. In most forms of Christianity, as far as we can tell, both men and women are "confined". Men are expected to behave, take responsibility for unexpected pregnancies, treat women properly, etc. (yes, we know, they fall down a lot of the time).

Whereas Islam seems to be all about confining women, and giving men free range to behave as badly as they want.

The way most feminists are always making excuses for the more violent forms of Islam is still a Montypythonesque feast for those of us lucky Westerners who love the grotesque.

But how long will it remain that way?

Steyn is the greatest writer and commentator since the passing of Auberon Waugh.

[Antonia]

Really? I fail to see how ''feminists are always making excuses for the more violent forms of Islam.'' I wonder if you might point out some examples. You know, things like where we support the stoning and beheading of women, honour killings, the confinement under stifling burkas, that kind of thing?

In fact, long before the right cottoned on to the Taliban, it was feminists yelling and screaming about what it was doing to women.

Stygian, I should think that you could come up with some more original line than that.

[The_Stygian_and_his_Shemitish_Dogs]

Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08EYqwyns-k for starters, bearing in mind it's not strictly relevant to your phrasing.

Here is another interesting item, just for starters:

"Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1754

[jb]

To ArthurDecco, all I can say is 'wow, thanks!'. As for the last paragraph, my bad; you can take the English teacher out of the classroom but...

[sheena]

So how come nobody really asks the question - why do fewer women want children these days? why is it simply not interesting?

Why don't they care about the next generation? Anyone wonder if maybe the female intuitive intelligence has clued in on something? I do.

[Antonia]

For one thing Sheena, we now have a choice, or at least a choice not to be pregnant.
We also have the choice to be independent and support ourselves.
Many people find these choices to be very threatening.

For another, women are not compelled, as are men, to ''spread their seed.''
That intuitive sense you mention may be Nature's way of telling us to hold off.

Biology is no longer destiny -- and not a moment too soon for the planet's sake.

[jb]

This is unrelated to the topic, but I thought you'd want to check it out Antonia:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7466514.stm

[johnnykap]

AZ, I found your comments about the spreading of seed to be most illuminating, if not a tad messy.

As for fewer children being great for the planet, is it a stretch to state that you would be in favor of infanticide and killing old people? After all, that's a bonus for the planet, too, isn't it? That's the box that you've put yourself in, AZ.

[Antonia]

You forget, JohnnyKap, that, unlike you, I opposed the invasion of Iraq.

[jb]

I've been thinking more about all the debate here regarding birth rates in poor countries, which somehow morphed into attacks on feminism. I would like to recommend a wonderful, inspiring book that helps put things in perspective, especially for those who don't actually know much about the societies and economies of 'third world' countries.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
By Muhammad Yunus

Dr. Yunus makes a clear and undeniable connection between lifting women out of poverty, giving them financial independence and the power to chose their own destinies, and the subsequent drop in the birth rates, and improvement in the lives of the women and their children, including better educational opportunities and a shift in thinking.

It's also a wonderful, uplifting book that gives hope for the future, if only mankind can get its act together and follow through on proven remedies.

[johnnykap]

But AZ, logically you would have to be in favor of the war, since it's helped to take some of the strain off good ole mother earth. It must be incredibly difficult to be a leftist. There's so many things you have to juggle.

[Antonia]

Yeah. War. Great for the environment because Hummers and bombers run on solar power.

[jb]

I would like to know which dictionary johnnykap is using... his definition of logical is suspect. And equating birth control with infanticide and killing old people? There are no words...

[arthurdecco]

Antonia said: "Yeah. War. Great for the environment because Hummers and bombers run on solar power."

johnnykap, I've read that the US War Machine consumed more oil products (forget about the rest of the stuff they intentionally destroyed!) than the rest of the world combined during the Iraq war's early days.

When I think your comments can't get any more inane, you manage to find a way.

I'm sure you think yourself a provocative ‘wit’. I’d might agree if you let me add a 't' to that.

[Gigi]

How is it that the ones on the right never quite seem to see that the answer is not taking away what women have accomplished here, bu making that available elsewhere so that the population declines EVERYWHERE equally? Really, look at the ones who breed frantically - even among their treasured whites - and it's not the women with hope for a decent future.
dBO at BirthPangs did a great piece on one such example yesterday.
http://www.breadnroses.ca/birthpangs/2008/06/this-is-not-mystic-pizza/

[The_Stygian_and_his_Shemitish_Dogs]

"Yeah. War. Great for the environment"

Actually that may be true.

One example is provided by the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England.

A comparison of data on birds, esp. birds of prey, between

Hudson, William H. 1943. A Shepherd’s Life. London: Dent
(actually dating from the early 1900's; pp. 86-89)

and

Liddle, Rod. 2003. “Why Conservationists should thank God for the Motor-Car”, The Spectator, January 11, 2003: 8.

shows that after the following species had being hunted almost to extinction at the turn of the last century there: the great bustard, giant crane, stone curlew, buzzard, goshawk, ost of them have returned: “Now .... there are more buzzards today on Salisbury Plain - and in the river valleys - than you could shake a stick at ... "

Apparently this may be partly due to the fact that Salisbury Plain is used for military training, and civilians are actively discouraged. This has allowed populations of the above birds to stage a comeback.

And what do birds of prey live on?

Many live on roadkill (real small animals, not Klouseau Dion after enough people understand the implications of "his" greenshift)

And how do you generate roadkill?

Drive vehicles, especially large ones, around.

So for many bird populations to recover you need
a) more military spending
b) more vehicles on the roads adjacent to the military training grounds

But one could cite the example of the destruction of the Wisent in the Bialowieza during World War One as a counterexample .....

It isn't that simple, though ....

[Aurelia]

I've kept this on my bloglines for awhile to come back too.

Frankly I'm a little disappointed no one has mentioned that fertility rates are declining worldwide, and not just among white women, due to environmental damage and many many other factors. So if infertility is running about 20% among men and women in every country and the population is out of balance for replacement workers, by about 20%, then here's an idea.

Why not pay for everyone to get fertility treatment if they want it, and if people want to have kids they can, and if they don't want em, they don't have to have them. Then everyone will get what they want---except for idiots like Steyn.

Reality is that almost all men and women want to have kids they just want them when they are ready to afford them and care for them. But I never hear anything on these political blogs about paying for fertility treatment or research into preventing miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death.

Obama just introduced a bill that will finally pay for research into this. Unprecedented in the history of the US. Not one US politician has ever cared enough to spend a dime before.

And not one Canadian politician has ever given a damn before...why is that?

http://www.sidsalliance.org/print_friendly/obama.html

Choice is a double-sided issue, we need the choice to get pregnant and stay pregnant, not just the choice to end a pregnancy. All choices matter.