Demographics, culture and allegiance, not values

Those of us who think that we have got it disastrously wrong on multi-culturalism and immigration will be tempted to say that Geert Wilders is trying to save western society whereas Muslim extremists aim to destroy it. But being “even-handed” over extremist elements makes sense if you accept that British identity is composed of values rather than allegiance: to the creedal nation, protests against multi-cultural orthodoxy are on a par with extremist imams, Louis Farakhan and other movements dedicated to destroying the decadent and devilish West.

Ironically, for someone seen as far-right, Wilders is similar to mainstream liberals in that he thinks values are crucial: the difference is that they think Islam is compatible with enlightenment values, Wilders disagrees. Wilders' criticism of Islam is in fact ridiculously crude and depends too much on the supposed evil of Islamist ideology, which he compares with Facism. This doesn't matter: Islam does not have to be evil to be a threat to the West. Europeans were a threat to native Americans in the 19th century primarily due to their numbers. The merits or otherwise of Western civilisation were irrelevant. The moral status of Islam do not affect the level of alarm that people feel at the scale of immigration and speed of transformation in European cities. Moreover, immigration from Islamic countries is only part of the phenomenon.

The main threat is partly cultural but mainly demographic – both from mass immigration and from the higher birth rates of some immigrant populations, such as Muslims, vis a vis Europeans. Due to a shared cultural background, the same numbers would matter less if all immigrants were eastern europeans, although there would still be tensions. Maybe we should say the problem is less with high immigrant birth rates and more with extremely low European birth rates, because low birth rates make European culture less demographically robust. The nature of Islam is a special issue, but there are social problems and ethnic tensions with other immigrant groups as well.

These problems are not just about economics but about who we are as a people and to what do we owe allegiance. Secularists, liberals, conservative catholics will for the most part feel allegiance to European civilisation and the heritage of the Roman Empire and Middle Ages; a large proportion (how large?) of Muslims look to an Islamic past, not a European one, and they will also aspire to an Islamic future. Even those who reject violence, being human, will inevitably wish to promulgate their culture and religion, just as native Europeans do. This is something we should accept as part of the human condition; it only becomes a problem due to demographic trends. Of course, to those who believe that cultural ties don't matter, I am speaking dangerous nonsense.

For Wilders, there can be no moderate Islam as opposed to the extremist version because Islam is an evil ideology. To my mind, it is hateful to condemn in absolutist terms a whole civilisation; but he is right in a way that he does not know, because, while Islamic terrorism is not an existential threat to the West, as his film (I understand) suggests, large-scale immigration can overwhelm its people, culture, traditions and institutions. No evil ideology is needed to bring this about. Demographics will be the Death of West, unless we do something about now. As Wilders says, we are at the 11th hour, but tirades against Islam miss the point. The solution is to stop mass immigration, ensure the repatriation of those here illegally and take measures to increase European birth rates, so that our civilisation can survive the 21st century. Then the demographic impact of Muslims inside Europe will be lessened and, in a world where resources are more scarce than today, European nations will be in a stronger position in relation to their neighbours, Islamic or otherwise.