The Telegraph makes some startling claims on Muslims and European Demographics

[CrayonVonCaesar]

Another thread on Muslims in Europe?
Well yes.
The well known and widely read Daily Telegraph has had two recent and quite stark articles.

Muslim Europe: the demographic time bomb transforming our continent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...continent.html

Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-makers are talking about it.

A fifth of European Union will be Muslim by 2050
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...m-by-2005.html

Last year, five per cent of the total population of the 27 EU countries was Muslim. But rising levels of immigration from Muslim countries and low birth rates among Europe's indigenous population mean that, by 2050, the figure will be 20 per cent, according to forecasts.

To those who will come crack a cheap joke, say it's all lies, sling mud and post widely off topic, I have one question.

How is the unwanted demographic change of Europe, and the already burgeoning social strife and violence that this is bringing, a good thing?

[Watchman]

Isn't this already being discussed (and shot down) ? Pay attention.

[CrayonVonCaesar]

No. The youtube video on muslim demographics is being argued against by quoting a half assed BBC article.

This is not that video.

[Watchman]

No. The youtube video on muslim demographics is being argued against by quoting a half assed BBC article.

This is not that video.

Uh-huh. 'Cause you know I'm quite certain this Telegraph BS came up in that thread, and got quite swiftly shot down due to thoroughly failing basic demographics and sociology.

[Watchman]

Here. Page five, about halfway down. Post #94 to be precise.

[Jexiel]

Is not unwanted if European immigration laws allow those immigrants to enter. Maybe Europeans should start migrating to other regions (go to those countries where the Muslim immigrants come from) or perhaps Europeans need to start having more sex.

Relax man, this is the natural progression of things.

[removeduser_052420]

Simple. Your population is aging, you need workers. Therefore, you let immigrants come in. How they assimilate, and live amongst you, is the real problem.

[removeduser_487563287433]

and the already burgeoning social strife and violence that this is bringing

What? Where?

Let's tackle this article.

Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims,

Including. Not comprised of. The article does not give us any source or suggestion as to what proportion of immigrants to the EU are muslim.

will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-makers are talking about it.

Ah, it's one of those bubble cars on the moon in twenty years sort of articles.

The numbers are startling. Only 3.2 per cent of Spain's population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent.

Again, this has little to do with muslims. Illegal immigration is a controversial issue in Spain and many African immigrants to attempt to gain access to the country.



This map shows us immigration to Spain by country. Morocco and Romania send the most - but non-muslim countries clearly dominate.

The Spanish Government said in 2007 that 4,100,000 foreign residents lived in Spain. Of these half a million were Moroccan - but half a million were also Ecuadorian. Romanian and Colombian residents amounted to 300,000 each, so already you can see that it is not muslim countries that contribute most to foreign born residents in Spain. High end estimates of British residents in the country go up to a million people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigra...or_immigration

So basically at this point the article is misleading by suggesting that immigrants to Spain are mostly muslim, when they are demonstrably not.

Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years

Without knowing what figures the author is basing this on it is impossible to respond. However, there are currently 16 million muslims in the EU - out of a population of 500 million people. Do the maths.

and will have doubled again by 2015.

Again, article gives no source. But as you can see above, even if true, its actually not a particularly shocking statistic.

In Brussels, the top seven baby boys' names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza.

This appears to be incorrect. In 2007 the most popular boys name was Nathan. In 2006 they were, in descending order, Noah, Thomas, Nathan, Lucas, Louis, Arthur, Milan, Hugo and Maxime. Are you horrified at the Christian prophet coming #1? No?

Europe's low white birth rate, coupled with faster multiplying migrants, will change fundamentally what we take to mean by European culture and society.

The bell tolls for thee.

The altered population mix has far-reaching implications for education, housing, welfare, labour, the arts and everything in between. It could have a critical impact on foreign policy: a study was submitted to the US Air Force on how America's relationship with Europe might evolve. Yet EU officials admit that these issues are not receiving the attention they deserve.

Who? Which European officials, article? What have they actually said?

Jerome Vignon, the director for employment and social affairs at the European Commission, said that the focus of those running the EU had been on asylum seekers and the control of migration rather than the integration of those already in the bloc. "It has certainly been underestimated - there is a general rhetoric that social integration of migrants should be given as much importance as monitoring the inflow of migrants." But, he said, the rhetoric had rarely led to policy.

Again, the article is using something that has no mention of Islam.

The countries of the EU have long histories of welcoming migrants, but in recent years two significant trends have emerged. Migrants have come increasingly from outside developed economies, and they have come in accelerating numbers.

The growing Muslim population is of particular interest. This is not because Muslims are the only immigrants coming into the EU in large numbers; there are plenty of entrants from all points of the compass.

BOLDED FOR THE BIT YOU SHOULD BE READING MORE CAREFULLY, CAESAR.

But Muslims represent a particular set of issues beyond the fact that atrocities have been committed in the West in the name of Islam.

Since when has Europe required the name of Islam to commit a good old fashioned atrocity?

America's Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, part of the non-partisan Pew Research Center, said in a report: "These [EU] countries possess deep historical, cultural, religious and linguistic traditions. Injecting hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of people who look, speak and act differently into these settings often makes for a difficult social fit."

How dramatic are the population changes? Everyone is aware that certain neighbourhoods of certain cities in Europe are becoming more Muslim, and that the change is gathering pace. But raw details are hard to come by as the data is sensitive: many countries in the EU do not collect population statistics by religion.

Then what are you basing this on, article?

EU numbers on general immigration tell a story on their own. In the latter years of the 20th century, the 27 countries of the EU attracted half a million more people a year than left. "Since 2002, however," the latest EU report says, "net migration into the EU has roughly tripled to between 1.6 million and two million people per year."

I have already pointed out that Spain, the EU country with the highest level of migration except Cyprus, receives its immigrants overwhelmingly from non-muslim countries.

The increased pace has made a nonsense of previous forecasts. In 2004 the EU thought its population would decline by 16 million by 2050. Now it thinks it will increase by 10 million by 2060. Britain is expected to become the most populous EU country by 2060, with 77 million inhabitants. Right now it has 20 million fewer people than Germany. Italy's population was expected to fall precipitously; now it is predicted to stay flat.

The maths here is dodgy. To work it assumes than the German population will fall by 11 million - unlikely.

The study for the US Air Force by Leon Perkowski in 2006 found that there were at least 15 million Muslims in the EU, and possibly as many as 23 million. They are not uniformly distributed, of course. According to the US's Migration Policy Institute, residents of Muslim faith will account for more than 20 per cent of the EU population by 2050 but already do so in a number of cities.

WOOPS! The article just contradicted its statement earler that the muslim population will double by 2050. This would put the population at 32 million, making up 6% of the population of the EU (assuming the population of the EU will not increase, but the article says it will). I am not aware of any European city with a muslim population of 50%.

Whites will be in a minority in Birmingham by 2026, says Christopher Caldwell, an American journalist, and even sooner in Leicester.

Christopher Cadwell is clearly mental.

Another forecast holds that Muslims could outnumber non-Muslims in France and perhaps in all of western Europe by mid-century.

I go back to the fact that the article initially claimed that 32 million muslims will live in the EU in 2050 - out of a population that it claims will be 510 million strong. Even if all these muslims lived in France and only France they would not outnumber non-muslims - even if the French population does not increase from this day. This is the most inaccurate statement of the article so far.

Austria was 90 per cent Catholic in the 20th century but Islam could be the majority religion among Austrians aged under 15 by 2050, says Mr Caldwell.

It is probably a good thing that the Papists are in decline.

Projected growth rates are a disputed area.

Understatement of the century.

Birth rates can be difficult to predict and migrant numbers can ebb and flow. But Karoly Lorant, a Hungarian economist who wrote a paper for the European Parliament, calculates that Muslims already make up 25 per cent of the population in Marseilles and Rotterdam,

What happened to the 50% muslim population of European cities, article, eh?

20 per cent in Malmo, 15 per cent in Brussels and Birmingham and 10 per cent in London, Paris and Copenhagen.

Accounting for a massive proportion of the total muslim EU population.

Recent polls have tended to show that the feared radicalisation of Europe's Muslims has not occurred.

So why do we care if Europeans worship Allah rather than God?

That gives hope that the newcomers will integrate successfully. Nonetheless, second and third generations of Muslims show signs of being harder to integrate than their parents. Policy Exchange, a British study group, found that more than 70 per cent of Muslims over 55 felt that they had as much in common with non-Muslims as Muslims. But this fell to 62 per cent of 16-24 year-olds.

This is actually an interesting point.

The population changes are stirring unease on the ground. Europeans often tell pollsters that they have had enough immigration, but politicians largely avoid debate.

Um... what?

France banned the wearing of the hijab veil in schools and stopped the wearing of large crosses and the yarmulke too, so making it harder to argue that the law was aimed solely at Muslims. Britain has strengthened its laws on religious hatred. But these are generally isolated pieces of legislation.

They're ing massive and incredibly well debated ones!

Into the void has stepped a resurgent group of extreme-Right political parties,

Oh God where are we going, article?

among them the British National Party, which gained two seats at recent elections to the European Parliament.

Due to the collapse of Labour in the North of England. The BNP received fewer votes than in the last election.

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who speaks against Islam and was banned this year from entering Britain, has led opinion polls in Holland.

He's an irrelevance.

The Pew Forum identified the mainstream silence in 2005: "The fact that [extreme parties] have risen to prominence at all speaks poorly about the state and quality of the immigration debate. [Scholars] have argued that European elites have yet to fully grapple with the broader issues of race and identity surrounding Muslims and other groups for fear of being seen as politically incorrect."

The starting point should be greater discussion of integration. Does it matter at all? Yes, claims Mr Vignon at the European Commission. Without it, polarisation and ghettoes can result. "It's bad because it creates antagonism. It antagonises poor people against other poor people: people with low educational attainment feel threatened," he says.

So, what we're saying is that social causes are infinitely more important than religion, article?

The EU says employment rates for non-EU nationals are lower than for nationals, which holds back economic advancement and integration. One important reason for this is a lack of language skills. The Migration Policy Institute says that, in 2007, 28 per cent of children born in England and Wales had at least one foreign-born parent. That rose to 54 per cent in London.

I would really like to see what the hell this is based on.

Overall in 2008, 14.4 per cent of children in primary schools had a language other than English as their first language.

Again, has nothing to do with muslims. And actually, isn't as shocking a statistic as you may first think. Thinking back to my school days I should think that slightly more of the students had a different first language - but all spoke perfect English. It was overwhelmingly Punjabi, and they were typically Sikh.

Muslims, who are a hugely diverse group, have so far shown little inclination to organise politically on lines of race or religion. But that does not mean their voices are being ignored. Germany started to reform its voting laws 10 years ago, granting certain franchise rights to the large Turkish population. It would be odd if that did not alter the country's stance on Turkey's application to join the EU. Mr Perkowski's study says: "Faced with rapidly growing, disenfranchised and increasingly politically empowered Muslim populations within the borders of some of its oldest and strongest allies, the US could be faced with ever stronger challenges to its Middle East foreign policies."

Demography will force politicians to confront these issues sooner rather than later. Recently, some have started to nudge the debate along. Angel Gurría, the OECD secretary-general, said in June: "Migration is not a tap that can be turned on and off at will. We need fair and effective migration and integration policies; policies that work and adjust to both good economic times and bad ones."

So basically the article is guilty of some inconsistancy and misleading the reader. Thanks for reading my put down, and don't be a hater!

[Nick_Since_1985]

This appears to be incorrect. In 2007 the most popular boys name was Nathan. In 2006 they were, in descending order, Noah, Thomas, Nathan, Lucas, Louis, Arthur, Milan, Hugo and Maxime. Are you horrified at the Christian prophet coming #1? No?

Oh Ferrets...

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...s-in-2007.html

http://www.nancy.cc/2008/09/18/baby-...ibson-vlinder/



Greetz

Nick

[Babur]

Oh Ferrets...

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...s-in-2007.html

http://www.nancy.cc/2008/09/18/baby-...ibson-vlinder/



Greetz

Nick

Brussels doesn't exactly represent the rest of Belgium

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

It's funny how the article has a picture of a veiled woman. The reality, however, is that the vast majority of Muslims don't wear or encourage the veil. They're just as good or bad as any other group. Every group his its fringe - the Jews have the Zionist element, the Muslims have the "Taliban" element, Anglo-Saxons have the Nazi element and so on....

[Gromovnik]

Zionists?

[eggthief]

It's funny how the article has a picture of a veiled woman. The reality, however, is that the vast majority of Muslims don't wear or encourage the veil. They're just as good or bad as any other group. Every group his its fringe - the Jews have the Zionist element, the Muslims have the "Taliban" element, Anglo-Saxons have the Nazi element and so on....

OMG, anit-semitism, anti-semitism!

Zionists?

He means that.

[Babur]

Forecasts once also stated that we would have colonies on the Moon by 2000. Forecasts also stated that the British population would be majority black by 2000. Forecasts also stated the world would end in 2000. That has since been updated to 2012.

Well even in the 80s, they thought that the world would be like this, 6 years from now:

Zionists?

Zi⋅on⋅ism

  /ˈzaɪəˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [zahy-uh-niz-uhm]
–noun, a worldwide Jewish movement that resulted in the establishment and development of the state of Israel.

Anyway I don't these forecasts are realistic,unless everyone in Europe is sterile apart from Muslims

[Каие]

Forecasts once also stated that we would have colonies on the Moon by 2000. Forecasts also stated that the British population would be majority black by 2000. Forecasts also stated the world would end in 2000. That has since been updated to 2012.

[Gromovnik]

Yes, I know what zionism is, I just don't believe it to be the same as nazism.

[Каие]

No one here said it was.

[Gromovnik]

No one here said it was.

From post nr. 15: "Every group his its fringe - the Jews have the Zionist element, the Muslims have the "Taliban" element, Anglo-Saxons have the Nazi element and so on...."
I simply don't think zionism is comparable to the nazies and talibans.

[Каие]

From post nr. 15: "Every group his its fringe - the Jews have the Zionist element, the Muslims have the "Taliban" element, Anglo-Saxons have the Nazi element and so on...."
I simply don't think zionism is comparable to the nazies and talibans.

point of post: Every group has it's radical fringe minority.

Keyword: Fringe.

Not the point of the post: ZIONISTS = NAZIS = TALIBAN

[Gromovnik]

point of post: Every group has it's radical fringe minority.

Keyword: Fringe.

Not the point of the post: ZIONISTS = NAZIS = TALIBAN

In my opinion zionism is not a radical fringe movement comparable to nazism and the talibans.