In America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It
Europe, or at least the Europe we know, is, he contends, doomed. Thanks to a combination of low birth rates and a welfare state that has sapped individuals of any motivation to innovate, Europeans are, at least in the demographic sense, fading away. And it’s hard to argue with the premise, really. Not a single European country has a birth rate that is anywhere near what is traditionally considered the replacement level, of somewhere around 2.1 children. Slowly but surely, Europeans are disappearing and they’re being replaced by immigrants from North Africa, Asia, and the Middle East who happen to have a higher than replacement level birth rate, and who also happen to be Muslim. The end result, Steyn suggests, is that, albeit not by force, Europe is slowly turning into an Islamic state.
What that means for America and the rest of the world is what the book is about. Steyn’s argument can basically be summarized as follows:
1) In terms of both demographics and will power, the Islamists have an advantage over the West. As Europeans become a smaller part of their own continent, Muslim immigrants with birth rates far above replacement level will move in to take their place.
2) To a large degree, the Muslim communities in Europe are not assimilating into the cultures in which they live, not in the immigrant generation, and not in the generations that follow.
3) As this unassimilated minority becomes closer to being a majority, the character of the democratic institutions will become more closely aligned with Islamic law and culture. Steyn cites cases in point ranging from the European elites’ reaction to the Mohammed cartoons controversy, to the resurgence of scarves, veils, and even the burqa, among Islamic women living in Europe.
4) This is happening largely because the native populations in Europe have been transformed by the welfare state that predominates on the continent.
5) The United States is currently an exception to the trends sweeping Europe, but that won’t last for long if changes to the very same welfare state that is helping to destroy Europe aren’t made soon.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of Steyn’s premise. He follows to closely to the old idea of “demography is destiny” and ignores or downplays other factors that contribute to the life, and death, of a civilization.
But this is a book that should be taken seriously. The fault for what is happening in Europe today, Steyn points out, lies not so much with the Islamists, but with the statists who put in place a welfare state that has helped to destroy what was once the cradle of Western Civilization. The Islamists are just taking advantage of the situation.
