Tony
11-01-2009, 04:48 PM
Are Britain and Europe being swamped, overrun, defeated by a wave of mostly Muslim immigrants and their descendants? Or are Europe's ethnic problems the figment of a febrile political imagination - something created by racism, dishonesty and manipulation by extremist parties such as the BNP? Those are not the only two possibilities, of course, although a lot of people behave as if they are.
Both sides will take lots of fodder for their arguments from a study released last week by the highly reliable Pew Forum On Religion And Public Life. According to the report, there are now 1.6billion Muslims, a quarter of the world's population.
And they are distributed in surprising ways - there are more Muslims in Germany than in Lebanon, for example. Recent projections by the British Government show the population rising to 71 million within 20 years, due mainly to migration.
But Europe's (and Britain's) problems with Muslim migration are not mostly demographic. The Pew study shows the world's Christian population is growing too, to 2.25 billion.
It is possible, though, to have grave problems with immigration that do not involve either the wipe-out of a culture or the disappearance of a population.
Europe opened the door to mass immigration in the Fifties and discovered - as the United States did before it - that it is impossible to open that door just a fraction. Immigration, though intended as a solution to a short-term labour crisis, has become, without anyone particularly wanting it to be, a permanent feature of the landscape.
One of the most amazing statistics in the history of European immigration is that the number of foreign residents in Germany rose steadily between 1971 and 2000 - from three million to about 7.5million - but the number of employed foreigners did not budge. It stayed rock-steady at around two million.
Multi-ethnic societies can be good societies. But the transition puts a strain on institutions, on trust in government, and on a sense of identity.
Not every society makes that transition successfully. In my book, Reflections On The Revolution In Europe, I tried to describe how this process is working - or, more often, not working.
continues
here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1219460/CHRISTOPHER-CALDWELL-Immigration-America-strong--threatens-ruin-Europe.html)
http://www.libero-news.it/articles/getImage/200909/05/132103_0509_P32_ComCul_A05_F01.jpg
Christopher Caldwell (born 1962, Bridgeton, New Jersey) is a journalist and senior editor at The Weekly Standard, as well as a regular contributor to the Financial Times and Slate. His writing also frequently appears in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, where he is a contributing editor to the paper's magazine, and The Washington Post. He was also a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Press in the past.
Caldwell is a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied English literature. His wife Zelda is the daughter of the late journalist Robert Novak. [1] He has five children.
He is receiving increasing attention for his contributions to public debate of the issues of the day. The New York Times, reviewing the best journalism of 2008, includes Caldwell for his articles questioning the morality of capitalism. [2]
Although Caldwell's 2009 book "Reflections on the Revolution In Europe" has been accused of stoking Islamophobia, or what the Guardian refers to as a "culture of fear", [3] [4] [5] he insists that he is "instinctively pro-immigration" and conscious of the media tendency to "sensationalise stories against Muslims".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caldwell
Both sides will take lots of fodder for their arguments from a study released last week by the highly reliable Pew Forum On Religion And Public Life. According to the report, there are now 1.6billion Muslims, a quarter of the world's population.
And they are distributed in surprising ways - there are more Muslims in Germany than in Lebanon, for example. Recent projections by the British Government show the population rising to 71 million within 20 years, due mainly to migration.
But Europe's (and Britain's) problems with Muslim migration are not mostly demographic. The Pew study shows the world's Christian population is growing too, to 2.25 billion.
It is possible, though, to have grave problems with immigration that do not involve either the wipe-out of a culture or the disappearance of a population.
Europe opened the door to mass immigration in the Fifties and discovered - as the United States did before it - that it is impossible to open that door just a fraction. Immigration, though intended as a solution to a short-term labour crisis, has become, without anyone particularly wanting it to be, a permanent feature of the landscape.
One of the most amazing statistics in the history of European immigration is that the number of foreign residents in Germany rose steadily between 1971 and 2000 - from three million to about 7.5million - but the number of employed foreigners did not budge. It stayed rock-steady at around two million.
Multi-ethnic societies can be good societies. But the transition puts a strain on institutions, on trust in government, and on a sense of identity.
Not every society makes that transition successfully. In my book, Reflections On The Revolution In Europe, I tried to describe how this process is working - or, more often, not working.
continues
here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1219460/CHRISTOPHER-CALDWELL-Immigration-America-strong--threatens-ruin-Europe.html)
http://www.libero-news.it/articles/getImage/200909/05/132103_0509_P32_ComCul_A05_F01.jpg
Christopher Caldwell (born 1962, Bridgeton, New Jersey) is a journalist and senior editor at The Weekly Standard, as well as a regular contributor to the Financial Times and Slate. His writing also frequently appears in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, where he is a contributing editor to the paper's magazine, and The Washington Post. He was also a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Press in the past.
Caldwell is a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied English literature. His wife Zelda is the daughter of the late journalist Robert Novak. [1] He has five children.
He is receiving increasing attention for his contributions to public debate of the issues of the day. The New York Times, reviewing the best journalism of 2008, includes Caldwell for his articles questioning the morality of capitalism. [2]
Although Caldwell's 2009 book "Reflections on the Revolution In Europe" has been accused of stoking Islamophobia, or what the Guardian refers to as a "culture of fear", [3] [4] [5] he insists that he is "instinctively pro-immigration" and conscious of the media tendency to "sensationalise stories against Muslims".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caldwell