How Soon Till Europe Goes Muslim?

An essay on Europe’s low birthrates (below replacement level in many cases), by Mark Steyn in today’s WSJ  OpinionJournal:

Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans, and what’s left in Europe will either be very old or very Muslim.  Japan faces the same problem:  Its population is already in absolute decline, the first gentle slope of a death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of.   Will Japan be an economic powerhouse if it’s populated by Koreans and Filipinos?  Very possibly.  Will Germany if it’s populated by Algerians?  That’s a trickier proposition.

Best-case scenario?  The Continent winds up as Vienna with Swedish tax rates.

Worst-case scenario:  Sharia, circa 2040; semi-Sharia, a lot sooner–and we’re already seeing a drift in that direction.  * * *

What will London–or Paris, or Amsterdam–be like in the mid-’30s?  If
European politicians make no serious attempt this decade to wean the populace
off their unsustainable 35-hour weeks, retirement at 60, etc., then to keep the
present level of pensions and health benefits the EU will need to import so many
workers from North Africa and the Middle East that it will be well on its way to
majority Muslim by 2035.  As things stand, Muslims are already the primary source
of population growth in English cities.  Can a society become increasingly
Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in
its political character? * * *

… By prioritizing a "woman’s right to choose," Western women are delivering their
societies into the hands of fellows far more patriarchal than a 1950s sitcom
dad.  * * *

… In his book "The Empty Cradle," Philip Longman asks: "So where will the children
of the future come from? Increasingly they will come from people who are at odds
with the modern world. Such a trend, if sustained, could drive human culture off
its current market-driven, individualistic, modernist course, gradually creating
an anti-market culture dominated by fundamentalism–a new Dark Ages."

Bottom line for Cameron Diaz: There are worse things than John Ashcroft out
there.

Definitely read it all.