But you have to get away from this idea that "you are not safe". Your chances, statistically, of being killed or injured by terrorism are tiny. This is what terrorism IS: small, isolated events designed to instil terror, irrationally in a population. That is the stuff of causing wars - and you need look no further than Iraq. It's not to say that there isn't a problem, or that it doesn't need addressing, but the scale of the problem has to be continually borne in mind, or we end up with a completely skewed world view and sense of priorities. London is not Baghdad and it isn't likely to become Baghdad any time soon. This is why I have largely zapped the recent Danish events. It's going to make a couple of crackpots globally significant - and they just aren't. It's not helpful to give them this significance, and arguably, the Charlie Hebdo atrocity is of the same ilk: a handful of fuckwits shaping a nation. According these people this status is to justify their actions from their viewpoint.
But extrapolations of numbers can definitely lie, which is why all company accounts contain a phrase similar to: "This document includes forward looking views. Past results cannot be taken as proof of future performance" or words to that effect. There are also another 35 years to go before a supposed Muslim majority. All sorts of things can be put in place before then: we could just shut our borders to Pakistani immigration, if that is what people decide to do. This "inevitability" is just scaremongering. It's not inevitable, or even likely.
For those who don't look at the Quiz thread, can I advise 5 minutes doing this one? Quiz: how well do you know the UK? | News | theguardian.com You might be surprised and your priorities recentred, your fears allayed. Then try doing a couple about some other countries (the one on the US is interesting).
Because the 6.7% growth figure stated in this flawed study is based on skewed information. It is based on the number of people declaring themselves muslim in a census, not the true number. The fact is in the earlier census the number of declared muslims has been agreed almost unanimously to be a vast underestimate due to many feeling uncomfortable in stating their religion thus making the 6.7% increase a vast overestimate.
I don't believe it's inevitable. As you say, things can always change. But if it's not 2050 it'll be 2070 or whenever. The question I'm asking is, is this desirable? And even if it's not can we or should we try to prevent it? Maybe Islam will have had its own reformation by then and it won't be an issue. But maybe it won't have and woe betide the kafir* if it doesn't. * Kafir, an Arabic term used by Muslims to describe a subset of society who have read, understood and rejected the message of the Qur'an. Literally, "covering up" mentally and physically the manifest truth which is believed in Islam to be uncovered in the Qur'an.
It would be useful if you could provide a link to the original projection so that we can see who is making it and how they are arriving at their conclusion, based on what assumptions.
Can't remember where I first saw the projection but I checked the figures myself. This may inform: Muslim Europe: the demographic time bomb transforming our continent - Telegraph
You need to go on SPC seminar. Numbers can be interpreted to indicate very different outcomes. And are only indications of a theory, not facts.
I read this a few days ago and found it very interesting. It is particularly interesting about how the news makes us feel miserable. BBC - Future - The contagious thought that could kill you
Now i have checked the census figures i have no idea where this supposed 6.7% has come from. The number of people declaring themselves muslim has risen from 3% to 4.8% of the population between 2001 and 2011. A 1.8% increase in population share... Religion in England and Wales 2011 - ONS
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. 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. But Muslims represent a particular set of issues beyond the fact that atrocities have been committed in the West in the name of Islam. 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. 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." 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 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. Whites will be in a minority in Birmingham by 2026, says Christopher Caldwell, an American journalist, and even sooner in Leicester. Another forecast holds that Muslims could outnumber non-Muslims in France and perhaps in all of western Europe by mid-century. 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. Projected growth rates are a disputed area. 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, 20 per cent in Malmo, 15 per cent in Brussels and Birmingham and 10 per cent in London, Paris and Copenhagen.
This is indeed absolutely ideal for demonstrating the points I have been making: 1. The photo is of a heavily veiled Muslim woman - which is sort of repellant and implies subliminally that all Muslim women will be like this - that Islam is entirely like this. 2. The piece is dated August 2009 - so it's 5 and a half years out of date. Now for the extrapolation: we read: "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. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015." Quite apart from the conflation that all foreign born people in Spain are Muslim (see how they did that?), the Spanish figures in 2013 - 4 years after the article were written, show that at the end of 2013, the foreign born population of Spain was 13.2%. As a %, it hadn't increased at all in fact, it had decreased according to the official EU figures. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statis..._country_of_birth,_1_January_2013_YB14_II.png So there were Telegraph readers getting all exercised in 2009 about what was going to happen - based on extrapolations of statistics, and it just didn't happen. They needn't have worried. I reiterate that newspapers are dangerous things.
I read your earlier link which you have just copied and pasted, I discounted it as it's based on data 6 years out of date and contradicts the more recent census data...
iv taken to just glossing over over your posts and reading the responses. i knew that would happen sooner or later. bugger.
So who do we believe? There are then, 15% Muslims in Birmingham, but in 9 years time, they are going to be more than 50% (assuming that Muslims are non-white). Either someone is wrong, or their vision of the future is wrong. Then again, it is dangerous to extrapolate the pockets of the UK with very high and visible Muslim populations to the whole of the UK. Is Norfolk seething with Muslims and mosques? Is York?
coming decades, how about 5mins ago. teehee. yip different country different problems different solutions. and besides wee have paisley and feegy park on our side. an iconic quote "a just set about em" :Hilarious: i miss paisley sometimes.
Personally, I am glad that this thread has turned into a debate. With one side arguing that the sky is falling and the other simply shrugging and saying it's all down to anti-Islam hysteria, I was getting a little fed up, to say the least. A proper discussion is now teasing out the issues, the facts, the factoids and the rubbish (from all corners, I hasten to add). Long may this trend continue - and as ever, please restrict the personal insults to the Multistrada Forum, where they belong.
