"Deomgraphics suggest that due to size of Muslim families there could well be a Muslim majority and therefore Sharia law here within our childrens lifetimes,"
How many children does your Daily Express tell you Muslims are having? Currently we've got under 2 million Muslims in a population of over 60 million. That's would be a groundbreaking demographic shift, even if it took place over 100 years.
Then there's the big assumption that most British Muslims would actually favour imposing Sharia law on non-Muslims if they had the choice.
And birth rate for non-british-born is about 2.5 ( I read this recently and can't remember the exact figure but it was more than 2 and defo less than 2.5)
compared to 1.7 for british born. I don't know what figure you'd get if you did the calculation by religion but I'd imagine it would be similar. Plus the middle class honky's birth rate is on the rise again ( plus the age at which women have kids is also coming down maybe thanks to the recent improvements in maternity leave and pay). So you'd have the muslims closing the population gap at less than 1% this generation about 1% the next generation about 1.2% the following...at that rate and using the figures Bukh gave it would take a lot longer than 100 years for the muslims to become the majority
I am sympathetic to your viewpoint Camilla ( and do believe that Ms Malik's extremism needed addressing in some way) but I don't think the mental health and
muslims-are-taking-over comments really help your case!
jude
"Cacoethes scribendi"
http://www.judesworld.net
I'm going for the highest estimated figure. Official statistics put the number of Muslims currently living in the UK at 1.5 million.
And the figures for those who actually practice Islam at all, let alone support universal sharia law, will be lower.
The difference between jihadi snuff and kiddy porn is fairly obvious. The viewers pay for kiddy porn, thus driving it's productions (likeable to the readership of tabloids driving the need for paparazi to chase cars through paris).
Jihadi snuff works in the opposite direction, it is produced by the nutcases in order to advertise themselves and hopefully turn others to their cause. I don't think people ought to watch it, but they are not driving it's production by doing so. Or, at least, not to anything like the same level of culpability.
Just checked my stats. Birth rates are 1.7 for british born, 2.2 for non-british born and 4.7 for pakistani born which is probably the sort of figure being used to invoke hysteria!
But even assuming that all of these were practicing muslims, I still don't think it would mean a muslim majority within 100 years. But don't quote me on that. It is a long convoluted calculation that I haven't got time to do right now but will get around to it!
jude
"Cacoethes scribendi"
http://www.judesworld.net
Ignoring "my hysteria" check out "youth bulge theory" as it is driving a lot of USA foreign policy.It is the demographic theory of war currently in vogue obviously it is multifactetted.If there is a bulge on the population pyramid of young men 15 to 29 the society becomes aggressive.Of 67 countries in the world where this is the case 60 are at war or having civil unrest genocide etc.It works in all mammalian societies.If young males cannot find a place they maraud.Afghanistan has 6 births per woman Palestine about the same.One of the things it says is that terrorism is just violence hangin its hat on religion as an explanation for violence that just exists.If there are too many sons to inherit their parents position /land /herds what are they to do. It is also about having to delay adult sex life family because of lack of status.
And of course there are societies that value males over females thus increasing the bulge.India china.
what do you do if this actually makes sense?that terrorism is just violence due to demographic factors and there is no rationale other than too much testosterone with nowhere to go and a guiding of it by political masters with their own axes to grind.
And just watching something does drive its production money or not.
I would sooner eat my own feet than give credence to a theory important in the formation of US foreign policy. If you have not noticed by now that the makers of American foreign policy have their heads rammed firmly up their own backsides then I guess you never will.
This idea is such unmitigated cobblers I don't even know where to begin criticising it. In the first place other mammals do not have societies - except that is in Walt Disney films; secondly for you to suggest that young males who cannot 'find a place' go marauding is sexist bullshit. Thirdly there are very good historical reasons for the rise of terrorism wherever it is found and before accepting half-baked half-arsed demographic theories one must at least consider the perfectly well documented explanations for example the state of Afghanistan.
Listen Camilla, this is the way it works: of course American foreign policy-makers will tend to fall back on theories which do not focus on the entirely detrimental and destructive role that US foreign policy has played in the world for more than 200 years; almost any idea will be more acceptable than "Oh well, here's the truth guys: our much-vaunted Republic has screwed things up on every continent to serve the venal interests of our ruling elite and now it's time to reap the whirlwind."
Finally, why do you find it acceptable to come on here and give space to ill-founded theories about an entire gender and its hormones when I can only imagine the storm that would ensue if someone dared (quite inappropriately of course) to air anti-semitic ideas, racist garbage or, heaven forbid, to aver that actually all the world's problems are due to women being irrational for three days a month or not raising their sons to be sensitive individuals?
I'm just off to test my testosterone levels; I only feel like half a man now that I realise that I haven't gone a viking for a very long time.
Firstly surely it is wise to know about what informs USA policy whether or not one feels it has any merit. You might like to look it up carefully before dismissing it out of hand Secondly of course mammals have societies and hierarchies seen any nature programs at all ever?
If it doesn't bother you that there are a lot of countries with huge swathes of rootless young men with no other means of support but migration or war wake up and smell the coffee.It isn't their fault K
but they are there with no way of proceeding to adult life.The fact that you dont like it as an idea doesnt make it untrue.Makes it hard to know what to do though doesnt it? All our thinking and chattering wont improve their lot or decrease the risk they pose.It would be interesting to know about what happens in the 7 youth bulge countries( as opposed to the 60) that have not proceeded to war civil unrest/genocide.My guess would be that they are more developed and can therefore provide opportunities for work agrarian societies can't.
Heres an idea that will cause spluttering how about polyandry as a solution.There are poor agrarian societies in the Peruvian Andes that manage like this.Can you imagine the screaming if anyone suggested this to the youth bulge societies who are Abrahamic.Makes sense though.
Polyandry doesn't make me splutter, but I shan't be applying for the position as one of your junior husbands! ;-)
Camilla, I do understand the roots of American foreign policy very well and this is not the first cock-and-bull theory to emerge from Washington think tanks, the Pentagon or Foggy Bottom.
I have seen a great deal of nature programmes and I remain entirely unconvinced by the anthropomorphic portrayal of what other mammals do. What we see in other mammal species is not the functioning of societies as we know them as human beings, and the so-called hierarchies of the animal kingdom (sic!) are not by any means comparable with the hierarchical systems which have developed in human history. We are reasoning creatures, unique and with the capacity to free ourselves from our biology at every turn in our long lives. We are not baboons to be studied from the bushes and given names by primatologists.
It does bother me that there are millions of rootless people in the world, but to focus on the plight of young men as a source of violence is naive. The rootlessness of millions is a symptom first of deeper phenomena and here is the heart of my argument: policy-makers will perform all kinds of contortions to avoid coming to conclusions which must condemn the actions, past and present of their own polities. It is not viable policy-making for elites to say that everything must change, the present system must be dismantled and the fundamental injustices addressed. No, it is easier to say that, for example Israel is a democracy and the real problem with the Palestinians is that they are too many young men in Gaza.
I would also like to remind you that traditional agrarian societies did not tend to be violent places although I believe that normally slightly more boys are born than girls. I urge you to seek for yourself the origins of social breakdown and civil strife, not in demography but in oppression, injustice, exploitation, intolerance and imperialism.
I will not admit that in the absence of all of these obstacles to human hope a society with large numbers of young men would necessarily be a terribly violent place and in fact, you admit as much yourself in your comments about developed countries.
Here is something for you to splutter over perhaps: women are just as capable of atrocity and violence as men; women have driven as much violence in the course of human history as men; ordinarily men do not revel in violence or marauding. If you do not believe me consider two notions: firstly the evidence suggests that in ancient battles most men were very reluctant to commit themselves to all-out attack and a minority of men drove the killing spree onwards; secondly I think you'll find that from Spartan mothers telling their sons to come back dead on their shields rather than without them, to sweethearts sending white feathers, the tale of those of us with rather less testosterone is not one of unalloyed pacifism and good sense.
I know she said soothingly it is far far too much like common sense . Based on science and observation, and for K I fear the worst possible aspect of youth bulge theory it doesnt involve politcs.It isnt morally loaded at all just inconvenient facts.
Show me a society where the preponderance of violence is perpetrated by women or ever has been. Kings used to be sacrificed in matriarchal cultures but hey that is a wee while ago .The vast majority of crime is perpetrated by young men,war is perpetrated by young men This is actually not a moral or point scoring point but speaks to my original one.We are made the way we are made.There are biological neccesities for food and the carrying on of genes.Young men without outlets to fulfill these vital needs have to do something and are wired to do it. Qualities that are helpful in ordiinary circumstances are not when there are no outlets to fulfill them.Since we cant elect to evolve more quickly perhaps we have to adjust the social structures we have to allow a peaceful resolution.Why has polyandry never been mentioned? I rather think that some miserable young Chinese men might prefer it to as life of poverty without any hope of home and family.In places other than China they are sure culling each other with vigour and each others friends and relations.
Camilla, if we are to move beyond this rather seasonal "oh no it isn't. Oh yes it is!" then we will have to take a step towards one another's positions.
I too believe that social structures must change (although I do not see polyandry as an ideal solution), it is just that I believe that the youth bulge theory is a distraction from understanding powerful underlying causes.
Terrorism and civil strife have historical roots which do not mainly have to do with demographics, but rather with real grievances, real injustices and real needs. Now it is true that men can be violent; this violence though does not spring fully formed into the world but is born of a social and economic matrix which, like it or not, includes women who can and do solicit, support and encourage violence. I believe this thread began with an example of just such a woman.
We can elect to alter our behaviour, we are not slaves to evolution. The question you have raised centres on the importance of a preponderance of young men in some strife-torn societies. I ask you to address yourself now to the question of whether trying to put a sticking plaster on this problem would actually help to ease the underlying causes of social crises in these places, or whether in fact finding solutions to the underlying problems would ease whatever difficulties are caused by the youth bulge.
If the architects of American foreign policy looked instead at the historical roots of violent Islamic fundamentalism, including the central role of their own nation, I think they would be much more likely to come up with sensible ideas for progress around the world.
I say again, demography is a symptom not a cause; it may be that demographic imbalance brings in its wake other problems, but let us by all means look to the lessons of history, the influence of social and economic developments before we resort to the favourite explanation of the misanthropic right.
'We are reasoning creatures, unique and with the capacity to free ourselves from our biology at every turn in our long lives. We are not baboons to be studied from the bushes and given names by primatologists'
'We can elect to alter our behaviour, we are not slaves to evolution'
Yes i do agree that we do have option and chose over our actions.
But in my opinion, aggressive traits in the animal kingdoms, is firstly inherent of our genetic coding and secondly societally informed.
We are born with the capacity for aggression (-:
I'm thinking that as there's apparently too many young men in Afghanistan and Palestine, and far too few in Russia, it might be a good idea for loads of Palestinian blokes to emigrate to Russia.
What could possibly go wrong?
K I cant see that the USA breast beating and saying oh its all our fault and please do have have all our wealth is likely to happen is it.They would be letting down their people if they did and it wouldnt make anything better.People have tried communism it all went rather grey totalitarian and nasty.I know we disagree about innate aggression but it is current thinking in all psychology and bio science.It is necessary for us to live.
If one admits the youth bulge theory at all what is to be done? All the extra Chinese blokes emmigrating to Russia along with all the extra Afghanis , Palestinians,and extra blokes from all 67 youth bulge countries.Strikes me that we have all accepted the dictats of all the Abrahamic religions and organized ourselves according to them .Perhaps it is no longer in our human interests to live as they tell us and we should consider communal living and more varied ways of relating.
Not enough men in Russia well I already know men who have been Olgaed.What do you call a young beautiful woman with a liking for wealthy old men "an OAPaedephile "(from Rogers Profanasaurus) Gawd poor tubby Bridget Jones wont stand a chance sense of humour or not.
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