The Redhunter

... Since then, the security services have reached alarming conclusions about the number of young British Muslims who have been radicalised and their potential to become terrorists. Increasingly, ministers believe that the willingness of successive governments to tolerate and, in some ways, encourage the separateness of Muslim communities in the name of multiculturalism has been a colossal error.

The result is that the government has started to ask itself some profound questions. How far is a liberal society obliged to go in defending attitudes and behaviour that are hostile to it? Is it reasonable to demand that members of all minority communities integrate, at least to some degree, with the majority?

This has traditionally been difficult territory for many on the left. Partly it is lingering colonial guilt, but mainly it is because the left is uneasy with notions that appear to claim superiority for majority cultural norms or which confuse the duties of citizenship with loyalty to the symbols of nationalism. In the search for a fairer society, the concept of national identity seemed either irrelevant or unhelpful.
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Ms Kelly has made a stab at defining “non-negotiable” British values—respect for the law, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, respect for others and responsibility towards others—that every citizen must sign up to. Steps are also under way to introduce an inclusive, narrative account of British history to be taught in schools as part of compulsory citizenship classes.

Both are doubtless worthwhile. But it may be beyond the exhortations of worried, well-meaning politicians to revive an idea of British national citizenship that is relevant and powerful enough to do what is needed. Unless Mr Blair's debate takes place where it matters most, within the Muslim communities themselves, it is likely only to deepen existing prejudices.

The good news, then, is that some in Britain have at least partially woken up to the danger. They have finally realized that their politicies have created what the French security officials once mockingly called "Londonistan".

Tony Blair and his New Labor partisans have been doing their best to "abolish Britain", as Peter Hitchens called it. It is going to be very difficult to reverse the trend.

Thomas Sowell says that the problem in Europe is that they've been insulated from the "reality of the international jungle" for too long, being allowed to live under American protection. Not being responsible for their own defense, they've grown soft. As a result, they "indulge themselves in illusions about brutal realities and dangers." The result, he says, is that Europe is "going quietly". He asks

How can a generation be expected to fight for the survival of a culture or a civilization that has been trashed in its own institutions, taught to tolerate even the intolerance of other cultures brought into its own midst, and conditioned to regard any instinct to fight for its own survival as being a "cowboy"?

Western nations that show any signs of standing up for self-preservation are rare exceptions. The United States and Israel are the only Western nations which have no choice but to rely on self-defense — and both are demonized, not only by our enemies but also by many in other Western nations.

Australia recently told its Muslim population that, if they want to live under Islamic law, then they should leave Australia. That makes three Western nations that have not yet completely succumbed to the corrosive and suicidal trends of our times.

If and when we all succumb, will the epitaph of Western civilization say that we had the power to annihilate our enemies but were so paralyzed by confusion that we ended up being annihilated ourselves?

As usual, Sowell has it just about right.

Heading For The Exits

In the face of all this some native Europeans have decided to call it quits and get out. Rob Liddle, writiing in The Spectator, says that

Apparently almost a million British citizens have left the country since 2000, to live somewhere else. Last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, 380,000 people left Britain, of whom about 200,000 were British citizens. At the same time, though, 565,000 immigrants arrived in Britain, the overwhelming majority from the Indian subcontinent (largely Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Der Spiegel reports that Germans are leaving their country as well.

They are fed up, truly fed up. Fed up with the constant bickering over the costs of wage benefits, social reforms, elimination of subsidies, store closing hours and all the other symbols of a country stuck in bureaucratic and legislative gridlock.

They are tired of living in country where landing a job is like playing the lottery, a country where not even half of citizens live from gainful employment and a country in which even academics in their mid-40s are already considered problem cases when it comes to job placement. In other words, they are fed up with living in a country where all opportunities already seem to be taken: opportunities to succeed in one's career, to own property and to achieve prosperity.
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Rarely have so many Germans decided to leave it all behind -- their houses and properties, parents and aunts, friends and co-workers. According to the German Federal Office of Statistics, 144,815 Germans left the country last year, a jump of almost 25 percent over 2002. At the same time, fewer and fewer Germans are returning from abroad. The most recent figure is 128,052. For the first time in a generation, more Germans are emigrating than returning. And these are only the official figures.

There are probably just as many who move away without bothering to notify officials in their local municipalities.

Worse, those who are leaving are young, well-educated, and highly skilled. They are just the sort of people that a country can most ill-afford to lose, and whose departure will have the greatest economic impact.

Emigration in and of itself need not be a death knell. After all, Europe lost millions in the 19th century and early 20th. But back then the birthrate was high, and they were able to make it up. Today, birthrates in Western Europe are at 1.5 live births per woman and declining. To maintain a population at a given level, 2.1 live births per woman is required.

To be sure, many of these German emigrants are staying in Europe, so it's not all a net European loss. But overall the population in Germany, like that of the rest of Europe, is declining.

It is ironic that not too long ago schoolchildren were warned that overpopulation was one the world's biggest problems. The issue, of course, is that back when such warnings were a staple of public education, no one thought of the problems of funding old-age retirement. It just seemed a given that there would be enough taxable income-earners around to pay for the ever-increasing benefits packages politicians were voting into place.

Today we know better. The United States will face a financial crisis when the baby boomers reach retirement. The situation in Europe will be much worse, since they have more benefits in place, higher unemployment, and fewer young people.

Add to this in increasingly assertive Muslim population, and you've got a future that doesn't look so good.