The End of the World as We Know It

As the subtitle indicates, in his first book author Steyn contends that the Western world is going to hell in a hand basket. The future, if there is to be one, lies with a conservative America.

Steyn sees three destructive forces at work.

1. Demographics.

2. The multicultural and social policies of the political left.

3. Muslim aggression.

Assuming their accuracy, Steyn’s demographics are hard to refute. The “replacement” fertility rate – the number of babies per women needed to maintain a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller is 2.1. The United States is just at the replacement rate with 2.11 births per woman. Ireland at 1.9, Australia at 1.7. Steyn’s (and my) home and native land Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3; Russia and Italy at 1.2; Spain at 1.1 – about half replacement rate. Therefore Spain’s population is halving every generation.

He states that a major contribution to this dismal forecast is the dependency of European countries and Canada on government social programs which are slowly bankrupting the population because of the high taxes required to finance them. Meanwhile, the native born population is aging and unable to sustain the financial burden alone. Furthermore, we’ve become so dependent on government “like a junkie on the state narcotic” that we no longer have the moral fibre to effect change.

Tax revenues required to support the growing number of elderly and retired have to come from an equal number of new young workers. The question is - where’s that workforce going to come from? The answer for Canada and most of Europe has been immigration. Islam is the principal supplier of new workers in Europe and the second biggest in Canada. Ironically, according to the UN the global fertility rate is currently around 1.85 eventually resulting in a total population decline. However, the fastest growing population on the planet at the moment is Muslim, giving them a numerical advantage at least for some time. Net result, according to Steyn – soon Europe and Canada will be overwhelmed by an ever-increasing number of young Muslim immigrants having little interest in Western values of freedom, democracy and secularism.

All this combined with the Muslim rampant desire (if you believe the American conservative element) to convert the infidels to Islam or impose the jizyah tax on those that refuse, leaves us with little hope. In fact, Steyn believes that Europe is already lost and Canada is half way to becoming Canuckistan.

America, on the other hand, a bastion of gun carrying independence and low taxes with a favourable fertility rate will be the saviour of Western culture. Hence the title of the book.

Nice try Mark, but it just ain’t so.

Steyn assumes that current conditions are permanent and no change is possible. In truth, conditions are changing very quickly. All European countries including the UK have introduced integration programs for their admittedly neglected Muslim populations as well as made sweeping changes to their immigration policy while maintaining human rights obligations. Among the changes, doors are being opened to educated and skilled immigrants from former east bloc countries such as Poland.

A recent poll conducted in the Netherlands indicated that 50% of the population is unhappy with the immigrant situation in that country. With that number of disgruntled voters it will not take long for politicians to enact further legislation. Already, the Dutch require potential immigrants to write an examination in their own country and expect them to be able to speak Dutch. Amusingly, would-be immigrants are shown a film featuring scenes of a nude woman and of two gay males kissing with the express message “If this offends you, don’t come.”

Steyn notes gleefully that Pakistan is the number two supplier of immigrants to Canada. Despite his pessimism Pakistanis are integrating well into Canadian society with very few problems. What he does not mention is the number one source of immigrants to Canada – China. Young Chinese immigrants, staunchly secular, have integrated seamlessly and are already well represented in business, industry and education.

Like a good conservative, Steyn wants to keep most of his earnings and prefers the low tax environment of the U.S. where a serious disease or accident means financial ruin for 47 million Americans and the infrastructure is crumbling as levees fail and bridges collapse.

Good luck.

So Mark, while I think your book's conclusions are faulty, I will defend to the death your right to publish it.

Well, maybe not to the death.

Canadian Muslims are using Canada’s democratic principles to further their own non-democratic agenda.

Responding to complaints by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and the British C0lumbia Human Rights Tribunal have launched proceedings against author Mark Steyn and Maclean’s Magazine over an excerpt from Steyn’s book “America Alone” which appeared in the magazine.

The “offending” article can be read here.

According to the CIC, the article was “flagrantly Islamophobic” and “subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt.”

Flagrantly Islamophobic? Based on demographic studies, the article forecasts a number of possible results - some of which have already begun to become apparent - of the declining world population of those with Western values while the same studies show that the Muslim population is skyrocketing.

“Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children."

That Islam has a non-democratic agenda is clear and has been expressed quite succinctly by many Muslim leaders including Libya's Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.

“There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

This is exactly Steyn’s contention.

As for "hatred and contempt," one has only to open a newspaper or turn on the television news to quickly realize that Muslims the world over are doing a superb job of bringing hatred and contempt upon themselsves. Nothing Steyn writes could make a more negative impression.

The problem lies not with Steyn or Maclean’s. The problem lies with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The mandate of the CHRC is not to prosecute hate crimes. It was originally set up to investigate complaints regarding infractions of laws regarding unfair employment and rental practices etc. based on race or colour. That the Commission sees the CIC’s complaint as having merit and has accepted it is absurd. Nonetheless, should they stupidly go through with the case and convict Steyn, the conviction will no doubt be overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada on appeal as a violation of section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Freedom of Expression.

Even the 1985 conviction of the infamous anti-Semite and holocaust denier Ernst Zundel for publishing “a statement or tale, namely, "Did Six Million Really Die?" that he knows is false and that is likely to cause mischief to the public interest in social and racial tolerance, contrary to the Criminal Code." was overturned by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Charter.

All this is not to say that we should ignore Steyn's situation. The use of hate and human rights laws to stop honest comment regarding any identifiable group is a perversion of the law’s intent. Protests regarding the CHRC action should be lodged in the strongest possible terms with the Prime Minister, Members of Parliament as well as the Human Rights Commission itself. Freedom of expression is too precious a right to ignore.