[jr2]

Would be funny if the literal nazis and the muslims found agreement on a few issues and managed to make enough of a voting block to start getting candidates elected and started using the weakened state of freedom of expression (weakened to try and shut these very forces down) to start getting 'degenerate' art banned (etc).
I would laugh my ass off if that were to happen.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-ataturk-in-the-nazi-imagination-by-stefan-ihrig-and-islam-and-nazi-germanys-war-by-david-motadel-1421441724


(It's behind a paywall, can't find a copy that's not with a quick Google search)

[karajorma]

Would be funny if the literal nazis and the muslims found agreement on a few issues and managed to make enough of a voting block to start getting candidates elected and started using the weakened state of freedom of expression (weakened to try and shut these very forces down) to start getting 'degenerate' art banned (etc).
I would laugh my ass off if that were to happen.

I'd similarly laugh my arse off if Trump's rhetoric made all the Mexican immigrants band together with the native Americans to kick all the white people out of America.

Doesn't mean it's going to happen though.

[Bobboau]

Difference is any person can become a nazi or a muslim, whereas only indians and mexicans can be indians and mexicans.
But you know there IS a line of thinking that a Trump presidency will help foster a leftist revolution in the US that would be impossible while piecemeal trivial superficial changes are offered up.

[Grizzly]

Difference is any person can become a nazi or a muslim, whereas only indians and mexicans can be indians and mexicans.

The thing is, when people talk about "Importing muslim voters" they are often treated as members of this massive humongous culture that spans from Marroco to Pakistan with immutable beliefs. This is simply not true: Islam is not an organized religion, it is merely a succession of imams who all have different interpretations of what they preach.

And sure, anyone can become a muslim, but anyone can stop being muslim too, and the current stats point towards the latter happening more then the former: Currently, in the Netherlands, 500 people convert to Islam each year. This is not much in a country where 1% of the population becomes atheïst each year, and where whilst there were 944000 muslims in 2005, there were 825000 in 2012.

[666maslo666]

The thing is, when people talk about "Importing muslim voters" they are often treated as members of this massive humongous culture that spans from Marroco to Pakistan with immutable beliefs. This is simply not true: Islam is not an organized religion, it is merely a succession of imams who all have different interpretations of what they preach.

It is a very good approximation. Sure, there are more secular kinds of muslims, too, for example Turks, Balkan muslims, or maybe muslims from Lebanon or Iran. But you also do have this massive culture that spans from Morroco to Indonesia and is full of ultra-conservative types, from western point of view. Importing those is a clear mistake, if you value liberal values. And these ultraconservative countries of origin are prevalent in recent immigration waves.

And sure, anyone can become a muslim, but anyone can stop being muslim too, and the current stats point towards the latter happening more then the former: Currently, in the Netherlands, 500 people convert to Islam each year. This is not much in a country where 1% of the population becomes atheïst each year, and where whilst there were 944000 muslims in 2005, there were 825000 in 2012.

Source for your statistics? I believe Netherlands has relatively strict immigration policy as far as western European ones go, so your relative lack of a well developed muslim problem and even decreasing muslim population may be the result of that. Yet another evidence that strict immigration policy works. Also, Turks - according to my googling, whopping 38% of muslims in Netherlands are Turks. Those are the best kind of muslims. If you think that current Arab immigrant waves will integrate as good as Turkish muslims, then you are mistaken, IMHO. Similar thing holds for Germany, too.

[Mika]

Those asking what I said from China, go and live there yourself. You'll likely note the conform or get outta here pressure. Not going to Japan or Korea, why should they have done that? China itself has been a collection of several states warring against each other, so any attempt to overextend ones military force results in the neighboring state grabbing the formed vacuum. Unified, it's the Central State between the Earth and Heaven right there after all - and in reality has currently its hands full dealing with the internal pressures that are completely on a different scale compared to typical Western powers. Chinese perspective on China and expansion is something you'll have to realize yourself, and is radically different from Western cultures. They don't need to, and if they can affect or subvert things by other means opposed to projecting force, they'll take the other means.

Meanwhile, those asking whether there is bias in the media, check the current EU non-binding report on learning the EU on the school levels. The meat of this stuff is under the topic "Role of the member states". Interpreted in Finnish mindset, points 41, 43 and 44 seem specifically worrisome. It is still as if the EU does not realize that the immigrants themselves should be willing to integrate - not all of that is done by the member states. So I'd call this extending the EU brainwashing from the nowadays media to the school levels in future. Remains to be seen whether the teachers comply, though...

It's astonishing how little cultural differences are generally recognized even between the Western EU and Eastern EU states, and the interesting part here which I also demonstrated in practicum in this forum is the difference between the expressions. If you paid attention with a critical mind, the Eastern Europeans were not offended and responded in a completely different manner which was missed completely by Westerners (because you'd need to know the more frequent usage of dysphenisms) and likely interpreted as "they're all racists!" The result is actually nothing new to me, and it's not the first time I've done this - thank you EU for letting me try these things before in the dinner tables (with me getting labelled as the Northern Barbarian in the beginning, but ending up as the smartest and coolest dude of the bunch). And I confess I've been an evil person with the Chinese as well, giving them an impossible task and asking them to solve it in a short time, forcing them to say "I can't" or "No" for an important cultural lesson of the differences between the host country and the country of origin as they discover the "No" was the factually correct and expected answer all along. This is integration in the Finnish terms. Welcome.

I suspect that the EU is too late reacting to the refugee crisis, this will likely end with the Schengen treaty breaking apart this summer. Additionally, this kind of teaching will not be received well here at the moment at least as the EU time has not been particularly rosy to say the least, with most of the bad things that the critical were saying have happened, while few of the positive things predicted having actually happened. I think we'll see a similar pattern once again with the refugees.

And what it comes to more strict response from Eastern Europeans with respect to immigration, you'll really have to understand these countries have seen mass immigration before, and realized the difference between moderate muslim refugees and current refugees before the EU did. Because of the proximity of Russia, these countries also have to pull an extra duty of guarding themselves, and it is the extend of this guarding which is not understood by the Western EU states. The Nordic countries are somewhat different as well, the main reason for people getting angry here is the abuse of the social security provided to the refugees with little critical insight. No-one has been able to show any kind of advantage for letting illiterate people in to a high-tech profiled country to begin with, and people are asking what's the return of investment of their taxes already on the domestic terms. But hey, Finland has also got our first suicide bomber, so how's that for the cultural enrichment? Looking for more on Finnish take on terrorism, look no further than this stand up routine.

Interesting statistics have also popped up. The Finnish police says they are monitoring about 300 persons of the 30 000 refugees that arrived here (22 000 remain), while Europol is saying they are monitoring roughly 5 000 persons. The ratio doesn't match up, assuming similar distribution of extremists, Europol should be monitoring +12 000 persons as there were 1.2 million asylum seekers in 2015. Or then the Finnish police is too eager to react (historically though they are not). Or then our refugees are different from Central European. Which could be the case. Central Europeans report lots of Syrians, while we haven't seen many here.

[Scotty]

Mika you realize that Karajorma has lived in China (and may still live there?  I'm hazy on that part), right?

[jr2]

Mika you realize that Karajorma has lived in China (and may still live there?  I'm hazy on that part), right?

As an immigrant != foreigner working there.  A foreigner just happening to do business / live in China for a while isn't the same as someone who would be trying to make China their new home, as they don't like their old one.

[karajorma]

Yep. I do live there. I've been living 7 years in China with the last 2 in a part of China which wasn't a part of China a thousand years ago. It has an ethnic population which used to be exclusively Naxi and Tibetan and now has a rather large Han Chinese population.

Mika's wrong, NGTM-1R is spot on. The Chinese integrate other territories by sending in Han people until they outnumber the original locals. I see it every day and the only reason I didn't comment earlier was because NGTM-1R made the point so eloquently for me.

[666maslo666]

Mika's wrong, NGTM-1R is spot on. The Chinese integrate other territories by sending in Han people until they outnumber the original locals.

Sounds familiar, hmm...

[Scotty]

The combined population of both Syria and Iraq is (was) just over 55 million people.  Even assuming that all of them are Muslim (they aren't), that all of them would flee the country (they won't), and that they all go to Europe (they haven't), you get a maximum increase of.... 7%.

Seven.  ****ing.  Percent.  Of the population.

I really don't want to call you stupid, because you've demonstrated that you can actually have a conversation with someone, but your opinions and beliefs are pretty stupid sometimes.

China can force something like that because there are a billion and a half of them.  Even if the entire Muslim world descended on Europe in a fantastic orgy of right wing nightmare fuel, they would still be worse at it than China.

[karajorma]

The ethnic areas are also generally poorer. Which means that any Han Chinese moving there tends to do better than they would in their own home town. The lower cost of living ensures that whatever money they have goes further initially. (I actually did this two years ago. I moved from the rich east coast to the much poorer south west and took a job that gave me less money but ended up considerably better off).

This would not be the case with Muslims moving to the West. Unless they are fleeing a war zone, they'd probably break even at best. Those who actually owned property wouldn't be able to buy anything in the West with the money they got from selling it.

Basically beyond every other reason, it's just simply not sensible for most of the people in the Muslim world. 

Sounds familiar, hmm...

Yeah. It sounds like a plan on how to secularise Islam by getting Muslims to come to a Western country where they are outnumbered and slowly forced to accept other cultures and ways of thinking.

It doesn't sound like a way to take over the West cause only a moron could actually believe that would work.

[666maslo666]

The combined population of both Syria and Iraq is (was) just over 55 million people.  Even assuming that all of them are Muslim (they aren't), that all of them would flee the country (they won't), and that they all go to Europe (they haven't), you get a maximum increase of.... 7%.

You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area. There are such areas even now, and under your scenario they would get much bigger (perhaps no longer just some city blocks but whole cities). So for a lot of people the effective takeover would come much sooner than only when the global EU percentage crosses 50%. The process is continuous.
Such excuses that its just a few % of current population, its nothing etc.. are very common. Meanwhile, France went from 1% muslims to 10% muslims in one generation, and the rapid rise of the US hispanic population also speaks volumes about the ability of sustained mass immigration to change the demographic composition of a nation (even with political implications):
http://i.imgur.com/TbWz9bS.jpg

Also, the current mass immigration movement consists of many more nations than just Syrians and Iraqi. Current EU policy completely fails to deal with illegal migrants, so there is only a very small chance of deportation once someone manages to get in and disappear, no matter where they are from - you only need to succeed once. This creates a strong incentive for anyone to immigrate, not just genuine refugees but economic migrants too. Its not just Iraqis and Syrians and you know it. Rather you should use the population of the entire middle east and north Africa in your naive comparison. So what is that figure, 100-200% instead of 7%? And then you may as well double that number again because of birth rate differences.

[666maslo666]

Yeah. It sounds like a plan on how to secularise Islam by getting Muslims to come to a Western country where they are outnumbered and slowly forced to accept other cultures and ways of thinking.

It is a very risky plan because it is just as likely that you will islamize the secularism in the West. Such hazard with the future of western civilization is incredibly stupid, even if it could work. And I dont even see the point of having secular muslims in Europe rather than no muslims. Secularising muslims only has a point when it is done in middle east. So it is a pointless plan even if it could work.

Your and Scottys problem is that you dont take into account the long term time frame, and you have to if we are talking about demographic changes on the level of whole populations. Islamization will not happen in a decade or two, thats only enough to create a few ghettos here and there. But it is probable that if nothing changes about this immigration policy, then in a century or two from now the West will begin to resemble middle east, complete with the natives being outnumbered in significant areas. You wont even notice the transition, like a frog slowly boiling in water, but when historians a thousand years from now will discuss this period, they will probably call it "islamization of western Europe", in hindsight.

[The E]

It is a very risky plan because it is just as likely that you will islamize the secularism in the West. Such hazard with the future of western civilization is incredibly stupid, even if it could work. And I dont even see the point of having secular muslims in Europe rather than no muslims. Secularising muslims only has a point when it is done in middle east. So it is a pointless plan even if it could work.

So despite evidence that a good portion, if not the majority, of muslim immigrants become more secular over time, it is pointless to steer them that way. Good to know.

Also good to know that you do not want any muslims in Europe, I do wonder though what religions you do consider acceptable and why.

Your and Scottys problem is that you dont take into account the long term time frame, and you have to if we are talking about demographic changes on the level of whole populations. Islamization will not happen in a decade or two, thats only enough to create a few ghettos here and there. But it is probable that if nothing changes about this immigration policy, then in a century or two from now the West will begin to resemble middle east, complete with the natives being outnumbered in significant areas. You wont even notice the transition, like a frog slowly boiling in water, but when historians a thousand years from now will discuss this period, they will probably call it "islamization of western Europe", in hindsight.

And that would be bad because...? Look, culture is going to change over long timeframes. It's unavoidable, and if past precedent is anything to go by, we would almost uniformly be horrified at the changes no matter what stances we hold. So why do you think you're able to tell which change is going to be good a century from now? Are you a prophet?

[666maslo666]

So despite evidence that a good portion, if not the majority, of muslim immigrants become more secular over time, it is pointless to steer them that way. Good to know.

Also good to know that you do not want any muslims in Europe, I do wonder though what religions you do consider acceptable and why.

It is pointless because you will still have middle east to deal with so you arent actually solving the root of the problem. And a good portion secularising is not enough. Unless they almost all secularise, to match the native European population, you are making Europe less secular and thus it is a change for the worse.

Religions which have gone through comprehensive reformation, modernization and secularization are acceptable. Its not even islam specifically that is the problem, I would be just as opposed to those backwards subsaharan christians coming here. Which they dont, thankfully.

And there is some evidence that muslims do not become more secular over time. It is not clear that they do, as you seem to assume.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young-British-Muslims-getting-more-radical.html

And that would be bad because...? Look, culture is going to change over long timeframes. It's unavoidable, and if past precedent is anything to go by, we would almost uniformly be horrified at the changes no matter what stances we hold. So why do you think you're able to tell which change is going to be good a century from now? Are you a prophet?

It is bad because it will lead to regression in secularism, womens rights, LGBT rights, atheist rights, treatment of sexual minoroties, sectarian violence, you name it. And whats with this argument stemming from naive cultural relativism? Its like I am in philosophy 101, lol. Yes, I dare to have an actual opinion on the matter.. It will be a change for the worse, and I dont think I need to be a prophet (pbuh) to predict that. Sure, culture is probably going to change, but if it could change in a direction which I consider subjectively bad, then it would be dishonest and cowardly from me to keep quiet. After all, we all do play some small part in how future culture changes, so such apathy is unwarranted.

[NGTM-1R]

You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area.

If you think the existence of various Chinatowns, traditionally Jewish districts, Russian or Irish ethnic enclaves, etc. has had some kind of long-term political, legal, and moral effect in the history of America as a whole, I'd love to see you justify it. The only case where this kind of thing has done so has been with the South and former slaves having been ghettoized for a hundred years or more, and this had much to do with the fact they were majority.

Your argument here is defiant of reality, as demonstrated by historical precedent.

[666maslo666]

You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area.

If you think the existence of various Chinatowns, traditionally Jewish districts, Russian or Irish ethnic enclaves, etc. has had some kind of long-term political, legal, and moral effect in the history of America as a whole, I'd love to see you justify it. The only case where this kind of thing has done so has been with the South and former slaves having been ghettoized for a hundred years or more, and this had much to do with the fact they were majority.

Of course they had a long-term effect, are you saying they didnt? I am sure US would be pretty different now without all the various past migration waves influencing the demographic makeup of the country, especially when talking about the multicultural cities. What is there to justify? Thats just how it is.

[Grizzly]

Source for your statistics? I believe Netherlands has relatively strict immigration policy as far as western European ones go, so your relative lack of a well developed muslim problem and even decreasing muslim population may be the result of that. Yet another evidence that strict immigration policy works. Also, Turks - according to my googling, whopping 38% of muslims in Netherlands are Turks. Those are the best kind of muslims. If you think that current Arab immigrant waves will integrate as good as Turkish muslims, then you are mistaken, IMHO. Similar thing holds for Germany, too.

Stats are from our central bureau of statistics.

The Netherlands does not have a strict immigration policy, actually. The relative amounts of immigrants and their direct descendants (the dutch statistics bureau's definition of "Allochthon") have been raised from 17,7 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2015.  Despite these 'stricter immigration policies' (which are presumed to have started this millenium) it has not changed that the vast majority of population increase in our country is due to immigrants and their direct descendants.

I am very curious as to what you are basing your claims about turkish muslims integrating on.

[666maslo666]

Stats are from our central bureau of statistics.

The Netherlands does not have a strict immigration policy, actually. The relative amounts of immigrants and their direct descendants (the dutch statistics bureau's definition of "Allochthon") have been raised from 17,7 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2015.  Despite these 'stricter immigration policies' (which are presumed to have started this millenium) it has not changed that the vast majority of population increase in our country is due to immigrants and their direct descendants.

I am very curious as to what you are basing your claims about turkish muslims integrating on.

Stricter immigration policies when compared to other western European countries. I dont believe you could have actually decreasing, or stagnant, muslim population without having such policy. Compare with other western European countries where number of muslims is increasing. It doesnt mean you have no immigrants at all, just that you are more selective. Indeed, Netherlands thus serves as an example for other western European countries to tighten their immigration policy, too. From wiki:

In the past years the Netherlands passed immigration laws which force future immigrants and their prospective Dutch partners to abide by very strict requirements. Immigrants must pass tests showing knowledge of Dutch in their home countries. The Dutch partner must be at least 21 years old and prove an income of at least 120% minimum wage. These strict laws have caused Dutch interested in marrying people from other countries to move to Belgium for a temporary period, in what has been called "The Belgian Route".[7]

Because of increasingly restrictive legislation on family formation and reunification, and the economic development of their home countries, the number of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco has decreased sharply since 2003.[8] Immigrants from Turkey decreased from 6,703 in 2003 to 3,175 in 2006, and immigrants from Morocco decreased more than halved from 4,894 to 2,085.[9] Net immigration has slumped to a few hundred a year, and has even been negative in some years.

About turkish muslims:

Since 2007 a reduction of around 50.000 Muslims was measured by the CBS, but this is not seen as a significant drop; it is seen as a result of improved research parameters. Secularisation of the second generation has nonetheless been observed, mostly amongst citizens of Iranian and Turkish background.

As you can see, Turks and Iranians secularize more. Probably has to do with the secular heritage of Ataturk in Turkey and their relative proximity to European culture, IMHO. So be careful with comparing past immigration waves of mostly Turks with current Arab and Moroccan waves. Also, note that it says that your observed reduction in number of muslims may only be a research parameters artifact, not reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Netherlands