Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Martin Amis - "It's the demography, stupid"

This Johann Hari interview was picked up by Harry's Place, where David T's piece seems to have an oblique reference to yours truly. As the wires seem to be down between this blog and HP, it looks as if semaphore (or the megaphone) will be the only means of communication. It sure does look like Amis is wading deep into Laban territory - and it's making HP very uncomfortable. No sooner have they got over Amis remarks about giving Muslims a hard time (remarks with which I totally disagree, btw) than he starts quoting Mark Steyn :


Amis tells me Steyn is “a great sayer of the unsayable.” Muslims are indeed reproducing at a faster rate than the rest of us, he says, and they will eventually outbreed us and become a majority. “One of the mathematical beauties of democracy is that you can look at the figures and be pretty sure how it’s going to fall out,” he says. “It’s not PC, it’s so saturated in revulsions that people can’t go near it. [But] we should go near it... Just because of there have been horrible abuses based on this [way of thinking] doesn’t mean that it’s not worth considering, or that it’s so radioactive that you don’t dare go near it. That is the defeat of reason.”

I grimace. I loathe and detest Islamic fundamentalists just as much as Amis - but this is going way beyond criticism of Islamic fundamentalism. It presents each new Muslim child – a Salman Rushdie, or a Salman Rushdie-killer – as a problem. Amis concedes readily that Steyn “writes like a nutter” and is “a very unstable kind of mind,” but quickly adds, “you’ve got to be able to talk about race.” Is this a revealing Freudian slip? Does he mean culture?


It's culture, of course. But in the case of, say, Bangladesh and Pakistan, race is a reasonably proximate cypher for culture - just as 'white' and 'Christian' would have been pretty near interchangeable a hundred years ago.

Amis' slow recognition of facts which others would rather wish away is praiseworthy, given that he has enough money to live wherever he wishes - unlike some poor Brit in Thornton Heath or Rochdale. Just another small sign of change. It may well be that his ideas are completely acceptable among educated Brits of his generation in another 15 years or so - by which time, of course, it will probably be much too late to do anything about it.

Talking of Steyn, here's the man himself discussing multiculturalism. Talks as well as he writes.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talks as well as he writes.

And it's not like a "nutter".

Even though he's coming over to the dark side Amis obviously feels the need to sugar coat the pill, or at least coat the messenger in something foul. It's like with the Mohammed cartoons when discussed by some of the snootier types, "well of course they're ghastly but...".

Anonymous said...

Harry's joint is always worth a visit. The standard 'nawf London response - "its not like that here you provincial twerp" - is wearing thin, even among believers. Euston, you've got a problem!

"Its the demography, stupid" doesn't have to be the call of the BNP. They just got there first.

Bert Rustle said...

Anonymous wrote ... "Its the demography, stupid" doesn't have to be the call of the BNP. They just got there first. ... If they had not got there first, would anybody else have? The Establishment Party still promote Egalitarianism, whilst of course mostly living away from enrichment areas and educating their own children in private schools.

John B said...

Of course, Hari's article has the killer quote to the 'oh noes! Islamistan!' brigade I've never seen refuted other than by 'ooh, but Muslims are different from all other ethnic groups ever to immigrate anywhere, including other Muslims who came here in the past'-type sophistry.

"Today, around 3 percent of Europeans are Muslims, so it takes absurd arithmetic acrobatics to make them a majority this side of 2100, by which time it is far more likely Muslims will have assimilated to European birth-patterns."

Anyone? Bueller?

Bert Rustle said...

Laurence Auster has written quite a few posts regarding Mark Steyn, Melanie Philips etc. on how they discuss a problem and avoid drawing logical conclusions from the facts they present. For example Mark Steyn’s dishonest article on the European crisis

In my opinion, all of these commentators suffer from the same
Littlejohn Syndrome

A long but illuminating article. An excerpt:

... The Littlejohn Syndrome isn’t confined to journalists of a certain outlook. It’s just that the symptoms are more pronounced there than anywhere else. Political correctness has arrived at its logical conclusion - a parody of itself that only the wilfully blind fail to see. It defies common sense. Few want to be associated with it yet all must offer public support for the thinking that brought it about or suffer the consequences.

But although it’s become acceptable to criticise political correctness the establishment is working flat out to ensure that criticism of the equality idea remains strictly taboo. 21st Century Britain is founded on universal equality and the establishment has no choice but to defend it to the death.

The absurdities of pc are impossible to ignore because they intrude on every aspect of our lives. Even the establishment must acknowledge their existence and criticises their excess. Yet criticism of pc cannot help but lead to criticism of the equality cult. ...

Anonymous said...

It's not so much the "Muslim breeding" which is alarming, it's the indigenous suicide.

The average British born woman has 1.6 children, which means that the "indigenous" population will be half the size in two generations.

Someone's going to fill that gap, and it sure as hell can't be people from similar cultures with similar demographic malaises.

The most depressing thing about all of this is that NO mainstream political party or politician will acknowledge this as something that needs to be addressed, as something symptomatic of a deep social and cultural problem.

My critique of the far right on this matter is that they don't face it either, they can't see that what WE have done, and failed to do, is as much of the problem as the immigration.

Nobody's saying that the secular death cult was a bad, bad mistake, and we need to reject it if we want a future, because that implies holding ourselves culpable, and maybe acknowledging that the R.C. Church had a point fifty years ago, which is harder than blaming Mohammedans.

John B said...

I never thought I'd see an article bashing Mark Steyn for not hating the Muslims enough and Littlejohn for being too PC. I'm in awe, and possibly shock. Just, wow.

Oh, and I'm glad to know that our impending dhimmi doom is actually the fault of western women for their reluctance to become baby machines, rather than purely down to the rising savage horde.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I'm glad to know that our impending dhimmi doom is actually the fault of western women for their reluctance to become baby machines, rather than purely down to the rising savage horde.

If you can't see the problem of a population that can't, or won't sustain itself, you're an idiot.

I don't pretend that importing 7th Century people in droves is an idiotic idea, and my neighbourhood looks and feels more like Albania every day, but we wouldn't be here if we had sustained a positive family culture. Which, actually, I don't think an non religious society can do, because at the end of the day it comes down to God.

Anonymous said...

john b, I think we can point to four factors which will bring the tipping point closer.

1)Muslims have children at a higher than replacement rate.

2)British whites are having children at lower than replacement rate.

Those two factors alone are going to cause problems at some point but it gets worse...

3)Muslims continue to immigrate into the UK.

4)On average Muslims have their children earlier. eg Nice white professional middle class liberal lady has her first child at 36, while nice muslim welfare mother is having her fourth at 36 and looking forward to her first grandchild as well. They are not just having more sprogs, they are having more generations than us in the same space of time.

Anonymous said...

Kosovo’s Present Is Europe’s Future

''The battle for Kosovo was lost not in 2007 or in 1999, but a century ago, when the birthrate among its Albanian population vastly outpaced that of its Christians. The “revenge of the cradle” has ridden to power in Kosovo on the inexorable logic of one-man, one-vote. Or should we say, one womb, seven votes? […]''

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2995

Fasten your seatbelts we're in for a bumpy ride...

John B said...

"Nice white professional middle class liberal lady has her first child at 36, while nice muslim welfare mother is having her fourth at 36 and looking forward to her first grandchild as well."

Oooh, it's an exciting new stereotype - I thought the scummy taxpayer's-decent-earned-crust-stealing welfare mums were all white chain-smoking alcopop drinkers called Waynetta?

Anyway - the point being missed is that everywhere anyone's been observed, fertility rates in the second generation decline to those seen in the native population. Even for Muslims in Europe.

Anonymous said...

Laban, are you a blank slater?
Do you think 'all' of our behavioral traits are down to nurture and culture. Or just the majority? Or?


John B: your figures are simplistic, Muslims might only be 3% of Europe but the average age of the population is a lot younger, whereas an absolutely massive number of the 'whites' are over 40 and unlikely to be reproducing again.
It you take a deep look at the figures and include large scale immigration and include the estimiated number of illegal immigrants already here it doesn't take absurd arithmetic acrobatics at all.

You were probably saying the same thing about the absurd levels Eastern European immigration some people were forcasting but now we realise that the real figure was above even the wildest claims.

Anonymous said...

@ Hugh Oxford 4.43pm

"We wouldn't be here if we had sustained a positive family culture. Which, actually, I don't think an non religious society can do, because at the end of the day it comes down to God."

Right. The secular west has divorced sex from procreation and marriage. The egomaniac cult of the individual is the problem.

@ John B 7.04pm

"Fertility rates in the second generation decline to those seen in the native population. Even for Muslims in Europe."

Up to a point, the never-ending migration chain which involves British muslims marrying illiterate cousins from villages in Pakistan, Mirpur or Bangladesh prevents modernisation. The 7th century mentality remains and they continue to chuck out lots of Mohammeds and Aishas.

It goes without saying that white British women (not the Croydon facelift variety) do need to reproduce more, but can the rot from this very nihilistic culture be stopped? I've said it numerous times on this site, but the English are the architects of their own holocaust.

Laban said...

John - is that Mr Band ? - the US article shows that fertility declines, NOT that it declines to the level of the 'natives'. And given chain migration (i.e. you bring a relative over from the old country as spouse), there's always a large 'first generation' component - hence 22% of E&W births are to foreign-born mothers.

34 per cent of Muslims were aged under 16 in 2001, against 25 per cent of Sikhs, 21 per cent of Hindus and 18 per cent of Christians.

Keith Ajegbos 'British Lessons for English Children' report of 2006 stated : "It is estimated that in ten years time, 15% of the workforce will be Muslim."


Anyway, does this mean that the numbers DO matter after all ?

Tell you what. All the hideous right-wingers keep going to demographers who come up with - "natives outnumbered by 2037" type reports. If its all nagombi, why hasn't some nice lefty done the research and published it ? You have to assume they are uncomfortable about what they might find. Give Daniel Davies a bell and ask him to get the spreadsheets out !

Bert Rustle said...

Laban wrote ... hence 22% of E&W births are to foreign-born mothers. ... According to OFSTED approximately one quarter of primary school children in England are ethnic minority. According to recent UK statistics one quarter of births are now to foreign born mothers, which implies that rather more than a quarter are born to ethnic minority parents. However, what actually matters is the number of males of fighting age, around fifteen to thirty. I would hazard a guess that it is pushing 20% now and will approach 25% before the decade is out. Furthermore, though very few non-indigenous groups denounce and undermine their own members whilst promoting the indigenous groups, the reverse is not true. I would hazard a guess that as a cohesive group, indigenous fighting age males will be much less than 75%. Also, as the policing, reporting and prosecution of what is deemed racially motivated crime is biased against the indigenous population they appear to be holed beneath the waterline. At least in the USA, a balancing factor to this may be that in Los(t) Angeles there are a large number of inter-racial murders. As whites are typically not the perpetrators these murders receive very little coverage in the USA or the UK. For example

in Latino Gang Targets African-Americans for Murder .

See here for a partial list. Whites abandoned Los(t) Angeles some time ago and this process appears to be taking place in the UK as well now.

The people like Billy Brag, John Cruddas and so called “right-wing” columnists and their ilk in the Western world do not live with the results of their exhortations, they only make a living by them. Their collective behaviour is well described in The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail. For a very brief overview see here

Laban said...

Bert - haven't you got your own blog to put your stuff onto ? You're as pessimistic as Jeanette Winterson, who predicted 'civil war' recently in her home patch of Lancashire.

John B said...

@ Laban - yes, this is John Band. There's definitely scope for a "natives outnumbered or not" model, I'll add it to my "things to model" list.

"2% of E&W births are to foreign-born mothers. ... According to OFSTED approximately one quarter of primary school children in England are ethnic minority. According to recent UK statistics one quarter of births are now to foreign born mothers, which implies that rather more than a quarter are born to ethnic minority parents."

Bzz - wrong - most foreigners in the UK are white. Unless you think the Poles, Americans and French are going to join up with the Muslims to overthrow us, which is possible I suppose.

As whites are typically not the perpetrators these murders receive very little coverage in the USA or the UK. For example in Latino Gang Targets African-Americans for Murder

Vaguely amused that the best example you can come up with is non-whites killing other non-whites.

Anonymous said...

john b - "Bzz - wrong - most foreigners in the UK are white."

Yet somehow that percentage of non-whites in the UK just keeps going right on up and up. If you think thats not true then you are deluded. If you think it doesnt matter then you are advocating the genocide of the British peoples, men were hanged for that after the Nuremburg trials.

I wonder how many foreigners in the UK are white and from Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa?

Of course part of your project is the age old obfuscation between nationality and ethnicity. Well I for one am not buying that anymore. A 3rd generation white Aussie who turns up here tomorrow is automatically less foreign than an African muslim whose had a British passport for 30 years (and his parents before him).

Just because your government hands out documents to random foreigners doesnt mean jack in reality and deep down most people know it.

"Unless you think the Poles, Americans and French are going to join up with the Muslims to overthrow us, which is possible I suppose."

No, because that would be really stupid, why do you even bother saying it?