YNET NEWS: Op-ed: As Muslim population mushrooms, we may be seeing last days of Europe as we know it
We are living through the self-extinction of the European civilization that shaped the age we live in. In his new bestselling book “Civilization,” renowned Harvard historian Niall Ferguson writes: “If the Muslim population of the UK were to continue growing at an annual rate of 6.7% (as it did between 2004 and 2008,) its share of the total UK population would rise from just under 4% in 2008 to 8% in 2020, to 15% in 2030 and to 28% in 2040, finally passing 50%in 2050.”
Ferguson is not alone in using the term “Eurabia” to describe an Islamicized, senescent European continent. Historian Bat Ye'or spent her career studying the phenomenon and Professor Bernard Lewis told German daily Die Welt that “Europe will have Muslim majorities at the latest by the end of the 21st Century.”
The global number of Muslims is expected to jump by 35% in the next 20 years, growing twice as fast as the non-Muslim population, according not to these “Eurabia mongers,” but to the famous US Pew Forum, which published projections Muslim population growth between 2010 and 2030.
The most frightening figures are in Europe. Some of the biggest increases in Europe’s Muslim population in absolute numbers over the next 20 years are expected to occur in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany. The Muslim populations in Italy and Sweden are projected to “more than double in size.” Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, warned about Italy’s “slow demographic suicide” and Italian Father Piero Gheddo, a doyen of Vatican’s missionaries, warned that "Europe will be dominated by Islam in the space of a few generations."
A low European fertility rate, massive immigration from Muslim countries and a confident Islamist minority are turning the cradle of Western civilization into its grave. As historian Walter Laqueur has warned, these are “the last days of Europe.” Losing precious gifts » | Giulio Meotti* | Monday, May 02, 2011
*Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism
