Doug Saunders summarizes his latest book The Myth of the Muslim Tide in a Huffington Post article, 10 Myths about Muslims in the West. It is a game that Saunders play with himself, throwing up the ball and smashing it to the ground. Saunders is the European chief of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s second biggest newspaper, and has received the National Newspaper Award — the Canadian counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize — four times.
Saunders’ prime message to us infidels is: “Don’t worry, Islam and Muslim immigration is not a problem.” However, whoever claims that Muslim immigration is not a danger to the West — and that Muslim immigration should continue — should really worry, as they take upon themselves a historical responsibility. Because what if they are wrong? Then they have inadvertently been an agent for those who openly wish us and our societies pain and destruction.
So should we worry? Let’s take a closer look at Saunders’ arguments against the following statements, that he claims are untrue:
1: “Muslims have a higher birth rate than other religions, and will take over the world by population”
Well, Muslims have already taken over thousands of neighborhoods in thousands of Western towns and cities. Saunders should go and interview the locals there or, better still, he should move in to those neighborhoods himself, and then try to convince his neighbors not to worry.
Don’t worry, and just ignore the skyrocketing number of rapes, robberies, shootings, car-b-ques and random violence against non-Muslims that routinely happen? Don’t worry that the police can no longer uphold the rule of law and that fire departments cannot operate safely in the area?
Don’t worry that your kids are openly mocked in school for being non-Muslim, for not fasting during Ramadan, or for having pork in their lunch. Don’t worry that welfare services are cut due to Muslim immigrants’ lack of motivation and ability to earn a living in our civilized, high-tech societies. And if you are Jewish and like to publicly wear your kippah, don’t worry at all.
The world’s Muslim population will grow twice as fast as non-Muslims over the next 20 years. By 2030, Muslims will make up more than a quarter of the global population, with this number likely to grow to almost 40% by 2100.
According to 2012 UN estimates, as outlined in WorldPopulation Prospects: the 2012 Revision, produced by the UN Secretariat, the overall population of Muslim-dominated Africa is expected to balloon from 1,031 million in 2010 (14.9% of the global human population) to 4,185 million (38.6% of the global human population), easily outpacing growth in all other regions. Immigration pressure from Africa against Europe’s borders is higher than ever, and increasing, as up to one hundred thousand people illegally enter the EU yearly.
Moreover, the fact and the problem is that you don’t need a majority of Muslims to destroy a country. Just take a look at the Central African Republic. In December 2012, the Muslim minority of just 15 percent decided to rebel against their Christian-dominated government, and through extreme violence and terror, the Muslim rebels managed to overtake the government in just three months!
2: “Immigrants from Muslim countries are going to swamp us”
Saunders does not think so, but I say it depends on how you define “swamp,” and in which country you live.
The Muslim population in Europe stood at 44 million in 2010 and is expected to increase to 58 million by 2030, according to the PewForum, due to immigration and higher birth rates.
If you live in a European ghetto (which I assume that Mr. Saunders does not) or in Kashmir, the chance of your feeling swamped and unsafe is probably very high. No need to mention that the now Muslim-only Middle East and North Africa was once Muslim-free, or how that came to be…
3: “Muslims will become a majority in European countries”
Saunders does not think so, but what’s the point anyway, if you don’t need a Muslim majority to destroy a country?
Most Europeans are failing to have enough children to stave off a decline in population growth, while birth rates are indeed higher among the Muslim immigrant populations, which will lead to a significant rise in the proportion of Muslims within European communities.
With the European Commission considering the possible accession of 99% Muslim Turkey into the EU, the demographics of Europe could radically alter if 74 million Muslim Turks are permitted to freely take up residence anywhere in Europe. Already now, the EU is about to allow visa-free entry from the United Arab Emirates, and is negotiating visa-free entry from Turkey.
The fact is that many large areas in Europe are already well on their way to having a Muslim majority, which makes landslide victories for Islamic parties in regional governments very likely, if not certain. Muslims’ tendency to move together, combined with so-called white flight (read: infidels on the run) and the increased possibility of working online away from the city, will speed up this process of repeating Islam’s imperialist history.
Already now, Muslim votes — they tend to vote for parties that offer high social benefits — were the determining factor that ensured that Socialists won elections in France and Denmark.
4: “Muslims will become a dominant group of cultural outsiders in the United States”
Saunders does not think so, but what if Muslim outsiders are able to determine important decisions in the government? The Obama administration’s pro-Islamic policy, his support of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his order not to mention Islam or Islam-related words in government reports on Qur’an-inspired Islamic terrorism clearly show that Islam and Islamist tactics are dominating certain areas of United States policy.
Should Saunders ever see the inside of a prison, he will discover the most Muslim-dominated place in the US. Here Saunders can talk to the many non-Muslim inmates who converted to Islam to avoid assaults from their Muslim inmates. 17-20 percent of prisoners in New York are Muslims, an astonishing 2000 percent over-representation compared to the overall percentage of Muslims in the US.
5: “Muslim immigrants in the West hold the same backward views that Muslims do in the Middle East and Pakistan”
Saunders don’t think so, but how about asking the Muslims themselves? A large survey of 9000 Muslims living in Europe concluded that 65 percent of Muslims on the continent think that the Sharia is more important than democratic laws; 75 percent think that the Qur’an must be taken literally, and that all Muslims are obligated to follow the Qur’an. 58 percent think that Muslims should be even more fundamentalist.
If you read the Qur’an, including its orders for men to beat disobedient wives and “kill the infidels wherever you find them,” (2:191; 4:89; 9:5) you will realize just how daunting these numbers are.
The share of extremists in Muslim countries is already high, but the fact that a vast majority, not a “tiny minority,” of Muslims are extremists in the West is shocking, and whoever buries this fact in feel-good talk is putting non-Muslims and our societies in real danger.
6: “Muslims in America are more loyal to their faith than their country”
Saunders agrees, but does not see this as a problem, since the same share of Christians — about half from both religions — also see themselves as “Christian first and American second.”
What Saunders (and many others) omits from his analysis is that, while it is not a problem that half of the population in a Christian culture see themselves as primarily Christian, it is a major problem that Muslims are more loyal to their religion, which on so many levels is inconsistent with and often antagonistic to Christianity and human rights in general, especially when it comes to the rights of women, religious and sexual minorities, apostasy, non-Muslims and religiously-motivated violence.
For that same reason, we experience a constant pressure to adapt to the Sharia, and the list of things that have already been changed to accommodate Islamic law is long and constantly growing.
7: “Poor Muslims are flooding out of overpopulated countries into the West”
Saunders gets around this one by claiming that the countries that Muslim immigrants come from are not “overpopulated.” This is a ridiculous assertion, and it is obvious that Saunders’ play with words is intended to avoid having an honest take on reality (in internet terms, this is called “trolling”).
The fact is that poor Muslims are flooding the West.
According to a 2009 article by Richard Kerbaj in the UK’s Sunday Times, the UK Muslim population increased roughly ten times faster than the rest of the population between 2001 and 2009.
This is influencing cultural values and the social fabric of Europe heavily, and has put our welfare system under unbearable pressure.
8: “Muslim immigrants are angry at the society around them”
Saunders is completely wrong on this one. In fact, he is not quoting the “Islamonausics,” but his own segment. The claim that Muslim immigrants are angry with society is used again and again by the politically correct as an argument to change society to appease the angry Muslims.
The real cause of Muslims’ aggression is Islam. The fact is that Islam is the only religion in the world in which people become more aggressive and violent the more religious they are. Muslims are angry because Islam incites them to hate and harm infidels, and because their scriptures depict non-Muslims in such hateful terms that it violates every law on hate speech and racism.
9: “Muslims in the West cheer for terrorist violence”
The Brookings Institution sums up the commonly held viewpoint among many Muslims in the US as: “be nice to your non-Muslim neighbors and co-workers, pursue your careers in medicine and engineering, and send your children to American universities, as long as you stick close to your mosques and schools, and make sure your daughter marries a good Muslim.”
The fact is that Islam literally promotes violence and terrorism, and that no leading Muslim has ever dared to disregard the words of Allah or declare the words of the prophet as imperfect. Thus, the Qur’an’s and the Hadith’s orders to suppress, harm and kill non-Muslims remain uncontradicted. No surprise that the Million Muslim March on September 11, 2013 held to promote Islam as peaceful only attracted 25 Muslim demonstrators.
As the Muslim Mudar Zahran recently wrote: “If you look at the London Tube Bombing of 7/7; the Madrid Train Bombing; two attacks on the World Trade Center; the murders of Lee Rigby, Theo Van Gogh, Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Ilan Halimi, and countless other attacks and threats, how can we honestly expect people not to be ‘Islamophobic’? It would appear we have no one to blame but ourselves.”
10: “Muslims have become so populous that the most common baby name in Britain is now Mohammed”
Agreed. Variants of the highly popular Muslim name “Mohammed” are more popular than any other name given to male babies in the UK. But Saunders does not think it is a problem that Muslim parents prefer to name their boy after a bloodthirsty, world ruler-wanna-be, Jew-hating mass murderer.
mortimer says
Like the three monkeys, Saunders ‘sees no supremacism’, ‘hears no supremacism’, and ‘speaks no supremacism’. Perhaps Saunders would simply take 5 minutes to inform himself by watching the following videos of Muslims speaking to one another in private, rather than to outsiders:
Small minority of extremists or MAJORITY?…jihadist demonstrates the majority supports jihad, segregation…rejects word ‘extreme’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?=bV710c1dgpU&feature=player_embedded#t=257
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-or-islamophobia2
Video – Sharia is supposedly ‘moderate’ to this group, not ‘extremist’
mariam rove says
Fact # 11 and not a myth is that Saunders is another clueless dhimmi hell bent to destroy the western culture. M
Buraq says
@ Doug Saunders
You can fool some of the people all of the time, ….etc
The man’s a clown! A five-star clown!
David, Thailand says
Muslims and their equally hate filled Leftist apologists have demonstrated time and again that you CAN fool most of the people all of the time.
Stephen says
Thanks Robert. I read the book and was completely unpersuaded by it. Your response is a welcome antidote to his mewling crap.
Robert Spencer says
Thanks, Stephen. Nicolai Sennels wrote this.
mariam rove says
Then my sincerer thank to Nicolai and of course you for keeping up the fight. M
kikorikid says
Robert S., Matters naught how others describe you,
Your, Pamellas, Bridgets, Geerts, et al…work is Heroic and
more timely than most realize. In this dialogue it is being posited
that the Quran does not,explicitly, state that Islam is to
be carried to all peoples. ?. Does not S. Qubt call for “True Islam”
to be carried to all Jahlil in “Milestones”.
voegelinian says
Interesting that neither Saunders nor Spencer directly advert to the most important problem Muslims bring in their train — terror attacks. It is indirectly alluded to by Spencer in #3 in the ability for Muslims to destroy a country with less than a majority demographic (and even less directly alluded to in # 9 — “Muslims cheer for terrorism”); where it really should be the main focus of the entire dispute.
mariam rove says
what do you mean that Mr. Spencer missing the terrorism issues? This whole site is dedicated to Muslim terrorism. M
voegelinian says
Ah, my bad; it was Sennels.
voegelinian says
My points still stand. And Sennels is part of the Counter-Jihad.
RodSerling says
voeg,
“My points still stand.”
No they don’t. Direct mention of Islamic terrorist attacks in Sennels’ article:
“Moreover, the fact and the problem is that you don’t need a majority of Muslims to destroy a country. Just take a look at the Central African Republic. In December 2012, the Muslim minority of just 15 percent decided to rebel against their Christian-dominated government, and through extreme violence and terror, the Muslim rebels managed to overtake the government in just three months!”
“The fact is that Islam literally promotes violence and terrorism […]
As the Muslim Mudar Zahran recently wrote: “If you look at the London Tube Bombing of 7/7; the Madrid Train Bombing; two attacks on the World Trade Center; the murders of Lee Rigby, Theo Van Gogh, Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Ilan Halimi, and countless other attacks and threats, how can we honestly expect people not to be ‘Islamophobic’? It would appear we have no one to blame but ourselves.””
voegelinian says
To Rod Serling,
My mistake. I didn’t read the article carefully enough.
Bradamante says
Excellent rebuttal. I wonder if Saunders would have written “The 10 Myths about Naziism” back in 1932. After all, the Nazis represent only a fraction of the population, many Nazis just want to build a better Germany, not kill anyone…
ibn Muslim says
Spencer, what am I supposed to say… Become a Muslim, or you will be on the side of losers. Once you become a Muslim, you can be at peace that Allah is on the side of believers. Instead of fearmongering, you will be cheering the advancement of Islamic civilization.
Spencer, marry a Muslimah or two, and you will start to really appreciate the beauty of Islam. Allah has perfected religion, even for Mr Spencer 🙂
eib says
Islam is profane.
Mohammed is a false prophet.
You live for now, but you will die over and over again in hell.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Salvation comes from the Jews, not from the Arabs.
Indeed, salvation in Islam is slavery and damnation.
I have a savior.
You have a prophet.
You are doomed.
You stand on a bridge that is already BURNING.
ibn Muslim says
Jesus was also a prophet of Islam, as were David, Moses and Abraham before him. Religion of God is Islam, which means that you submit to the will of God. And will of God is practically expressed in Sharia.
Do the Zionist practice what is written in Leviticus? What is the punishment for homosexuality in Israel these days?
thomas_h says
Jesus indeed prophesied Islam.
He said to his flock:
“verily say I into you the time will come a mad murderous pig will emerge from the Arab peninsula and his name will be muhammed. You shall hang the son of a bitch by the balls otherwise much mischief will ensue”
Well, we didn’t heed His warning and indeed much mischief followed. Serves us well!
eib says
You stand on a bridge that is already burning.
Follower of Satan, lover of Mohammed.
revg says
The Jesus who is considered a prophet of islam is one who was a liar or deceiver, who did not take to the cross and die for the sins of man.
In islam, the truly good and honorable must be transformed into liars and deceivers in order to be accorded prominence.
Angemon says
ibn Muslim posted
“What is the punishment for homosexuality in Israel these days?”
Having to put up with homosexual arab refugees who flee into Israel to live a life with dignity since they know the punishment reserved for them in muslim lands.
citycat says
I see, in Religion, time goes backwards.
I can dig that, time is a concept, percept or wot.
You missed a few prophets though, Krisna, Shiva, Buddha, Geronimo, Nanak, Moses, plus more i’m sure.
So, by that type of workings, all those prophets and Muhammad are all prophets of the latest religion, “Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs”, which you may have heard of. You’ve got yer white light, Snow White, you’ve got yer seven Chakras, the Dwarfs, you’ve got yer goody and yer baddy, and so on, nice and simple.
mariam rove says
Thanks for the advice and the insight. Can you share some of what you are smoking today? M
ibn Muslim says
When you do not have arguments, you become mean and start with ad hominem 🙁
Rob Crawford says
Well, you fall back on Islam, so it balances out.
Salah says
You need arguments? here they are…from the Qur’an and the hadith.
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2011/05/saint-and-sinner.html
eib says
No response?
Coward!
Champ ✿ says
“ibn Muslim” is a lost cause selling an evil cause …how asinine.
mariam rove says
Koran is akin to Hashish. It does wonders to one’s brain. M
Isabella says
Feel sorry for you. Progress does not come from Islam and you have probably move to an Infidel country. You are a loser when you do not have freedom of conscience, when you do not have freedom to go against the flow if you feel like it. What is fun under Islam? Oh! yeah to have more than 1 wife. I see, I get it. Islam is the biggest danger for women and for creativity in the 21st century.
How many Muslims have won Nobel prizes in the last let’s say 30 years?
Isabella says
Feel sorry for you. Progress does not come from Islam and you have probably move to an Infidel country. You are a loser when you do not have freedom of conscience, when you do not have freedom to go against the flow if you feel like it. What is fun under Islam? Oh! yeah to have more than 1 wife. I see, I get it. Islam is the biggest danger for women and for creativity in the 21st century.
How many Muslims have won Nobel prizes in the last let’s say 30 years?
Chaim says
Isabella
I don’t have it broken down by the last 30 years, this is ever as of 2012:
The Muslim count is 10 (11 if you count B. Obama) with 6 rather dubious peace prize winners such as Y. Arafat, A. Sadat, and M. Baradei. So that makes 2 in literature and 2 in science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_Nobel_laureates
Jewish winners (the population of Jews is less than 1/80 of Muslims in the world) are about 170 including A. Einstein, N. Bohr, B. Pasternak, S. Bellow, and Milton Friedman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
kikorikid says
ibn muslim,
In your arrogance you have arrived at a score before the game has been
played. Obama said,”Not a smidgin” of wrongdoing a la IRS targeting
Conservatives. You have us “Submitting” before we fight.
“Come to the Bower with me”
tune played by Houstons army at San Jacinto. Defeating Santa Ana
in eighteen minutes.
Petey says
That’s your answer…PUSSY, that’s all Allah can give you, I can get pussy anywhere, why would I sell my soul for a Muslim one. Tell you what anyone who wants to try muslimah pussy (Read blessings of allah), Go to a massage parlor with a Persian chick working. Don’t sell your soul!
eib says
Saunders confounds myth with lie.
A lie is an untruth. Like the lie that Muslims are not conquerors.
A myth, though on its face it seems untruthful, is capable of conveying powerful truth.
For instance, Charlene Downes disappeared, that is a fact.
Muslims practiced necrophagy on her, perhaps a myth.
But the idea that they would do so after victimizing her so severely contains enough truth in it to be operational in Britain today.
To say that she was not victimized by Muslims is a lie.
To say that she has not disappeared is also a lie.
revg says
When reading a list like this, it is closer to truth to assume that every point being asserted is a point that the author would prefer not to be true, and feels a need to explain away.
Rojm says
Islam will not last in the information age. It seems to growing with immigrants. Goodness wins in the end. It may take awhile. Websites like this show the real picture. Islam has a trinity too: Allah, the Koran, and state religion. Islam always brags it believes in one god. Why are the Koran and state religion seem to more important now and the past?
Salah says
“Islam will not last in the information age. It seems to growing with immigrants.”
You’re absolutely right, Islam is dying. This was the testimony of sheikh al-Qataani on al Jazeera TV.
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/05/dying-islam-lislam-mourant.html
Defcon 4 says
@Salah et. al.
Um, I contend that in no time in pisslam’s history has it conquered more territory nor spread its net over so wide a geographic area. To say “islam is dying” doesn’t jive w/the facts. I have to wonder why you advance this viewpoint.
Salah says
“I have to wonder why you advance this viewpoint.”
I don’t, Muslims do. Did you bother clicking on the link provided?
This is a Muslim scholar on a Muslim TV channel, these are HIS statistics, not mine.
Muslims are growing in numbers in the West, and ONLY in the West. That’s because the West has rejected its Judeo-Christian values. The West stopped making babies thanks to free choice, family planning, homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion…
Civilization dies where God becomes THE enemy.
Take the time to read the statistics of this Muslim scholar, he ends his interview with these exact words:
“We are living a tragedy, sir. By Allah, we are living a tragedy.”
Jan says
It is telling that a significant proportion of the comments under Saunder’s article were pointing out the flaws in his analysis, and that “comments are now closed.” Gosh, I wonder why ?
Yet another useful idiot acolyte for islam, who can’t take reasoned and evidential rebuttals of his hypocritical nonsense.
In my own country, the UK, I would love to drop Saunders into; Bradford, Keighley, Birmingham, Tower Hamlets, to name just a few places where the mohammaden blight has taken over and smothered, and attacked, decent British people, and decent immigrants , who wanted nothing more than to become a part of their new country.
Of course, for such as Saunders, this couldn’t matter less. The people suffering, are the working class, the hoi polloi. The mohammedan blight, will, he thinks, never affect *him*.
And perhaps he’s right. It’s just occurred to me to wonder; how many Saudi upper class females actually suffer the horrors of fgm ? Afghanis, Iranians and Iraquis of the upper echelons ? How much do*they* actually suffer from the egregious tenets of islam, and the fatwas of the mullahocracy ?
How much do *any* of the ‘upper classes’ in mohammedan pestholes take on board, and carry out, the malignant demands of their foul cult ?
Only one; the command to conquer and subdue the entire world, in the name of islam.
I’m reminded of the Communist ruling scum, who forced the people to suffer, while they lolled in their dachas.
When will people ever learn ?
Defcon 4 says
The golden chain might be longer and more ornate, but it’s still there, as the Saudi princess who went ahead and married who she chose found out when she was kidnapped, returned to SOddy Barbaria and beheaded.
Guy Macher says
Prof Salim Mansur of University of Western Ontario debated Saunders on the question of Muslim integration. The debate was sponsored by The MacDonald- Laurier Institute on February 27, 2014 and was televised on TVO, I believe. Mansur won by KO.
Saunders closed by saying, don’t believe what’s written in the Koran but look instead to how Muslims live!
I contacted Prof Mansur about a transcript of the debate and he said he was compiling one and it would be published. Saunders will also publish his pitiful effort.
http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/audience-votes-are-in-on-mlis-great-canadian-debate-on-muslim-immigration/
RodSerling says
Thanks Guy. I listened to the debate recently and would recommend it also.
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/public-record/episodes/31308649/
kikorikid says
I haven’t read the debate but I will make this comment before I do.
Saunders must have made one specious statement after another.
There is NO plan by immigrant Muslims to integrate. None,nada,zilch
They are here to conquer,submit,convert, or kill. Getting to know
your neighbors is simply not on the list nor in their minds. This
is readily seen in the U.K., France, Germany, and the Neatherlands.
Enclaves-Shariah Patrols- Shariah Courts, Hallal labeling, then,
when there are enough (5%total pop.) JIHAD! Believing anything
else is delusional.
PGuud says
Testing. Unable to log in.
PGuud says
At this rate, the future for free people is a full-scale global war against Islam. It’s inevitable.
Islam is the bane of our lives. At some point, none of us will be able to look the other way. Every one of us will have to take and make a stand.
Islam: where freedom ends and slavery begins.
revg says
That was always the plan.
Champ ✿ says
Hear, hear, PGuud!
kikorikid says
Pg, WELL PUT!
RodSerling says
Thanks, Nicolai, this article is much appreciated.
RodSerling says
Doug Saunders has referred to his “research team” who helped him with the research in writing The Myth of the Muslim Tide. When he used that phrase in the recent debate with Salim Mansur, I thought that might sound impressive to the audience, but then Mansur pointed out that Wajahat Ali was one of the members of this team. Read about Ali here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/09/wajahat-ali-coauthor-of-islamophobia-report-was-board-member-of-muslim-brotherhood-group
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/07/al-jazeera-reporter-in-violent-confrontation-with-dc-police-at-pro-israel-event-al-jazeera-hires-isl
Another is Randy McDonald, who Saunders calls a “Canadian Demographer,” who is one of many contributors to a blog called Demography Matters. The only qualification listed for McDonald at that blog is a MA in English. “Demographers” are listed there, and Randy McDonald is not on that list, nor is he under any of the related social science headings there. If McDonald has a degree or relevant experience in demography, he and the blog are conspicuously not mentioning it. (In contrast to this misleading representation of McDonald, Saunders refers to Bat Ye’or as an amateur).
Another member is Joanne Shurvell. She is not an expert on Islam or in demography or social science.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-shurvell/
The other is Jee Yeon Lim, who Saunders calls a graduate in Migration Studies, but who apparently researched the two earlier waves of religious immigrants (i.e., not Muslims, but Catholics and Jews).
That’s it for Saunders’ research team as listed in his book’s acknowledgements.
——————————————————-
Based on his twitter, Saunders is networked with full-time Islam propagandist Mehdi Hasan, who referred to non-believers as lacking intelligence and “worse than cattle,” and classified disbelievers as even “worse” than homosexuals, and who lied about verses of the Qur’an, misleading quoting 5:32 without the “mischief” exception, in the wake of the murder of Lee Rigby. Saunders is also networked with Islam propagandist Murtaza Hussain, who classifies himself as a traditional Muslim who accepts in principle the Hadith and fiqh (Islamic law or the interpretation thereof) writes as though all criticism of Islam by Westerners is “racism,” “bigotry,” etc., and who said he wanted to try to destroy Sam Harris’ career. Murtaza Hussain is extremely evasive when asked simple straightforward questions about what he believes, and he refuses to condemn Qur’anic verses such as those that call for warfare and subjugation of non-Muslims, whipping of those guilty of zina (24:2).
In short, Saunders’ lofty claims and allusions to some kind of relevant expertise and neutrality behind his “research” on Islam and Muslim demographics and trends in the West are wildly exaggerated, at best.
Defcon 4 says
@ RodSerling
Thanks for that excellent bit of research on Saunders.
You’re not a unitarian are you?
RodSerling says
I think this tweet from Saunders gives us at least some idea of some of his motivation:
Doug Saunders @DougSaunders 7h
Book sales of http://muslimtide.com are about to soar! RT @jihadwatchRS: Myth busting Doug Saunders’ ‘10 Myths about Muslims in the West’
https://twitter.com/DougSaunders/status/448510462347341824
Jay Boo says
College Students Beware
Your Sociology Professor might have an Agenda.
Ask around before registering for your classes
You don’t want this to be required reading
taught by PC University asses.
RodSerling says
Saunders lies, again:
“Doug Saunders @DougSaunders [Mar 26]
I used data to bust Robert Spencer’s myths in http://muslimtide.com His response, 2 yrs in making: Koran quotes! http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/03/myth-busting-doug-saunders-10-myths-about-muslims-in-the-west …”
https://twitter.com/DougSaunders/status/448805581839548418
1. As anyone can see from reading Nicolai’s article, it consists primarily of citations of evidence about the current situation viz. the Muslim population in Europe, the actions and beliefs of many Muslims there. The Quran quote consists of seven words, which constitutes less than half of one percent of the article! As Robert notes in his reply on twitter, Saunders has completely avoided addressing the substance of Nicolai’s article.
2. Actually, Saunders’ supposed myth-busting consists almost entirely of optimistic projections. Projections are based on data (of past and present, recent historical trends), assumptions, and decisions about what factors to include in the analyses, but projections do not constitute data. There are many demographers who’ve claimed some European countries could be Muslim majority later this century or in the next century. Moreover, much of Saunders’ argument is based on past historical data on Western immigrants, Christians and Jews, not on an assessment of past trends in Muslim immigration and Muslim population growth relative to that of non-Muslims. Saunders is claiming that because Catholic and Jewish immigrants eventually, despite some initial problems, merged with the host culture successfully, Muslims will by and large do the same. The basis for this assumption is not stronger than the basis for the competing assumption that Muslims by and large are not integrating well with the host society and that this does not bode well for the future (see Nicolai’s article above for merely a small sample of the vast amount of evidence supporting this latter assumption). We simply haven’t seen the quantity and quality of problems from previous Christian and Jewish immigrants that we see from Muslims. In addition, Saunders analogy to earlier non-Muslim immigrants is flawed because the host culture has changed radically over the past several decades. The host culture is now predominantly multiculturalist, encouraging immigrants not to assimilate to the main host culture but to separate themselves off from it. In the case of those Western non-Muslim immigrants in the past, the host culture was not multiculturalist.
voegelinian says
“The host culture is now predominantly multiculturalist, encouraging immigrants not to assimilate to the main host culture but to separate themselves off from it.”
The multiculturalist host culture does do this, but it also does something else, true to its incoherent essence: While it encourages immigrant Others not to assimilate (in the name of “celebrating diversity”), it also routinely and prevalently claims that various immigrant Others (most especially the group they privilege most of all, Muslims) are assimilating just fine and how dare anyone insinuate otherwise thus revealing themselves to be “bigots” and “racists”.
There is thus this incoherent contradiction in the PC MC paradigm between celebrating, respecting and deferring to the otherness of the Other, whilst at the same time ostensibly assuming the Other is perfectly assimilable and assimilating. One particular logic by which to iron out the warps of this incoherency would be the principle that there really doesn’t exist a cultural Self or identity pertaining to us (the West) — or, rather, that it shouldn’t exist any longer since it’s a relic of a “racist” past which the Progress of PC MC is successfully overturning in an ongoing cultural revolution (but still, of course, having to fight against Western “bigots” who remain here and there trying in their regressive, reactionary, religious-right way to “turn back the clock” of Liberal Progress).
And, of course, in the PC MC mind (even more so in the Leftist mind) the prescriptive Ought is routinely confused with the ontological Is (with reality being a never-ending Project of social engineering trying to implement a utopia against all its ideological enemies). Thus, to recap: In the PC MC worldview, there no longer exists (= there should no longer exist) a self identity of the West: “We are the World”, you see. And so the Other, no matter how unassimilable and dangerous to our values, must be embraced as One Of Us — with the “Us” redefined really as a melting pot, or a stir-fry, or wonderful mosaic of pieces of Others. This obscures (or sometimes masks) a project of supremacism, a revolt against the old order in favor of a new vision. Whether wittingly (the hard core Leftists) or unwittingly (the sincerely starry-eyed PC MCs), they are colluding with and enabling a supremacism supremely hostile to all other Others — Islam, whose members are temporarily riding the train of multiculturalism in order someday (they fervently and fanatically hope) to supplant that with Islam’s cultural supremacism that wants to subjugate all other cultures (and to kill all who resist).
RodSerling says
Agreed on this, voeg. Saunders exhibits these and other inconsistencies.
He will also say, in the abstract, that it is not racist for people to have concerns about immigration of Muslims, and yet in practice, he hysterically refers to anyone who raises these concerns as racist, bigoted, etc. He agrees with a Muslim writer who claimed that even having a debate on the issue–to even ask the question–is racist, but then he says, yes, but someone has to argue against these bigoted concerns…which he also said were not bigoted. Why the ambivalence on this? I don’t think Saunders has thought through all of this well enough, thoroughly enough, to get beyond a few basic postures needed to make his thesis presentable to a mainstream audience, while also maintaining his penchant–and his urge seems sincere–for whacking prominent critics of Islamic immigration over the head with potentially career-destroying allegations of “racism,” etc., or potentially life-threatening labels such as anti-Muslim bigot.
Saunders seems well-composed, but then “loses it” when confronted with contrary views, and then out come the angry knee-jerk responses, which are nonsensical in content.
voegelinian says
From that description, Saunders sounds more like the sincere type of PC MC, rather than the hard-core Leftist. The latter is more consistent and coherent about his self-hatred, hatred of the West, and heterophilia (love of the Other) — in the sense that his extremism has led him to jump ship and fight against the West (once it was Communism, now the dream is Islam). The former, on the other hand, has to be less consistent and less coherent, by virtue of the contradictory mishmash of the cake he is trying to have and eat too.
(There are perhaps points along a spectrum between these two, as a PC MC may be led to radicalize more and more, but for reasons usually of self-interest and a semi-conscious dependence on the same West he is otherwise attacking, never follows through on the logic of his irresponsible trajectory.)
RodSerling says
More data on Muslim percentages In Europe, example Vienna, Austria:
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4229/austria-muslims-vienna-schools
I calculated the total Muslim students divided by the total students in Vienna schools (combining elementary, middle, and secondary school students). 32.5% Muslims.
This is another indication of Vienna’s future.
RodSerling says
Doug Saunders’ biases and misrepresentations were shown in another absurd article he wrote, here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/britain-has-an-ethnic-problem-the-english/article15792740/
“Britain has an ethnic problem: the English”
I don’t have time to address all of his claims in that article. He apparently wrote it as part parody, part serious rejoinder to criticism of mass immigration into Britain. I wanted to check the validity of the first suspect claim that caught my attention, namely:
“Government figures show that “white English” students are now outperformed in school results by British children of Bangladeshi, Ghanaian, Indian, Sierra Leonean, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and Nigerian ancestry.”
Saunders linked to a secondary source, The Guardian, which claims in a headline that
“White British children outperformed by ethnic minority pupils, says thinktank
Nine minority groups – including Bangladeshi, Ghanaian, Indian, Nigerian, Sierra Leonean and Vietnamese – are above average”
Also “Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) show the percentage of children classed as white British or English gaining five A* to C grades at GCSE is below the national average.”
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/22/white-british-children-outperformed-by-minorities
Although the Guardian article doesn’t provide a reference (which is typical in popular media), it does refer to the institute and the researcher, and some key terminology. I thereby tracked down the relevant paper:
http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2013/03/back-to-basics-integration_Mar2013_10525.pdf
Checking Table 6.1 (page 43) reveals why Saunders’ presentation is so misleading: “White British/English” students at age 16 from some schools that report some kinds of ethnic data are basically average in examination scores (yr 2010-2011) for English and Math, only about 2% points lower than average. (For comparison, Portuguese were 46% points lower than average, and Chinese were 38% points higher than average). Bangladeshis and Sierra Leoneans were less than 2% above average. There are 11 different ethnic groups listed as scoring lower than “White British/English,” and 9 different ethnic groups listed as scoring higher. It is also not clear who all is included in the “/English” part of the “White British/English” category.
These data aren’t surprising. Chinese and Indian students, for example, tend to have better academic achievement than students of European background, in North America.
We can also expect “White British/English” to be the largest group in Britain. Whatever the largest group is, it will tend to have the biggest contribution to the overall average; that’s basic statistics. One must also be cautious about drawing comparisons between groups of vastly different sizes and variances.
The Guardian didn’t mention that there were 11 different groups who scored lower than White British/English. They gave a long list of ethnic groups that scored higher than average, and only listed 3 ethnic groups that were lower than average.
The original report also mentions a “most worrying trend [that] is the high proportion of young people in some migrant communities who are neither in employment or education.” (pp. 44-45) In other words, there are more immigrants who are not even in school. The test averages mentioned above are based on 16 year-olds who are in school.
The real concern, from an educational standpoint, assuming these data can be taken straightforwardly, is not that “White British/English” students are a mere 2% below average, at age 16, in their Math and English exam scores. The real concern is that, obviously, more must be done to assist and engage the several other groups who are performing way below average (several groups are performing at 20% below average).
Anyway, this example shows that what Saunders says should be taken with great caution and skepticism. It will be interesting to finally examine his claims in the The Myth of the Muslim Tide.
RodSerling says
Clarification: The percentages reported in my post above are not test scores; rather they are the percentages of students scoring above or below the average, for a grade range, A* -C. See the original report for details, Table 6.1, page 43.
Also, as I understand it upon a re-read, the exams include math and English, but not only math and English.
My points in rebuttal to Saunders’ presentation remains the same.
RodSerling says
correction: “several groups are performing at lower than 20% below average”
RodSerling says
Links for the Pew estimates for 2010 and the 2030 projections for Muslim populations:
http://www.euro-muslims.eu/future_global.pdf
Pew Muslim population projections for 2010-2030
http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=327640
The Future of the Global Muslim Population
http://features.pewforum.org/muslim-population/
World Muslim Population by country estimated for 2010 and projected for 2030
click on sortable tables
———————–
Pew’s estimate of 2.8% Muslim for Canada 2010, was almost certainly too low. For 2011, according to Stats Can, it was 3.2%.
Other notes:
-While Pew predicts a slowing of the Muslim population growth rate, they nevertheless expect that it will be double the growth rate for non-Muslims from 2010 to 2030.
-Saunders claims that the difference between fertility rates of 2.1 and 1.4 in a Western country for Muslims and non-Muslims respectively is a “small gap.” That is nonsense. Just do some calculations and you will see that after a few generations that gap makes a big difference. Moreover, a population with a fertility rate of 2.1 will replace itself almost 100%, whereas one with a rate of 1.4 will decline substantially after a few generations because there are more deaths than births.
RodSerling says
I have a copy of Saunders’ The Myth of the Muslim Tide (Vintage Canada Edition, 2013; originally published in 2012). On page 25, Saunders mocks Wilders’ modern “al-Hijra” explanation, wherein Muslims emigrate to non-Muslim lands in high numbers, have high birth rates, and eventually dominate.
Saunders writes “This is a popular concept on the fringes of the Eurabia movement. It has escaped wider notice in large part because it has not a word of support in the text of the Koran and has never been advocated, in speech or in print, by any Muslim leader, however radical–with the sole exception of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who once gave a speech calling on Muslims to take over Europe through migration.”
I think it will be worth it to refute this book wherever it contains such misleading and false claims.
Peer Zulqarnain Shah says
Terrorism is Political Product??????????????
Peer Zulqarnain Shah says
Terrorism is a Political Product?????????
Peer Zulqarnain Shah says
Its time to face collectively the horror of terrorism because it is dangerous for humanity not only for one region. Terrorism has become cross border issue, its a faceless and jolting the socio economic and political structure of international community. As u have a grip on Middle East Issues u understand better the Arabian Terrorist organizations and individuals reaction and hostile behavior due to Regino-political conflicts with Far and Near Enemies. we all know that Terrorists organizations use the cover of ideologies and religion to cover their motives and mobilize the masses but basically they have political vested interests. Robert Spencers like minded Scholars understand the core issue but they don’t reveal the truth.
Regards; Peer Zulqarnain Shah, NARC, FL, USA
Brian Tunks says
The Huffington is Biased toward Islam I’m certain of that because they gave me life time ban from commenting on their web site, for making one anti Islamic comment I can’t remember exactly what the comment was. Before that occurred is was free to make comments on their articles. Stuff Islam and stuff Huffington Post