On the other hand, for some countries the question sounds quite dramatic: will they manage to preserve themselves ethnically? In 2003, the population of the 15 countries of the European Union grew by 294 thousand people. India alone achieves such population growth in just one week. At the same time, in the same 2003, 900 thousand immigrants set foot on the soil of EU countries. Today, every 10th resident of Germany is a foreigner. Already now in Amsterdam the largest religious group is Sunni Muslims. In Brussels, the largest Catholic cathedral has been handed over to Muslims. In London there are more mosques than churches in Moscow. What coherent thing can the leadership of these countries say to potential immigrants?
The same two things. On the one hand, Europe needs labor. Both skilled: programmers, engineers, nurses. And unskilled: construction workers, healthcare workers, fruit pickers. The UN, for its part, is trying to pressure Europe to increase the number of legal migrants and agree to accept greater ethno-cultural diversity. But, on the other hand, almost all European countries are sharply reducing refugee benefits and introducing a new interpretation of the very concept of 'refugee'. Recently, refugee status is not granted to those who have been persecuted by non-state forces. For example, Germany believes that those who fled Afghanistan from the Taliban do not have the right to refugee status. Attempts to limit migration inflow are actively welcomed by the population, which is seriously frightened primarily by the growing expansion of Islam.
Once after the Second World War, regarding the territories of Prussia and Silesia, the famous adept of democracy, the great Winston Churchill, said: "There will be no mixed population, which causes endless troubles. The table must be cleared," - and ethnic Germans were driven from everywhere to Germany. It was said extremely cynically and extremely laconically. But, most importantly, clearly.
Today's democrats waver between commitment to universal human values, which are already coming apart at the seams everywhere, and the understandable idea of preserving their own culture. Long gone are the times when, on their own initiative and at their own expense, the French authorities invited imams to the country, opened Muslim cemeteries and prayer rooms in hospitals, or, for example, in Paris in 1926, also at the expense of the French government, the Great Mosque was opened.
Everything is good in moderation. Since then, the Muslim population has increased too much, and many French people would now prefer to see outright nationalists at the head of the state. And no matter how much professional human rights activists insist that immigrants do not want someone else's property for free, but honest and equal opportunities, and that helping them is the duty of every European, it does not convince. "Just shut the door at last!" - calls to the state are heard from everywhere.
But not only Muslims annoy. In a kippah, for example, you cannot walk down the street - hereditary democrats will definitely beat you up. In the meantime, there is no coherent answer to how to determine the correct proportion of migration and how to live with such a diverse cultural-ethnic group of people within the country. Attempts to cut the knot in one blow are useless. French scientists who studied the phenomenon of the birth of Islam in France believe that the main impetus was the government's 1974 decision to temporarily stop immigration of foreign workers.
Immigrants already in the country decided to stay in France forever and demanded family reunification. The government's refusal to provide such an opportunity immediately caused a storm of protest, and the authorities were forced to yield. At the same time, the social portrait of Muslim immigration changed fundamentally: from individual and exclusively male, it became family and communal. Obviously, the same unhappy fate awaits the current French bill on banning the wearing of the hijab. It has already provoked pickets all over the world.
"A closed Europe will be worse, poorer, weaker and older. An open one will be better, richer, stronger, younger," said Kofi Annan at the recent awarding of the International Sakharov Prize and, incidentally, drew almost stormy applause. The UN Secretary General criticized the very tone of the debate on migration in Europe. "People should not be made scapegoats and hostages of society's ills." And while socialists, communists, liberals, and environmentalists gave him a standing ovation, French, English, and German conservatives sat sullenly. The former French foreign minister qualified these views as utopian and advised the United Nations to sensibly direct its forces and resources, so as to keep migrants at home.
The world is small. Every new decade makes it smaller by another 800 million people. It is predicted that in 50 years there will be nine billion of us. At the same time, some nations are crowded, others - their neighbors - are dying out. Migration pressure on Europe today is greater than ever. The darkest scenario is quite likely: developed countries will be absorbed by the population of developing countries. Without assimilating, they will naturally displace Europeans and Americans.
The threat voiced by Yasser Arafat was directed toward Israel (where the demographic problem is not so acute): "We will defeat you with our Palestinian womb," - but it is much more relevant for Europe. The excessive naturalism and caricature of the threat does not change the essence of the matter. What can the countries of Europe, with their homosexuality, euthanasia and other benefits of civilization, oppose to Islamic culture, which equates abortion to murder, punishes it with death, and considers the birth of children an absolutely indisputable good. What will Europe, which founded its 'religion' on the strange assumption of man's natural rationality and forced an elderly English queen to welcome same-sex love, put up against traditional religiosity ...