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May 01, 2006
Fear of a Muslim Sweden?
By Anders Sandberg
"Are you having great problems with the Muslim population in Sweden?" the American official at the Heritage Resource Bank conference asked me. When I looked confused he continued explaining that he had heard about the large (and increasing) Muslim immigrant population in Sweden. While he knew that the Swedes themselves were not marrying or having children (he never actually said it, but from the context the abortion issue hung in the air). He was clearly expecting that Sweden (and much of Europe) would soon become Muslim strongholds; the Eurabia often mentioned in American conservative debate, a Europe subverted from the inside.
Hearing such beliefs from an apparently well-connected and well-informed Washington DC insider not too far removed from the White House might seem to confirm the all too common European prejudice that the US is run by people with little knowledge of the real world outside of America’s borders, often driven by a hint of xenophobia. But that view is just as erroneous as the fear of an Islamic Europe. It is an erroneous view that at the same time contains an unsettling grain of truth.
In his book Inevitable Surprises, the future studies expert Peter Schwartz describes a number of trends that will in the long run change the world, but are likely to surprise people living through them. Just as the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war were obvious in retrospect, it was hardly easy to visualise beforehand. Even the well renowned futurologists writing "The Year 2000" in 1968 could not imagine an ending where one side just imploded, despite daring to think of far more radical scenarios.
Schwartz discusses among other things the great challenges facing different regions of the world. The big challenges facing Europe is both the slow economy and the ageing population but also the inability to successfully integrate immigrants in society. The traditional rather culturally homogenous welfare states of Europe tend to leave them outside the system, be it through a mixture of overtly xenophobic reasons, fear of competition, the unintended results of attempts to help that trap people in welfare dependency, and the insider nature of many European societies: if you cannot speak the right language and understand the finer nuances of a culture, you are easily excluded. This creates a class of poorer, underrepresented people who have fewer stakes in their surrounding society, a situation that is likely to breed resentment and far deeper social problems. The problem is not that Sweden has Muslim immigrants, but that they are expected to become Swedes or otherwise remain insulated within their own culture (or rather a particular version of it).
If the European Union has internal problems, Schwartz points out that the United States has external problems. Becoming the world police might be a good thing or not, but it is certainly going to be an expensive venture and invite new enmity.
But the US is also undergoing a great demographic takeover. Part of it is because it, unlike the EU, keeps itself young by allowing much immigration. According to the US Census Bureau, 24% of the US population will be of Hispanic descent by the year 2050, with an even higher proportion in some states. That will affect language and culture broadly, and might cause a surprising threshold effect. As the number of people of a certain group increases, their influence depends on the number of people times factors such as their wealth, culture production and the number of them at influential positions in media, business and politics – and the last factors are increased by the overall influence. The result is that beyond a certain point there is a jump in influence, making the previously marginal group part (or even dominant) in mainstream culture. The shift from a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant US to a catholic Latino US will not be a binary event, but it will correspond to dramatic changes in what the notion of what the United States of America means.
Extending the EU to encompass Turkey might be a good thing integration-wise. The relatively more tolerant and secular Turkish Islam is a good alternative to jihadist fundamentalism. Extending EU membership would also demonstrate that there is a path out from isolation for Muslim people, both within and without the EU. And it would provide a younger population, much needed in greying Europe.
But for the Turkish membership to work out, it would also require far more mobility within the EU than currently occurs. Not even among the older EU countries do people migrate to where the jobs are – Europeans are far too content to stay where they are, and can do so thanks to social systems intended to protect local culture (since that in turn gives votes to the political representatives of the regions).
To reap the benefits of Turkey or even the new accession states of Romania and Bulgaria, the EU needs more mobility, and that requires giving up much of the unspoken nationalist assumptions. To reap the benefits of immigration we should direct attention to the issue that many of the problems facing immigrants are in many cases general problems of the welfare state that are particularly accentuated for immigrants.
Focusing on these issues will require abstaining from both well-meaning cultural relativism with affirmative action, and from the lure of singling out particular groups of immigrants as "dangerous" in themselves and instead promoting a more individualist view of society.
Posted by Waldemar at May 1, 2006 09:19 PM