It’s happened before.
Writing a century and a half before the birth of Christ, the Greek
historian Polybius observed “nowadays all over Greece such a diminution
in natality and in general manner such depopulation that the towns are
deserted and the fields lie fallow. Although this country has not been
ravaged by wars or epidemics, the cause of the harm is evident: by
avarice or cowardice the people, if they marry, will not bring up the
children they ought to have. At most they bring up one or two. It is in
this way that the scourge before it is noticed is rapidly developed.”
He concluded by urging his fellow Greeks to return to their historic
love of family and children. “The remedy is in ourselves,” he wrote. “We
have but to change our morals.” His advice, unfortunately, went largely
unheeded.
The demographic winter of the Greek city-states led to economic
stagnation and military weakness, which in turn invited invasion and
conquest. After a century of increasing dominance in the Eastern
Mediterranean, Rome finally annexed the Greek city-states in 146 B.C.
Will a Europe in the grip of a similar demographic winter come to a
similar unhappy end? Certainly Europeans of today, like the Greeks of
old, are barely having children. The birthrate across the entire
continent is far below the replacement level of 2.1 children per couple.
Italy, Spain, Austria, and Germany have total fertility rates, or TFRs,
of only 1.4 or so, while Poland and Russia languish at 1.32 and 1.2
respectively. The more or less generous child allowances these countries
pay the prolific has scarcely caused these numbers to budge. The birth
dearth continues to widen.
Meanwhile, adherents of pro-family sects such as Islam are moving in,
having children, and repopulating historic Christendom. Is this process
likely to continue? And to what end?
Most Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East have
fertility rates two or three times as high as Europe. Afghanistan and
Somalia, whose fertility rates are above 6 children (6.62 and 6.4
respectively), may be outliers. But other Middle Eastern countries with
above-replacement TFRs include Iraq at 4.86, Pakistan at 3.65, and Saudi
Arabia at 3.03. Even immigrants from the most Westernized Muslim
countries such as Turkey and Tunisia average nearly twice as many
children as the extant populations of most European countries.
While falling fertility may be humanity’s general fate, it is this differential
fertility that will determine Europe’s destiny. Although the birthrates
of Muslim immigrants to Europe are far lower than they were just a
generation ago, they are still far more open to life than highly
secularized Europeans. Moreover, these immigrants, once in place in
Germany, Italy, Spain, etc., tend to maintain their relatively high
fertility for a generation.
As a result of this potent mix of immigration and procreation, the
number of Muslims will continue to grow. Europe as a whole, some
demographers suggest, will have a majority Muslim population by 2100.
What a strange twist of history! Over the centuries, various Muslim
armies have repeatedly attempted to conquer Europe. Time and time again,
at Tours, Vienna, at Lepanto, at Malta, they were thrown back. Yet now
what their forebears were unable to accomplish by force, their distant
descendants will achieve by peacefully winning the Battle of the Cradle.
Whether they will be radicalized or secularized Muslims is the
central question. If they are radicalized, then we can expect efforts to
impose Sharia law in country after country, along with the growing
persecution of the Christian minority. Catholics in Germany, for
example, may come to be treated in largely the same way that Coptic
Christians in Egypt have been for the last few centuries, that is to
say, as second-class citizens, to be maligned, taxed and beaten almost
at will.
If, on the other hand, the second- and third-generation Muslims are
largely secularized, then the Christian minority will be, presumably,
treated somewhat better, though still subject to some level of
discrimination. As everyone knows by now, the Secular Left preaches a
tolerance that it generally does not practice.
Either way, believers in once-Christian Europe will probably find
themselves living in what might be called a pre-Constantine moment. In
others words, they will be living under regimes that punish, even
persecute, them for their beliefs.
At the present moment, Europeans still control their own destiny. As
Polybius, were he alive today, would surely remind them: “The remedy is
in yourselves. You have but to change your morals.”
