Conservative commentators in North America thinking they know what is happening in Europe

and don't!

Yesterday on YouTube I ran into a video called "Mark Steyn: Islamic immigration is destroying European cities". Mr Steyn is a Canadian who lives in the USA and pushes the usual ultraconservative agenda.

He was interviewed on Danish television and the contents appear on this video. It makes assertions that are simply not supported by the facts. It is statistically inaccurate and appeals to the base instincts of the conservative base (double use of word "base" is both deliberate and appropriate).

To quote my reply on YouTube in full: "Germany? I am a white European atheist immigrant here. Population 82 million, 14 million immigrants of whom 3 million are from Muslim countries - many of whom do not practise "their religion" (and eat pork and drink beer etc). Hardly a majority, and not the threatened takeover that is implied by the use of phoney stats and rhetoric from Mr Steyn. And Frankfurt, population 500,000, has people from 170 countries of all cultural backgrounds living there. It is multicultural, not Islamic dominated".

I could have also quoted as an example my visit last Sunday to the Songkran festival in Dreieich, on the southern outskirts of Frankfurt, which my wife decided that I should attend (glad I went eventually - incidentally). The Songkran festival is an annual Thai festival. In the hall where this event took place, I have never seen so many people from Thailand in one room together since the last time that I was in Bangkok. This is also a Buddhist festival, and even if Thailand has a substantial Muslim minority, I would lay odds that all the Thai attendees last Sunday were Buddhists. And this was just one of many Songkran celebrations across Germany last weekend. I am sure that similar events elsewhere also attracted large crowds from the diaspora here.

I have also known some Muslims of both sexes in my time in Frankfurt. Hardly radical, hardly dangerous people who would celebrate Ramadan the way the Buddhist Thai community celebrates Songkran. I do not believe in either faith (though Buddhism as a philosophy free from religious dogma has much to recommend it). As an atheist I am not alone in being tolerant (and realise in multicultural Germany, some 45% approximately of the population are either atheists or agnostics). At the same time we are not into being pushed around or threatened by extremists whether Islamofascists or STANDARD EUROPEAN FASCISTS!

Mr Steyn doesn't get it, but then he wouldn't!

He quoted the Swedish city of Malmö as an example of the point that he was trying to make. A quick check on the immigrant make-up of Malmö places this logic in the category of "dubious" if not "downright inaccurate".

While Wikipedia may not be the most reliable source on earth, I will assume the statistics given on there are based on a seriously based census. Look for the usual suspects where Muslim immigration is concerned normally (Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan - not mentioned in the top 10. Turkey - well down the list). Top of the list? Iraq!

And why are there so many Iraqi immigrants in Malmö? Ask yourself what happened in 2003? Whose country was (illegally IMHO) invaded by the US and the UK - an invasion that I am sure Mr Steyn supported? And which countries were unwilling originally to accept refugees from the country that they invaded?

And which countries did respond to the humanitarian crisis which followed? I will give you two outstanding examples - Sweden and Norway!

Check down the list of immigrants in Malmö, and check against countries in Eastern Europe where economic crisis followed the collapse of Communism. Check down the list where there have been wars and refugees driven out (the countries of the Balkans are well represented in this list). There is a logical pattern to this based upon, principally, humanitarian concerns! And not on Islamisation! Check out Oslo in neighbouring Norway where there is a large Somali community - many of them refugees who fled a conflict that has been going on for 20 years!

Mr Steyn's comments either reflect a blind ignorance, a convenient reflection of his own inaccurate beliefs, or sheer mischief. What is disturbing though is that his opinions give cover to the European Fascists who are growing in number across the continent. They even give a loosely veiled excuse to the likes of Anders Breivik and the next generation of murderers who wish to push this phoney agenda - "well I was only fighting for a Christian Europe - the Muslims are a danger to us all" usw.

Mohammad Merah, the former juvenile delinquent turned Al-Qaeda "fighter", killed seven people in Toulouse recently in the name of Islam. I condemned his actions on this blog in the strongest possible terms. Anders Breivik, a reputedly Christian "crusader", killed exactly eleven times as many people (many of them non-Muslims) in Norway. His actions were at least as bad as Merah's.

All actions carried out in such fashion need to be irrefutably condemned. And we do not need North American ultraconservative commentators stirring the pot, inciting the lunatic fringe with a load of phoney statistics and inaccurate observations!