The Pace of Islamization

“A group that knows how to obtain more privileges than other groups will for that reason gain a higher status and gradually become more dominant.”

Translator’s note: The essay below from Het Vrije Volk combines parts II, III and IV of “Hoe snel zal Nederland veranderen?” (How fast will the Netherlands Islamize?), which are here renumbered I, II and III respectively.

The actual first part of the series is about the conflicting calculations of how many Muslims there are at the moment in the Netherlands (estimates vary between 6% and 11% of the population), and how many there will be in the future (in 2050: between 14% and 25% — exclusive of, for instance, the compounding effect of an EU membership of Turkey, the EU’s mass immigration policy, etc.).


How fast will a country like the Netherlands Islamize?
by Encina Navan

Translated by VH

I.

To derive the influence of Islam from the percentage of Muslims in the Netherlands is misleading. Islam means the expansion of the influence of religion on other spheres of life — that is the true meaning of “surrender to Allah.” The Islamic countries demonstrate that Islam works that way, and that it is inevitable that Europe will feel that impact. Moreover, there is a study that shows that Islamization also took place in earlier times in the same way that it is happening now in Europe.

Around 2050 there will be at least two million Muslims out of 16 million in a country like the Netherlands, and probably more. A large minority, but not a majority, and therefore Islam can never play a dominant role in the Netherlands, according to the belief of the mainstream apologists. This idea is based on the assumption that the dominance of one group depends on a percentage, and that is a dangerous misconception. Even now, while the group is much smaller than two million, the influence of Islam is already widespread in the West. At the very least, Islam, Muslims, and Islamic and Muslim issues are dominant. Also the fault line is being drawn ever more clearly between critics and appeasers, between those who want to stand for Western norms like freedom and the separation of state and religion and those who believe in multiculturalism.

It is often claimed that Islam is no danger because it forms a minority in the West, and Muslims are divided amongst themselves. This also implicitly assumes that Islam is “only” a danger once it forms an absolute majority (51%), or when Muslims would operate in a more united fashion.

Both points of view are based on no more than one assumption — and thus invalid as an argument. For they assume exactly that which should be proved. There are examples, such as Bosnia and Lebanon, which show that Muslims even as a minority show dominant behavior.

On the internet, a clear definition for Islamization (or Islamicization) is virtually untraceable.

Islamization (or Islamicization) is the psychological process (and not first of all a demographic or political process) whereby Muslims increasingly impose religious rules on their environment, in which conversion to Islam only plays a subordinate role.

This religious character is demonstrated:
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• By changes in the form of the state (a theocracy, like Iran, or state religion, like most of the other members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference);
  
• By changes in daily life (many rules that do not follow from the everyday reality, but from a symbolic reality, i.e. the religious frame of reference)
  
• By changes in the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims (the dhimmi status in Muslim countries; parallel societies for Muslims in non-Muslim countries; the reformulation of universal human rights in a way that enables Muslims to demand more rights than non-Muslims are effectively able to do).

Islamization is based on Tawhid. Tawhid is the most important concept of all in Islam, according to the Encyclopedia of Islam: “It is believed that the entirety of Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid.”

This means that life as a whole is subject to both “god” and “religion”*, not only as a known fact, but also in the active sense that a Muslim must dedicate his life to the commandments of his god. Tawhid not only means the unity of God and all life, but also the unity of God, therefore the denial of the Trinity as it exists in Christianity. Tawhid also means unity of life (called Tawhid-ar-Rububbiya): all matter exists due to Allah. The phrase “Allahu akhbar” should not (only) be understood as “God is powerful” [or “God is Great”], but also in the sense that God includes everything that already exists.

The denial of this unity is the denial of the nature of Allah and affects the main central understanding of Muslims. Secularism and nation states are unacceptable within Tawhid and are therefore to be struggled against by Muslims.

The influence of a group within a population not only depends on its numerical size, but also to its status within the whole population and the inner conviction of the group.

The status of Muslims in the West both is low and high. Socio-economically, it is low: Muslims are on average less educated than Westerners and enjoy on average a lower socio-economic position. For Muslims, however, this is of little importance compared to the fact that they are Muslim. Being a Muslim means a privilege which they prefer over all others. It reinforces the previously added value of being a Muslim rather than weakens it, because for a Muslim there is no reason to assume that the causes of a low socio-economic position must be attributed to Islam.

Muslims often prefer symbolic statements above actual causal statements. Islam [like Socialism] is a system whereby symbolic statements can be raised above factual statements. Because to Muslims it is much easier to explain the socio-economic situation as a symbol of the will of Allah, rather than to actually change this situation. The first explanation is also much more attractive for the removal of cognitive dissonance than the second explanation. [It also serves to attract and blind gutmenschen, willing dhimmis, who bring welfare payments and subsidies that may be viewed as zakat or jizya.]

The status of Muslims in other respects is high. They have achieved many privileges: maintaining their own language and culture, special education, grants to organizations, political goodwill, and so on. Despite the their regularly-expressed dislike of Western civilization, they enjoy many benefits and do not have the need to adjust more than is strictly necessary. A group that knows how to obtain more privileges than other groups will for that reason gain a higher status and gradually become more dominant.

This leaves the inner conviction of the members of the group. Muslims are apparently divided into numerous “variations” of Islam. This division is used as an argument that Muslims cannot be a threat to Western civilization, because they have been divided into different movements, directions, and law schools. To some extent this argument is valid: Shiites and Sunnis are happy to kill each other. The Druze are often not regarded as Muslims, nor are the Alawites. Moroccan Muslims and Turkish Muslims for instance have little contact with each other.

First of all, all Muslims share the central propositions of Islam: Tawhid, the other pillars of their faith, and their hatred towards to the West and Christianity. The division in streams is less wide than is often assumed: around 85% of all Muslims belong to the main flow, the Sunnis.

Secondly, the four law schools have equal status in Islam and differ only in minor points. This hardly causes any argument amongst Muslims.

The divisions that we do regularly observe among Muslims usually have no religious basis, but are the results of conflicting regional interests.

Thirdly, while the “streams” in Islam prevent Muslims from advancing against the West in unity, this does not mean that they have different positions regarding the West.

If every “stream” of Islam pursues Islamization on its own, the final result will still be more Islamization, whether this happens in streams or not.

II.

Historian Richard Bulliet (born 1940) specializes in the history of Islam and in 1979 published the study Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period. In this work he describes the manner and speed at which the original population of the territories conquered by the Arabs went over to Islam.

In all areas Bulliet studied — Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran — it appears that the transition to Islam happened in the same way, with Iran being clearly the frontrunner. The first groups converted to Islam between 50 and 100 years after the conquest. These groups consisted of mobile professionals like traders or people who for one reason or another managed to get to the cities where the Arabs had established centers of power, and the social control of their former religious fellows had become minimal. This manifested for instance in giving biblical names to children, because they were viewed as “correct” within the Jewish, Christian and Muslim experience.

In the following century the middle class of the population followed gradually. Eventually around the year 900, half of the population had become Muslim. After 1200 there were hardly any Jews or Christians to be found in the Muslim areas. This pattern is confirmed by studies of developments in Spain.

In that era the Arabs were the top layer, the élite, of the population and did not take much trouble to encourage conversion to Islam. In this phase, Islam (in that period usually called Hagarism) was only for the Arabs and was an ideology which had as its main objective unity among the Arabs and the protection of their elitist position.

At first glance, a comparison between the position of Muslims over a thousand years ago and the Muslims in Europe today is not possible. The European of the 21st century will not convert to Islam to become part of the elite or to gain other benefits, such as the avoidance of taxation.

As argued in section I, the socio-economic position of Muslims hardly plays any role at all. Here the Thomas theorem is coming into effect: if a reality is experienced as real, the consequences will also affect the empirical world — even when the differences between experienced reality and empirical reality seem particularly high.

This means that if Muslims are of the opinion that Islam will rule Europe in the future and subsequently the world, that a Caliphate will be created and a great reward awaits those who patiently work towards this future, they will act accordingly. It is therefore irrelevant to note that they are divided or do not have a dominant position, as long as their inner motivation broadly points in the same direction.

In this way there arises a spontaneous organization as it occurs on the road. Participants on the road are not aware of intentions and interests of other participants, but they all have a common overall objective, namely to arrive at the place of destination. This creates a pattern that resembles cooperation, without the need of a formal organization.

The major driving force behind this is cognitive dissonance. Every Muslim will have a greater level of experience of cognitive dissonance (inner dissatisfaction) in relation to the West than between himself and (many of) the other Muslims. As long as there is not an assimilative pressure from Western society that can make the cognitive dissonance between Muslims greater than the cognitive dissonance towards the West, the Muslims tend to join with other Muslims and thereby create an incentive to achieve Islamization and a parallel society. [It will even be worse when they are supported, encouraged and appeased by those they despise.]

The historian Hamid Enayat borrowed the following quote from the Islam Scholar Gibb: “The very basis of Sunni political thought excludes the acceptance of any other theory [than the Caliphate] as definitive and final. What is it lays down a principle: that the Caliphate is that form of government which safeguards the ordinances of the Sharia and sees that they are put into practice.”

This fact has to a large extent controlled the political thinking of Muslims since 1924, when the Caliphate was abolished by Ataturk. For the Muslim Brotherhood it is a central point. Modern thinkers like Abd ar-Raziq, who viewed the Caliphate as an outdated institution that did not result from the Koran, were confronted with huge trouble.

The Caliph must ensure the enforcement of Sharia, so that every Muslim can live an Islamic way of life. The percentage of Muslims under such a regime is less important than having Islamic Sharia accepted by the non-Muslims.

And this latter process, as we daily see around us, is in full swing.

III.

With the knowledge of the previous parts, we can estimate how the Islamization of a country like the Netherlands will proceed.

It starts with not having to adapt, with only marrying Muslims, only socializing with Muslims, going to a Muslim butcher and a discrete mosque. The next step is to obtain privileges that are at odds with the values of Western societies, but still may be understood as a right within the same Western society. This includes the wearing of a headscarf, asking for halal food in a factory canteen, requiring a separate room for non-Muslims to eat during Ramadan, et cetera. The mosques that are built are becoming progressively larger and more challenging, looking more determined.

There gradually appears a separate mental room for Islam. Other religions and lifestyles take considerations of Islam into special account in a way that is not mutual. The other ways of life have thus Islamized their behavior. This is all the more bitter because these practices have nothing to do with religion, but are detours to psychologically condition non-Muslims to become dhimmis and to permeate their unconscious with the superiority of Muslims. Whether that superiority is based on anything or only exists in their own experience is not important. The only thing that matters is that conduct is grounded in fulfilling a relationship in which one party is gradually forcing the other party to modify its behavior without something in return.

Islamization means that Muslims achieve a special status because non-Muslims conform to the requirements of Islam. Those who adhere to another’s requirements thereby give the other a higher status.

Conversion to Islam and the emergence of a demographic majority of Muslims are the consequences of Islamization and not vice versa. When Amr Khaled talked about “a Muslim majority within twenty years”, he was referring to a “moral majority”, i.e. a minority that is able with continuing social pressure to force the majority to make concessions.

Muslims are aware of the Islamization of the famous Dutch tolerance. Examples:

• Separate classes for men and women, and Muslims and non-Muslims.
  
• Education in Islam at all schools, to remove the “fear of Islam”.
  
• Integration will increasingly become interpreted as “respect for Islam”, which in practice will mean that non-Muslims must learn to spare Muslims in all ways to prevent “insulting” them.
  
• Dogs will gradually disappear from the streets.
  
• Pork will no longer be allowed in the same freezer as halal meat, and perhaps not even be stored in the adjacent freezer.
  
• Cakes will increasingly be taken off the shelf. Among immigrants the rumor circulates that sometimes pork fat is mixed with the fat that is used in cakes and that is haram. Maybe halal cakes will appear on the market.
  
• Separate showers for Muslims in sports facilities will become normal. Muslims wish not to viewed by unclean pigs with something as intimate as showering.
  
• The Holocaust, the Crusades, the role of the Christian church as a cultural medium after the collapse of the Roman Empire — all these are issues that will gradually be discussed less broadly during history classes. They will be replaced with a fresh look at history. Children will learn that the humanities have emerged from Islam (the adab). That the Renaissance in fact arose from the culture of al-Andalus. That the troubadours and rhetoricians copied their art from Islamic predecessors. That Copernicus had stolen his idea from Tusi. That science should serve Islam. Muslim students in France already require all these things, as it appears in a report from 2004.
  
• It will be standard that companies set up prayer rooms for Muslims.
  
• Employees are not allowed to wear crosses or Stars of David so as not to offend the Muslims.
  
• Non-Muslim women will start wearing a headscarf, just as they often drive during daytime with their headlights on: “It does not matter to me and gives me a feeling of safety.”
  
• Islamization is advertised with the help of newspeak like “Islam is becoming Dutch” (is there also a Dutch Catholicism? Argentinean Confucianism?) or “European Islam” (Tariq Ramadan is very strong in this area). The combination “Dutch Islam” scores 3000 hits on Google, “polder Islam” 1970 hits and “European Islam” 5660 times.

Press “freedom” will greatly increase. Expressing negatively on Islam (“insult”) will be a thing of the past, but the slandering of Jews and calls for the destruction of Israel will no longer surprise anyone. Falls under freedom of expression. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam will be closed down (because of “renovation”) and subsequently will find a multicultural equivalent: the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel (the Nakba), will get a prominent place — for didn’t many more people suffer there?

Some groups, including students, non-Western immigrants from non-Islamic countries, and certain professions, such as representatives, will gradually convert to Islam. In this stage Islam is a still relatively superficial religion and the conversion will be without many formal requirements, other than reciting the shahada and the compulsory circumcision of men. Left-wing teachers, social workers and journalists will convert to Islam to be “better able to perform in their profession”.

Other groups will move to Muslim-free areas to avoid the risk of ever “insulting” Muslims.

The latter seems rather unlikely because the Left is associated with the rejection of religion. However, left-wing thinking is highly idealistic (in the philosophical meaning as opposed to realism) of character and is strongly determined by an inner desire for social planning as a counterweight to the chaos around them as they perceive it. People who think like that feel attracted to the mystical and abstract character of Islam because they believe that ideas really do exist as realities, and that a religion is only another way to express the same principles. The aversion towards Western religion by leftist thinking is the dislike of the church and the power of that institution in the Middle Ages, but, strictly seen, not of religion as a personal experience. German socialism took a much more general argument against religion than French socialism.

There are reasons why a country like the Netherlands is more vulnerable to Islam than most other European countries.

The Netherlands is an anomaly in European history. It started as a republic, and became a kingdom just as in other European countries the monarchy was returning.

1.		Calvinism, with its abstract religious idea of God and a strongly considering impact has certain agreements with Islam, but is much less defensible.
2.		The ancient egalitarianism of the civil mentality hinders an ideological defense against mental usurpation.
3.		Pillarization, although has largely become redundant, has inspired a near endless consultation mentality.
4.		The overpopulation and the multitude of confrontations and over-stimulations that come with it make Islamizing only one of the many problems that seem to need attention.
5.		The Netherlands urbanizes rapidly and Islamization is much easier in an urban environment because of the conformist and anonymous nature.
6.		The Netherlands has since the 18th century developed a loser’s mentality, which makes it inclined to identify itself with underdogs from around the world and is therefore insufficiently able to assert its own identity.

More and more the situation will arise in which the majority gives in to a minority out of fear of reprisals. The circumstances suggest that Lebanizing and finally Somalizing will determine the route for the Netherlands will after 2035. Already a generation of schoolchildren is growing up who find it normal to daily see headscarves around them. A whole generation that is growing up under a government without authority.

With ever more low-skill and unskilled Muslims, the question is whether a country that thrives on services and information technology can sustain its prosperity. The huge retirement wave that will be launched from 2012 on will probably be a turning point. Gradually, the Netherlands will slide down economically. Politicians will again resort to the tool of immigration to provide new orders for the construction sector. Time and again new waves of immigrants will make the birth rate rise again, long enough to change entire areas into overseas provinces of Morocco. I have described this scenario in “Rise and fall of the new pillarization.”

Politicians will always try to sell unpleasant developments as inevitable and as a new form of an existing tradition because their interest is solely in maintaining their very own position.

Finally, it is good to remember that Islam is a process without end. Countries like Pakistan and Egypt are still busy Islamizing. The dynamic arises from the denial of “the self” — the opposite of the submission to God’s will — that makes ever increasing sacrifices necessary to be able to claim unity with Allah. The ultimate sacrifice is the end of earthly existence (death) and the beginning of heavenly life. With this finally the unity with God (Tawhid) that is so central for the Muslim will be reached. The striving for unification with Allah has two major manifestations: the hate of the West and the death-wish of many Muslims.


* In Dutch it says godsdienst, which means “religion” but also means the abstract word “god” and “(religious) service” combined.