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It's pretty hard to see the Islamic surge really going anywhere civilizationally, though. Outbreeding is one thing but the track record for modern Muslim states is pretty dismal and the best case scenario seems to be 'Muslim landlords with petrodollar lottery don't get in the way of actually-productive religious/ethnic minorities too much. Sure Europe as an institution could fall off, but I think it's more likely to just create irrelevancy and ennui than actually snowball into any particular super relevant Muslim bloc
The scenario isn't some powerful European Caliphate, but Brazilification - corrupt, multiethnic special interest democracies - and if demographic trends hold, then eventual decline into a gaggle of yet-another-majority-muslim-multiethnic-shitholes like all the others.
Yes, and that’s the point. I don’t think there’s any likelihood of some highly functional multiethnic Muslim civilization state here, but at same time Brazil-with-low-key-sectarian-warfare is also like even worse than Brazil. Occasionally religious and ethnic violence compounds because nobody has anything in common with anyone else. The Christians loot the central bank, the Sunnis loot the finance ministry etc etc just like in Lebanon.
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There has been a huge diversity, over the last 1300 years, of Islamic states, many of which were comparatively advanced and well-run for the time. I certainly wouldn’t deny that. There are a lot of quite functioning things in the gulf countries.
But I think this goes to what @Ioper and @crushedoranges were discussing (and disagreeing on) below, namely that what is being imported isn’t really a functioning (however you might define functioning) Islamic civilization at all. You can’t say “well, there are things that work quite well about Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi and Oman”. This - if anything - is why Houellebecq isn’t pessimistic enough in Submission. The Emiratis and Saudis, in his novel, ultimately take control of France and it continues in a somewhat civilized way and life is good, as long as you are a man and convert (as per @BurdensomeCount). But let’s not forget that the Emiratis literally banned their own citizens from studying abroad in the UK for a period last year because so many were coming back radicalized (they only relented, apparently, after the UK sent some support when they were being attacked or at risk of being attacked by Iran).
What is instead being created is a kind of red-green coalition, built on rage and anger which will no doubt only swell as mass automation hits shortly. The resentment of the student class maybe initially enables the destructive rage of the underclass, they feed off each other, the former covering for the latter until the former is no longer necessary. There is no goal but free money, more distribution, things will burn until they get it. You might just as easily say (and you would be correct) that many white protestors in BLM rallies cared more about the ideology of Black Lives Matter than many black protestors did.
I've spent plenty of time in the Gulf Countries. That's a lot more to do with lottery winners surfing on foreigners who very much literally did 'build the country' and they do generally crack down on extremism but that's more from a 'stop being annoying and continue to allow oil luxury communism' POV than out of any particular deep thinking. There's a reason why the MBS and Emiratis of the world get mugged so frequently by VC nonsense.
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I mean the record isn’t good in the last 100 years. They don’t really innovate. Jews have a vibrant tech sector, a modern military, and a thriving democracy. Arabs have oil, and were it not for that, MENA outside of Israel would be as economically viable as South America or Central Asia. Nobody would know about them, just like nobody cares about the goings on in Peru or Chile or Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan actually on the up these days in my experience. But also arguably due to being incredibly moderate for a Muslim nation.
Kazakhstan is probably the most bullish I'd be on a Muslim nation at present where it's relying on the success of actual Muslim citizenry
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Yeah, I don't think many people are expecting a new caliphate, just a slip into decline along the Brazil, South Africa, Haiti axis.
Politics will be held hostage to ethnic voting blocs that demand privileges. The magnificent cultural artifacts built over a millennium will be neglected and occasionally burned for lulz. The culture will be vulgar. The streets will be unsafe. It will probably be for the best if the UK and France give up their nukes prior to the takeover, just like South Africa did. There's still a lot of time before that needs to happen though.
Now it's Europe's turn to experience what happened to American cities in the North after WWII. Except the black population in America has been pretty stable for the last 50 years or so. Not so the Third World population of France and England, which is a growing rapidly.
It's tempting as an American to say that France deserves what is happening to them. But I think that's unfair. Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia didn't deserve what happened to them either. Sometimes bad things just happen and everyone is responding to their own individual incentives.
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