David Warren is in fine form once again, poking holes in the "demography is destiny" argument:
My Palestinian correspondents -- I actually have a few -- make two points repeatedly. The first is to blame all their economic failures on a shortage of land. The second is to predict that Israel will be buried under their superior birthrate. This latter is an argument I have heard again and again, from Pakistan through North Africa, but on a grander scale: that eventually Europe and America will be conquered, because the Muslims are producing so many children, and the Westerners are not.Posted by Dr. Frank at May 20, 2002 09:55 AM | TrackBackDon't panic, it won't happen. Little Israel has so far held the Arab world at bay, with one-sixtieth of its population, and the West is rather larger. The reason we are safe, in the foreseeable future, is because we are free and extremely productive. The reason they fail is because they are not. And the very fatalism that relies on demographic arguments is a symptom of their failure.