RUTHFULLY YOURS

Considering what European Union policies have done to Europe, it seems all too apt for its capital to be a hive of Islamic terror and on the road to becoming a majority Muslim city.

Then turn to Brussels, some parts of which host large communities of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants, mostly from religiously conservative regions of those countries. Among respondents in the city, practising Catholics amounted to 12% and non-practising ones to 28%. Some 19% were active Muslims and another 4% were of Muslim identity without practising the faith. The atheist/agnostic camp came to 30%.

Among people who actually practice a religion, Muslims are a majority. And as usual, with Islamic indoctrination and birth rates, the news becomes more troubling in the lower age groups.

Thus among respondents aged 55 and over, practising Catholics amounted to 30% and practising Muslims to less than 1%; but among those aged between 18 and 34, active adherence to Islam (14%) exceeded the practice of Catholicism (12%). Admittedly the sample (600 people in all) is small. But if this trend continues, practitioners of Islam may soon comfortably exceed devout Catholics not just in cosmopolitan Brussels, as is the case already, but across the whole of Belgium’s southern half.

Here’s how demographics sneak up on you. And they have a hell of a bite. Now you can understand why Brussels has become such a terror hub.

The greater Brussels area has long been considered to be a hotbed for radical Islamists. Troubled neighborhoods like Molenbeek and Anderlecht are known as being homes to secluded communities of immigrants in which radicals can easily go underground. So has Belgium become the center of terror in Europe and a security risk for the entire Continent?

These people who are firing their weapons and blowing themselves up don’t appear out of nowhere,” respected Belgian sociologist Felice Dassetto wrote on his blog after the Paris attacks. “They were not born yesterday, in the last months or solely in the context of Daesh (editors: the pejorative Arabic term for Islamic State). They are the children and grandchildren of 50 years of radical ideology and jihadists.” And whereas it has taken a half-century to create this jihadi culture, it will take many more (than 50) to convince Muslims that the culture of jihad has led Islam to its current moral and intellectual disaster, “but it is never too late to start.”

There isn’t going to be a Brussels in 50 years. There’s going to be an Islamic State. It’s much too late to start pleading with the Jihadi invaders to play nice. It’s time to decide if there is going to be an Islamic State in Belgium or not.