RUTHFULLY YOURS

Pew’s baseline estimate of the number of Muslims currently in Europe — the estimate upon which its future projections are calculated — has been undercounted by at least five million Muslims.

The UCIDE figures — which posit that there are roughly 750,000 more Muslims in Spain today than the estimate proffered by Pew — are widely recognized in Spain as the most accurate assessment of the Muslim population in that country. It remains unclear why Pew failed to mention the UCIDE report in its source appendix.

In Germany, Pew “decided not to count” the one million plus Muslim asylum seekers who arrived in the country in 2015/2016 because “they are not expected to receive refugee status.”

The Pew report entirely ignores the key issue of how Europe will integrate tens of millions of Muslim migrants whose values — including anti-Semitism, polygamy, female genital mutilation and honor violence — cannot be reconciled with those of Europe’s Judeo-Christian and liberal-democratic heritage.

Europe’s Muslim population is set to double — and possibly triple — between now and 2050, according to new projections by the Pew Research Center.

The projections, contained in a report, “Europe’s Growing Muslim Population,” confirm what has long been common knowledge: decades of declining European birthrates, coupled with mass migration from the Muslim world, are fast-tracking the Islamization of Europe.

The demographic calamity facing Europe, however, is even worse than the Pew report lets on. A critical analysis of the data shows that Pew’s calculations of the current Muslim population in key European countries are partial and incomplete — and in some instances inaccurate. As a result, Pew’s baseline estimate of the number of Muslims currently in Europe — the estimate upon which its future projections are calculated — has been undercounted by at least five million Muslims, whose presence in Europe will significantly increase the future size of the continent’s Muslim population.

The Pew report offers three projections based on three different scenarios involving migration during the next three decades. The baseline for all three scenarios is the Muslim population in Europe (defined by Pew as the 28 countries presently in the European Union, plus Norway and Switzerland), estimated at 25.8 million (4.9% of the overall population) as of mid-2016 — up from 19.5 million (3.8%) in 2010.

The first scenario envisions a complete halt to Muslim immigration between now and 2050. This scenario will not occur, of course, but was modeled to determine what the future might look like with migration removed from the equation.

In this scenario, Europe’s Muslim population is projected to increase by about 10 million people, from an estimated 25.8 million Muslims in 2016 to 35.8 million in 2050. In percentage terms, the Muslim population would rise from about 5% of Europe’s overall population today to 7.4% at midcentury — not only because Muslims are growing in absolute numbers, but because the non-Muslim population in Europe is expected to decline by roughly 10%.

Religion (in this instance, Islam) plays a smaller part in what makes terrorists tick than “the [human] need for… personal significance… Especially when it comes to violence that is shunned by most religions and most cultures, you need validation from a group of people that would then become your reference group. So the group component is very important, particularly when it comes to antisocial activities that are forbidden or shunned….” — Arie W. Kruglanski, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland and former co-director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism

It seems as if many analysts gloss over the role of Islamic teachings — the Quran, the Sunna, and fatwas — by minimizing them while highlighting matters such as the need for personal significance and validation. By minimizing the content of the Islamic literature, what they overlook is that Islamic teachings actually justify many activities that they would label antisocial.

The validation jihadists get from their reference group is mainly Islamic in words and meanings and that reference group has no significance without referring to the Islamic texts. What seems a universal dismissal or whitewashing — intentionally or not — of what is written in the texts, has become so prevalent, that it undermines our ability to recognize, let alone rectify, it.

Even relatively “moderate” Muslims, as hard as it is for a Westerner to comprehend it, deeply believe that we are here just for an insignificant instant, and that the really important life is yet to come in the afterlife.

Responding to findings of a recent study on what motivates both ISIS fighters and those who combat them, Arie W. Kruglanski — distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland and former co-director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism — said:

“The ideology component addresses individuals’ need to matter and feel significant. … It tells people what to do, such as fight and make sacrifices, in order to gain respect and admiration from others.”

Kruglanski, whose 2014 article, “Psychology Not Theology: Overcoming ISIS’ Secret Appeal,” argues that religion (in this instance, Islam) plays a smaller part in what makes terrorists tick than “the [human] need for … personal significance.” He added:

“Especially when it comes to violence that is shunned by most religions and most cultures, you need validation from a group of people that would then become your reference group. So the group component is very important, particularly when it comes to antisocial activities that are forbidden or shunned.”