It’s easier to condemn Steven Emerson than to confront issues of assimilation and culture.
Steven Emerson, the expert on terrorism, has caused a sigh of relief among the bien pensants of the Western world. By making inaccurate and false claims on Fox News, he has enabled them to pour righteous scorn on him and thereby avoid thinking about uncomfortable social realities.
Emerson claimed that Birmingham, the second-largest city in Britain, was “totally” Muslim. In the last census, in 2011, 21.8 percent of the city’s inhabitants said that they were Muslim. This percentage is likely to rise because of higher birth rates among Muslims, immigration, and the departure of white Christians. Residents of Birmingham who identified themselves as “white British” declined by 11 percent between 2001 and 2011, while the “white Irish” declined by 33 percent. The proportion of Christians would have decreased further had it not been for the arrival of Eastern Europeans. Meanwhile, the Muslim Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations increased over those ten years by 40 and 50 percent, respectively, and the Arab population rose to 1 percent from zero percent. Whether this matters, whether it fills you with joy or apprehension, or leaves you indifferent, depends upon your political outlook—and perhaps on where you live.