Leaving Eurabia or Eurocracy?

Submitted by DéMillicanKunAhThalai (Netherlands), May 10, 2008 at 11:24

After reading the comments on the article 'Europeans Fleeing Eurabia' I was quite stricken by the fact that some of the comments portray Europe - and especially the Netherlands, France and Britain - as being in some kind of a civil war with their Muslim minorities and people fleeing for anti-western violence. I feel this could be true in some way, but still, I have to nuance this.

1): European countries, and especially the Netherlands, are by far not as unsafe as most other countries in the world, among which Russia, the United States and even Australia. In the 2000's the murder rate in the Netherlands was an annual 0.97 each 100,000 inhabitants (slightly higher in 2000 than in later years - source: CBS, 2006). In the USA the murder-rate was 5.59 each 100,000 inhabitants, with a disturbing peak of 7.7 in 2004 (source: Crime in the USA, FBI, 2006).

According to a specialist whom I met, a typical Dutch house is visited by burglars (mostly non-violent professional thieves working in specialized gangs) once every 20 years, and in most cases only the stereo or the laptop is stolen. Perhaps it is so that the European style 'leftist' or 'communist' welfare-state, including the ban on privately owned weapons, do have a positive effect on public order, simply because the poor has more to lose and because it is more difficult to obtain a fire-arm. So why in some of the comments 'our' Dutch and European 'leftist' welfare-state is blamed for the terrible (?) Muslim-thread we are in, I still do not know...

2): An important problem is the fact that housing in the Netherlands is extremely expensive, with average in most regions more than € 200,000.- for a 2 room house, or rents of more than € 500,- a month for nothing more than student rooms in towns such as Amsterdam and Utrecht. (Average annual wage in the Netherlands € 30,975.- gross a year, which mean a net wage of € 19,116.- Source: CPB, 2008). So prizes on housing are an important reason to move to a certain region or country. In the comments many words were said about high educated Dutch leaving the country en masse.

But one must realize that the statistics include the majority of the ca 30,000 domestic Dutch emigrants (on a population of more than 16 million!!!) move to towns just over the Dutch border where houses are significantly cheaper, but from where they are still able commute to their jobs back in the Netherlands. So many of the higher educated emigrants are only leaving the country, and not the countries economy, and they just leave for economic reasons. I do not know much about immigration in other EU countries, but things may be similar in some cases. So the exodus of Europeans from 'Eurabia' may not be as drastic as it seem from the statistics.

3): Western Europe is just recovering from a minor economic downfall lasting from 2001 till 2006, at least in the Netherlands (but also in Germany) leading to a significant shortage of jobs for the high educated. Many young professionals and high educated people were forced to work in factories, or even to live on the dole. Some of those may have decided to try their luck in 'paradise country' Australia of in fast growing economies such as Ireland...

4): One must take into account that Europe, and more specifically the Netherlands, do suffer from a suffocating bureaucracy which may be larger - and more expensive - than a healthy social-democratic society should have. Whether the European bureaucracy is worse than those in other welfare nations such as Canada and Australia, I do not know. But the fact that bureaucracy is considered a problem in the Netherlands is something I do know, since – for example – the unemployed do have to wait months or years for an answer on their requests for participation in re-integration programs, since infrastructure projects necessary for solving important congestion problems are halted more than decades because of paperwork, and since I will be prosecuted when I use sunflower-oil as car fuel (according to law this is an act of bypassing the tax on gasoline, which partly is used for reducing the emission of CO2 from fossil fuels!!!).

Of course the many laws and regulations also hinders the police in doing their job; so violence caused by non-humans like hooligans, skinheads and also rebel immigrants may pose a thread. But high educated Europeans rarely live in neighborhoods or villages where the lack of social security is a problem. Rising taxes, worsening traffic problems, the lack of good education, the dream of starting your own business, and more exiting job opportunities abroad, all could be important reasons for leaving the country. So, mustn't we conclude that the 'high' numbers of well educated Dutch emigrants is due to the consequences of Dutch bureaucracy in general rather than due to Muslim related violence?

So, we may say that the present and future effects of the Muslim incursion on European life is mostly hypothetical, and that the problems with migrant youth in some towns like Amsterdam is not even compatible with the terror delivered by gangs in towns like Los Angeles (...lets say: the Cribs and the Bloods). At least many of the few Dutch and other Europeans who actually do emigrate may possibly have different reasons to leave than anti-western violence.

Of course this won't change the fact that the European civilization, after decades of pure growth and even some unification, seem not to be able to adjust their society and welfare state to the complexity of 21^st century world. Such a civilization may easily collapse by the hands of those part of a different – more vital – culture and tradition. The Muslim minority in Western Europe may be the present day equivalents of the Germanic tribes in the ancient Western Roman Empire; also they started their careers as immigrants, fleeing from poverty and bloodshed.

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