[clandestini] and the islamic increase in italy

As many of you know, Welshcakes has run quite a few posts on the clandestini problem in Italy, for example, here, here and here.

Now the MSM is opening up a little and covering it and not half badly either:

An infernal scene, it is played out daily on the vast concrete wharf that dominates the tiny Italian port of Lampedusa. There is no moaning, no wailing, just the deep drone of boat engines churning water, the shout of coast guards mooring, a seagull's cry. On land, safe and at last shaded from the vicious 40-plus-degree heat, the relief is palpable, if fleeting.

Between January and August, nearly 20,000 people made the perilous overland journey to the coasts of Libya or Tunisia, to cross the Mediterranean and land on Italy's southernmost territory, the islet of Lampedusa. Many have already spent weeks, months and even years on the road and once on the coast, must entrust what little money they have left to the local criminal syndicates that traffic in human beings, and smaller and ever more dangerous boats.

Infernal indeed when humans are reduced to flotsam and jetsam. No one denies the terrible waste in it as thousands die BUT there is another side to it too:

According to latest Italian official statistics, Muslims make up about 34% of the 2,400,000 foreign residents living in Italy as of January, 1, 2005. To these 820,000 foreign residents of Muslim heritage legally residing in Italy, another 100,000-150,000 should be added, as Muslims represent, according to annual estimates by the Italian association Caritas, about 40% of Italy's illegal immigrants.

Many of the clandestini landing in Italy are only using Italy as a gateway to other EU nations, due to the fact Italy offers fewer economic opportunities for them than Germany or France, and because among the clandestini Italian society has a reputaton of being more hostile to them.

For example:

Recent points of contention between native Italians and the Muslim immigrant population include the presence of crucifixes in public buildings including school classrooms, government offices, and hospital wards.

In Italy, Muslims are up against a hard nut. So they move on. Screeds have been written about the problems of Islam in Europe but an address by Frits Bolkestein of the Netherlands, put a neat analogy:

Alluding to the E.U.'s aspiration to become a multinational state, he drew listeners' attention to the fate of the most recent European power with that aspiration, the Austro-Hungarian empire just over a century ago. Austrians were culturally confident (Liszt, Richard Strauss, Brahms, Mahler, and Wagner were working in Vienna). They were prosperous and proud.

The problem was that there were only 8 million of them, and expanding their country's frontiers brought them face to face with an energetic pan-Slavic movement. Once the Empire absorbed 20 million Slavs, it faced difficult compromises between allowing the new subjects to rule themselves and preserving its own culture. Rather like the E.U., the Empire was past the point of no return before it realized it was going anywhere in particular.

Commenting on Bruce Bawer's book While Europe Slept, one reviewer wrote:

Underneath its surface tolerance and secular welfarism, there lurks something very sinister in the Europe of today, something that the sanctimonious political correctness and anti-Americanism of the elites cannot cover up anymore.

There is nothing left of classical liberalism in Europe today - what is most disgraceful about the current European mindset is the phoney tolerance, for example the European view of unassimilated minorities as "colourful" but Europe's total refusal to meaningfully integrate these into society. European are happy to dole out welfare money but not prepared to give these people proper employment.

Fair enough comment but the other side is that of numbers. Sheer numbers:

Islam is widely considered Europe's fastest growing religion, with immigration and above average birth rates leading to a rapid increase in the Muslim population.

This has been debated now for some time of course. Against this is the point:

The UK has a long history of contact with Muslims, with links forged from the Middle Ages onwards. In the 19th Century Yemeni men came to work on ships, forming one of the country's first Muslim communities. In the 1960s, significant numbers of Muslims arrived as people in the former colonies took up offers of work.

To the anecdotal - there is a family of Pakistanis round the corner here, running a chippie. There has never been any "trouble" from that quarter, they don't try to stir the pot or convert people. They don't call for Muslim schools or Sharia law. They are not on the dole, sitting at home watching Coronation Street. They are the "old Muslims" in the area - more than one generation and they are British, from their accents to their manner. Yet they are nominally Muslim.

What of them? If a cultural backlash comes in a big way, will they be swept away in it? Also, as Norman Tebbit once observed - do they cheer for England in the Test or for their former homeland? Do they become politicized by stirrers in Mosques and politicians grandstanding for brownie points with the population and change from benign to dangerous?

Again, I have no answers and I'm sure they don't either.