Europe's Warning to America

For fourteen centuries, Christianity and Islam have competed not merely as religions, but as civilizations. The map tells the story. Egypt, once overwhelmingly Christian, became overwhelmingly Muslim. Constantinople, capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire, became Istanbul, capital of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

Today, the contest is being shaped less by armies than by demography, migration, economics, and Europe’s declining confidence in itself. Europe is getting older and having fewer children. Birth rates across the European Union have fallen far below the 2.1 replacement rate. Meanwhile, immigration has become essential to maintaining its workforce.

Much of that immigration comes from Muslim-majority countries.

Pew estimated Europe’s Muslim population at roughly 5% in 2016. Even with zero additional migration, it projected that share would reach 7.4% by 2050 because Europe’s Muslims are younger and have more children. With continued migration, Pew projected a Muslim population of 11% to 14%.

Immigration can strengthen a civilization when immigrants enter its economy, embrace its laws, learn its language, and ultimately identify with their adopted country. But immigration without successful assimilation can produce something very different.

Europe’s generous welfare states make the challenge more difficult. High taxes and social costs already burden European economies, which are struggling with slower growth, aging populations, high energy costs, and increasingly costly pension systems. Importing workers helps only when newcomers become productive participants faster than they become long-term dependents.

Civilizations rarely disappear overnight. They weaken when they stop reproducing themselves biologically, economically, and culturally, while losing confidence in the inheritance they are asking newcomers to embrace. Immigration can renew a nation, but only when assimilation remains part of the bargain.

Highland Institute examines these global patterns for lessons closer to home.

Let Europe be a lesson for America.

— Sina.