What's to be gained by marshalling such self-definition into religious group statistics?
To show that Mark Steyn is full of BS?
What kind of ideologues are most eager to use such stats?
I don't know what kind of ideologist I am. I'm still using them. What kind of ideologist am I?
And just to note: CBS is a quango.
Also, the stats you're using are on "regular attendance" at a place of worship, which is likely to produce more homogenous groups than plain self-identification on "what religion are you?" lines.
If you ask someone in France whether they're a Muslim you'll never get a "yes" for an answer?
was your question above.
As for regular attendance figures, they are probably kept by the authorities of different religions (and opinion pollsters). The numbers should no doubt deflate the apparent importance of religion in society and contradict those who seek to sow hysteria in dividing us into conflicting religious groups (as Nomad shows above).
(*) Being patently false on its face unless "In France, there are" is forced to adopt a nonstandard meaning.
We've been through this before several times. Who are we enacting this ridiculous kabuki for? Casual visitors to the website who haven't encountered our earlier debates on Jacobinism? En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
BTW, though I don't agree with Jérôme's provocative style, he put scare quotes round "Muslims" to mean, I suppose, that there is no such official category.
Vive la Lily! Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Call it pulling back the Overton window away from the bigots and clasj-of-civilizationers. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
That France should abandon its secular model in favor of the oh-so-successful US-style hyphenated-communatarianism? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The fact is that more Americans (as a percentage of the relevant population) say they are Christians first and Americans second than French people say they are Muslim first, and French second.
So when "Christians" is the widely accepted word to describe white Americans, I'll stop complaining about the word "Muslim" being used to describe France's Arab and African communities. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
You reacted to a report on Dutch quasi-official (quango) statistics with "there are no muslims in France", which is a non-sequitur.
If you claim "these statistics are meaningless in my worldview" there's no retional debate possible around the statistics. We just run around in circles chasing worldviews and there is no common starting point for you and I to talk about integration or integration policy, in part because it is not possible for you to state or answer the question "are Muslims integrated in France" since "are Muslims in France" is meaningless. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
I don't think Jérôme has anything against sociology studies using a more differentiated categorisation than "Muslim". And I think it is a legitimate question about the Dutch study, too, how they identified someone as "Muslim" or "Catholic" -- there might be differences there which make the interconfessionary comparison of church attendance meaningless. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Racism and other integration obstacles are linked to their being Arab, not to their being Muslim. The label "Muslim" is one that's only been used since 9/11 and is part of the vocabulary of the War on Terra.
Thus, we should not help promote that narrative.
But feel free to reinforce the stereotype immgrant = Muslim = terrorist. You're just playing into the hands of the scaremongering hard right. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But feel free to reinforce the stereotype immgrant = Muslim = terrorist. You're just playing into the hands of the scaremongering hard right.
It was not on integration - these are not the same 2 things, unless secularization is counted as a part of integration. (Considering how fast the Netherlands are secularising, it could perhaps be considered as such but no matter.) PeWi's diary I linked to was more on integration.
Lastly, records of the use of the label Muslim was already widely in use in the Netherlands prior to 2001 - see for instance the use in a selection of pre-2001 books. So I don't see your point, unless you're strictly speaking for France, and I for the Netherlands.
If you'd argue that the label has been perverted since 9/11, I'm with you. But I disagree that we should abandon it because of that.
I'm sure there are studies of integration in the Netherlands divided up by cultural origin or original home country - which I think is the correct way how integration should be looked at. And if I'd come across it I could post it here - unless I keep having the impression it will turn into another bitch fest about definitions between countries / worldviews...
I'm sure there are studies of integration in the Netherlands divided up by cultural origin or original home country
The pdf you lifted the church attendance diagram from does refer to such on multiple occasions. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Youssef Courbage, who is Lebanese, is a researcher at the French national institute of demographic studies. He served for a long time as an expert with the United Nations and has fulfilled many foreign missions in the Middle East and North Africa. Now, with his colleague Emmanuel Todd, he predicts the modernisation of the Islamic world and the birth, after Islamism, of a "de-Islamicised Muslim world" -following the patterns of the Christian West and the Buddhist Far East. ... Demographic factors also reveal that Muslim societies are in the course of a demographic transition with the rates of illiteracy and birth decreasing to levels similar to those of Western societies. Moreover, these elements are leading to rising individualism in the Muslim world. Demographic analysis thus enables them to reject the theory claiming that there are substantive differences between formerly Christian societies and Muslim societies. ... Emmanuel Todd predicts a period after Islamism: a de-Islamicised Muslim world, while Y.Courbage focuses more on secularization, not without a certain ambivalence, because this in fact means a form of secularization simultaneous with a resurgence in religiosity. These societies are in transition religiously.
Youssef Courbage, who is Lebanese, is a researcher at the French national institute of demographic studies. He served for a long time as an expert with the United Nations and has fulfilled many foreign missions in the Middle East and North Africa.
Now, with his colleague Emmanuel Todd, he predicts the modernisation of the Islamic world and the birth, after Islamism, of a "de-Islamicised Muslim world" -following the patterns of the Christian West and the Buddhist Far East.
...
Demographic factors also reveal that Muslim societies are in the course of a demographic transition with the rates of illiteracy and birth decreasing to levels similar to those of Western societies. Moreover, these elements are leading to rising individualism in the Muslim world. Demographic analysis thus enables them to reject the theory claiming that there are substantive differences between formerly Christian societies and Muslim societies.
Emmanuel Todd predicts a period after Islamism: a de-Islamicised Muslim world, while Y.Courbage focuses more on secularization, not without a certain ambivalence, because this in fact means a form of secularization simultaneous with a resurgence in religiosity. These societies are in transition religiously.
To sum up: if home country and host country levels of secularisation differ, the level of immigrant secularisation is a marker of integration, whatever the change in the level of secularisation in both societies. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic.
Bold mine. The Muslim part is the only point the diary factually addresses.
The ensuing debate has conflated integration with secularisation.
This does not say anything about me directing thinking. Perhaps it does say something about sensitised issues and / or hobby horses of respondents in this discussion.
I'm however irritated enough by now that I am going to direct my energy elsewhere for the time being.
I will note a few things:
Then there is the partly separate point that by accepting to talk about immigrants in Europe exclusively through the lens of religion, we fall in the cals of civilisations narrative. That's what my "there are no Muslims in France" quip is trying to convey, ie that the very real issues surrounding these bits of the population are usually not predominantly driven by their religion, but by other factors. The religious factor exists, and of course there are people of the Muslim faith in France, but talking about them, and describing them exclusively as Muslims is, in my view, a political mistake. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Bold mine. The Muslim part is the only point the diary factually addresses.
Nomad, just in that quote, Mark Steyn is defining immigrants [and their descendants] as "Muslim", the very practice Jérôme rails against. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
One more time:
The Muslim part is the only point the diary factually addresses.
What is your point? That there is a suggestion I'm thinking the same way like Steyn does on immigrants?
I write what I write. You think what you think - and that has nothing to do with me. I would much prefer it if you could refrain from making allegations that I am "directing thinking".
I am sick to the teeth with this diary and your commentary.
No. But if I can't get my point across repeatedly, I better desist. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Do you have statistics about the number of people who claim to be Christian first and American second? En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that of the 750 Christians in the survey, 59 percent identify themselves first by their faith, then as Americans, while 36 percent described themselves in the reverse. CNN's findings are not that different from those in a recent Pew Research Center poll on Muslim-American attitudes. In that poll, 47 percent of Muslims in America say they are Muslim first, American second. Younger Muslims were especially likely to feel that way: 60 percent of them responded they were Muslim first. CNN's research also found that Americans are now less likely to see the possibility for peace between Islam and Christianity. Of the total 1,029 adult Americans polled, 53 percent say conflict is inevitable between the two religions, up from 45 percent in 2003.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that of the 750 Christians in the survey, 59 percent identify themselves first by their faith, then as Americans, while 36 percent described themselves in the reverse.
CNN's findings are not that different from those in a recent Pew Research Center poll on Muslim-American attitudes. In that poll, 47 percent of Muslims in America say they are Muslim first, American second. Younger Muslims were especially likely to feel that way: 60 percent of them responded they were Muslim first.
CNN's research also found that Americans are now less likely to see the possibility for peace between Islam and Christianity. Of the total 1,029 adult Americans polled, 53 percent say conflict is inevitable between the two religions, up from 45 percent in 2003.
Today I intend, as much as time permits, to highlight a few of the findings from the Pew Research Center poll of American Muslims. Here is the first: 47% of what Pew says are 2.35 million Muslims in America, or a little more than one million Muslims, consider themselves to be Muslims first, Americans second. The other bars in the graph above show that to be a much lower percentage than in Britain, Germany, and Spain: 81% of Muslims in Britain consider themselves to be Muslims first; 66% in Germany, and 69% in Spain. In France, as under fire as it is for not assimilating its Muslim immigrants (although they have resisted assimilation at every step), it's 46%.
Interesting that a report called "American Muslims: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream" is spun by some people as showing that American Muslims are scary.
But the really interesting thing is the CNN poll showing that American Christians are more likely than Muslims to identify with their religious community first. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
Apparently "French Muslims" do exist. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Since I dislike being told what my values should be, I am not in the business of prescribing values for other people. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
