Recent commentary on Europe's future, most amusingly presented by Mark Steyn in a series of books and articles, assumes that past demographic trends -- a high level of immigration from the Islamic world, etc. -- will continue into the future resulting in the Islamicization of the continent. Writing in the latest edition of the Wilson Quarterly, Martin Walker, notes that those trends are already changing.
Two points are of special significance -- birthrates are rising again inside Europe while declining rapidly both in the Muslim world and among Europe's immigrant populations. As a result, the picture of a future Europe inundated by vast Muslim hordes seems far less likely than it did just a few years ago.
The second major trend is the expansion of monotheistic religions in sub-Saharan Africa. Both Islam and Christianity are spreading rapidly there and it is likely that in the future the demographic center of both religions will be in that region.
Some other interesting points: At current birthrates India's population will soon surpass that of China and, taken overall, the world's population is rapidly aging, coming more and more to resemble that of the developed nations.
What it all suggests is that the world of tomorrow will not look like the picture currently being assumed by policymakers and, given the nature of current futurist scenarios, that is both a hopeful and a frightening conclusion.
Read the whole thing here.
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