Tomorrow belongs to Mo

Mark Steyn:

Our pal Right Girl notices that respectable European publications are beginning to sound awfully like America Alone. For example, the Belgian weekly Le Vif/L'Express:

With a rapidly growing population, the capital of Belgium is already one of the most multicultural in Europe. Muslims are already a majority in some neighborhoods...

You don't say. And where's that likely to lead?

Brussels, overwhelmingly Muslim in 20 years? It can't be totally ruled out... Today, families with children - 'Whites' and of the middle class - are leaving the 19 municipalities of the Brussels Region, attracted by the convenience and low prices of the Walloon Brabant, Flemish Brabant and Hainaut provinces. The birth rates of immigrants, which is slightly higher than that of natives, and the international immigration (mainly through family reunification), compensate for this exodus and reinforces it. In reality, Brussels is experiencing what French demographer Michèle Tribalat calls a "process of demographic substitution". One population replaces another.


Which is pretty much what I said in America Alone - although my comparison of the native European exodus with the "white flight" from failing US cities in the Seventies seems more relevant than rosy-hued paeans to the "low prices of the Walloon Brabant".

But will that matter? For those who ask, Steyn has another question:

Here's my question for the left - for women, gays, "progressives" generally: Which currently Muslim city would you wish to live in? I don't just mean visit, or pass through for a couple of years. I love Amman and Cairo, but that's in part because I know I have a return ticket to New Hampshire. So in which Muslim city would you like to live permanently? Make your life, build a career, raise your kids. And, if you're having trouble answering, why do you think Brussels and Antwerp - and many other European cities - will turn out any different? At best, they'll be like Kuala Lumpur, living on the inheritance of the past and the commercial acumen of the non-Muslim population, but with hardcore Islamization remorselessly nibbling in from the edges. For a while, you'll be able to take advantage of "the low prices of the Walloon Brabant", but cultures in retreat quickly run out of places to retreat to.