Debunking a YouTube 'Eurabia' hit

A couple of weeks after Newsweek ran a cover story debunking the Eurabia myth, a new YouTube video, ‘Muslim demographics’ regurgitates alarmist statistics that falsely predict the imminent ‘Islamification of Europe’.

The BBC reports that the video has been viewed more than 10 million times. Among some of the demographic ‘facts’ presented is the video are these:

* 90% of Europe’s population growth since 1990 is due Islamic immigration.

* In France, 30% of those aged 20 and younger are Muslim, with the Muslim birth rate far exceeding the national average. The video claims France will be an Islamic Republic within 39 years as a typical French family has 1.8 children but French Muslim families have 8.1 children.

* The Muslim population in the UK has risen 30-fold since the beginning of the 1980s.

* And in the Netherlands, the video claims half of all newborns are Muslim, and that in 15 years half the population will be Muslim.

As the BBC notes, many European countries don’t collate population data based on religion, making the statistics quoted in the video a matter of pure conjecture, if not outright lies. This particularly being the case with regards to the false presentation of a German government statement on demographic trends in German and the figures given for the number of UK Muslims in the 1980s.