Open Thread: "politically impossible" level of immigration

Open Thread: "politically impossible" level of immigration

Newsweek and the Guardian both came out recently with articles claiming that fears of a Muslim takeover of Europe were exaggerated. Newsweek with the article Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong and the Guardian with Fears of an Islamic revolt in Europe begin to fade.

Newsweek, btw, speaks of Eurabia, but ignores the fact that Eurabia does not mean a Muslim Europe. Rather, it's a conspiracy theory advanced by Bat Ye'or, saying that Europeans and Muslims made secret deals to ensure massive immigration into Europe. Polls, surveys and declining birthrates do not prove or disprove the conspiracy theory itself.

In any case, both articles claim that the Muslim community in Europe won't grow as fast as the doomsays claim, partly because Muslims don't have as many children as people think, and partly because it will be politically impossible to support the levels of mass migration needed for such a population explosion.

That phrase has been nagging at me. When I re-read the articles carefully, I realized it apparently come from the same source too.

Newsweek:

For the number of Muslims to outnumber non-Muslims by midcentury, it would require either breeding on a scale rarely seen in history or for immigration to continue at a pace that's now politically unacceptable. More likely, new controls will slow Muslim immigration. (..) Bottom line: given the number of variables, demographers are loath to make predictions about the number of Muslims in Europe in the years to come. "You would almost have to make it up," says Carl Haub, the senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. And the idea of a Muslim majority any time soon? "Absolutely absurd."


The Guardian makes it an actual quote:

"There is no reason why immigrants in Europe are going to have more kids than in their countries of origin," Haub told the Observer. (..) More radical predictions, such as the claim there will be a Muslim majority in the EU in the next half century, are just "plain silly", said Haub, as they depend on "physically impossible" rates of natural growth or "politically impossible" levels of mass immigration.


What does "politically impossible" or "politically unacceptable" mean? I would think it means that people are concerned about the levels of immigration and would therefore take steps to prevent additional immigration. In other words, these articles claim that there's no danger of a 'Muslim takeover' as long as Europeans are concerned about Muslim immigration. But even more than that, they claim there's no fear of a Muslim takeover, while at the same time claiming that the European authorities, under public pressure, will introduce "new controls to slow Muslim immigration". Fear or no fear?