Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Are Europeans Fleeing Eurabia?


An interesting, if slightly alarmist, article from Daniel Pipes highlights the extent of the 'white flight' from Old Europe toward the New World Countries of the US, Canada, NZ and in particular, Australia.

I am a member of this 'white flight' myself (i left England for Australia in 2006) but my reasons for leaving the Mother Country were not quite so dramatic. I married an Aussie, who simply couldn't stand yet another eight-month English winter.





However, the evidence for white flight is compelling. I don't share the views of the alarmists who claim it is related to the creation of Eurabistan as i feel there are other equally important factors at work.

We live in an age of unprecedented wealth and social mobility. A lot of emigrants choose to do so for reasons of 'quality of life'. England for example, is crowded, has dreary weather, has an escalating crime problem, has terrible state schools and fiercely expensive private schools. Mass immigration (500,000 per annum) has strained the public sector to breaking point and has lead to a transport nightmare (from London, it is now quicker to fly to Europe for a holiday than to the drive to the beaches of the South-West). However, the vast majority of these immigrants are white, Christians from Eastern and Central Europe, not young radical Muslims from Pakistan.

In an era of full employment, we have come to place a much greater emphasis on 'quality of life' than 'job for life', hence the appeal of vast open, sunny, beachside-spaces, such as the New World. I can testify that Australia simply provides a vastly better quality of life for children than my old London life.

However, for whatever reasons, the fact remains that Europe's indigenous population are leaving in droves. Worst of all for Europe, is that these people tend to be the most productive, being in their 30s and 40s and near the peak of their earnings cycle.
Pipes reports that

i) The number of British citizens who chose to go permanently abroad doubled from 53,000 in 2001 to 107,000 in 2005.

ii) In 2005, for the first time in recent history, more Germans left the country than entered it, with Australia as the favoured destination.

iii) In Holland 121,000 people emigrated in 2004, the largest number ever in the country's history.

iv) In France, immigration of Jews to Israel has more than doubled since 2001; from France to Canada it has increased by more than 700%; and in the Miami area, "entirely French-Jewish communities have cropped up, bringing with them everything from kosher patisseries to synagogues both French in language and culture."

v) In Belgium about 4,000 to 5,000 Flemish residents are leaving Antwerp every year, even as 5,000 to 6,000 non-European immigrants arrive in the city each year.
vi) Sweden during the past five years has witnessed the largest mass-emigration in the country’s history since the peak of the immigration to the USA more than a century ago