MUST READ: WHAT DOES MUSLIM IMMIGRATION COST EUROPE?

What Does Muslim Immigration Cost Europe?
by Fjordman

Do gang rapes boost GDP? Was that an offensive question, you say? Well, according to Sweden's finance minister Pär Nuder, more immigrants should be allowed into Sweden in order to safeguard the welfare system. However, in reality estimates indicate that immigration costs Sweden at least 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, probably several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy. An estimated cost of immigration of 225 billion Swedish kroner in 2004, which is not unlikely, would equal 17.5% of Sweden's tax income that year, a heavy burden in a country which already has some of the highest levels of taxation in the world.

At the same time, the number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm, who has investigated violent crimes in one court, found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or by foreign parents. Swedish politicians want to continue Muslim immigration because it boosts the economy, yet the evidence so far indicates that it mainly boosts the number of gang rapes. Meanwhile, research shows that fear of honor killings is a very real issue for many immigrant girls in Sweden. 100.000 young Swedish girls live as virtual prisoners of their own families.

An ever growing group of non-western immigrants in Norway is dependent on welfare. This was the conclusion of a study by Tyra Ekhaugen of the Frisch Centre for Economic Research and the University of Oslo. Ekhaugen's research contradicted the often heard assertion that Norway's labor market depends increasingly on immigrants. The study indicated quite the reverse. If the present evolution continues, immigration will increase the pressure on the welfare state rather than relieving it because many immigrants do not join the tax-paying part of the population. "Non-Western immigrants" in Norway are recipients of social security benefits ten times as frequently as native Norwegians. If we remember that "non-Western immigrants" include Chinese, Indians and other non-Muslims who are known for (and statistically proven to be) hard working, this speaks volumes of the heavy burden Muslims constitute on the welfare state.

Journalist Halvor Tjønn from newspaper Aftenposten, one of the few genuinely critical journalists in the country, in June 2006 cited a report from NHO, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. NHO stated that the current immigration policies were a serious threat to the country's economy. Norway is the planet's third largest exporter of oil, next to Saudi Arabia and Russia. Yet according to NHO, there is a risk that much of the profit Norway earns from oil could be spent on paying welfare for a rapidly growing immigrant population. The most profitable immigration would be high-skilled workers who stay for period of limited duration, but at the same time not too brief. A Danish think tank has estimated that the net cost of immigration was up to 50 billion kroner every year, and those were cautious estimates. Denmark could thus save huge sums by stopping immigration from less developed countries. A study found that every other immigrant from the Third World -- especially from Muslim countries -- lacked the qualifications for even the most menial jobs on the organized Danish labor market.

Professor Kjetil Storesletten at the University of Oslo said that the net contribution of immigrants to the economy was probably negative in Norway, too. "Admitting immigrants with low levels of education leads nowhere. We cannot continue the immigration policies we have followed until now," said Storesletten. In Norway, social benefits and salaries for low-skilled workers are among the highest in the world. At the same time, the salaries for highly skilled workers are comparatively lower and the taxes are high. This compressed salary structure is the result of decades of Socialist policies in Scandinavia. It leads to attracting people with lower skills and little education, but also makes the countries less attractive for researchers and scientists. Still, the agency that handles immigration to Norway, UDI, in 2005 thought that the country must make it more attractive for both skilled and unskilled workers to move to Norway. "We need more immigrants," claimed UDI chief Trygve Nordby. "Too few dare to say that we have a large need for non-professional workers as well," he said. UDI, in turn, should be able to have more flexibility in deciding cases, and process cases more quickly and efficiently. As it turned out later, the bureaucrats of UDI were in fact so "flexible" that they had been running their own, private immigration policies, and that the agency's liberal interpretation of asylum rules had "stretched the boundaries" of the law. UDI violated both the law and political directives when it granted residency permits to nearly 200 Iraqi Kurds in the fall of 2005. A commission that probed the controversial permits blasted the former head of UDI, Trygve Nordby, and his successor resigned. More than half of the social security benefits in the city of Oslo are spent of non-Western immigrants, a portion that has grown tremendously over the years. City council leader Erling Lae warns against prejudice and states that without immigrants, there would be "complete chaos" in Oslo. Meanwhile, Norwegian newspapers are worried that online debates are "flooded with racist comments" about Muslims. One of the racist comments they mentioned was this one: "A large number of Muslims out of their own, free will choose to live in parallel societies where they speak their mother tongue, watch foreign TV, despise the society they have moved to and pick spouses from their original homelands. The only contact they have with the natives is in the social security office."

"The debate is often colored by ignorance. It is not a human right to be heard at any given time. It requires a certain minimum of social intelligence to be allowed to participate in the public debate," says Esten O. Sæther, online editor of the Leftist, pro-Multicultural newspaper Dagbladet. Sæther warns that the newspapers may have to impose stricter censorship on their online discussion forums and the comments to online articles. However, Dagbladet seems to have little understanding of why so many people are fed up with Muslims and their demands. Neither have they admitted that they were wrong in their one-sided praise of the positive effects of Muslim immigration for decades, nor apologized for demonizing the right-wing Progress Party and its leader Carl I. Hagen throughout the 90s for their "racism" for questioning the real costs of this immigration.

On the contrary, although information about the costs of Muslim immigration has been available for several years, this was a non-issuein Norwegian media prior to the national elections in 2005. Instead, they were focusing on "poverty" in Norway and the need for increased welfare spending. This in a country that is among the wealthiest in the world and which provides its citizens with the highest social security benefits in Europe. Norway's media coverage of the national elections revealed a desire for a Leftist government, said Election expert Aarebrot, a professor at the Institute for Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen. He argued that, with few exceptions, most of Norway's media leans to the left politically. "Most newspapers are what I would call politically correct. By politically correct in Norway today I mean slightly radical, urban and liberal," Aarebrot said. Nearly 70 percent of journalists vote Labor (Ap), Socialist Left (SV) or Red Electoral Alliance (RV) according to a poll, and this is reflected in the press, Aarebrot said.

Oslo will have a non-Western majority in a few decades, if the current trends continue. There are now several researchers who predict that in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the native population and their descendants will become a minority in their own country within this century. The only question is when. Since the Islamic Jihad usually enters a much more aggressive and physical phase once the Muslim population reaches 10 – 20% of the total in any given area, this does not bode well for the future of the urban regions in Scandinavia. Will they turn out different from similar regions in Thailand, the Philippines or Nigeria?

Admittedly, part of the problem lies with the Western European welfare state system itself and cannot be blamed on the immigrants alone. Iranian Nima Sanandaji tells of his family's meeting with the Swedish system: "In Sweden my family encountered a political system that seemed very strange. The interpreter told us that Sweden is a country where the government will put a check into your mailbox each month if you don't work. She explained that there was no reason to get a job." "Although my mother got several jobs, we concluded that this really didn't improve our family's economy. During the sixteen years we have been in Sweden, my mother has in total worked less than one year."

However, part of the problem is also due to the mentality of some of the Muslims who move there, yet display no loyalty to their new countries. Immigrant men who divorce their wives according to secular law, but stay married to them according to sharia, Islamic law, represent an increasing problem in the city of Odense, Denmark, according to Erik Simonsen, deputy major in charge of administration. The result is a large number of "single" women who receive welfare support. From other countries, it is known that some Muslim men to do this trick with several women at the same time. Some observers blamed the Muslim riots in France in 2005, accurately described by writer Mark Steyn as the "first welfare funded Jihad in history," on polygamy practiced by Muslim men, paid for by French taxpayers. But also immigrants who are financially independent are cheating, says Simonsen. "80 percent of the immigrant economy in Odense is a black market economy. That's a lot, and it cannot be tolerated, because the law is equal for all."

As one Muslim in Norway stated: "I worked in a Pakistani shop, but all of the work there is 'unofficial.' Neither the boss nor I pay taxes to Norwegian authorities. In addition to this, I receive 100% disability benefits and welfare. I have to be cunning to make as much money as possible, since this is my only objective with being in Norway." Undoubtedly, many Muslims view welfare money from the infidels as Jizya, the poll-tax non-Muslims according to the Koran are supposed to pay to Muslims as tribute and a sign of their inferior status and submission to Islamic rule. In Britain, one member of an Islamic group warned an undercover reporter against getting a job because it would be contributing to the kuffar (non-Muslim) system.

One of the reasons for the low participation in the work force among Muslims is a very high drop out rate from schools, especially for boys. Although Muslims themselves blame this on "poor integration efforts" and "marginalization," some of them are actively obstructing their kids' education, lest they become too much like the infidels. Thousands of Muslim children with Scandinavian citizenship are sent to Koran schools in Pakistan and other countries, to prevent them from becoming "too Westernized." When this practice was documented and criticized by the Norwegian organization Human Rights Service, Pakistanis in Norway had the galls to ask for a school for their children in Pakistan, funded by Norwegian taxpayers. They will probably get it. According to the Copenhagen Post, in Denmark when the country's schools open their doors again after the summer holidays, not every student is there to enter. Some schools report one in every five students missing from the schoolrooms. Daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported that some children had not returned from vacation in their homelands with their parents. 'When students are kept away from school start, it's a big problem for their integration and can affect the children's educational level,' said Integration Minister Rikke Hvilshøj. She said a committee would discuss methods to get parents to send their children to school from day one. 'These are children who have problems beforehand following what's going on at school,' Hvilshøj said. 'Not being there when the school year starts won't make it any easier. We need to make parents understand that if their children are to get a good chance in Denmark, they need to make sure that they are there when school starts.' Author and journalist Rushy Rahsid said she had often gone on long vacations to Pakistan with her parents as a child. 'Families go on such long trips to give their children a healthy dose of religion, culture, traditions, and family,' she said. 'If you buy a very expensive ticket, you want to take full advantage of the trip and meet the entire family.'

Not that the problems always disappear when they actually attend school, either. Going to school is no child's game for many children in Copenhagen, where beatings, kicks, robberies, and threats have everyday occurrences. The perpetrators are normally their own age. Violence and threats pose such a big problem in high schools in Malmö, Sweden, that the local school board wants to install surveillance cameras and security guards in the buildings. The city's education director Matz Nilsson said unruly and aggressive students had become a more common sight in the high schools of Malmö, the home of some of Scandinavia's biggest and roughest slums.

In the spring of 2006, police were deployed at a Berlin school after teachers complained that they could not cope with their students' aggression and disrespect. A teacher who recently left the school told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that ethnic Arab pupils were bullying ethnic Turks, Germans and other nationalities. "School for them," said Petra Eggebrecht, former director of the Rütli school, "is simply a place to fight for peer recognition, where young criminals become idols." Young people are also easy targets for Islamist organisations. Outside the Rütli school, the children greeted visitors in Arabic.

When reporters went to school they were pelted with paving stones by masked youths from the schoolyard as the district's mayor stood helplessly at the entrance of the building. An increasing problem in German schools is that Arab male students often refuse to respect the authority of women teachers. Students at the Ruetli Hauptschule were not shy about expressing their views to reporters. "The German (students) brown nose us, pay for things for us and stuff like that, so that we don't smash in their faces." But there are also conflicts between Arab and Turkish students, mirrored in battles between the city's foreign-dominated youth gangs. Integration of foreign youths in Berlin is often poor. Even second and third generation children frequently do not speak fluent German and many fail to complete school - all of which leads to a high jobless rate among immigrant youths. White German families are moving out of districts like Neukoelln.

Muslim immigration has led to a spike in organized and violent crime, too. As early as 2002, Lars Hedegaard together with Dr. Daniel Pipes wrote about how Third-world immigrants - most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq - constituted less than 5 percent of the population but consumed upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending. What's worse, however, is that Muslims were only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but made up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims were non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions were found in other crimes.

In 2005, it was reported that 82 percent of crimes in Copenhagen were committed by immigrants or descendants of immigrants, and the police pressed charges against second-generation immigrants five times as frequently per capita as against ethnic Danes. Doormen working in the Danish capital are now often armed with guns or clubs so as to be able to defend themselves against violent immigrant gangs. There is more violence than ever before and some immigrant gangs have even been known to seek out doormen at their private homes. Immigrant criminal gangs are much more active than previously believed, and their brutality has them surpassing biker crime gangs like the Hell's Angels or Bandidos, the State Police said. A Norwegian researcher warned that ethnic gangs could give Norway the kind of immigrant-related organized crime that had previously been unknown in Scandinavia. Arne Johannessen from the Norwegian Police Organization warned in 2003 that the cost of crime may have been doubled during the previous decade, in part due to immigration.

In Sweden, there has been a steep rise in all kinds of crime and violence at the same time as an unprecedented amount of immigration to the country. Of course, Swedish politicians would never dream of connecting the two. However, in one of those rare cases where a Swedish newspaper has actually told the truth, Aftonbladet revealed that 9 out of the 10 most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden were Muslims, a trend known from other European countries such as France, where Muslims make up 10% of the general population, but maybe 70% of the prison population. The number of people under the age of 18 who are serving sentences in juvenile detention centres in Sweden has risen sharply over the last five years.

Not that Western European prisons will scare immigrant children too much. The relaxed regime at a prison housing some of Holland's most dangerous criminals has caused controversy. Pictures of tattooed prisoners enjoying a "social evening" and beer embarrassed the authorities which are sensitive to claims abroad that they are soft on crime. One inmate at Esserheem serving 14 years for murder said: "We have a party every weekend in our own prison bar. We can enjoy wonderful snacks, ice cream, beers, play cards or billiards and listen to music. If the weather is warm we can play tennis." Another prisoner spoke of "perfect" fresh food and said: "We can buy everything in the prison shop including sushi and sake." In the Netherlands, the economic argument deployed by both leftwing Multiculturalists and free-market conservatives - that immigration revives aging populations, provides new labor resources, and generates entrepreneurial activity – "simply does not apply." There has been no overall economic benefit to population change since unskilled guest workers were invited to the Netherlands in the early 1970s. According to Paul Scheffer, a leading critic of Multiculturalism and professor of urban sociology at Amsterdam University, up to 60% of first-generation Turkish and Moroccan populations are unemployed.

Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad, quotes the observations made by Dr. Muqtedar Khan, a much-ballyhooed Muslim moderate from the U.S., after a trip to Belgium. Even Khan admitted the largesse of Belgium's welfare state towards its Muslims: "…the welfare check was normally 70 percent to 80 percent of the salary. For those [Muslims] who were married with children, welfare provided comfortable living and with low property values, even those on welfare could actually own homes." American expatriate writer Bruce Bawer, living in Norway, has documented in his book While Europe Slept how Oslo imams preach brazenly that Muslims should expect these welfare benefits—and feel justified in supplementing them by stealing from stores—as a form of jizya extracted from their infidel "host" societies. As Bostom points, out, "such attitudes, whatever their origins, raise this larger basic question: why does the West continue to validate the raw, imbalanced bigotry that denies non-Muslims any access to Mecca and Medina—upon pain of imprisonment, torture, and death—while Muslims demand and are granted the ability to settle, with generous accommodations, within Europe or America?"

Indeed, some of the Muslims are actively involved in supporting Jihad activities, verbally or physically. Mullah Krekar is convicted of terrorism in Jordan, he has been suspected of links to the Madrid terrorists, and the CIA claims he has been ordering bombings in Iraq. He has lived off Norwegian welfare money in Oslo for years, and reputedly gets a lot of free taxi rides from Muslim cab drivers who think he's a great guy. Norway's most controversial refugee has lodged a threat against the country that has hosted him and his family for the past 14 years. Mullah Krekar continues to fight deportation back to Iraq, and calls any such order "an offense" that should be punished. "I defend my rights in their court just like Western people defend their rights. I am patient like they are patient. But if my patience runs out, I will react like Orientals do." Asked how "Orientals" react, Krekar said: "I don't want to comment on that." Krekar has also spoken positively about terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the recently killed Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In Britain, the police have been investigating allegations that the four suspected London bombers from July 2005 collected more than £500,000 in benefits payments. The suspects are supposed to have used multiple aliases and addresses. One, Mr Ibrahim, is said to have had six aliases. Some are also shown to have claimed several nationalities, ages and national insurance numbers while in Britain. Investigators believe that bogus names were used to make some benefit claims. Two are also alleged to have obtained asylum using bogus passports and false names and nationalities. Mr Ibrahim, alleged to be the Hackney bus bomber, is believed to have used two dates of birth, six aliases, two national insurance numbers and two addresses. Mr Osman apparently went under five names, variously claimed that he was Eritrean or Somali, and used four addresses in southwest London. Mr Omar, 24, who is linked with the attack on a Tube train near WarrenStreet, had five aliases.

The London Times quoted a report that expressed fears that Britain was "sleepwalking its way to apartheid" due to increased ethnic segregation. The paper, which took into account the background of the four July 7 suicide bombers who attacked London, pointed to social and economic deprivation as key drivers in their conversion to terrorism, ignoring the numerous calls for violent Jihad in the Koran and the hadith. It found that the Muslim community was the most "disadvantaged" faith group in the country, with lower educational attainment and higher unemployment. The document found that the unemployment rate among Britain's 1.6m Muslims was more than three times that of the general population and was the highest of all faith groups. About half of all Muslims were economically inactive (52%). That was higher than any other religious group.

DP111, an articulate British commentator at such websites as Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs and Fjordman blog, points out that as Muslim families are very large, a single wage earner will find it hard to support all. They will need to supplement this by getting considerable benefits from the state. Thus at a minimum, "some 80% of the Muslim population" subsists on welfare benefits: "A considerable amount of this money to Muslims from the British taxpayer, finds its way to finance the Jihad. The same scenario must hold in all European states that have a considerable Muslim population." "We are in the ridiculous position of sheltering and feeding a population that is hell bent on destroying us. Islam's people, from the very outset, were nothing but a collective to gain plunder and loot at the expense of other people's work. In the past, it was conducted by war, conquest and then pillage. Now it is conducted by immigration (invasion), begging or crime. Meanwhile Muslim nations are given huge loans (aid), which we and they know will never be repaid. Thus, from a purely economic point of view, Islam seems to be a collective of people who live by the ethos of "beg, borrow or steal." So why do we, the capitalist countries, who do not believe in offering anyone a free lunch, subsidise the most lazy yet aggressive bunch of people on God's planet, who are bent on subverting our democratic system? The nub is, how has it come about, that the natural progression of the most advanced civilisation on earth is towards stupidity?"

He also points out that the cost of Muslim immigration is much higher than just welfare. "One really needs to factor the loss of confidence in the markets, loss of new investment because of a fear of flying or the disenchantment with intrusive security. Then there is the increased cost of insurance on all businesses." All this affects the competitivess of business with nations that do not have a significant Islamic presence, such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan. We may be talking of million dollars or more per Muslim individual per year. "And to top it all, we give them huge amounts of aid, welfare benefits on a grandscale, while we live in fear, and our freedoms compromised."

Former Muslim Ali Sina claims that even in the USA, which has a smaller Muslim population and less social security benefits than Western Europe, Muslims are a huge drain on the economy: "Because about 2 million Muslims live in America and among them there are some who are terrorists, Americans are forced to expend hundreds of billions of dollars on homeland security. I have no idea how much is the actual cost. Let us be conservative and say it costs only $200 billion dollars per year. I reality it could be many times more. Does anyone have any idea? With just $200 billion dollars, every Muslim, including their children cost the taxpayers $100,000 dollars per year. This is the real "contribution" of Muslims to America Mr. President. Once you add the cost of the real damage caused in terrorist attacks, such as to planes, buildings, etc. this cost will be much higher. And here we are only talking about monetary cost. Can anyone calculate the cost that the families of the victims of terrorism pay? What is true in America is true in anywhere governments are forced to expend money to increase the security."

Bat Ye'or in her book Eurabia - The Euro-Arab Axis describes how we are in the middle of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye'or fears that Europe will become more and more Islamized until it becomes "a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world." "The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe."

Former French PM Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East, as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, in the 1960's decided to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union. This alliance became the position of the European Community (pre-European Union) during the course of the 1970s, when an extensive European-Arab dialogue developed. However, this alliance, in the context of which Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories and adopted an anti-Israeli and anti-American policy, will ultimately "transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world."

As Bat Ye'or points out, most of the workings of Eurabia are hidden from the public view, but sometimes we can catch glimpses of it if we know what to look for. Italian Leftist PM Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, the Politburo of the EUSSR, from 1999 to 2004, wants more cooperation with Arab countries. He talks about a free trade zone with the Arab world, but this implies the four freedoms of the EU, which includes the free movement of people. This is made clear in a document from 2003. This fact, and the implications of it, is virtually never mentioned in European media. During the Sixth Euro-Med Ministerial Conference in Brussels, 2003, it is stated that this initiative offers the EU's neighboring partners "gradual integration into the expanded European internal market and the possibility of ultimately reaching the EU's four fundamental freedoms: free movement of goods, services, capital and people." Ministers were also expected to back the Commission's proposal to set up a Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures, a Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and a reinforced European Investment Bank (EIB).

In June 2006, after his Leftist coalition government signalized that they would be much more lenient with Muslim immigration to Italy, Romano Prodi announced that "It's time to look south and relaunch a new policy of cooperation for the Mediterranean." He was thinking of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, launched in 1994 in Barcelona. Prodi said he had raised the issue with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The prime minister then explained that the Barcelona Process – which includes the creation of a free trade zone by 2010 - was no longer sufficient and a new different approach was needed. "The countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean expect that from us" he added.

Muslim immigration is costing enormous sums and creating havoc across Western Europe, and EU leaders are working to give Muslims easier access to Europe – because Arabs expect this from them. Thank you for pointing this out, Mr. Prodi. And thank you for removing all doubts whether the European Union needs to be dismantled, and its treacherous and corrupt political elites removed from power.


Written by well known blogger Fjordman, you can find many of his works at: Gates of Vienna, Islam-Watch, Global Politician, JihadWatch, and his own blog @ Blogspot bearing his name Fjordman.

Pertinent Links:

1) What Does Muslim Immigration Cost Europe?