Quebec's "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s,
in which the birth rate of Francophone Canadians
fell to among the lowest from the highest in the
industrial world, may offer lessons for the future
of radical Islam. Quebecois nationalism peaked
after the Quebec's demographic fate was sealed,
offering an embittered but futile remonstrance
against inevitable decline. Last week I observed
that Islamists have only one generation in which
to establish the theocracy they want, before
modernism catches up with the Muslim world and its
birth rate crashes to levels associated with the
infecund West ( The demographics of radical
Islam August 23).
If the owl of
wisdom flies at night, as Hegel said of
philosophy, so does the buzzard of nationalism.
When traditional life is placid and content in its
faith and family life, nationalism does not
require political expression.
Europe's nationalist movements sprang up in
response to the threat of Napoleon. Quebec's
nationalists invented themselves in response to
the imminent decline of the Francophone population
of Canada. Something analogous may be said of the
Islamists.
Islamism wells up from a
profound and well-placed sense of fragility.
Islam's enormous population growth rate, I showed
last week, is explained by illiteracy better than
any other factor; as the modern world engulfs
Muslim populations now living in near-medieval
conditions of ignorance, the old way of life will
disappear. In the absence of theocratic political
structures, Islam will sink into the muck of
globalized popular culture. These circumstances
inspire the sense of urgency we perceive among
today's Islamists, who find themselves in a
desperate race against time.
Islamists
respond quite differently to the threat of cultural
extinction than Francophone Catholics. In some
respects the comparison is quite unfair. Quebecois
nationalists did not strap on bomb-belts, to be
sure, but rather sought an independent Quebec at
the ballot box. But the element common to the
behavior both is the sense of desperation in face
of demographic decline. In 1995, the voters of
Quebec rejected independence by a margin of just
1%; today the issue of independence is dormant.
Quebecers have accustomed themselves to the
mediocrity of their circumstances and reconciled
themselves to the inevitability of decline.
Should the Islamists fail in this
generation as badly as the Arab nationalists
failed during the generation of Gamel Abdul
Nasser, it is quite possible that the Islamic
world will sink into demoralization as its
population growth falls. In 1960, Quebec was the
most Catholic and the most fecund province in the
world. Church attendance ranged between 80% and
90%, and the Quebec fertility rate stood at four
(that is, the average woman had four children). By
the 1980s it had fallen to just 1.5, among the
lowest in the industrial world. Culturally, Quebec
belongs more to Europe than to North America, and
the collapse of its faith and fertility followed
the model of Spain, Italy and other European
Catholic
countries.
In
1968, after the sharp collapse of the fertility
rate, the Parti Quebecois (PQ) formed in a merger
of independence movements, headed by Rene
Levesque. The PQ formed Quebec's provincial
government in 1976 and dominated provincial
politics until the late 1990s. In 1980, the PQ
introduced a referendum on the subject of Quebec
sovereignty, but it was rejected by three-fifths
of the voters. Brought to the voters again in
1995, the independence issue lost by a single
percentage point. As Exhibit 2 below makes clear,
the surge in support for the PQ occurred after
Quebec's population growth rate had fallen
precipitously.
The threat of Quebec
secession as well as legal measures to suppress
the use of English in government and business
affairs provoked an exodus of entrepreneurs and
professionals. Montreal, Quebec's largest city,
lost nearly half a million in population. Despite
generous tax subsidies for families with newborn
children, the fertility rate remained abysmal,
while most new immigrants shunned Quebec in favor
of Anglophone Canada. By the beginning of the
present decade, voter sentiment shifted decisively
away from the PQ, whose percentage of the popular
vote fell to only 33% from 43% in
1998. The people of Quebec no longer care.
By the middle of this century the same
thing may happen to Islam, as the corrosive effect
of popular culture breaks down traditional
society. Today's 3% fertility rate in Muslim
countries is founded on an adult literacy rate of
only 50%. Islamist sentiment has surged in face of
the threat of a sharp decline a generation hence.
That is why the first half of the 21st century may
be the time of maximum danger for confrontation
between Islam and the West.
Note In last week's
essay on the demographics of radical Islam, I
quoted a volume of essays, Islamic Thought in
the Twentieth Century, edited by Basheer M
Nafi. Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes wrote on
his website August 19:
Basheer M Nafi, co-editor and
accused terrorist. Convicted criminals and even
convicted terrorists do significant intellectual
work (think of Antonio Negri, co-author of the
acclaimed Empire). Still, it took me
aback, as the Sami al-Arian trial is underway,
to receive a serious volume of essays,
Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, co-edited by a defendant
in that trial. Basheer M Nafi's name comes up
all the time in the court hearings. (For a
selection of news items on the trial that
pertain to Middle East studies, see the Campus
Watch page on the University of South Florida.)
Specifically, he is charged with "conspiracy to
murder, maim or injure persons outside the
United States". August 23, 2005
update
: I did not have long to wait. The Asia
Times [Online] columnist who goes by the
pseudonym Spengler in today's issue respectfully
cites "the Islamists Suha Taji-Farouki and
Basheer M Nafi" on the topic of radical Islam's
demographics. There's nary a word about Nafi's
being under indictment for supporting
terrorism.
I did not know of the
accusations against Nafi before reading Pipes'
comment, but should have Googled him before citing
him. In retrospect, I am not surprised. The Muslim
intellectuals who best understand the demographic
and social predicament of Islam are more likely
than anyone else to employ violence to achieve
theocracy while there is still time.
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fertility followed
the model of Spain, Italy and other European
Catholic
countries. 
33% from 43% in
1998. The people of Quebec no longer care.
