A few days ago, former Wall Street Journal editor, Gerard Baker, published an oped about my country.
“The small swath of hilly terrain between Florence and Rome has had more impact on our civilization than any other territory anywhere on Earth. The condition of modern Italy (now) evinces the biblical lamentation for another lost civilization: 'Quomodo sedet sola civitas'. How lonely the city stands.
"You can see here a metaphor for the contemporary condition of the West. The country was among the first in the West to enter a demographic death spiral. The Italian birthrate is below replacement. The single-child family is almost standard, so millions of Italians have no siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. The extended family, that natural community of love and support, is going extinct. The traditional centerpieces of life—family, workplace, community—have been eroded to the bone.
"Religious observance has collapsed. In the beautiful Tuscan churches I visited, there were probably more priceless works of Renaissance art than there were worshipers.
"In much of the country, depopulation is advancing. Moving into the empty spaces have been waves of immigrants, many from North Africa and the Middle East”.
Baker didn't even get to read a new report which came out this week. It is the “first report on the Islamization of Europe”. This is the title of a document edited by the “Fare Futuro Foundation” in Rome with the support of the right wing party Fratelli d'Italia:
As of 1 January 2019, Muslims represent 30.1 per cent of foreigners residing in Italy, followed by 29.7 per cent of Orthodox Christians and, on the third step of the podium, the Catholics (18.6 per cent). The study reads: “Muslim foreigners residing in Italy grew by 127,000 compared to 2018 (when they were 1.45 million), while Christians fell by 145,000”.
And then, the focus on countries of origin: “With regard to nationality, it is estimated that the majority of foreign Muslims residing in Italy come from Morocco (440 thousand), Albania (226 thousand), Bangladesh (141 thousand), Egypt ( 111 thousand) and Pakistan (106 thousand)”.
This is why, the report warns, "it is conceivable that at the end of the century, Muslims could even represent half of the Italian population". The reasons? 8 out of 10 immigrants are Muslims and their women give birth to many more children than Italian natives. It is estimated that the fertility rate of Muslim women is twice as high as that of Italy.
This is not the first report raising such alarm.
“If the official Eurostat forecast is correct, then within 60 years or, taking into consideration the current pace of migration even sooner, 50% of Italy’s inhabitants will be of African or Asian descent”, a Gefira report warned (it is a right wing Dutch foundation). Their calculation uses a different method. With zero immigration and the current birth rate, Gefira predicts that in 2080 the Italian population will be reduced to 27 million people and in 2100 it will be further reduced to 20 million.
But the Italian government and Eurostat expect that by 2080 there will be 53 to 60 million people in Italy. How is that possible? By replenishing Italians with 25 to 30 million migrants and their offspring.
Unfortunately, the current mainstream doesn't get the simple truth that if you change the population, your culture also changes. Quantity becomes quality.
“We tend to look at modern Italy and see an outlier, an extraordinary place whose past will far outlive its future”, Mr. Baker explained. “But maybe we should see it not as an exception but as a kind of pioneer of Western decline”.
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