There Will Always Be an England

by John Stevenson

Alarmists and Islamophobes claim Europe is being overrun by Muslims.  They already constitute significant percentages in the populations of some European nations.  And their birth rate is much higher than that of non-Muslim Europeans.  As migrants and refugees they are flocking into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa in large numbers. 

But is there really cause for alarm?  Let’s look at Britain. 

Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that for 2016 the most popular given name for baby boys in England was Oliver.  There were 6,623 Olivers born.  Muhammad came in eighth, with 3,908 Muhammads.  So what’s the worry?

Well, it turns out that ONS says the results were “based on exact spelling of the name given on the birth certificate.”  Grouping similarly pronounced names would change the rankings.  Thus babies with the also popular names Mohammed, Mohammad, and Muhammed are separately counted---not included with the Muhammads.  If those variants had been included with the Muhammads, they would add up to 7,084---beating the diapers off the Olivers.  Nationwide.

Regionally, Muhammad alone (without including the variant spellings) is the top choice in both London and Birmingham---England’s two most populous cities.  Not to say that Muslims “own” London, but in fact London’s mayor is---well, you know---a Muslim.

So what about the trend line?  Well, over the decade 2006 to 2016, Muhammad (just Muhammad, no variant spellings) moved up 35 spots in the nationwide rankings of boy baby names.  That’s a whopping increase.

Muhammad’s 2016 placement at number eight ousted the traditionally popular William from the top ten.  As in William the Conqueror (1066-1087), his royal namesake successors, and countless schoolboys over the centuries. 

ONS says on their web site that they treat “all names separately by publishing the names of babies as they are written on their birth certificates and ranking them accordingly. This has been our longstanding approach and is consistent with international practice.”  They follow this with a tortured and downright silly conjecture about why Muhammad is the top choice of so many, even suggesting that it’s because of the popularity of Muhammad Ali (really? in 2016?). 

By breaking the differently spelled Muhammads into separate categories and ranking them separately, ONS has obscured the fact that all of these boy babies are in fact named after the Prophet, the Messenger of Allah.  Thus ONS has, in its own way, masked the growth trend of the Muslim population in England.

There is a WWII patriotic song, sung by Vera Lynn, “There Will Always Be an England.”  It rallied the British in those dark days.  And there always will be an England, in the sense that---absent a tectonic cataclysm---the land itself will doubtless outlive mankind. 

If the demographic trajectory continues---and there is no evidence that it will not---the Muslim population will inevitably become the majority.  This will mean an England whose people, their religion, their culture, their language would have been unimaginable a few years ago.  London already has that feel.

Yes, “There Will Always Be an England,” but it won’t be recognizable.  It won’t be English.

Historical Villains

by John Stevenson

The movement to tear down monuments and to rename buildings, schools, and streets seems to have hit an orgasmic crescendo.  And it has gone well beyond symbols of the Confederacy.  It reaches out now to all symbols of white supremacy, white privilege, whiteness, Western Civilization…and all things Caucasian and therefore now thought to be at the heart of all evil.

When you and I were going to school, Christopher Columbus was an explorer, adventurer, sailor.  A pretty gutsy guy for risking it all on the belief that the Earth was round, not flat.  Columbus sailed under the auspices and financial backing of the Spanish crown.  He sailed forth to spread Christianity, claim lands for Spain, and return with gold.  That’s what explorers did in the Age of Exploration.  That was his job.

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”  Remember that one?

For some five centuries most folks believed this was a great achievement.  It was taught in school.  It was history.  But suddenly it’s no longer true!  Columbus is now called a racist and an exploiter of indigenous people.   

The natives would have been better off if Europeans had never appeared on their shores.  They would have invented the wheel, the alphabet, vaccines, electric power, flush toilets, television, and the Apollo space program all by themselves and without having to suffer the presence of white folks and the industrial revolution.

So statues of Columbus are being defaced, decapitated, splattered with paint, and torn down by vandals.  But, if the vandals don’t get to them first, these symbols of the birth of our American civilization are being covered up or removed by city councils and other local jurisdictions. 

Well, enough about Columbus.  Being a West Coast guy, my sympathies go with another occupant of the endangered species list---Father Junipero Serra.  In the 1700s, Father Serra established the California missions.  He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015.  He brought Christianity to the California natives.  Of course, he is now accused of also bringing them exploitation and slavery. 

I grew up in a small town on the California coast.  A key feature of our town was one of Father Serra’s missions.  Established in 1770, the mission is still functioning today and is Father Serra’s burial place. When I was in school, the Catholic kids all went through grammar school at the mission, and the rest of us went to the public grammar school.  Then we all ended up together at the public high school. 

Now three points:

→Our public high school’s mascot was named for (of course) Father Serra: The Padres. 

→Each State is represented in the U.S. Capitol by statues of two of its most important historical figures.  Of the two who represent California in Statuary Hall, one is Father Serra.

→In my home town a life-size and beautifully maintained statue of Father Serra on a high pedestal presides over the intersection of Camino del Monte and Serra Drive.   

I’m sure it will be only a matter of time that my Padres are renamed, Father Serra is ousted from Statuary Hall, and his statue at Camino del Monte and Serra Drive is vandalized, destroyed, or banished. 

The movement to erase American historical figures, or to re-cast them as villains, marches on.