politics of demographics a recent pew research report predicts muslim populations around the world will increase significantly compared to other population groups for some of these findings are reason for grave concern for others it's a stormy kiko. can. start. to discuss the repercussions of muslim population growth i'm joined by anders graves and albert he is from the stop islamization of europe in manchester we go to mohammed shafique he is chief executive in founding member of the ramadan foundation and in brussels we cross to elizabeth called that she is senior advisor to the trans atlantic council on migration at the migration policy institute and another member of our cross talk team you know on the hunger all right panel you can jump in anytime you want that is crosstalk rules anders if i can go to you first an interesting comment when we had the libyan leader khadafi to visit europe

he went to italy on a two day visit and he's quoted in saying islam should become the religion of the whole of europe well not might happen one day but it won't be because of muslim muslim immigration is because of the secularization of a good parts of europe. yeah yeah but i also believe that. the europe and also russia is going to be muslim if we don't do anything to stop it these numbers also show it even saying these numbers is too low because in denmark they talk about two hundred twenty seven thousand muslims now we have heard this these numbers for the last fifteen years or so i don't understand it and even then the statistic they don't make statistic after religion so i don't understand how they can get these numbers that's another thing well if i go to elizabeth in brussels i relied quite a bit on the pew research i found to be very good and reliable over the years and they estimate that as of two thousand and ten the report just came out only six

percent of europe's population is muslim and they're predicting for two thousand and thirty eight percent. i mean what's the brouhaha here. so i mean what you have to look at you have to look at this in the much broader context and this is a global analysis as well so you're right so dry delving down into year you see the figures are much more nuanced and i think it's important right from the outset to point out that as the pew research center themselves this is not necessarily about religious muslims these are people who would self identify as muslim so that could mean in terms of ethnicity or in terms of social grouping this is not necessarily a religious demarcation so the number of religious muslims is likely much less you know muhammad if i say within your ok go ahead finish go ahead. i would just want to point out that within europe the changes that would take place between twenty ten and twenty thirty will differ from country to country this isn't going to be

a sort of an even sweep mohamed if i can go to you you know looking at this pew research you could actually come to use it to whatever ends you want to i mean you can say oh my goodness the population growth is here and they really go into great detail is that we look they look at the demographics we look at a certain generation there can be if i can use the term prolific in their in their in their growth but then that's going to slow down dramatically after two thousand and thirty just because different groups are in different demographic waters but nonetheless looking at this research you can see how people could jump to one conclusion or another. well i think what it demonstrates is that muslims are part of the d.n.a. of your utopian society have been for hundreds of years and will continue to be for hundreds of years there are people on the margins of society like like our guest who who think that islam or for islamization that islam is somehow taking over western europe or europe it's deeply offensive it's not true muslims are happily

living in countries for example here in the united kingdom we're very proud to be british we live in this country will born in this country we're happy to accept the will predominately christian country but we're also multi-faith society to recognise is people have the right to practice their faith live their lives according to their faith are this constant obsession with demonizing islam and muslims that has become endemic within europe is deeply worrying not just for the muslim community but for the whole of europe and what it demonstrates you is a it's the same thing again and again that happened to the jews in iraq to the second world war it's the same sort of oppression in a run up to the holocaust and now we're having the same thing be labelled against muslims it's an acceptable these these sort of lies and these sort of propaganda that somehow muslims are here to take over or over europe is not true and i think people who engage in such battles and such arguments are doing so from a point of prejudice and clearly a point of a colloq fascism ok and if there was

a lot said there would you like to know i. really like to reply to it you say that the it's the same as the juice on the second world war i don't know about the juice and was running around and burning the streets raping women and so on like they're doing copenhagen and also to have specific treatments. in germany they didn't so you can't come with this. conclusion. well i think what you've got to do is you've got to accept my friend then your whole argument of demonizing the muslims is it's just not true you know you can demonstrate to me. that the jewel case is there are individual cases in copenhagen or anywhere else of criminals operating but to suggest a whole community a whole faith system is responsible in some sort of peculiar way as you are doing

is deeply responsible i'm actually i think for example if you want to talk about child abuse why copenhagen danish people probably represents ninety five percent of the population so i think you need to start looking a bit closer to home for the problems in your society rather than just but i mean muslims because we're easy we're an easy scapegoat ok elizabeth i'm going to you and i don't let's go to our source has been sitting there very patiently at the same time and if we can reflect upon this report elizabeth and angela merkel's comment about the failure of multiculturalism in the least in germany i mean how do we find the mix right here because there is a long tradition of integration of different peoples in different societies i mean american we have a growing muslim community in the united states as well it's going to be very very small as a matter of fact by two thousand and thirty it will be the same size of the jewish community however you define it as you pointed out earlier in the united states but still you have this you know hysterical in the united states about the growth of a minority community so i mean if we can go back to merkel's comments i mean in

looking at this is this research or do we need to find a new way a new mix a new way of approaching this because it is causing a lot of hysterical and it does have a lot of political fallout as well. well i think there's a popular belgian or academic here who once told me you can't declare a policy failed until you've tried it properly and one of the arguments made is germany really only started active integration policies around a decade ago too so to announce what ten years later we failed in this endeavor seems a little premature there was a sense of the nine that collect in germany for at least one generation and that involved in this sort of exclusion of the children of migrants and poor educational outcomes that won't address an entire generation so you actually do you have to invest a huge amount to to set those trends straight i think it's important also not just to look at the negative trends which we have

a tendency to do in europe we look at educational gaps we don't tend to look at the success stories and people who do. quite incredible things within a generation and. one thing that i do think is important is that this isn't just an integration policy for those who are rife if we're talking about we start talking about european values and social contracts that that applies to a whole communities and not just. how many want their go ahead no i just. mean this debate has been about foreigners versus europeans for those people of my generation who were born in in western europe who are proud to be british are proud to be a european citizen you know we are british we are european and so this argument that just because we are muslims or just because we follow the faith of islam that somehow we're not acceptable in western societies is the problem this whole debate

of multiculturalism has been about people giving up their faith or people giving up their way of life that's not going to happen if multiculturalism is about respecting each other have been told wins for each other yes disagreeing from time to time but having respect and tolerance. that's a good thing it should be celebrated but if multiculturalism is about the muslim community or the in the grid's who come into any particular society giving up their culture or their ethnicity or their beliefs then that's that's not acceptable and that's a form of multiculturalism that people would oppose and there's a i'm going to you i mean your organization i mean your beef with the day they don't foreigners in particular in your case we're talking about here is a muslims they don't integrate or are they just as they just don't have a place in europe in your opinion. i don't see the muslims who want to follow the koran and follow it exactly they don't have any place in europe and europe is not islamic and have not been muslim country never they

have been here i think i think you know i think the writer on that you know you ask you right i'm sorry with respect being part of the d.n.a. of europe for centuries and. centuries deeply quite patronize you know i think it's wrong i mean i get it demonstrates that you're a man of the far right the you're a man you're closely associated with the far right than a mainstream society muslims are being part of europe for generations i do suggest there's a nominal terms of telling. for with century muslims if they have been in my country there have been they have been studying the real base in the last thirty years so this is not in centuries a well have already been muslims have been muslims that have been muslims in bosnia and that's all what we know about it and they were there because of there was many compiler wasn't i'm sorry but they were if you all are this is the point peter that

the friend from from the from cooper nagin some somehow thinks that the bosnian war was caused by the bosnian muslims and not by the a new born nobody deserves it demonstrates to you his agenda is about opposing islam opposing muslims always constantly attacking our faith i don't know you need to produce the interview he's an associate himself if you are so she eighteen yourself would just serbians if you associate yourself with the massacres and the genocide that was committed bosnia shows your true colors. this is not what it's about that can. be a hero after a short break we'll continue our discussion on muslim population growth stay with arkie. you. steve.

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a report. and you can see. you can. welcome back cross talk computable to remind you we're speaking about muslim demographics. and. students. but first let's see what russians think about islam well muslims take over the world a recent report spock's concerns for some claiming the growth rate of muslims will double complete at the non muslims over the next twenty years researchers suggest immigration and hot fertility rates are the reasons but will this date apostates lambe a phobia already high around the world the public opinion agency live out of santa

russia as they consider this land to be an aggressive. religion fifty percent of the respondents said they do in another forty percent do not agree with that statement still the question today is what approach should be taken to face this changing reality. ok it was with brussels i'd like to go to you and i to kind of change gears here because i think it's something that's being over missed in this report is what spiked my interest in it in considering the when we look at demographics of this report but we look at politics as well and we've seen politics very polarized into the euro europeans are sort of the european aspect of this but you know if you look at you know you could say sixty percent of the population is small anywhere but if they become politically active then they can be make a difference in politics in coalitions because most of these countries are going parliamentary democracy so you'll have some people demonizing them as we've been and we've been pointed out on this program but other people say hey look we need

the muslim voted for going to be able to create a coalition i mean could you see it kind of turn the other way because these people are going to be citizens ok many of them are in the european union they have passports and they can vote and as their numbers get bigger even if it's two or three or four percent it would depending on the country they could be a game changer in a political situation well i think it's there's no need to talk in the future tense i mean people are muslim descent already participate in politics to quite a quite a deep degree in some countries certainly in the u.k. in germany the head of the green party is the. child protection parents you also have the mayor of rotterdam who is also muslim origin and you do have a significant numbers of muslims who are getting increasingly politically active so they are part of the broad framework of politics i think one thing that it's often

overlooked is the fact that people might have been watching this opinion based towards muslims but also within the muslim community itself people have different political views people have different expectations of their own government as well so i think it's difficult to sort of look at. that there will be a particular party that a community will forge towards but so really looking at the far right groups that have emerged in europe over the past decades it's too simplistic to say that they are all anti muslim in nature a lot of them have a broader framework in terms of being more broadly anti immigration being concerned about population levels in different countries but then also in central eastern europe you see far right groups focusing in on the roma population the indigenous ethnic minority within that country and not really looking at muslim integration a tool mohamed if i can go to you i mean in britain do you come across. british muslims that are tory and leno and then others that are labor i mean you're not the

same population i think it was elizabeth points out a very good thing is they do views within the larger community too i mean you can't be buttonholed so easily. well traditionally the british pakistani would produce muslim community has been aligned with the labor party here tony blair and gordon brown's political party but since the war in iraq people have been looking more to the conservative party and to the liberal democrats which is a third party here in the united kingdom what it really says to you peter is that british muslims are actively involved in politics we have over twenty seven ethnic minority members of parliament we have i think six or eight muslim members of parliament we have a member in a petition government a cabinet of muslim descent we have a former member of gordon brown's cabinet as a member of the senior member of his government what it demonstrates treats him in particular terms is that politicians recognise that muslims are an integral part of our societies that there are extremists

a lot sides as we've been seen on the shore today who try to pull communities apart and what we've all got to do in europe is come together and not let the extremists drivers apart we've got common values we've got a common ideals that bring us together and that's that's what we should be focusing on not what we know what divides us but rather what unites us anders who's you said something in the beginning of the program that i find interesting is that if you if your holy book is the qur'an you can't be a european citizen in a in a sense that i think all of us would agree on i don't understand that. ok i'll explain it. in the koran it's a lot of us who tell about how christians have to be mistreated cute. hot water in the stomach and so on put in chains we can't have a religion who have a book through how to kill their neighbor us they have to take away these kind of things from the qur'an pull out these things and then we can start to talk about

integration but so long time that how i mean you know way through a coup for us to the us then they have to understand we can't have them here. ok mohamad if you want if they want to integrate they want to to accept our democracies ok then no problem but what is an audio is a very small country we have a sign our democracy we are five yellow is no no democracy million people yes it is five million people really are in denmark and we have tried for certain years to integrate the muslims we have just seen we nearly have a civil war in denmark. the police but i think you have to enjoy that if your eyes are on fire no no no no no protect the firemen or the m.p.'s before the drive into the get troops priest is strong out of the ghettos because they have a cross in the car while i'm still young so you can there is a priest there's a race because he's going to say i mean this is my mission on this is this is this

is obviously said this is part of problem we we have we have wacky individuals like the man from denmark who is making varied controversial comments about the is some mix they thought the stomach book you know the bible the torah the secret religious scriptures have stories about things that were relevant in the past that's another as an element today. well if you if you would let me finish i would i would say to you this the british or muslim community or european muslims who live in this part of the world were born here we were part of this country we're part of the d.n.a. of all of this society we have no ambition to take over europe we just want to live our lives there to the best of our ability to treat our neighbors with respect and preach peace and tolerance unlike you who wants to promote division who is quibbling to what the what was happening to the jews in a reality the second world war and the holocaust you are the people who are encouraging the division and hatred but i think there's no place in europe to our

solution you know now i have to go into is there is no place in europe for me because like yourself what's the worst that used to running around in the streets and burning harshness only us and the institution knows. i won't stop trying to put the jews together with the muslims was not true well with respect i think it's central i think if you use. your if you release them to look into your. alright. and i just say that i had. to go ahead go ahead i promise i'll be brief i mean if you say the point the point i'm making about the experience of the jews if you look at the newspaper articles i studied a second world war college i studied the constant demonization of the faith community and the jewish community being blamed for every single problem every single crime the newspaper articles that's what i'm talking about it's a similar atmosphere. that is what that is

was hopping on your friend in denmark. who is not having a russian argument he's coming from a prejudiced point of view i have a very regular. gentleman please ok and i do go back to something you said earlier in the program and we were talking about anglo merkel's comments and we're looking at this pew report on the muslim the demographics in europe what you said you know ten years wasn't enough i mean should they just keep doing it you know we'll let's all be fair maybe merkel just said this for political points and she's a politician ok but i mean what do we take pieces of that and keep in mind with the demographics are going to be or do we do something very different and in looking at you know sitting there in brussels you probably have a broader view and looking at all the trends inside of europe. well i think there are sort of three pieces the first is directly to your point and that is that integration is is never going to be finished in a sense our our communities our identities are constantly going to be changing so

there's never going to be a point where everyone can throw their hands up and go success we've done it with finished let's go home so it just has to be that constant sense of. community and whether everyone is investing in that community and there is a feeling that in some communities that some people participate and some people don't and i would say that's true of a certain ex-pat community as far as it's concerned it could be true of certain immigrant communities and i mean in the sense of europeans living in different cities and different countries the second part is that part of this debate is not actually about immigration or about muslim immigration it's about a fear of change and a speed of change that's occurring in europe globalization our economic shifts the fact that so much is changing around us and we seem to have so little control over those changing factors and immigration is to a certain extent visible part of that and muslim immigration probably the most

visible part of that or the most identifiable part of that and that feeds into people's sense of fear and change and the third parties is well what do you do about it and one thing that strikes me is that we do we do talk about european values and i sit here in brussels and i know how much. those who work in the you struggle with the concept of european values and being able to articulate them beyond we are liberal democracies and we believe in certain fundamental human rights but there is a question of what is the what is it what does it mean to be a citizen of a european country which is national identity mean what is that contract between the six inch citizenry and the government and how how do we asked people to join a community when we're not entirely sure what the rules of the game are within that community themselves and i think that was a much bigger debate that could be it could. we had within europe and really taking the. group that saying ok so how how how do we identify ourselves in the twenty first century that is rapidly changing well on that optimistic note here many

thanks to my guests today in alberta manchester and in brussels and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember across talking. to. the in. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to look for a shelter on the day. hosni

mubarak's government offers new concessions to cool down the situation that is boiling over and egypt after two weeks of violent protests. a cautious start to landmark talks of the government sits down with opposition parties join me point to sneer in a few moments for an update. whistleblower julian assange for appears to fight his extradition to sweden but many fear stockholm's cozy relationship with washington means he could be an easy pawn to be traded with the us. i am between the fall the devastation local governments in america are opting for more budget cuts to pay off the nation's trillion dollar debt with ordinary people bearing the brunt by losing essential services. business versus state owned bank and starting a road show as part of russia's privatization program when a ten percent stake in

a half billion dollars that and more coming up and up is the board. what you coming to live from moscow a marina josh welcome to the program with street protests in egypt showing little sign of abating the dispute is now moving to a political battleground the government is holding talks with the country's main opposition groups and already agreed reforms to try to end the uprising over the last two weeks against president mubarak but the opposition says this is not enough to end the standoff. has more from cairo. the talks are progressing slowly which is not a surprise to anyone here because they really are a lot of issues that need to be discussed and a lot of players who are putting their future and their reputation on the line what is significant is that it has been agreed at a committee that the stabbed.