Happy voting day!

Tragic story ...

I followed the Fortuyn saga with interest. Our future and the future of the Netherlands are similar. A low birthrate on the part of native-born citizens and huge immigration and a high birthrate among immigrants means that both our countries are going to undergo very dramatic Demographic changes within the next twenty-five years.

Immigrants to Western Europe are heavily Muslim. Arabs, Turks and Pakistanis. Immigration to our continent is heavily Latin American.

I think the future of Europe is as an Islamic continent. It really seems inevitable, with hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East, North Africa and Western Asia pouring over the borders ever year.

Similarly, our future is Latin American.

I guess the second one seems less dramatic, because Latin Americans are essentially Western in values and outlook, even though they might differ in other aspects of culture -- like language -- and in comparative wealth.

You might have guessed from my earlier comments here that I am pretty left-leaning. Even so, I find the prospect of conservative, un-reformed Islam dominating Western Europe to be a bit of a pity. Merely, I suspect, because my culture is fundamentally European and Christian and it is always a pity to see something disappear when you have an affinity for it.

On the other hand, if Europeans want to preserve their culture, they should really start reproducing. Come on, how hard is it?

Anyway, I doubt that native-born Muslims will be doing much of this type of thing soon. It could happen. And our larger immigrant communities don't seem to be interested in this sort of thing either.

Europe ... who knows what will happen?

Pim Fortuyn: with his death and in his death, the battle lines were drawn, in a struggle from which either his ideals or those of Osama bin Laden must eventually emerge, the one completely triumphant, the other completely destroyed.