Live Q&A with Doug Saunders on The Myth of the Muslim Tide

Hello and welcome to our live Q&A with Doug Saunders on his forthcoming book, The Myth of the Muslim Tide.

We'll be getting underway shortly, so please leave your questions now and we'll get to as many as possible.

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/24/2012 8:13:42 PM
Doug, thanks very much for joining us today. Your cover story in the Saturday edition of The Globe generated no shortage of readers and comments, and I encourage everyone who hasn't yet read it to check it out here

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:01:59 PM
Hi everyone, good to be with you. As I can see from the huge readership and comment levels on this book excerpt, this is a topic of considerable interest to Canadians.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:02:03 PM
Speaking of interest, we had plenty of questions filter in for you over the weekend. Let's get right to it with the first one, from reader John Turnbull:

"I'm old enough to remember a nervous neighbor who, in the mid-sixties, pointed out that the people who had recently moved to our mid-Toronto, middle-class street were "Italians. But, thank God, not working Italians.

"So, I'm broadly sympathetic to what I've read so far (and looking forward to the book). My question is whether there is a difference, not in our immigrants, but in us?

"Are we as willing to welcome strangers as we used to be, or has an erosion of our confidence in our own secular and social values made us more wary?"

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:02:59 PM
Hi John - - I think you lived on a street a lot like the one I grew up on. As for your question - - are we different in our attitudes toward minority newcomers? - - I tend to be somewhat optimistic about Canadians. There is certainly less xenophobia than when I was a kid (when racial slurs against Chinese and Pakistanis were part of our high-school vocabulary), and surveys consistently show that Canadians across the political spectrum are comfortable with having people from different ethnic groups around them. There’s a reason why none of the mainstream national political parties are against immigrants - - something that makes Canada different from other countries.

The fear and distrust directed at Muslim immigrants and their offspring is an exception. But I don’t think it’s always rooted in a general xenophobia. There are many reasonable people, of every political view, who harbour suspicions of the Muslims around them. It’s not unreasonable: They arrived at a moment when extremism and terrorism became big worries - - including in Canada, where at least two serious al Qaeda-type cells have been broken up. Add to that the dreadful crimes such as honour killings committed by a few families (mostly of refugee rather than immigrant background), and I think it’s not surprising that people become fearful.

That’s why I wrote this book - - not because I’m a defender of Islam (I’m not religious and don’t particularly want more of anyone’s religion around me), but on the contrary - - because I wanted to take these fears and doubts seriously and investigate the facts behind them.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:05:26 PM
good article --takes charachter and jouranlistic integrity to write this kind of an article. Well done Doug---you are the true Canadian that the world talks about ...

by saly 8/27/2012 5:06:58 PM
The next question comes to us from Bing Han in Ottawa:

"I find the article by Saunders very interesting and illuminating. In the 11th-12th centuries indeed the Muslims in Andalusia seemed to be an example of tolerance, learning and peace among Muslims, Jews and Christians, as compared to what happened later during Isabella's reign (1451- 1504) with forced conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects.

"As to what happened during the crusades in Palestine or the inquisitions in later periods, those must be really the Dark Ages.

"I would like to know the sources for the statistics in Fact or Fiction, and the answers to the questionaires on page F5: how reliable are these answers, and how would you cross-check them?"

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:07:38 PM
Bing (or Han- - sorry if I have it backward), you’re right that there have been periods of relative tolerance among the three Abrahamic faiths. There have also been periods when Muslim forces were absolutely dreadful to Jews and Christians in their midst, and periods when Christian forces were murderous to Muslims and Jews in their midst. Part of my approach in this book was to get away from history and scripture, and examine what the actual behaviours and conditions are today. After all, we Westerners have very little cultural similarity to our own grandparents; we shouldn’t expect the events of the fifteenth century to inform any Muslim.

As for the sources: this section of the article was a very small sample from the largest section in “The Myth of the Muslim Tide,” titled The Facts. My research team and I took considerable care to document everything in extensive endnotes - - and also to report all facts that contradict the book’s core hypothesis. In other words, we highlight the bad stuff, rather than burying it or glossing it over - - this is not meant to be a one-sided book.

I’ll be posting some of the source documents on muslimtide.com, but for now I think the book should point you in the right direction.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:11:07 PM
Up next: A question from Caroline Moore:

Hello,

I would like to know from which source Mr. Saunders obtained his “Fact or Fiction” figures incorporated in the article?

In particular the fertility figures in the United Arab Emirates. Does the figure of 1.9 children relate to children born to nationals of that country and in turn does that refer to per wife or per husband bearing in mind that a male Muslim national can (and does) have up to four wives?

Does the figure include other nationalities based there (i.e. foreign nationals on work permits like Brits and Canadians?)

Does Mr. Saunders not feel that it would be useful for Globe and Mail readers to be provided with the source of his figures and and detailed back- up factual information so as not to lead to misinterpretation or indeed a “ glossing over” of the situation?

Thanks,

Caroline Moore

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:12:43 PM
Hi Caroline. As I said to Bing, my sources are very carefully documented - - but obviously a newspaper article doesn’t have the space for reproducing all the documentation. You can get a copy in e-reader or paper editions through muslimtide.com .

My figures for Total Fertility Rate (TFR) come from the 2010 revision of the ongoing count compiled by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, found at www.un.org/esa/population - - these are regarded as the most accurate and dependable counts of fertility, though in some cases I’ve augmented them with other counts that are more recent or that focus on specific population sub-groups such as Muslims in the West.

TFR is a measure of the number of children born to the average woman in a country during her entire reproductive life. As such, it is not really affected by differences polygamous or monogamous societies - - the number of children born to a woman is not impacted statistically by the identity of the father (and thus it remains an accurate way to determine population-growth rates - - which in the UAE are negative among citizens). The UAE is one of a small handful of countries where polygamy remains legal and widely practiced among some classes, so it’s a good question.

The 1.9 figure would refer only to citizens of the UAE (who are ethnically and linguistically Arabic). You’re correct in noting that a majority of people living in the Emirates are guest workers who do not have citizenship, even though they’ve often lived there a long time. Their offspring would contribute to the TFR statistics for their country of birth - - so if they’re Bangladeshi (the largest group of UAE workers), their children would figure in the TFR statistics for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, by the way, has one of the world’s fastest-falling fertility rates; it’s down to 2.4 children per mother. (Polygamy, by the way, is not generally a Bangladeshi custom).

by Doug Saunders edited by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:16:12 PM
Our next questions come from reader Jonah Bettio:

1. How is this paranoia of Islam distributed across people of different age groups? Are younger people, having grown up with Muslim classmates, any less likely to hold negative opinions of Islam than older people who have very limited or even no personal contact with Muslims?

What does this reveal to you about the nature of paranoia about Islam?

2 . Is there any way either individually or on a systemic level that we can reason with people who are extremely paranoid about Islam? In my experience they exhibit the same kind of ideological and anti-rational stubbornness as conspiracy theorists, and are extremely resistant to sober discussions using objective information.

Or is the better method to ignore them, even if they are quite loud about their views?

Thank you

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:17:47 PM
Hi Jonah – good questions.

I’m not totally sure about age distribution of attitudes toward immigrants and religious minority, but from Canadian studies I’ve seen I think you’re correct in guessing that tolerance increases with younger generations who’ve grown up with these new groups. As I’ve said before, I don’t think the paranoia about Muslim immigrants is totally irrational or linked to a wider xenophobia in all cases.

I think that there are two versions of the “Muslim tide” ideology prevalent today. There’s a more extreme version, in which people come to believe that Islam is not just a religion that shares a god and prophets with Judaism and Christianity, but rather some sort of ideology of conquest, and that Muslims in the West are plotting to impose sharia law and colonize their beliefs.

While that view is popular among “Muslim tide” authors and political activists, I frankly don’t think that it has much purchase among people in general, certainly not in Canada.

Rather, I think there are more people who subscribe to a milder version of the ideology, which holds that Muslims are different from previous immigrants in that they’re guided by their faith rather than the values of the country around them and they’re either unwilling or unable to integrate into Western values. I take this seriously, and examine the evidence carefully in The Myth of the Muslim Tide. And I don’t think Muslims are miracle immigrants - - there are some serious integration problems - - but they do fit the trajectory followd by East European Jews and southern European Catholics (who in many ways were coming from more remote and dissimilar “civilizations” in the twentieth century than Muslims are in today’s connected and modernized world).

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:21:44 PM
By the way, I was aided by a superb research team on this book - - they included Randy McDonald, Wajahat Ali, Jee Yeon Lim and Joanne Shurvell. It wouldn't have been possible without these sharp minds who are much better informed in their specialty areas than I.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:22:13 PM
Our next question comes to us from a reader who goes by "Observant":

Why do you have such faith in Islamic muslims that they will be good Canadian citizens, when Islam preaches conquest through integration but not assimilation into the indigenous population of Canada? The Islamic faith is reinforced by imams in the many mosques being built in Canada with Saudi money, and that is a fact. Do you not fear such activity in secular Canada?

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:22:58 PM
Observant (I am sorry you choose to hide behind a nom de plume), I am deliberately avoiding discussions of scripture in this book, because all three Abrahamic religions would be absolutely atrocious if even a large minority of their adherents followed the teachings of their holy books literally.

I am instead determining whether Muslims in the West are guided by their religion - - and if they’re following the teachings of their faith, or the values of the land around them. We have a number of sophisticated ways to determine this, based on behaviour, actions and expressions uttered by immigrant and minority communities, and the last few years have seen a real revolution in the volume and quality of research.

What it shows is that Muslims are following the same patterns as Eastern Europe Jews and southern European Catholics before them, as I’ve noted (and show in much greater detail in the book). Actually, they’re integrating much faster.

And it shows that they embrace the universal values of the West as much as, and sometimes more than, native-born populations. They are often conservative and religious people, but show no interest, beyond the usual highly religious minority (about the same size as among Christians and Jews) in either imposing their religion on others or having non-secular institutions govern society.

By the way, there’s no concept of “conquest through integration” or “conquest through immigration” in Islam or any other religion.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:29:53 PM
I'd also like to pose a question from an "Earth First" higher level: Why does any country NEED immigrants when the Earth is already overpopulated by homo sapiens (7+Billion and exponentially increasing)?

and Further to my question on human overpopulation, Canada of all nations, with each of us consuming non-renewable energy and other resources at a rate five times that for non-developed countries DOES NOT NEED any more people/families/future expanded generations to accelerate Canada's high rate of contributions to adverse climate change, extreme weather events and the other negative global environmental impacts for which we are already dis-proportionately responsible....If you disagree, could you rationally explain why (taking the same Earth First overview)?

by Toby edited by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:31:52 PM
Toby, this book is not about the question of immigration levels. It’s about immigrants who are already here, and who are likely to arrive in the future (though not in anything like the numbers people think).

I’m agnostic on the question of immigration policy. There are good reasons why some countries might want to restrict or even stop immigration at various times (though also good reasons why this would be bad policy for some countries at some times).

Canada is a bit of an exception, because it suffers from a crisis of underpopulation - - far too few people on an extensive landmass to support the markets and institutions it needs. I discussed that earlier this year in this article.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:35:49 PM
Hi, this is Julia Williams from the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations. Thank you for your recent article and your book.

1. The numbers and statistics you present suggest that the fear North Americans and Western Europeans have towards Muslims is disproportionate to the threat they actually represent. How then can the fear of Islam / Muslims be considered reasonable?

2. What roles do media and politicians play in representing the actual risk while resisting the temptation to sensationalize? For example, what were your thoughts on the Globe’s choice to display a woman in niqab on the cover to represent all Muslims in the West?

3. Finally, what can civil society organizations such as ours do to dispel the myth of the Muslim tide?

by Julia 8/27/2012 5:37:36 PM
Hi Julia, glad to have you here. I think that we need to be careful to dispel dangerous myths held by people, but we should also understand that reasonable and well-meaning people are likely to hold such ideas because they have no other explanation for the things they see around them – things that include the arrival of visibly different members of a religious minority and the coincidental simultaneous emergence of the violent movements that marked the last decade. The fact that these views have occurred before with regard to Catholics and Jews, but have been overcome and won over by tolerance, is reason for optimism – people are generally sensible, and this will pass.

On your second point, I think the media tend to be vehicles for whatever views happen to be in the air - -but obviously I wrote this book because it seemed that some fairly basic facts were missing from the conversation. I was really pleased with the niqab image on the front page - - it was exactly the public image I was talking about, and attracted great interest. The US edition of The Myth of the Muslim Tide has photos of hijab’d women mowing the lawn, a guy praying on a mat beside his hot-dog cart, etc. - - we need to show the subjects of our anxieties. And then show that they’re just people.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:44:21 PM
Hi Doug. You said earlier that "we shouldn’t expect the events of the fifteenth century to inform any Muslim". That is simply incorrect. Sunni Islam forbids innovation or bid'ah in matters of theology and has for more than a thousand years. We SHOULD expect that the interpretation of Islamic scripture today and the actions it produces would both be exactly as they were in the 15th century. Islam is still a fundamentally intolerant and aggressively hostile ideology. It has undergone NO reformation of any kind, nor is it likely to as such 'innovation' is expressly forbidden.

by Hit-Girl 8/27/2012 5:46:22 PM
Hit-Girl (why the fake name?), that is EXACTLY what people said about Catholics - - right up through the 1960s, actually. Almost word for word, actually - - "a survival of medieval authoritarianism that has no rightful place in the democratic environment," "an ideology of conquest rather than a spiritual faith," and so on. Actually, if you examine the actual behaviour of followers of these religions, you'll find that they have changed dramatically throughout history, and especially during the last half century. Muslim countries are in the midst of a huge modernizing and secularizing wave. To believe that Muslims are stuck in the fifteenth century is either to ignore what is quite visibly and demonstrably happening around us, or to be party to a very mediaeval form of anti-religious bigotry.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 5:50:58 PM
I really enjoyed reading Doug's article in the weekend papers. I have certainly found that the followers of Islam that I have contact with are as varied in their opinions as the people I know from other faith traditions and my secular acquaintances. I am also struck by the comparisons to other historic xenophobic waves that we have experienced here in North America.

by Jane Osborne 8/27/2012 5:53:04 PM
Thanks very much to everyone who joined us here today. As you can imagine, this is a topic that has spurred much discussion and debate, and apologies we can't get to all the questions that came in today.

Doug, before we sign off - any final thoughts?

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 5:55:00 PM
Thanks, Jennifer, and thanks everyone for taking part in a very enthusiastic and engaged chat. I hope this has played a small part in shifting the debate to one around facts and realities rather than popular images and mythologies. I've deliberately avoided certain tired images - - from both sides of the spectrum - - in this book. I've not used the word "Islamophobia," because I have no problem with people fearing or hating religions - - I'm anti-religious myself. Instead we should focus on the people who are members of those religions, who, in this case, I have found no reason for fear or mistrust. I've also not tried to defend multiculturalism or cultural relativism, because I don't really believe in those concepts - - I'm writing from the perspective of someone who supports, and expects, the embrace of universal values. By shedding those tired old debates, I'm hoping to start a new one, about the way human communities function. And I'm glad to hear that there's a receptive audience for this.

by Doug Saunders 8/27/2012 6:01:08 PM
Many thanks for your time today, Doug.

To catch up with Doug's piece from Saturday's Focus section, check out tgam.ca and read more about his forthcoming book at www.muslimtide.com

by Jennifer MacMillan 8/27/2012 6:03:06 PM

Live Q&A with Doug Saunders on The Myth of the Muslim Tide

The Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders takes your questions about his forthcoming book,