I don't normally like to give personal accounts of individuals I don't know, as it's just anecdotal, and one can't generalise from the anecdote. But this one below gives life to something that I already know is a general issue: the increasing Islamification of nearly every country in the world with sizable Muslim populations. There's macro evidence of this, in numerous studies, as well as the anecdotal evidence in the media. This story is echoed by several people I've met here in Hong Kong in recent months who have escaped -- yes, "escaped" the word they used -- Indonesia and Malaysia for the same sorts of reasons given here by Rakesh Balram.....
... there were just a sprinkling of Muslims in my village. They were mostly fishermen. They were not poor because fishing is a very lucrative and organised industry in my village. Percentage-wise they comprised around 10% of the population. They were a very friendly folk.....the men would bring fish to our homes and chat with the elders. The women would occasionally visit Hindu homes and gossip with the ladies. They spoke the local language with a funny accent that was endearing.
I live in a prosperous coastal village in a southern Indian state. In 1973, when I was six years old….
... there were just a sprinkling of Muslims in my village. They were mostly fishermen. They were not poor because fishing is a very lucrative and organised industry in my village. Percentage-wise they comprised around 10% of the population. They were a very friendly folk.....the men would bring fish to our homes and chat with the elders. The women would occasionally visit Hindu homes and gossip with the ladies. They spoke the local language with a funny accent that was endearing.
When the Middle East oil boom took place, many people from my home state went to the various Gulf countries and found work. Muslims in large numbers went out. Every Muslim home had a migrant in the Gulf states. Soon they became a prosperous community.
Today, the Muslim population has grown to over 30% in my village. While they still fish, they have also moved into retail and business in a big way.
But they have changed. They have stopped all manner of interaction with Hindus and mingle with their own people. The young boys go to Islamic seminaries and refuse to attend modern state or private schools. They don't care for jobs in India, they only want to go the Gulf states. If they don't get the usual blue collar job, they can at least get jobs as mosque sweepers. That is their reasoning for rejecting modern education.
They have no Indian heroes. Their heroes are Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden. They vote only for the Muslim party. When India plays Pakistan in cricket, entire Muslim families jump up in unison when a Pakistani player scores.
Muslims will not sell land to a Hindu. Once a Hindu family sells land to a Hindu, it is lost to the common market. It will never be sold publicly but will be sold through the mosque network, with Islamic clerics playing middlemen. Circulars have been sent to every Muslim home to forbid any private sale to a Hindu. Any free-thinking Muslim who wants to sell land to a Hindu stands to get ostracized. The fear that if the disobey the leaders, they will find it difficult to get their sons and daughters married or get the services of a cleric for a death ceremony.
Recently, they disallowed the screening of an Indian movie in which the Hindu hero wins the woman and the Muslim co-hero lets her go. They threatened to burn down any cinema that screened the movie.
While the Hindu birth rate has fallen to 1.9 children per woman, the Muslim birth rate is 2.9 children. Overall in my state, the Muslim population now stands at 24 per cent. In 1947 (when India was divided and Pakistan was created for Muslims who did not want to live in India) their number was just 11%.
Hindus have lived with Muslim onslaughts for close to 700 years and have survived. However, now the equation is changing. With their number attaining critical mass, many Muslims now openly speak of jehad. They claim one Muslim can fight seven Hindus so if the 100 million Muslims rise in jehad, they cal kill the 900 million Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and atheists and conquer India for Islam.
And you say, Europe is not in danger.
RAKESH BALRAM
January 9, 2010
In comments to the article "Eurabian Follies ", in Foreign Policy, Jan 10
