Words By Will Day
Over the past decade, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory has gained significant traction amongst the far-right and has become a frequent feature of extremist manifestos. It is entirely without merit yet, as Keir Starmer highlighted so painfully in a recent radio interview, it mostly remains unchallenged. The more this conspiracy proliferates, the more dangerous it becomes.
Adherents to the theory believe that Western demographics are being ‘replaced’ through waves of non-European/non-white migration. This, they believe, will lead to the erosion of Western values with traditional European demographics becoming a minority within the coming decades. Predominantly it is immigration from countries with large Muslim populations that are singled out by the theory’s believers.
They proclaim this migration is not a natural phenomenon, instead this apparent ‘replacement’ is an orchestrated, deliberate attack on western society. Behind it all, as so often is the case with the far-right, are the globalist elite, manipulating politicians and media alike, to ensure Western society will be once and for all destroyed (oh and if you weren’t aware ‘globalists’ is just a less obviously anti-Semitic way of saying Jews).
Now, it pains me to have to say this, but apparently to some people it isn’t blindingly obvious – THERE IS NOT, NOR HAS THERE EVER BEEN A GLOBAL SOCIETY OF JEWS RUNNING THE WORLD. This is a conspiracy propagated by the Nazis to create the conditions for which the holocaust was possible. It might seem ridiculous that such a theory could be believed but sadly, it’s far more prominent than you might first think.
We’ve all heard of the Rothschild’s, right? That the shady family that has monopolized world banks and secretly manipulate geopolitical events for their own gain. – except they don’t. Whilst the Rothschild family was once powerful, they lost most of their wealth a long time ago. Far from running the world, the richest Rothschild currently sits at 1284th on the Forbes rich list. So why the conspiracy that they secretly run the world – they’re Jewish. There is no globalist society manipulating world events, it’s a deranged anti-Semitic conspiracy that seeks to perpetuate the demonisation of Jewish communities. We only need to into our recent history to show the danger of this conspiracy taking root. Next time you hear someone rambling about globalists or the Rothschild’s make sure they know they’re literally quoting Hitler and maybe suggest doing some outside of social media.
Right, so no globalist society trying to eradicate western culture. There will be some people however who say, “look listen here, I don’t believe any of that crazy globalist stuff, but if you look at current immigration trends, European’s will soon be a minority.” Nigel Farage, for example, has claimed that Muslim immigrants are “coming here to try to take us over”. Similarly, on the rise of immigrants from East Africa to the US, Fox News host, Tucker Carlson stated, “it’s going to overwhelm our country, and change it completely and forever”.
So, is there any truth to this claim, will migration levels lead to a complete demographic transformation leading to the eradication of western values? Or is this just another case of the far-right trying to whip up hatred to justify their exclusionary politics?
For starters, their arguments are based on uncertain assumptions; they assume current trends of migration will continue exponentially but, it’s very unlikely this will be the case. As with most trends, it will eventually plateau. I’ll draw on a personal anecdote to highlight this. Last year I started running, at the time I could run a kilometre in roughly five minutes. After a year of practicing, I can now do it in four. If this trend continues, within the next four years I’ll be able to run a kilometre in zero minutes. Now, as much as I’d like to squeeze into some tight spandex and speed around the city fighting crime, unfortunately, I’m not becoming the flash (sulks in spandex). I will soon reach a point when my running times will plateau.
There’s no reason why rates of migration will continue, especially considering current rates are the product of a refugee crisis. Despite what certain right-wing pundits might try and tell you, people aren’t travelling over open oceans in perilous conditions because they want to seek a cushty life on the welfare state in western countries. In most cases, migrants arriving in Europe have risked everything, not because they want to, but because they’ve no other choice. As put by Warsan Shire, “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” It’s likely then that when the conditions that have caused the refugee crisis alleviate, that migration rates will plateau.
But fine, let’s just play along for a little bit. Let’s assume that these trends of migration do continue, how many weeks will be it be before the Muslim takeover of the west is complete, the far-right are pretty worked up about it so surely, it’s got to be pretty soon right? Well, no.
According to the Pew research centre, the Muslim population of Europe was six percent in 2010, if current trends continue (which they won’t), by 2050 the figure will rise to roughly 10 percent, meaning they’ll still be outnumbered by nine to one. If it really is an attempted takeover, I’d say the globalists are doing a pretty terrible job.
In fact, as YouTuber ‘Shaun’ highlights in his video ‘The Great Placement isn’t real’ the Muslim population of Europe as a percentage of the whole has only been increasing by roughly one percent per decade. This means that it wouldn’t be until 2500 that Muslims will account for over 50 percent of Europe’s population and become the majority. Right, so there’s no Muslim takeover of Europe on the horizon, but what about America, I mean there must be some truth in it to have Tucker Carlson so worked up, right? Well, according to the Pew research centre, by 2050 Muslims are predicted to be the second-largest religious population at a whopping…… 2.1percent.
Whilst the proponents of the great replacement will insist their only concern is the protection of western values and culture, this isn’t the case. Western values aren’t biologically determined, there’s no reason why immigrants can’t and won’t share these values too. Similarly, many of these ‘migrants’ they say will be replaced by, won’t be migrants at all. For example, in Britain, if someone arrives from abroad to live, they are a migrant. If they have children in Britain, these children won’t be migrants, they’ll be British, by virtue of being born in Britain. The only difference is, they might not be white.
This is where the real problem lies. Let’s be real about what they mean when they say they want to protect western values – they mean they want to protect whiteness. These people are terrified that they might one day exist in a world where they are no longer given preferential treatment because of the colour of their skin. They’ve convinced themselves their whiteness makes them special and will do anything they can to protect it, because, deep down they know, they’re spectacularly unremarkable.
If the far-right really wanted to protect whiteness, there’s plenty of better places they could start. May I suggest not fighting to keep a man in the White House who appeared to be one missed putt related tantrum away from slamming his greasy Wotsit fingers on that big red button and causing a nuclear holocaust? Maybe they could start taking climate change seriously, there’s little chance of humanity even making it to 2500 at this rate. Or maybe they could just, you know, WEAR A FACEMASK.
While we’re at it, it’s not some evolutionary freak that people in Australia and America look and sound like those in Britain, nor that Spanish is spoken in most of South America. There have already been a series of ‘great replacements’ all of which were propagated by Europeans. They occurred, not by decades of immigration attempting to slowly replace indigenous populations, but by a series of brutal and barbaric genocides. If we’re really going to open a dialogue about replacement maybe this is where we should start.
