The End of the World as We Know It, with Mark Steyn

welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson by the way please be sure to follow us on twitter at twitter.com/usembassymanila and in venues in Australia Canada and the United Kingdom a one-man Commonwealth Association and he is a frequent guest host for Rush Limbaugh mark the end of the world as we know it first question you mean that as a provocative overreach to get everyone's attention no I think I think we are at the end like all Cassandra's you you write a book warning about the apocalypse in hopes that you can can ward it off but I think whether we do ward it off or not we are at the end of the post-world War two global order and and a lot of things have to be rethought as a consequence of that segment one the numbers let's just lay out the demographic argument I'll quote from America alone this book is about the larger forces at play in the developed world that have left Europe to enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into eurabia and that call into question the future of much of the rest of the world including the United States Canada and Beyond the key factors are one demographic decline to the unsustainability of advanced Western social democratic states and three civilizational exhaustion so we'll take each of those in turn demographic decline the argument well Europe has simply given up for the most part having children if you take the Mediterranean countries for example we tend to think of them in our stereotypical way as big fecund cultures big Italian mamas big big Greek Mama's My Big Fat Greek Wedding big fat Greek loving family in fact they have collapsed birth rates Germany Japan and Italy already in net population decline they have upside-down family trees therefore grandparents with two children and one grandchild that doesn't have to go on for a long time until you're in serious trouble and you reach a point beyond which you can't recover and that's what a lot of European countries are out now now some of them are just going out of business if you look at Eastern Europe some of the countries that were until 20 years ago part of the Soviet bloc they gave up having children and they're in population decline and there's no successor population what happened in Western Europe is slightly different in effect Western Europe imported a large Muslim population to be the children it couldn't be bothered having themselves and the Muslim birthrate is well the Muslim birthrate is said to be because you know in a politically correct culture they don't keep a lot of official figures on this but compared to the average F mnek European birthrate where they have 1.3 children per couple the the Muslims the estimated Muslim population is 3.5 now the official British statistic from the official British government Statistics Office says that the Muslim population of the United Kingdom is growing ten times faster than the general population that doesn't have to go on long for the numbers to even out if you say have a I mean people think it takes a long time but if you say have a 90 percent population that's let's not let's not make it any kind of racial thing that's called them the Munchkin so 90 percent munchkins and they have 1.3 children per couple and then you have a 10 percent ethnic minority you can call them call them the retain Ian's call them whatever you want but they have 3.5 children that 90 percent and that 10 percent will have roughly the same number of grandchildren so in other words into two generations is all these and you've caught up right now you right in America alone today's I'm quoting you today's high Muslim birth rates will fall and probably fall dramatically as the Catholic birth rates in Italy and Quebec have question what is your underlying theory of what drives birth rates why would the Muslim birth rate fall well I I think there's two kind I think there's two kinds of things that drive birth wage one is it's basic kind of economic improvement people move from a primitive agricultural society where you don't need large numbers of children to work the farm into more developed societies where you need fewer numbers of children what's happened in Europe has gone beyond that though in effect the Social Democratic state has said you don't need to worry about children or grandchildren or anything like that anymore you're taken care of from cradle to grave that there's a relatively high price in taxation to be paid for that and that's why having a child is expensive here in the modern world today so people have fewer children because it's it's an economic liability so if you don't have to have them why have them 40% of German female university graduates are childless we talk about the maternal instinct but evidently it isn't that instinctive not if you're not if you're German French or is this so give me by the way this this business about the Muslim birthrate falling I have the feeling in reading America alone that you're you almost toss that to the opposition because even that need not necessarily be the case well well I as witness say in the Church of Latter day Saints in Utah they leave Salt Lake City is a completely modern town right but it has the highest birth rate in the United States yes that is to say it's not necessary no no and that's why the Mormons have spilled the banks of Utah and why Mitt Romney can be running as a Mormon candidate for president from Massachusetts they've outgrown the state in a basic sense and I think you can see similar things in in Britain for example Pakistani immigration went down for the first generous anni birth rates went down for the first generation of Pakistani immigrants in the 1970s something they odd happen then in the 1980s and 90s that it started creeping back up again in other words as soon as there was a big enough Pakistani population in northern England to be able to live in a kind of Pakistani culture they resumed Pakistani style fertility rates so I accept a knife I can I concede that point immediately that the more that certain Muslim birth rates are falling but which ones are they they're generally speaking the more moderate ones the Tunisian fertility rate is a Western fertility rate in Turkey why is turkey why is camel Ataturk's turkey turning into just another Islamist society because the Kemalists westernized Turks have a Western birthrate and that great vast Turkish rural hinterland in the East retained a traditional Muslim birth rate spilled it's banks like the population in Utah and moved into the cities and that's why whatever happens to Turkey Kemalists Turkey is dead gone over and if the Pentagon and the State Department don't get that they shouldn't be in those buildings segment two the unsustainable habits of the West again from America alone quote the European welfare state depends on economic growth and population growth the former is now barely detectable and the latter is already in reverse close quote explain why the welfare state in Europe depends on both economic and population growth first first your premise well if you don't have welfare a declining population is not a big problem I mean it's a problem in a kind of cultural sense that you won't have a very hip-hop music business if you've got very few young people right but I actually that personally that would suit me just fine I don't want a lot of you and I would be happy with next anatra yeah let I be I would be happy to have Doris Day and trade Lady gaga to wherever she wants to move to so if you lose your young people you have sudden cultural consequences but not necessarily economic ones and in my town in New Hampshire the population peaked in the 1810 census and then what happened the sheep farming industry in New Hampshire collapse people moved out to the west people moved to the mill towns in southern New England and my town's population declined all the way till the 1940 census but it didn't matter because we didn't have a welfare state a predicated on the basis that there would be sufficient young people to pay for the retirements of the old people now when we say retirement by the way we're talking about a problem that most societies before ours never had if you look at Greece something like best part of 300 professions in Greece you're allowed to take retirement at 50/50 so in other words you you work from you know 20 something to the age of 50 and then you spend three decades living at somebody else's expense well who's going to be that somebody else if you don't have any children you've got to import someone to be the somebody else and and the people that that Europe decided to import we're Muslims almost every issue facing the European Union I'm quoting again from America alone from immigration rates to crippling pension liabilities has it has at its heart the same root cause a huge lack of babies close quote give me a kind of summary statement if you can on why France as we know it can't survive under the current birth rate well it depends on what you think a nation is if a nation is just a zip code if a nation is a a gate at LAX and it just happens to be an accumulation of the people who are standing around in the gate waiting for whatever until their flight is called and yes there will be a France and there will be a Netherlands and there will be in Italy in a Germany but if you think that a nation is the accumulated inheritance of its past then there will be no France and there will be no Germany and there will be no Italy it's just a couple of days ago a prominent politician in Ankara Merkel's party in Germany called for the removal of crucifixes from German schools Germans are post-christian like most of Europe but it is part of their cultural inheritance that though that you will still see crucifixes displayed in German schools this Muslim lady is making the point that this now the official was a Muslim yes this is a a Muslim member of Angela Merkel's party in Germany and she's making the reasonable point that these crucifixes know longer speak to what Germany is and more to the point what Germany will be in 20 years so they're going to go and it doesn't even have to be anything that basic if you look at British pubs you look at it the English village pub is there going to be a need for an English village power I mean if you you know English villages well from your from your university days PT now if you go to those villages in Oxfordshire that you'll have a tiny little Main Street on which there will be six seven eight thriving pubs now once that population becomes twenty thirty percent Muslim how many of those pubs are still going to be in business so it affects everything it transforms you you can't have this kind of population transformation without having a broader cultural socio-economic and political transformation - okay so let me tell you what I think of when I think of France one nominally but still nominally Catholic too rigid separation between church and state the the easy day yeah policy three a vivid sense of playing having played a role in European history some sense because the French educational system is pretty good at history as best I can make it out the kids will understand Napoleon and the Revolution and the long line of French kings through Louis the ninth all the way back to Pepin so they will place themselves in relation to the long story of European history give me what France will look like how those three aspects of what I think of as French will be changed in 20 years say well there were 20 years too little and I be am I taking no no I don't think so I think in Trent I think in 20 years time I think I mean just to take you mentioned schools I mean you look take for example Antwerp in Belgium 40% of the children in Antwerp elementary schools select Islamic studies as their religious studies class can versus 26% for Catholic and roughly the same number for non confessional studies so in other words that is the future of Antwerp so 20 years time all those grade schoolers are going to be in their late 20s and early that is so you're not wrong that's the timeframe we're talking about and in France most of those Catholics schools ah most Catholic Church is going to be closed maybe they'll be which some of them will be retained as Heritage Sites but they're not going to be living Catholic churches if you think of what was once sin Sophia's Cathedral in in Istanbul it's it's now a museum so you can go and see you you can go and see what was once there but it's no longer a going concern and that's what those Catholic churches will be like you talk about the history that's taught in French schools they're not going to be teaching the Second World War in French schools because it's going to be problematic the Turks are on the wrong side well and the and beyond that the whole question of the Holocaust becomes contentious when you're teaching it to Muslim schoolchildren that's why Dutch schools for example decide discretion is the better part of valor and it's easier just to skip the whole Second World War British schools increasingly find it's easier to skip the Crusades so so when you have this kind of essentially population transformation it changes not only the present and the future but it even changes the past because the past has to be retrospectively brought into line where they need some kind of new national narrative segment three civilizational exhaustion again America along quote a suicide bomber may be a weak weapon but not against a weak culture explain that yeah the essentially Islam has bet that we have expensive toys we've got the best kind of aircraft carriers we've got the best kind of tanks we've got the smart bombs but that and that's that's a short-term advantage if you want to pick a fight on a battlefield if you want to pick a fight that is slightly more ambiguous the dozen actually never actually calls out the force you up against onto a have a onto the battlefield for a big tank battle then what matters is will what matters is will and they embed that the West does not have the will to defend itself and they see that every day of the week for example in the way Comedy Central just a couple of days ago caved in and censored the show South Park I don't really know much about South Park and I don't don't watch particular I don't of a TV reception worth speaking of but I but but but one thing I do know is that 10 years ago South Park was able to do a Mohamad joke and it went on the air and it was broadcast and nobody threatened to kill anybody over it what has happened since then is is that we have taught these people the lesson that if you threaten to kill and you threaten to murder and you threatened to intimidate you don't actually have to kill or murder anyone the culture will just cave anywhere you identify a couple of sources of this civilizational exhaustion let me try to ask you for an explanation of each again I'm quoting from America along most mainline Protestant churches are to one degree or another post Christian they hold actually I'm quoting this sentence just because I love the sentence deep breath they hold that if Jesus were alive today he'd most likely be a gay anglican bishop in a committed relationship driving around in an environment environmentally friendly car with an arms or for hugging sticker close quote the West is exhausted because it has ceased to believe well I think it has ceased to believe in anything and by that I mean it's not necessary for everyone in a Western nation to be a believing and observant Christian but you have to understand I think that your your civilization Springs from a relatively narrow foundational source I find it I'm I like atheists but I must say I find the quality of atheism has deteriorated dramatically over the last century if you go back go back to the late 19th century when when Nietzsche declared that God is dead he at least respected God enough to want to pick a fight over his existence or not there's that something slightly more sophisticated than if you look at Richard Dawkins or for example Christopher Hitchens a smart guy man I like very much a man who's on the right side of most things but Christopher Hitchens says religion poisons everything I don't think I don't understand how you can look at most of the great artwork of Western civilization I don't understand how you can listen to Mozart or Brahms and say that you it's not necessary to be an observant Christian to hear the beauty in a in a great European Requiem Mass that Springs from that Christian tradition and so the idea of trashing our our civilization in the interests of I think a multicultural nullity I think has been a disaster and I think it's left a great big hole where our identity ought to be second cause of civilizational exhaustion you argue and I quote again from America alone quote the populations of wealthy democratic societies expect to have total choice over their satellite TV packages yet think it perfectly normal to allow the state to make all the choices in respect of their health care the torpor of the West derives in part from the annexation by government of most of the core functions of adulthood close quote explain that one well I don't think it's very difficult I think if you if you take a picture of the average thirteen-year-old in California today and then you and then you take a picture of a thirteen year old from say my part of New Hampshire circa 1878 just put those photographs side-by-side which one would you be willing to leave your house to if you had to go away for a weekend I don't think it I don't think it's I don't think it's a very difficult question to answer that now that's fine when you're 13 but what happens when you extend adolescence the president the United States has just told us that if you're 26 years old you can stay on your parents health insurance health insurance plan so he's basically said at 26 you're still a child childhood expense to twenty six on your 27th birthday you've got a finally shape up and move out of your parents insurance agency but until then you're a child what what the problem with that is that I think we have essentially created a society of permanent adolescence where the important business health care health care why why is that the people could make their own health care arrangements 50 100 200 years ago but that now the state has to do it for us and what does that say about us what kind of when you insulate people from when you insulate your citizens from all the most basic pressures of life what kind of citizenry do you wind up with and that's why I do think we are creating essentially a society of permanent adolescence where where we we talk about our iPods we talk about the music we listen to we talk about our cable packages where's everything important the decisions are made for us by the government segment for Stein and his critics The Economist magazine called your book quote an alarmist screed The Guardian one of Britain's leading newspapers said quote Stein's book is indeed alarmist Maclean's magazine for which I'm at what would you write MacLaine's the Canadian Canadian magazine called the book once again alarmist why can't you put your argument more calmly you have something important to say why not say it in a way that appeals to the intellectuals who have their hands on the levers of power because I think it's actually happening so fast that if we want to do anything about it we need we need to do it quickly or the entire Western world is going to be out of business what I find fascinating really after publishing the book is is that is that the the progress in mind denies there's anything to argue about you know some people will pick a fight with me and say oh the idea that the idea that Europe will be Muslim by the year 2030 is absurd maybe by 2070 or 21 so in that case we're not arguing about the destination right we're only arguing about the the length of the journey but more and more people say well what would be so wrong what would be so wrong if the Western world did become Muslim and that I think is the self neutering result of the of the multicultural mindset you remember mayor Nagin in in in New Orleans he when it turned out that a lot of the people had moved away didn't want to come back he got all worried about that because he said New Orleans has always been quoted chocolate city unquote in other words he thought that the the who lived there made a difference to what the city was why can't you make that point about Italians in Milan why can't you make that point about Swedes in Malmo why can't you make that point about Dutch people in in Rotterdam and I think that's that but that's what I find fascinating that the leftist progressives say well what's the big deal if they if the whole world becomes Muslim what would be wrong with that and I think what is what the response to that is well look you know okay which currently Muslim city would you want to live in exactly isla I like her I like the Muslim world I spent a lot of time the Muslim world I love Amman I love Cairo I love visiting them but would I want to raise a family in Cairo would I want to try and do business in Cairo would I want to try and exercise my right to free speech even in Jordan which is a supposedly moderate Muslim state no I'm very happy to visit them but I'm very happy to come home to free pluralist Western societies well let's move on to a critic of yours who plays fair to the extent that he certainly doesn't want all of Europe to become radical Muslim and understands that something is it is its take Christopher Hitchens quote Stein makes the same mistake as did the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci considering European Muslim populations as one little binds of Somali to a Turk or an Iranian or an Algerian and considerable friction exists among immigrant Muslim groups argument one argument to moreover many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes seeking asylum and to build a better life close quote calm down those 40% in Antwerp don't get along that well with each other in the first place and some of them are there because it's Antwerp they get to be less Muslim and more secular well I think I think the way to look at that is with respect to Christopher Hitchens is I think that was true a couple of generations back I think for example if you take a Pakistani immigrant to Scotland that's just happens to be an example a real-life example I happen to know 1950 that Pakistani immigrants Scotland would have had a broadly similar education to the guy in Scotland so in other words he's coming to a land that he has been raised in a sense to live in he is coming to the imperial metropolis from the fringe so he already comes semi assimilated now you take a Pakistani immigrant who comes in the year 2010 he'll have been educated in a madrassa he'll know Islam but not much else he's far more foreign in that sense to Scotland than he would have been 50 or 60 years ago but also I think there is a difference and this is where the numbers come into play that it is was simply not possible to live in a Muslim world in inner-city Scotland in 1950 whereas it is now what you see in Malmo Sweden where Jews are fleeing in the most progressive society in Europe Social Democratic Scandinavia Jews have concluded there's no future for them in Malmo and they're getting the hell out of there why because it's a why because it's a Muslim city and in a sense there are so many Muslims in Malmo that Sweden has assimilated with Islam rather than the other way around so I think I think with respect to Christopher Hitchens he profoundly underestimates overestimates westernization and Christopher should know this there's a fascinating series of pictures that was published on the internet a couple of months ago showing the showing the female graduating class from Cairo University in 1958 1979 and I think 2004 1958 they're all bareheaded women they look like they look like young women more or less not terribly different from young women you would have seen at the time in in Western Europe or anywhere else by 1979 half of them are covered 2004 they're all covered it's the it's the arrogance I think it's the arrogance even of the left to assume that the the societal pull is always in the direction of westernization in the Muslim world that is not the case it's gone backwards and I and I think you can see evidence already that it's going backwards in northern England and other heavily Muslim parts a year segment 5 your title America alone you sum up European disdain for the United States by quoting the British journalist Brian Reid who writes that Americans are quote self-righteous gun-totin military love and sister Mary and abortion hating gay loathe and foreigner despised and non Passport Onan rednecks to which Mark Steyn replies I think you left out the most colorful bit of a hybrid I Brothers a bit rather vivid me going racist yeah II see you who think that I think God gave them the most that the biggest manhood in the world I'm being discreet so that they could urinate on the rest of the planet it's something like that that's all that to which mark Stein replies if one were to formulate it less disapprovingly Brian Reed's anatomy of Americans equals quoting but voting you now culturally confident self-reliant patriotic procreative religious democratic constitutional rednecks who believe in national sovereignty rather than ineffectual poser multilateralism close quote what makes the United States different well I think I think the United States is still different I think it's clear that there's a big slab of the population here that is attracted to the idea of being like Europe Europe has only been able to be like Europe the last 60 years because the United States has has served as the guarantor of last resort in effect Germany doesn't need an army because the US Army lives in Germany and so Germany has been free to spend its defense budget on socialized healthcare and all kinds of other things in effect US taxpayers pay for the German healthcare since 2010 this year we still have 50,000 troops but 60 some years after the end of the fifth after the end of the Second World War we still have 50,000 troops in Germany right which is ridiculous and any time anybody talks about withdrawing them as secretary Rumsfeld does the argument the argument now there was advanced at the time is that the closure of those bases would be devastating for surrounding German supermarkets and restaurants so that is why the United States taxpayer pays to keep this vast army in Germany is because otherwise those supermarkets and restaurants would go out of business so so if America goes down the European path who is going to be the the sugar daddy for America in the way that America served as the sugar daddy for Europe there isn't one but what hardens me is that America is not yet European I was very despondent by the results of the as you can imagine of the 2008 election but what was interesting too what was interesting to me is there is the nature of the rebellion against that there was the financial crisis which happened in a lot of countries and in a lot of places from Iceland to Bulgaria you had massive demonstrations of people pounding on the door of Parliament saying why didn't you the government do more for us this is the only country in the Western world where a mass protest movement rose up saying why don't you do less for us why don't you get the hell out of our pocket why don't you keep out of our lives big government and we do just fine and it doesn't it's not clear to me whether it speaks for 50-point 0:01 percent of the American people but it speaks for significant chunk of them and that differentiates the United States from the most of the other Western nation you right mark there are three possible resolutions to the to the present struggle again I'm quoting from America alone one submit Islam but that would mean the end of Western civilization to destroy Islam but quote the slaughter would change America beyond recognition close quote three reformed Islam but quote ultimately only Muslims can reform Islam all the free world can do is create conditions that increase the likelihood of Muslim reform close quote what kinds of conditions are those well I think historically Islam has only been moderated by by the overarching society I mean to an extent the British Raj moderated Islam in India it had problems with were harvest violence in the nineteenth century they assassinated day Viceroy and a chief justice in in Imperial India but generally speaking you know the British the British Raj did have a moderating impact the Indonesian dictatorship had a moderating impact on radical Islam the Soviet Union did the Central Asian stands were very agreeable places to be when the Soviet Union bust up they have this disgusting alcohol they drink there they're incredibly though world's most relaxed Muslims drinking this this this hooch very pleasant company what happened was that the Iranians and Saudis then spent a ton of money radicalizing those people so that that teaches us a lesson the lesson here is is if you're not play if you're not on ideological offense you're going to get rolled this idea that somehow our deference to Islam prevents us from to make the Christopher Hitchens point identifying the the various mom-and-pop strains of Islam around the planet that we're in favor of or just letting the House of Saud and the Iranian mullahs annex anything that takes their fancy is a recipe for disaster none of those none of those precedents are attractive to Americans because Americans don't think the Indonesian dictatorship or the Soviet Union or even the British Raj are terribly attractive so they're not in the ideological game what's the program for the United States well I think if you if you could simply if you we set barack obama to one side and like you president or let's see let's do it better for experimental prefer the purpose is a mental experiment let's make you dictator what should the United States do well for start I would I would end ideological subversion of of the United States and the Western world I don't I don't think until the Saudis you stop supporting yeah exporting Wahhabism yeah we are now yeah because basically the the Saudis export ideology not oil oil simply funds the export of ideology and I would I would I would stop that and I would do everything to stop it I think the tragedy is that the Saudis are reaching the point where they've just about bought up everything they need to buy up in the Western world secondly I do think that unless you're unless you have real serious cultural confidence you should not have mass Muslim immigration my my view on that I say that with regret because I would like to believe that that all societies we can handle it can can bring people there and create Americans create Canadians create Englishmen create Dutchman but if you look at England I mean Englishman whose families have been living there since 1066 are no longer English in any meaningful way so the idea that you can take some child bride off the boat from mere power and turn her into a functioning British subject in any way is I think highly dubious and so I do think of that I do think that at some point we have to grasp the nettle of mass immigration which is always a sign of societal weakness whatever one feels about it in theory a dependence on mass immigration is a sign of a structural defect in society final final question mark let me this will take a moment or two to set up but I think it's evocative enough to make it worthwhile to assessments of the future Malcolm Muggeridge the great late British journalist who in his later years used to tell young people when he was lecturing in this country as indeed he told me that we would soon find ourselves in the position of st. Agustin the Bishop of Hippo North Africa who writes the City of God as news of the sack of Rome reaches him this flower of classical civilization st. Agustin who in his own lifetime watches it all slip away that's assessment one assessment to the present Pope Benedict the sixteenth you write yourself again in America alone quote the future implicit in then Cardinal Ratzinger 's name for his papacy Benedict the sixteenth st. Benedict was born in Umbria 482 fifty years after the death of Agustin and Saint Benedict ensured quoting you that critical elements of civilization were preserved and that they would emerge as the basic basis for Europe and Western civilization pope benedict xvi once quoted a Benedictine motto pruned it grows again so you have Malcolm Muggeridge sorry chaps it's the end and you've got Benedict the sixteenth who seems to be suggesting that after its period of struggle rebirth I think it was easier in the original Benedict's day I am worried that we are delivering we are essentially delivering Western technology which can S which can pair into every nook and cranny of our lives and we are creating transnational institutions that will end up being run by profoundly a liberal sources if you look at the biggest voting bloc of the United Nations for example it's the organization of the Islamic Conference that's an interesting name if it was you what would what would the Left make if there was a group of Nations called the organisation of a Christian conference they'd be hopping mad about it but they're not about the organization of the Islamic Conference fifty-eight nations who make the running especially in things like the Human Rights Council at the UN so in other words these international institutions that were set up mainly by the United States in the late 1940s because the u.s. didn't want to be an imperial superpower so created these transnational institutions that of now that are falling remorselessly into the hands of the enemies of liberal societies and I think that I think that makes it I think that gives the second Benedict a tougher job than the first Benedict has I don't want to subscribe to Malcolm Muggeridge defeatism I'm a happy warrior but turning this thing around is going to be a hellish work and I think at a certain point we're going to find little Citadel's little Citadel's of light on what is otherwise a very dark planet in other words I think pruned it grows again maybe but the pruning is going to be far more severe than we yet know Mark Steyn author of America alone thank you very much I'm Peter Robinson for uncommon knowledge and the Hoover Institution thanks for joining us

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 2,629,723

Keywords: HooverInstitutionUK, Steyn, America, civilization, Christianity, Islam, culture, values, terrorism

Id: CQELHJx8Vf0

Length: 38min 19sec (2299 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/WakandaDrama]

Yeah, "Muslims" will take over France, a country that doesn't allow mosques to be constructed. This guy is full of dog whistles and dog shit.

Can people stop referring to Muslims as this hive mind? There are just as many denominations of Islam as there is Christianity. And they are not a race. A Muslim from Indonesia and one from Checneya are two different practicing cultures.