Terrorism Quotient
(This is also published at the Unz Review.)
(My reader poll results will have to wait, but rest assured, they’re coming.)
Yet another terrorist attack in Paris – this year:
I wish I could say I was even remotely surprised – perhaps only at the precise time, and that’s all. For this is just another example of what I and so many others have been saying, as recently as the Cherlie Hebdo attack just in January.
Well, in this post, I’m here to straighten these people out on these things, as Bill Maher did in his interview with Brian Levin after the Boston bombing – video does not allow embedding. Please visit the site:
The problem, ultimately, is this:
The bulk of “terrorism” comes from one broad group of people: Muslims.
I know that that is partly a matter of definition:
But I want people to think of something. See this from my earlier post Guns & Violence, Again…
Now see this (from Wikipedia):
The maps are pretty similar. The places on Earth with much interpersonal violence are generally also the places that larger-scale prolonged conflicts.
One might note that Muslim nations have fairly low rates of interpersonal homicide (assuming that these statistics are reliable, which is hardly guaranteed). This is partly because of the system of clan retribution, as Peter Frost explains here (The return of fear – emphasis mine)
Most Muslim immigrants come from societies where the State has pacified social relations only in recent times and where men still see violence as a legitimate and even necessary means to advance personal interests, to defend themselves and their families, and to acquire land, goods, and even women. Violence is constrained not by the State but by a balance of terror—the threat of retaliation by the victim or his kinsmen.
Hence, violence is Islamic societies quickly moves from being one-on-one (or one-on-a few or few-on-few) affairs as it is in many other places in the world to being protracted struggles between rival clans and tribes (featured at what is the MATTER with you people? | hbd chick):
What Muslim groups putatively lack in interpersonal violence, they more than make up for in prolonged mass conflict.
Despite these key facts, in response to this latest rampage in Paris, we have the usual nonsense, as representated by these Tweets:
https://twitter.com/smollestlarrie/status/665360169216385024
In this post, allow me to introduce a very simple concept, as I will demonstrate with this Twitter exchange:
Let’s not forget this smart fellow here:
https://twitter.com/suscitate/status/665360375169200128
Perhaps what’s needed here is the idea of a terrorism quotient:
This is modeled after the “Amish Quotient” of Greg Cochran and Henry Harpending.
The idea is that there is a suite of behavioral traits that is more prevalent in many Muslim populations which makes them more likely to perpetrate acts of terrorism.
(Of course, every ethnic group has a group-typical suite of behavioral traits – an “x quotient” – see Predictions on the Worldwide Distribution of Personality.
This is basic HBD.)
This is illustrated by the number of terrorist acts (defined here as instances of mass murder/assault/hostage taking) per capita for a given population. There is little question that this rate is incredibly high for many Muslim populations relative to other populations (and of course, there is a great deal of variation between Muslim populations) – even more so when you consider the sizes of the Muslim populations living in Western countries:
But the problem with Muslims in the West is hardly confined to terrorism, but plenty of regular old violence and other crime (especially in Europe – not so much in North America) – again from Peter Frost:
In France, Muslims make up 60% of all prison inmates, while being only 12% of the total population (Leclerc, 2014). Similarly, 7 out of 10 burglaries, assaults, and violent thefts are committed by first- or second-generation immigrants (Chevrier and Raufer, 2014). Most of these perps seem to be Muslim, although a third of them may be West Indians, Africans, and Roma of nominally Christian background. Muslims seem to be especially overrepresented in serious violent crimes that lead to prison sentences.
Similar trends are developing elsewhere. Muslims make up 70% all prison inmates in Spain and 45% in Belgium (WikiIslam, 2013 see Note 1; Sudinfo.be, 2013). In England and Wales, the figure is only 14%, versus 4.7% of the total population, apparently because certain other communities are likewise overrepresented (Morris, 2014, see Note 2).
A Danish researcher has studied the relationship between criminality and immigrant origin in Denmark, Norway, and Finland (Kirkegaard, 2014a; Kirkegaard, 2014b; Kirkegaard, 2014c; Kirkegaard and Fuerst, 2014). He found that the prevalence of Islam in the immigrants’ home country was the single best predictor of criminality both for “all crime” and for “violent crime,” being better than the home country’s mean IQ or GDP per capita and much better than its murder rate.
And let’s not forget Rotherham:
- Report found 1,400 children abused between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham
- The figure is likely to be a conservative estimate of the true scale
- Victims terrorised with guns and doused in petrol and threatened with fire
- More than a third of the cases were already know to agencies
- Author of the report condemned ‘blatant’ failings by council’s leadership
- Action blocked by political correctness as staff ‘feared appearing racist’
- Majority of victims described the perpetrators as ‘Asian’ [overwhelmingly Pakistani] men
- Leader of Rotherham Council has stepped down with immediate effect
- No council employees will receive disciplinary action, leaders state
This illustrates that the typical WEIRDO response to these crimes – such as pointing out (correctly) that only a small fraction of all Muslims commit these crimes, as true as that is, misses the point.
What’s more there is no reason to have large populations of Muslims in Northwestern European countries. It’s one thing when a group has a historic presence in a place, like American Blacks or the long-term Mexican residents of El Norte in the U.S. do. The country is as much theirs as it is that of the Whites living there. But the Muslim populations in Europe are overwhelmingly recent immigrants.
At the very least, one would imagine that it would be prudent to stop admitting more Muslims into these countries. As much as I am loathe to quote Ann Coulter:
But there’s a good chance that that won’t happen. Much of what I say here – meant to jar Northwestern Europeans into prudent action to protect their societies – may end up falling on deaf ears. The reason why is explained by the very same HBD that explains why Muslims are so much more violent, on average – namely, Northwestern European universalism:
As we saw previously in my posts Clannishness – the Series: Zigzag Lightning in the Brain, there is a strong correlation between the size of the Muslim fraction in European countries and their scientific (and other intellectual) performance. A suite of behavioral traits found principally in Northwest Europeans – regard for all humanity, generosity, high-trust, the absence of kin-based social bonds – leads them to accept clannish migrants. See The Rise of Universalism:
Worse still, NW Europeans accept immigrants from the most incompatible corner of the world, the Muslim/Arab world:
In many respects, Muslim groups (especially Arab ones) are the polar opposites of Northwest Europeans. Northwestern European society is liberal, democratic, individualistic, secular, and high-trust. Arab society is illiberal, autocratic, collectivist, extremely religious, and low-trust. Social bonds in Northwestern European societies are primarily among non-relatives (at least past the nuclear family). Social bonds in Arab society are structured around kin. Institutions in NW European societies are rule-bound. Institutions in Arab societies are corrupt.
This is genetic in origin, the product of evolution.
For more, see these two key posts by HBD Chick:
big summary post on the hajnal line | hbd chick
community vs. communism | hbd chick
Because the differences between these groups of people is inherited, the result of centuries of natural selection in their respective environments, these features can’t be expected to change much. Northwestern Europeans and Arabs (and many other Muslim groups) are, as groups, largely incompatible. Social strife emerges when they are brought together as they are in modern Northwestern European countries.
To illustrate that Northwestern European universalism is responsible for the settling of large numbers of Muslims in Europe, note what you don’t see:
Unfortunately, the very HBD that leads to these differences also makes it hard for Northwestern Europeans to see the folly in their immigration policies. In reaction to events like the Paris attacks, we get this:
As discussed by M.G. over at Those Who Can See: Reacting to Spree Killings, Progressively
Oh, and for the New Atheists out there that like to blame Muslim violence on their religion, it’s worth noting that the behaviors we associate with religion – including the religion itself – are all heritable:
Religion comes to the religious because that’s how their brains are wired. A believer cannot think any different … Believers literally have God/Earth spirits/Buddha on the brain. To such a person, their deities are as real as the Sun in the sky (since, after all, the believer’s brain is the only brain he’s got). Religiosity is highly heritable (as are all behavioral traits)…
…
This indicates that religious belief – or lack there of – is largely intractable. It is a futile effort to get people to give up religion en masse (or, for that matter, to get non-believers to believe). You may have some individual “successes”, largely because of changing the environmental context of people who already had the genetic potentialfor whatever belief you want to instill, but you’re not going to achieve broad change in the population.
However, the “New Atheists” don’t seem to see it that way. Many of these speakers, including the likes of Richard Dawkins, or groups such as American Atheistsproselytize atheism. Indeed, Dawkins, a self-described “militant atheist”, is very much an atheist evangelist.
The belief that these individuals’ actions appear to be based is that by spreading atheism and getting people to give up their religious beliefs, society can be improved.
As I have previous written, that is a foolhardy goal. The unsavory traits the New Atheists seek to change stem not from the religion, but from the people. Indeed, in the spirit of what HBD Chick would ask, where do religious beliefs come from? Sorry atheist zealots, you can’t get Muslims to behave like modern civilized (Northwestern European) people by getting them to give up Islam. You can’t turn the U.S. Deep South and Greater Appalachia into Yankeedom or the Midlandsby getting the former two to give up fundamentalist Christianity.
So what to do, then? First and foremost, especially for Northwestern European countries, is to stop admitting Muslims en masse into Europe.
(It’s worth mentioning that the problem is much more acute for Europe than it is for NW European diaspora nations like the U.S. or Canada. Put simply, the Atlantic Ocean is a bigger barrier than the Mediterranean Sea. Europe gets a much more representative slice of the Muslim population. By contrast, immigrants to North America tend to be more select because of the demands of making the trip. Hence, here in the States we get higher IQ, less clannish Muslims. Of course, that’s not all that rosy – a smart terrorist is a much more dangerous thing than a stupid terrorist. But North American Muslims don’t have the incredibly high crime and poverty rates European Muslims do.)
At the very earnest, any attempts to address the problem should start with not making it worse. Even more troublesome, a loose, porous border allows radicalized Muslims to travel freely from terror hotspots in the Middle East to Western sites. France’s emergency reaction to close it’s border was the right step (but, on cue, there are calls for France to open its border once again –Why France Should Not Close Its Borders). Cutting the number of “refugees” granted asylum in Western nations would be next. (Most of whom are economic migrants anyway.)
That addressed new Muslims in the country, but what about the existing populations? I for one do not advocate mass deportations, nor do we need encourage Westerners to engage in mass persecution of their Muslim populations. That said, some steps can be taken to tackle the issue. For example:
- Disallow entry for families of Muslim immigrants
- Deport any immigrant convicted of a crime
Now, that said, for France – with it’s very high Muslim population and it’s much higher Muslim share of births in the country – there doesn’t seem to be an easy remedy. They’re in a hard position – and worst of all, they don’t even realize it, generally.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this matter headed to good places, neither for Europeans or for the Muslims and other foreigners that live in Europe. That last thing we need is to inspire backlash against the Muslim residents by the natives. One hopes that steps to address this issue in an orderly and humane way can be taken, but I have to admit, that’s just a hope.
JayMan's Blog 
First time at this blog. Thank you for a very thought provoking analysis.
“As much as I am loathe to quote Ann Coulter:”
Why are you loathe to quote Ann Coulter? She’s very much on target in many areas.
That obvious common sense such as the above, from a liberal like Jayman, will immediately be labeled “Right-Wing Hatespeech” by all the usual suspects is a good indication of why Europe and America are in the shape that they are in.
So, Western interventionism does not do anything to inflame violence prone people? It’s not at all relevant to the issue? Why no discussion of this subject?
“So, Western interventionism does not do anything to inflame violence prone people?”
Actually, probably not. at least not to any great extent. Islam was violently trying to take over other societies before there even was a West, let alone one that was in shape to intervene in anything. Western intervention might be a factor at the individual level, but society-wide? No.
There are a lot of people who seem to think that this Jihad business just HAS to be our fault, because it’s a lot less scary; that way, we can just stop what we are doing, and the problem will go away, plus we can secretly believe ourselves superior because we have agency, whereas the Other is only acted upon, and then reacts, somewhat like a principle of physics. The idea that the situation might be out of control, that the Other has its own will and its own agenda, and might just overcome us, is just too frightening – and too much of a blow to the ego of Western Man. Better to both condemn and flatter ourselves at the same time, like the guy in church who brags about his sinfulness while “repenting”.
Hasn’t the West been trying to control the Middle East for years? What was the invasion of Iraq? A friendly visit? The United States invaded a country that didn’t even attack us, for God’s sake. And you say the Muslims have been trying to violently control societies for years? Sure, but what about Western colonialism and imperialism?
However, I will admit this is an empirical question. Let’s pull our Western militaries out of the Middle East and see if it helps.
You can’t even name an area that was better off before Colonialism.
That Ann Coulter quote is flawed, just ask Black Americans who had to deal with terrorism long before Osama or Isis.