gunnar heinsohn: population, conquest and terror in the 21st century

8/18/2019 Gunnar Heinsohn: Population, Conquest and Terror in the 21st Century

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Population, Conquest and Terror in the 21st Century

By Gunnar Heinsohn (August 2005)

Beginning around the year 1500, Europe experienced a population explosion

— with total fertility rates up to the beginning of the 20th

century as experienced

today in Gaza or Niger — that quickly led to world domination. Today, Moslem

countries are undergoing a similar growth in population that could well have similar

results.

Throughout the 1400s, a Europe that had been reduced from 80 to 50 million

people by devastating outbreaks of bubonic plague found its borders under constant

pressure from conquering Moslem armies. In 1456, Constantinople fell. In 1492,

Columbus sailed west seeking new paths to the orient. The old trading routes had

fallen under Moslem control. By 1500 the Christian nations of Europe were locked

in a desperate struggle for survival.

Suddenly everything changed. Europe’s population began to grow

exponentially. Numerous explanations have been offered for this stunning increase.

Some experts cite the arrival of new foods, such as the potato and maize. Others

point to economic expansion and lower mortality rates. My own research has shown

that after 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII decreed the death penalty for those who

practiced birth control, European women began to have an average of six or seven

children each, compared with two or three in earlier times.

Because a father’s land went to his oldest son, Europe’s “population bulge”

produced large numbers of young men who had no secure place in society. In the


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1500s many of these young men became soldiers, providing ample manpower for the

European armies that turned the tide of battle against Islam.

But Europe’s rapid growth in population also placed severe strains on land and

the economy. There was only one place for huge numbers of excess people to go.

Europe’s teachers and priests preach imperialism. Thanks to a private property-based

economy and advanced military weapons, European control of the globe became

child’s play. Throughout the world, European explorers were followed by European

conquerors and settlers. Spain had a name for its youthful conquistadors. They were

known as Secundones1, second sons and those who followed. With so many young

men seeking a place in the world, Europe — like a never-ending Mongol horde —

conquered nine-tenths of the Earth. When there was nothing left to conquer,

European nations began to fight for each other’s colonies.

Right up to the end of the first World War, Europe continuously produced

large numbers of “fighting-age males” – i.e. between 15 and 29, the prime age for

military service. In 1500, among every 1,000 men in that age bracket worldwide,

about 100 came from Europe. In 1914, among every 1,000 young men worldwide,

350 were either born in Europe or European in origin.

However, after Europe suffered 10 million dead in World War I, things went

downhill fast. During World War II, Japan, Italy, and Germany became the last great

powers that tried to take land and colonies away from others. In the years following

that war, Europe’s aging population lost every war it fought against young men from

emerging countries. Today, the “white” population level has fallen back to where it

was in 1500. Only 120 of every 1,000 “fighting-age males” worldwide are “whites”.2

And most of these young “whites” are either only sons or only children. With fewer

”fighting-age males” available for military service, and with each loss on the

1 Romano, R., Tenenti, A. (1967), Die Grundlegung der modernen Welt: Spaetmittelalter, Renaissance, Reformation,

Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, p. 208


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battlefield reported in painful detail in the press, it is no surprise that today’s

professors and social activists preach pacifism and anti-authoritarian beliefs.

On May 9, 2005, “Newsweek” reported that supervisors at the Guantanamo

detention camp were supposed to have put copies of the Koran into the latrines. In

the violent mass demonstrations that followed in Islamic countries, 15 people were

killed. The battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq saw new waves of attacks by Islamic

militants. Even the streets of London ran red with blood.

It wasn’t only European pacifists who blamed an American “desecration of the

Koran” for these terror attacks. President Bush seemed to agree. On May 20 he sent

his wife Laura on a goodwill tour to the Palestinians and the pyramids. Mrs. Bush

reassures everyone that America must not be identified with misdemeanors against

the verses of Allah, but only wants to bring democracy to Muslim countries.

But I can’t help but wonder: does President Bush know what’s really

happening here? Or does he agree with those who naively believe that the kings of

the Aztec and Inca empires could have saved themselves by venerating the Bible and

converting to Christianity?

On November 16, 1532, a Spanish priest named Father Valverde handed a

copy of the Holy Bible to Atahualpa, ruler of the Incas. An interpreter explained to

the God King that the voice of the only true God spoke from this book. Refusing to

convert immediately to the Catholic faith would mean a commencement of hostilities

with the Imperial House of Hapsburg.

Atahualpa took the sacred volume and listened to it carefully. When the pages

remained mute, the Inca threw the Bible into the dust. Instantly, a special unit from

the Spanish army seized Atahualpa and dragged him away. The other Spaniards

opened fire. The hail of bullets killed 6,000 Indian nobles and royal bodyguards, a

2 Heinsohn, G. (2005), “Global Distribution of Fighting Age Males (15-29 years) between 1492 and 2020”, table


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massacre so atrocious that 50,000 Inca warriors fled in panic. The 180 Europeans did

not lose a single man. For his desecration of the Bible, Atahualpa is condemned to

death by burning. His last-minute conversion, however, brought an act of mercy. He

was strangled instead.

Due to this abominable desecration of the Bible, the Spanish king is told, the

Inca Empire was to be subjugated and its heathen civilization is destroyed. A fifth of

the Inca gold will, of course, go to the crown.

All of Europe understood that a less violent punishment for this act of

desecration would not have been acceptable. But it soon became clear that a defense

of Christianity was not the cause — or even the primary cause — that incited young

Secundones to undertake such slaughter. Even if Atahualpa had immediately

converted, the Conquistadores would have found a different justification for his

elimination. The Spaniards would not have calmly and happily sailed back home to

Cadiz. Yes, they threw themselves to the floor and called on the Virgin Mary to

assist them before they set to work. And after each victory they praised the lord. But

in their war cry -- “Gold, fame, and gospel” – we see their real motives on display.

Religion takes third place.

However, in troubled times religions are very useful. Whether conquistadores

or Islamic radicals, young men do not want to come to power as ordinary murderers

or suicidal psychopaths. In order to become honorable executioners, they search for

a lofty standpoint from which the killing appears to be the last bloodshed before

salvation. Therefore Europeans become Christianists and Muslims, Islamists.

This urge to cloak bloodshed in respectability and honor was neatly expressed

by a 25 year old Pakistani from Manchester, England, named Hassan Butt. A

recruiter of British Muslims for the war against the West in Afghanistan, he was

prepared for a lecture given at Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Munich-Pullach, June 21, 2005


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interviewed by Aatish Taseer for the August 2005-issue of Prospect : “Even before I

was a practising Muslim, I was very hot-headed. That hot-headedness was leading us

down a path of destruction. A lot of the people I grew up among were on drugs, were

involved in crime, prostitution, at very young ages. I remember when I came across

the first Muslim who talked to me about Islam in a language I understood. He pointed

out that I had a lot of anger and frustration that I should direct in a more productive

manner. It was from there that I got discussing Islam seriously—even though we

were hotheads, me and my brothers always had brains, we weren't thugs. We were

still excelling in our studies and getting top grades in our exams.“ 3

The cruelties of terrorism are not caused by pious books, or by those who

might abuse those books. They are caused by people who don’t want to appear as

common killers. They are the ones who feel the urge to dust off the sacred texts.

Therefore, the rage of young Islamic males cannot be assuaged with explanations of

the “actual” or “really intended” contents of the archaic volumes. The unceasing

flood of articles about the evil influence of radical Islamic teachers simply reverses

cause and effect. Where at first there are no suitable masses, even agitators of genius

achieve practically nothing. And even where it can be shown that Islamic schools

manage without terrorism in their curriculum, this does not prevent their graduates

from fighting for a new Caliphate.

After 55 people died in London on July 7, the bloodshed was frequently

explained by the poverty of the Pakistanis. Moreover, Pakistan’s national “birth

defect”4 — a failure, in 1947, to separate religion and state — is said to suddenly

have disastrous effects. Nobody mentions Pakistan’s birth rate with an uninterrupted

youth bulge since 1945. The public is not told that Pakistan’s population increased

3 Prospect (2005), No. 113, August


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Year Pakistan’s popu- Children in a Purchasing powerlation in millions5 woman’s lifetime6 parity per capita ($)7

1930 231940 271950 39 6.181960 50 6.281947/1965: Kashmir wars against India; millions of dead1970

66 6.28 3501971: Genocide against separatist Bangladesh (own youth bulge); millions of dead1980 85 6.28 630Late 1980s ff.: Mutual killings of Shiites and Sunni; thousands of dead

1990 115 6.08 13602000 146 5.48 19102005 163 4.14 2200

sevenfold in only 75 years. Nor is it told about the six-fold increase in Pakistan’s per

capita income in just 35 years, which does not seem to point to hunger and

impoverishment. As with most emigrants, a majority of Pakistani emigrants keep

quiet during the first generation out of sheer gratitude for their survival. But even

abroad — e.g. in Canada or in Great Britain — their families have an average of four

children, therefore producing three times as many offspring as, for example, the

Germans (1.3). If their sons, through renewed emigration or even return to the

homeland, do not achieve what they think they are capable of, their radicalization

happens very fast. Yet nearly everywhere it is said that London was attacked because

of Blair’s participation in Bush’s Iraq War. This is the justification used not only by

the backpack bombers themselves but also by many learned observers.

But was Atahualpa attacked by Conquistadores because he sympathized with

Montezuma?

Today, the Islamic equivalent of the Spanish Secondones are making their

mark on the world. Between 1955 and 2005, Iraq’s population increased from five

4 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 14, 2005, p. 3.

5 Lahmeyer, J. (2005), “Pakistan: Historical Demographical Data of the Whole Country”, Population Statistics

(website populstat)

6 Globalis (2005), “Pakistan: Total fertility rate“, Globalis (website)

7 Globalis (2005), “Pakistan: GDP per capita“, Globalis (website)


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million to 25 million, even while expending a million people in wars and genocides.

In Iraq, only the oldest brothers can find productive work. The Secondones apply to

the police and the army. But there are any number of third and fourth sons who, for

the eternal glory of Islam, will blow themselves up outside the recruiting offices. The

2,000 deaths that have occurred over the last eighteen months fill the media day after

day. But nobody reports on the 550,000 young Iraqi men who have reached fighting

age over the same period.

The Islamic “youth bulge” is truly enormous. Of 15 the million male

Afghanis, seven million are below age 15. Every year, 350,000 Afghans reach

fighting age. In 2010, that number will reach half a million. 8 Almost all of these

young men want to prove themselves in the traditional warrior spirit of their

homeland. Since 1945, every Afghan father who has given up fighting has left his

unfinished work to three or four sons. Since 1945 the population of Afghanistan has

jumped from 8 to 30 million, even while two million were dying violent deaths and

two million more were fleeing the country. Not even one of those sons can find a

legal job, i.e. in opium-free agriculture or within the army and police units financed

with western money. But all these aid measures provide better food, education, and

medical care than ever.

No combination could be more explosive. Peace activists promise that the

victory over hunger will also bring victory over war. Youth bulge analysis, however,

shows again and again that when hunger ends, the killing starts in earnest. Why?

Because humanitarian measures have made millions of sons stronger and better

educated. For bread, people beg; for positions in society, they fight.

From Morocco to Indonesia, the rage that we often find in young men is

increased by their demographic surplus, by economic under-employment, and by

sexual frustration. Those who succeed in emigrating -- which means colonizing

8 U.S. Census Bureau (2005), “IDB Summary Demographic Data: Afghanistan”, IDB (website)


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without bloodshed -- but who fail to succeed abroad, are potential recruits for terrorist

activities. Some of those who stay home expend their energy by joining criminal

gangs. For all others who want to get ahead, the only choices are insurrection, civil

war, genocide, or wars of conquest, i.e. bloody colonization. Already Thomas

Hobbes — who presented his Leviathan in the middle of a population explosion and

civil war (1651) — knew that war can provide every man with either victory or a

hero’s death. 9

Today, Pakistan has more than 28 million men between 15 and 29 years of age.

Right behind them are 33 million boys under 15. 10

With an overall population of 300

million, the USA only has 31 million boys under 1511

, of whom 25 percent are obese.

It is possible that Pakistan may try a different religious policy. It is also possible that

the West will be more respectful in its utterances about the Koran. However, this

would not change anything about those population figures. As we have seen, the

Secundones of Spain were not the fault of the Aztecs and Incas. These great empires

could not have known about the “youth bulge” in European demographics.

Today, such ignorance can not be excused. Between 1900 and 2005, Islam

exploded from 140 million to 1.4 billion people. Their share of the world’s

population jumped from nine to 23 percent. In 2020, of the one billion men between

15 and 29 worldwide, there will only be 90 million Europeans and North Americans

(in the US alone, 24 million non-obese). But there will be 300 million “fighting-age”

Muslims. 12

With advanced technology at their disposal, they would have the

potential to be a world power; but even without it, they can shake the world.

9 Hobbes, Th. (1651), Leviathan, Menston: Scolar Press, 1969 (facsimile edition), XXX, § 17

10 U.S. Census Bureau (2005), “IDB Summary Demographic Data: Pakistan”, IDB (website)

11 U.S. Census Bureau (2005), “IDB Summary Demographic Data: United States”, IDB (website)

12 Heinsohn, G. (2005), “ Global Distribution of Fighting Age Males (15-29 years) between 1492 and 2020”, table

prepared for talk at Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Munich-Pullach, June 21, 2005


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Can anything be done to placate the anger of these 300 million? Can we

somehow ingratiate ourselves in a way that renders this numerical relationship

ineffectual? Perhaps by sacrificing Israel?

It’s not only the King of Jordan, Jacques Chirac and most western reporters

who believe that the Jews in their mini-State — which is less than one-thousandth of

the world’s population — could help stop terror with better behavior. Even Tony

Blair occasionally subscribes to this opinion. Many Israelis, too, believe that Sharon

doesn’t go far enough in his peace efforts. They are surprised that despite the Israeli

withdrawal from Gaza and the start of democracy in Ramallah attacks on Jews are

increasing again.

At present, Palestinians have in Israel and in the territories 650,000 men

between 15 and 29; Israeli Jews, around 600,000. Among 30-44 year-olds there is,

for the last time, a majority of around 500,000 Jewish men against 315,000 Arabs.

But in the group of under 15-year-olds, there are 1.2 million Arabic boys who are

getting ready for a decisive battle against 600,000 Jewish boys. 13

Never has the

Palestinian numerical superiority been larger. Their boys are the fittest in all of

Islam, because the world community pays for their school books, school meals, and

medical care. The only thing it cannot provide the young people with are careers. So

why should Jews be expected to do so?

Nevertheless, London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone declared on July 19 that the

attacks on underground trains and buses were to a large part the result of Israeli

policy. That’s why they would be justified only against Israel: "Palestinians don't

have jet fighters, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair

balance, that's what people use."14

But what would happen if of the 600,000 Jewish

boys under 15 none were to reach the age of 15 to 29? Would that advance the 300

million young Muslims of the year 2020 by one fraction of an inch? Or would they

13

U.S. Census Bureau (2005), “IDB Summary Demographic Data: Gaza Strip; Israel; West Bank”, IDB (website)


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just find themselves standing on another sand hill by the Arabian Sea? And where

would they go then – not only with their bodies but with jetfighters too?

If the population of Germany since 1900 had increased at the same rate that

Islam has, mankind would be faced with a nation of 600 million Germans, no. 3 in

the world, with 75 million men between 15 and 29. Would they carry ten times as

much pacifism from Germany into the world as do the present-day 7.5 million

German youths? Or would there be attacks in Kaliningrad, Gdansk, and Prague,

because progressive German youth should not be punished for Nazi crimes?

The Islamic “youth bulge” is a warning. The challenge to the West has

reached epic proportions. Mohammed Atta’s father promised to the TV station CNN

a 50-year war in which there will be “many more fighters like my son”.15

He

probably doesn’t even begin to suspect to what extent he is right demographically,

though he has probably exaggerated the stretch of time.

For about twenty years, the population bomb will increase. Then it will begin

to lose explosive power due to a general decline in the birthrate. Until then, the West

will have to hold out as a fortress. How many times can America send out an only

son in order to prevent 10 second, third or fourth brothers from engaging in acts of

terror? What the Roman limes or the Great Wall of China had to achieve for two

powers that were still the strong (though already starting to decline) will have to be

achieved in present-day Israel by the separation fence, and by Cosmic Shield around

the only remaining world power that is ready to fight. Long distance fighting

capacity as well as the potential of American and British aircraft carrier groups may

make unavoidable wars winnable.

Since colonization of other countries (settlement with the young women and

killing or enslavement of the others) so far appears unimaginable, all that remains for

14

Keinon, H. (20005), “Livingstone: Likud Is Like Hamas”, in Jerusalem Post , Jpost,com (website), July 19, 2005


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young Muslims are domestic solutions, from civil war to genocide. This began in

1975, when young men turned Lebanon (increase 1935-1975 from 0.8 to 2.8 million)

and Iran (1955-1995 from 18 to 66 million) into failed states. Since then, from the

Sahauris who have been subjected by the Moroccans to the Islamist partisans in the

Philippines, more than 1.5 million deaths have occurred due to the terrorism on the

home fronts, but also in wars. 16

More than 98 percent of the dead are other Muslims

or even Islamists. During the same 30 years, the West — without the Russians but

including the Israelis, the dead of both Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan — has

suffered fewer than 15,000 dead.

It is the current inability of young Muslim to prove themselves in conquest that

translates into the lesser evil of terror. This might change if European powers

withdraw from a conflict after a maximum of 1,000 dead, and the US after a

maximum of 10,000 dead.

The alternative to terrorism will not be peace, nor was it for a Pizarro and his

three brothers. As always, it is called conquista. As early as 1998, the Koran teacher

Mohammed Fazazin in Hamburg/St. Georg responded to the twin Tower aggressors

of September 11, 2001: “We cannot take as much from them [the Germans and other

western states] as they owe us. . . . We are here in a warlike country that fights Islam

and the Muslims. . . . Thus we are allowed to take their daughters, mothers, wives,

and souls.” 17

G u n n a r H e i n s o h nProf. Dr. phil. Dr. rer. pol.; Dipl. Soz.Universität Bremen/Fachbereich 11RAPHAEL - LEMKIN - INSTITUT fürXenophobie- und GenozidforschungBibliotheksstr. 1 Tel: +49(0)421/218-3154/2027D - 28359 Bremen Fax: +49(0)421/218-7069G E R M A N Y E-Mail:

15

CNN.com, (2005), “Atta’s Father Praises London Bombs”, cnn.worldnews (website), July 20, 200516

Heinsohn, G. (2003), Soehne und Weltmacht: Terror im Aufstieg und Fall der Nationen, Zurich: Orell & Fuessli,

2003, pp. 60-70


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Why does the number of fallen western soldiers increases in Afghanistan?

17

Laabs, D. (2005), “Der Lehrer des Terrors”, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, July 17, 2005, p. 49

gunnar heinsohn: population, conquest and terror in the 21st century

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