Do you want to hear something crazy? Let me tell you about a conspiracy theory popular among the alt-right, white nationalists and fascists (or whatever you want to call them). It’s that the white race is facing extinction and that evil unseen forces are plotting to wipe it out. A genocide is happening right before our eyes yet no one has noticed [insert mandatory ‘wake up people!’ here]. Like all conspiracy theories, it’s riddled with holes, flaws and a complete lack of evidence (not that it matters to true believers). Most of it is openly racist propaganda and white supremacist hate. I will admit I do find something fascinating about crazy and bizarre political ideas, which lead me to write this article.

So, what is White Genocide? The core idea is that the white race will be wiped out and all currently white countries will become dominated by current minority groups. This will come from constant non-white immigration, higher birth rates and interracial marriage. It’s not clear who is committing the genocide or why, although like most conspiracy theories, they mainly blame the Jews (and sometimes Feminists too). So, America was once 85% white, is now 63% white, so the theory is that this trend will continue until it is 0% white.

Common catchphrases and slogans

Whites will become a minority in their own homeland

Why is diversity only forced on white countries?

Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, White countries for everyone

Anti-racist is code for anti-white

Diversity means less white people

Chase down the last white person

Forced integration/assimilation

There is of course, absolutely no evidence for any of this and it’s all paranoid delusions. But I thought it might to useful to create a response to show just how nonsensical and false the claims are. I won’t go into the issue over who or what counts are white, as this is something no one can agree on and has changed multiple times over the past century. There was a time when the Irish and Slavs were not seen as white and even nowadays racists argue if Southern Europeans and Jews count as white. White Nationalists have an image of an ideal white person as blonde and blue eyed, but few white people actually look like this.

Definition of Genocide

Let’s begin by defining what genocide is. According to the United Nations definition, genocide is:

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group , as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily harm, or harm to mental health, to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

It is claimed that point (c) or maybe even (d), are the relevant article, although there is no evidence to support it. White people are not being starved, sterilised, killed, prevented from reproducing, forced into unsafe and unhealthy living conditions or in any way threatened with destruction. White people have the highest life expectancy in the world and access to the best medical care. There’s no risk of destruction. So let’s look at other claims.

Why is diversity only for white countries?

This claim is laughably ridiculous. Even the briefest of studies would reveal that the truth is the complete opposite to what the alt-right would have you believe. There was a global study of ethnic diversity that ranked countries from most to least. Do you know what they found? Africa has the highest level of diversity and Europe has one of the lowest. The 3rd world is not a monolith, it is home to an enormous range of ethnic and linguistic diversity.

Ethnically homogenous nation-states are primarily a European creation, African countries in contrast are all multi-ethnic. So while racists view all Africans as the same, in reality there is huge diversity among them and hundreds of ethnic groups. Nigeria has more than 500 ethnic groups and more than 500 languages. The Congo has more than 250 ethnic groups and more than 700 languages and dialects. It is estimated that there are thousands of ethno-linguistic groups in Africa.

White nationalists also rhetorically ask why there is no white immigration and integration into the 3rd world? This is simply because white people don’t want to move there. Conspiracy theorists may believe there is a secret hand guiding immigration, but in reality it’s voluntary. Africans move to Europe in search of a better life and a higher standard of living, Europeans don’t move to Africa because the living standards are lower. If they wanted to move, they would be welcome.

The countries with the highest level of immigration aren’t white

The claim that only white countries accept immigration is also nonsense. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a test. Tell me which countries (with a population above one million to exclude mini-states) you think have the highest proportion of immigrants in the world? If you named an European or “white” country, I’m sorry but you’re wrong. The record is actually held by the United Arab Emirates of whose population 83% are immigrants. In fact, of the top ten countries, most are Arab and only a single one is white.

Country (with population above 1 million) % of population born abroad United Arab Emirates 83.7% Qatar 73.8% Kuwait 70% Bahrain 54.7% Singapore 42.9% Jordan 40.2% Hong Kong 38.9% Saudi Arabia 31.4% Oman 30.6% Switzerland 28.3%

The only white country on the list is Switzerland. However, 85% of its foreign residents are European, only 1% are African. Which leads to the next point . . .

Most European immigrants are white

While it is certainly true that Western Europe has received many immigrants, the claim of white genocide is undermined by the fact that most immigrants are white. In the UK, the largest immigrant population is Polish. This puts white nationalists in an awkward position, because they must either claim that Eastern Europeans will have no problem assimilating, in which case there is no immigration problem, or that Eastern Europeans are a separate ethnicity and culture, in which case white nationalism is nonsense.

You can pick any European country and you find that in almost every one, the dominant ethnicity comprises over 85% of the population. There are a few exceptions like Belgium, Switzerland and the Balkans, but that is because they are divided between various ethnic groups native to the region. Most of Eastern Europe has a tiny immigrant population and is almost entirely white. Even when there are sizeable immigrant groups, they are predominantly white and European, in order words kosher to the alt-right. Even in countries that have received large numbers of immigrants, the number of non-whites relative to the total population is minuscule.

The Irish Example

Take my home of Ireland for example. According to sites that warn about White Genocide, Ireland is being flooded by non-whites and doesn’t look like Ireland anymore. There are warnings that “The Irish are soon facing ethnic extinction” (the article also claims that Freemasons caused the recession and Enda Kenny is a transvestite). There’s even an article from 2005 that claimed the Irish could be an ethnic minority in Ireland by 2050 (although the source of the claim is “unpublished UK-based research, which he does not identify”, in other words, it doesn’t exist). There’s no indication of who is supposedly behind this genocide or why. Ireland had only a single Jewish member of parliament, Alan Shatter, who was in opposition during the immigration boom and lost his seat at the last election. Claims that he has been secretly controlling the country’s immigration policy for decades don’t make any sense as immigration dropped during his period as Minister for Justice. Nor are there any other convenient scapegoats to blame as the media, business and finance are dominated by Irish people (the lead villain from the financial crisis had the typical Irish name of Sean Fitzpatrick).

In the 2011 census, 15% of the population was born outside the state. Yet before anyone cries genocide, the two largest immigrant groups are the Polish and the British (funny how no one ever mentions the British when complaining about immigration). In fact, of the top five immigration nationalities, four of them are white. So, while the White Irish share of population was 85%, another 10% were non-Irish White and only 1% were African.

But those figures are from 2011, perhaps more recent information shows signs of genocide? Actually, the preliminary data from the 2016 census is available and do you know what it shows? The net flow of migration actually decreased by 30,000. That’s right, rather than being an ever-growing constant stream, migration is highly dependent on economic conditions, so when the recession occurred, less immigrants arrived and more returned home. While the non-Irish White proportion held steady, the African proportion dropped in half from 41,642 to 22,150 and the Nigerian share by two-thirds from 17,642 to 6,084. This now means that the top five immigrant groups in Ireland are all white. You can check out the data on the CSO website which is where I got the data for these two charts.

Race % of population (2016 Census) White Irish 82.8% Other White 9.5% Asian 2.1% Black 1.3% Other 1.6% Did not state 2.7%

Nationality Total Number (2016 Census) Irish 4,082,513 Polish 122,515 British 103,113 Lithuanian 36,552 Romanian 29,186

TV Propaganda

There is incredibly little evidence for this supposed genocide, so the conspiracy theorists have to resort to picking up crumbs. One of these is the silly claim that the media is supposedly pushing anti-white propaganda, the only evidence for this is tv ads and shows that contain non-white characters. That’s right, the mere existence of non-white people is supposedly a form of propaganda. Only a deluded mind could look at an ad of black people dancing and see a sinister plot to exterminate white people.

But what about Japan?

A common technique is to ask why Western countries are becoming increasingly diverse but East Asian countries are not. Where is the outcry against homogenous Japan, they wail? The answer is simple, firstly, there are plenty of people who have criticised Japan’s immigration policies. Secondly, the reason more people don’t is because it would be completely useless. I have never written about Japan because I don’t speak a word of the language, know nothing about the history and culture and very few Japanese people read my blog. I’m not a Japanese citizen so I have no right to tell them how to run their country. So, if I wrote an article calling for Japan to take more immigrants, it would have exactly zero impact. That’s why I focus my discussion on Ireland, the country that I know best and of which I am a citizen and can therefore influence.

Integration is voluntary

The most ridiculous part of this ridiculous conspiracy theory, is the idea that integration is being forced on people. No one is forcing non-whites to move to Europe, they are free to stay at home. Even when they arrive there is no one forcing interracial marriage. If you want to marry a white person and have white children, you are free to do so. No one is forcing white women (it’s always helpless women they worry about, it’s as if they don’t think women are capable of making decisions) to marry Africans or Arabs. It’s a purely voluntary decision. In fact, in America whites have the lowest rate of interracial marriage with only 7% of white people marrying someone of another race. In most European countries, less than 10% of people marry someone born outside the country.

Likewise for birth rates. If white families decide to have less children, that’s a voluntary decision, not the result of an evil conspiracy. If you want to have six children, you’re free to do that, but so are the people who only want two children. There is no outside group that is forcing people to have less children, unless you want to blame individual choice. Sometimes Feminism is blamed for this and there is nostalgia for when women were treated like little more than baby factories.

Minority doesn’t mean persecution

Even as the white share of American population declines, this doesn’t mean it’s under attack or doomed. Unless of course they want to claim that being a minority in America is an unbearable nightmare. America has never been a solely white country, it has always been multiracial. In fact all whites are descended from immigrants and I’m sure that Native Americans find white fears of being a minority in their homeland very ironic. If Africa is for the Africans and Europe for the Europeans, will all Europeans on other continents be forced to return to Europe? In the dream of racial purity, where do the South Americans fit? If the alt-right is so opposed to ethnic mixing, how do they react to the fact that almost all White Americans have ethnically mixed heritages?

It is projected that by 2044, whites will no longer be the majority, but still the largest race by far. (These projections depend on how you define white and mixed race people). Whites will still exist and are not under attack. The change in relative side is not because whites are destroyed, it’s just because other races are growing faster. There is no sign that this will happen in other countries.

Imagine there are five white people in a room. Two Africans, two Asians and two Latinos walk into the room. The whites are no longer a majority, but this doesn’t mean they are the victims of genocide or that they will cease to exist. In fact, their position is unchanged, it’s just that the non-white share grew faster.

Conclusion

Does any of this matter? Is it worth debunking the conspiracy theories of a racist fringe or is it just a waste of time (that just gives them publicity)? The honest answer is I don’t know. I hope these people are just a handful of lunatics without any power or influence. However, it’s impossible to know how many people actually believe this nonsense. There is an alt-right subculture on the internet that is present on Reddit, Twitter and YouTube (the videos linked have a surprising number of views). There are attempts to infiltrate anti-immigrant groups like those that support Donald Trump to spread this conspiracy theory. I think there is value in debunking it and pointing out its numerous flaws and complete lack of connection to reality. This is useful as an excuse to laugh at crazy delusions, as an academic exercise and as a way to stomp out hatred before it grows.