IPBES, 2019. Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

2010, he raised a ruckus with his book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany is Doing Away with Itself; Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt).Part of his appeal is dry wit: "Being wealthy in Germany these days is immoral unless you made the money in sports or entertainment."Part of it is the demagogue's perennial hook: I am only saying out loud what you think but are afraid to say.Part of it is that his prose is accessible; neither too highbrow nor too vulgar.The incessant use of bullet points and we've just-left-this-town and here's-the-next-one-we're-headed-for road signs are helpful for quick reading, but they also remind you that you are on a strictly guided tour.Similarly, there is overuse of shock italics; the guide is frog-marching you along.And so, to the book.Sarrazin's argument is as follows.For centuries, Islam in Europe, having been expelled from Spain and latterly repelled at the gates of Vienna, was confined to Turkey and a few patches of that miserable neighborhood today known as the Western Balkans.Over the last 75 years, Europe has, in a folly unparalleled in modern history, taken to its bosom a substantial and growing Muslim minority population that, on average, (1) does not accept European values of democracy, wellbeing, and freedom; (2) despises European culture and religion; and is, in no particular order, (3) oversexed (the men), ( 4) overfertile (the women), ( 5) ineducable (the young), and (6) poorly performing overall (everyone).There is, this critic would agree, more than enough evidence to indict and so, Auf gehts!Let's go! Chapter 1 is foundational for the rest of Feindliche bernahme; therefore, it deserves more attention than it warrants on its merits.A believer in induction to the point of pedantry, Sarrazin starts from the source.This is the Koran, which he declares to have read from alpha to omega (so to speak) in a respected translation, as well as the hadiths.The divide between believers and non-believers is absolute; the first are going to heaven and the second to hell.The believer should not be distracted by any knowledge not derived from the sacred text.Non-believers are fair game; jihad demands conquest and annihilation, whether through conversion or more prejudicial measures.Islam is a political system in religion-drag; there is no possible compromise between the imams and the Montesquieuan rule of law.Women are inferior, periodically unclean creatures from the holy get-go.Those who hope for a Westernized, liberal, humanist, historicized, critical Islam are delusional.Those Muslim preachers, theologians, and public intellectuals who advocate for one do so, Sarrazin correctly reports, at their professional and personal risk.Sarrazin reproduces copious excerpts to support this swingeing criticism.But his hermeneutics consist not of exegesis, the search from scratch for what the text means; but eisegesis, scouring the text to prove that it means what he has already decided it means.Sarrazin is correct, to the extent that this reader (never having cracked the cover) would know, that the Koran and other early texts contain propositions that are in varying degree absurd and obnoxious.But that is true of any religious Grundtext.If a religion were not founded in mumbo-jumbo legitimacy claims and humbug secular rules, would it-adoration of the Archangel Uriel, Buddhism, Christianity, Eckankar, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Rastafarianism, Santeria, Satanism, Voodoo, Wicca, Zoroastianism; you name it-be a religion?No.A religion that hopes to become a going concern requires only two things: a hailing message (Althusser there) to attain critical mass, and a pitch that its adherents can employ to sell it on; whether by preaching merits, promising profits, or swinging swords.Judging Islam, and by extension Islamic society and the Muslims who comprise it, based on the Koran makes as much sense as judging Judaism and Jews on the Torah,