by Dean W. Arnold for The Saker Blog
“No women allowed” was hand-painted on a small wooden sign as I approached the monastery in Axum, Ethiopia, just a few yards from the building that this African nation claims to contain the Ark of the Covenant.
A diminutive monk, looking old but spry, helped me in the front door. The building was centuries-old, rather stark and plain. It resembled an old medieval fort. In fact, the Ark was said to have resided in this structure for centuries before being moved to today’s smaller chapel nearby.
I removed my shoes before entering. Shoes are always removed. No Orthodox service exists, anyplace, where someone with shoes is allowed to enter the building. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians worship God with bare feet or stocking feet—but always without shoes.
These monasteries are old-school institutions, and some issues are non-negotiable. Birth control is one such issue. It is never allowed. The broader church is less vocal, even though it holds the same position. However, the old-school types and monasteries have never wavered: God’s first command is to be fruitful and multiply and that has never changed.
In fact, it is this issue that brought me to Ethiopia in the first place. For decades, I watched global birth rates with alarm. The West is doomed to decline over the next century. A woman in the West averages 1.5 children, way below the replacement rate of 2.1 children. Catholic strongholds in the Western hemisphere have dropped as well: Mexico 2.3, Argentina 1.8, and Columbia 1.7. I looked for Christian nations outside the West. South Korea, a booming Protestant country, with a rate of 6.0 in 1960, has dropped to an alarming 0.96 rate. No country in history has ever recovered from a rate of 1.3 children per woman, although historically Orthodox Russia, now at a still scary level of 1.75, is struggling with all her might to recover from its 1.16 rate of three decades ago.[i]
Ethiopia averages around five children per woman, as does the rest of Africa, making it the continent of the future. Only Ethiopia has a Christian tradition in sub-Saharan Africa longer than 200 years, or a written language and script that precedes colonization. Therefore, it serves as the spiritual and cultural leader of this ascendant continent. Fittingly, the African Union, Africa’s United Nations, is permanently seated in Ethiopia.
When the African nations threw off the yoke of Europe in the 20th century, they looked to Ethiopia, the only such nation to never be colonized. In fact, Ethiopia claims to have never been conquered by any invader ever in its 3,000 years of empire.[ii] Ethiopia is a majority Christian country, nearly half of those Orthodox Christians (also called Syrian or Oriental Orthodox, or non-Chalcedonians), and boasts 1,000 monasteries. Along with holding the Ark of the Covenant, Ethiopia also makes the following claims: the location of the Garden of Eden, a thousand years of Judaism before Christ through an alliance between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’s alliance, and the status as the very first Christian Empire, which started with the evangelization efforts of the Ethiopian Eunuch from Acts chapter 8 of the Bible.
All these distinguishing factors—along with a millennia-old script and written language not possessed by the other nations—contribute to Ethiopia’s status as the leader of the great continent of Africa.
The future of civilization is shifting. Birthrates are booming in Africa, and resources are abundant to handle the growth.
“I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse,” says Elon Musk, the high-profile futurist and Tesla CEO. “Collapse. I want to emphasize this . . . Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually this is an outdated view.” [iii]
Elon Musk’s counter-intuitive position on population has in fact been reported in the mainstream media for years. “Europe will continue to shrink, which is worsening its economic problems,” declared the Washington Post in 2013, noting that China is also in trouble. “The Asian century could be followed by the African century. As China shrinks, its workforce will get smaller precisely when it needs them most.” The Post entitled this article, “The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of the Earth.”[iv]
The women of Ethiopia and Africa bring into the world an average of five children each. Ethiopia’s work force costs less than 1/10 that of China, which has been pouring massive investment into the growing economies of Ethiopia and Africa.[v] Demography is destiny, both politically and economically, and Africa is now viewed by many as the continent of the future.
***
On May 5, 2009, a handful of the West’s richest men met in Manhattan to discuss what they considered the most dangerous, most critical threat to the planet. Those attending included Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, George Soros, and David Rockefeller, Jr. Their concern was related to population. Was it the appalling decline of fertility in Europe and Western nations that brought the billionaires together? Indeed, Mussolini’s goal of sixty million Italians was never reached. The nation peaked in 2010 at fifty-nine million and now steadily decreases. With a birthrate of 1.2 children per woman, far below the 2.1 replacement rate, Italy is slated to be the oldest nation in Europe in 2050 and the world’s second-oldest after Japan. It will cease as a country in a century or two.[vi]
The rest of Europe shares similar alarming numbers. The story of the Islamification of Europe is well known. But the crisis in the West is not confined to Europe. The United States has similar unsustainable birthrates and only current immigration numbers keep the rate above Italy’s for now. In 200 years, the German language is likely to pass out of existence. Demographic winter is a term now being used to describe this death spiral. “The Death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now,” writes author and 1996 Republican frontrunner Pat Buchanan, who uses only United Nations statistics to prove the case in his 2002 book The Death of the West. “This is not a matter of prophecy, but of mathematics.”
And yet, population increase was the key to the ascendancy of the West. “… the growth of Europe’s population in the eleventh century and thereafter is seen as proof that medieval Europe was healthily advancing,” writes Chicago scholar J. M. Blaut in his work on Eurocentric history. “Civilization, as we have seen, is about cities,” echoes New York Times bestselling author Niall Ferguson, who points to having a growing population as the key. “No previous civilization had ever achieved such dominance as the West achieved over the Rest.” [vii]
“If, in the year 1411, you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would probably have been most impressed by the quality of life in Oriental civilizations,” says Ferguson. “By contrast, Western Europe in 1411 would have struck you as a miserable backwater, recuperating from the ravages of the Black Death—which had reduced population by as much as half . . .”
In 1500, “the biggest city in the world was Beijing, with a population of between 600,000 and 700,000. Of the ten largest cities in the world by that time only one—Paris—was European, and its population numbered fewer than 200,000. . . . Yet by 1900 there had been an astonishing reversal. Only one of the world’s ten largest cities at that time was Asian and that was Tokyo. With a population of around 6.5 million, London was the global megalopolis.”
In 1913, Europe had more people than China. At that time, Europe and the U.S. comprised thirty-three percent of the world’s people. In 2003, that number declined to seventeen percent. Today, it is twelve percent. “Is decline and fall the looming fate of Western Civilization 2.0?” asks Ferguson.[viii]
The prospects are grim for stopping the march toward extinction. Low birthrates cause a “vicious circle,” according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). “Fewer children today imply fewer women of childbearing age twenty years from now, so the cumulative momentum of current low birth rates will be difficult to reverse.” Though still mathematically possible, “such a recovery would be unprecedented in human history.”
Fewer young workers means fewer people supporting the pensions and health care of the older generations. Riots in Greece and other parts of Europe are rooted in these now lopsided Western economies. The U.S. may not be far behind. “You can’t keep going with this completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point,” said a spokesman for the Population Reference Bureau. “You can’t have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.”[ix]
Unlike the West, Russia is keenly aware of its predicament, as it strives to recover from the 1.16 birthrate that existed when communism was overthrown in 1991. The government now offers incentives for children, the equivalent in U.S. dollars to a lower middle-class income. Parents of seven children are awarded a medal, the Order of Parental Glory. Russia has instituted a national holiday on September 12, Day of Conception or Procreation Day—the people call it “Make a Baby Day”—where citizens get the day off to produce children. The birthrate rose to 1.71 in 2013 and continues to increase. About 1.9 million babies were born in Russia in 2015, up from 1.5 million in 2005. “The rise is slight, but it is still a rise,” said a hopeful President Vladimir Putin.[x]
So, is this the threat that Bill Gates and friends gathered to solve? No, it was something else. And what caused this great reversal for Western society? Simply put, Margaret Sanger defeated Benito Mussolini in perhaps the one area where he was correct—opposing the misleading and destructive teachings of the Malthusians and their population and resource fearmongering—although Mussolini’s motive was not a biblical desire to be fruitful and multiply and create more image-bearers of God. He wanted an empire. Along with Italy, Sanger also defeated the rest of Europe and the United States. She also sabotaged their Christian morals, thus reaching the goal printed in her Birth Control Review to “undermine the authority of the Christian churches.”[xi]
Sanger, of course, is the founder of Planned Parenthood, the largest performer of abortions in the world. But her greatest accomplishment for her cause was the day she met Dr. Gregory Pincus at a dinner in 1951. Pincus had worked for the Rockefeller-funded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology, exposed for sterilizing hundreds of French African children and closely associating with the Nazi eugenics program. The meeting led to Planned Parenthood agreeing to fund research by Pincus to develop Sanger’s longtime dream of a birth control pill, which was first licensed in 1960. By 1970, forty-three percent of American women were already taking this revolutionary method of contraception.
Concludes Pat Buchanan: “Historians may one day call ‘the pill’ the suicide tablet of the West.” [xii]
If the oligarchs who met in 2009 in Manhattan did not address the looming crisis of demographic winter, regarding what grave matter did they deliberate? What did they pinpoint as the key geographical target for the world’s largest, most dangerous threat?
Africa.
During their intense struggle with Mussolini in the 20th century, and then with communism, Ethiopia, along with the rest of Africa, was winning a greater war, and winning exceedingly. What was this war? Author David P. Goldman comments on how civilization has generally missed this greatest of conflicts along with their own stunning defeat: “The chattering classes have nothing to say about the most unique and significant change in our times,” he writes.
Ethiopia’s army in this war was its historic, growing Christian church, worshipping with no shoes, standing strong on traditional morality, and never wavering from its position to follow God’s first commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Birth control is officially a sin. Christian Ethiopia, unlike the West, continued its traditional lifestyle. Ethiopia continued to have children.[xiii]
From 1974 to 1991, Ethiopia’s birthrate grew from 7.1 children per woman to 7.2. The population grew healthily from twenty-seven million to fifty-one million. During that same time, Italy’s population remained stagnant. Italy’s 2.4 birthrate in 1974 dropped from above replacement level (2.1 children) to an unsustainable 1.3 children per woman in 1991. No country has ever recovered from this level. Social scientists refer to this 1.3 rate as the “low fertility trap.”
Ethiopia also defeated Italy in 1896 at the Battle of Adwa and castrated thousands of conquered soldiers. At that time, Italy boasted thirty-one million people, twice as many as Ethiopia. Today, Ethiopia has doubled Italy’s declining population of fifty-nine million. Like the castrations of Italian soldiers after Adwa, Italian men have once again been castrated, some by pills and various contraception methods, others by the more literal version of vasectomy. In the days after Adwa, a Dutch observer explained the motivation of castration: “The Abyssinians explain themselves by saying that this is how they bring a halt to the enemy’s capacity to reproduce.” They have done this again to the Europeans, only on a much larger scale.
In fact, the leader of Italian colonization just before Adwa, Ferdinando Martini, advocated exterminating the Negro the same way the Americans did the Indians: “Succeeding generations will continue to depopulate Africa of its ancient inhabitants, down to the last one,” he wrote a century ago. He never lived to see his rationale for colonization backfire with such grandeur.[xiv]
Britain’s numbers are similar to Italy’s, as its population was more than twice as large as Ethiopia’s in the 1890s (thirty-three million to twelve million) and like Italy remained stagnant from 1974 to 1991 as the birthrate declined from 1.9 to 1.8. Britain’s numbers today of sixty-six million (with the help of immigration) pale to its African rivals. Ethiopia, without help, grew from twelve million in 1896 to 110 million today. No country in Europe has a birthrate close to the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Birthrates and population numbers are all declining. “For the first time in recorded history,” writes Goldman, “prosperous, secure and peaceful societies facing no external threat have elected to pass out of existence.”
Goldman sees this development as religion’s triumph over rationalism. “Reason itself seems to betray us in this investigation, for precisely those parts of the world that succeed in extirpating faith through the instillation of the cult of reason seem most committed to demographic extinction.” He notes that the German population will drop 98 percent in 200 years. The German tongue will disappear, as will Polish, Italian, and numerous other European languages. “People of faith have children, and people without faith tend not to,” Goldman writes. The trend “will turn the world into a fundamentalist theme park.” [xv]
We are in the midst of a giant civilizational shift. Africa is the continent of the future. Ethiopia may become the future leader of Africa and Christendom. At current rates, there will be more Ethiopians than Russians in fifty years. But maybe not. My Ethiopian friend, Professor Girma Batu, says the numbers are a bit deceiving.
“The high rate in population size is mostly Muslim,” he told me, expressing concern that the forty-five percent Orthodox Christian to thirty-five percent Muslim ratio could flip in current conditions. “There are sponsors that want to multiply the number of Muslims. They want to make Ethiopia an Islamic country, a Muslim-dominated country.”[xvi]
It is an unfair fight. Muslims are allowed to have several wives. Ethiopian Orthodox are allowed only one. In addition, Americans and the West are working furiously to bring down the birth rate by advancing contraception across Ethiopia. However, as Muslims refuse to use the contraceptives, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the United Nations, focus their population control efforts on the traditional Christians.
“They are contributing contraceptive methods and even abortions sometimes,” said Girma regarding the population control advocates. “At least one, maximum two children, that’s enough, say those who want to be moderns. They are exactly copying the West.” Girma serves as Vice Dean of Ethiopia’s largest seminary, the Holy Trinity Theological College in Addis Ababa.
The situation is urgent. NPR reported in 2014 the use of birth control among Ethiopian women increasing from eight percent to twenty-nine percent between 2000 and 2014. According to a 2016 Ethiopia National Planning Commission report, those numbers are now at forty-two percent, and the commission forecasts an increase to fifty-two percent of Ethiopian women using birth control by 2020. Ethiopia’s birthrate has dropped by almost half in the past twenty years.[xvii]
The official statistics prove that the decrease is primarily in Christian areas, with the Muslim population maintaining its high birthrate. A 2011 study by ICF International, sponsored by the United Nations, shows that of the ten regions of Ethiopia, the top four in birthrates are Muslim majority, with the Somali ethnic group highest at 7.1 children per woman. Tigray, the historic Orthodox Christian region and home of the Ark, is in the sixth spot with a 4.6 rate. According to the study, Addis Ababa, the largest city in the country, has a birthrate of 1.9 children per woman, below replacement level. Addis is eighty-two percent Orthodox Christian.[xviii]
Unless the Church and the leaders in the Orthodox world begin to take action, it appears likely the population reduction efforts to keep Ethiopia and Africa from their demographic destiny will win the day, and the great historic Christian and Old Testament nation of Ethiopia will become a majority Muslim nation. A Christian nation that kept out invaders for 3,000 years will finally be defeated by Margaret Sanger’s suicide tablet.
It has been my hope—since my prayer ten years ago to learn where the future of Christendom is headed—that Ethiopia might serve as an ark or refuge for Christians if the West’s moral foundation implodes and the civilizational shift is realized. In fact, the Kebra Negast, Ethiopia’s sacred book detailing how the Ark came to Ethiopia, not only refers to the Ark as “Lady Zion” and “mercy-seat,” but also calls it “place of refuge,” “haven of salvation,” and, of most interest, “ship.” The Ark of the Covenant is, thus, a type of the ark of Noah. Ethiopia and certain African nations remain the only Christian-dominated countries that enforce moral laws on the books upholding life and family integrity. Could birthrates and godly laws make Ethiopia an “ark,” a place of refuge, for Western Christians? If Ethiopia does serve as a refuge for the West based on these two reasons, then a secular commenter on a Doug Casey article looked at it this way: “If nobody nukes Africa, it might be an interesting place.” [xix]
“The biggest things are the modern tools of contraception,” says Bill Gates, regarding the targeting of Africa by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[xx]
I learned an interesting tidbit about the small hotel where I was staying in Axum before I hitched a ride that day to visit the monastery next to the Ark. A few months before, Melinda Gates had been a guest at the same hotel.
Apart from nuclear war, the pending demographic and civilizational shift will require the reversing of the current and alarming trend of a decreasing Ethiopian birthrate. However, we know that the Ark of the Covenant had special powers, according to the Old Testament Scriptures. Families and nations associated with the Ark were blessed with unusual fertility. This blessing is something that those concerned about Ethiopia’s future can place their hope in, if, indeed, the Ark truly does reside in Ethiopia.
Dean W. Arnold is author of the newly-released Unknown Empire: The True Story of Mysterious Ethiopia and the Future Ark of Civilization. Prince Asfa-Wossen Asserate (PhD, Cambridge, Frankfurt), the great nephew of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, calls Arnold’s book “captivating … scholarly, and most enjoyable.” Previous books by Arnold have been endorsed by U.S. Senator Bob Corker and author Jon Meacham, a Newsweek Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner. Arnold is tonsured “The Reader Gabriel” by the Orthodox Church in America.
[i] For raw data on birthrates in every country, 1960–2016, see World Bank statistics, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN (Retrieved March 16, 2019).
Catholic strongholds World Statistics Pocketbook 2016, United Nations, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publications/pocketbook/files/world-stats-pocketbook-2016.pdf (Retrieved Nov. 1, 2019).
alarming .096 rate “South Korea’s fertility rate set to hit record low of 0.96,” The Guardian, Sept. 3, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/south-koreas-fertility-rate-set-to-hit-record-low (Retrieved March 16, 2019); Linda Poon, “South Korea is trying to boost its birth rate. It’s not working,” Citylab.com, Aug. 3, 2018, https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/08/south-korea-needs-more-babies/565169 (Retrieved March 16, 2019).
Russia struggling to recover Anatoly Karlin, “The ‘Normalization’ of Russia’s Demographics,” The Unz Review, Nov. 25, 2014, http://www.unz.com/akarlin/normalization-of-russias-demographic (Retrieved March 16, 2019); “Russia May Have Turned the Corner in Demographic Crisis,” Breitbart, June 14, 2017 https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/06/14/russia-may-turned-corner-demographic-crisis (Retrieved March 16, 2019); “Russia’s rising birth rate gives new life to health care providers,” Reuters, March 20, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-md-medical-group-results-idUSL5N1GX2AU (Retrieved March 28, 2019); Nick Gutteridge, “‘We’re OUTBREEDING you!’ Putin taunts West as he unveils drive to boost Russian birth rate,” Nick Gutteridge, London Express, Dec. 1, 2016, https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/738910/Vladimir-Putin-Kremlin-leader-Russia-outbreeding-Europe-West (Retrieved March 16, 2019).
no country has ever recovered Report from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CGTN TV of China Media Group, https://youtu.be/nmjbV7PxZmc (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
[ii] Never indaded Diodorus Siculus, “Ethiopia and the Gold Mines of Egypt,” Book III, Section 2, cited in The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus, published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1935, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/3A*.html (Retrieved April 11, 2019); Melake Mikr Kefyalew Merahi, Christianity in Ethiopia III (Addis Ababa, April 2012), 1, 10.
[iii] Pete Baklinski, “Tesla’s Elon Musk: ‘Population collapse’ (not overpopulation) is ‘biggest problem’ facing world,” Live Action, Sept. 5, 2019, https://www.liveaction.org/news/musk-population-collapse-problem/?fbclid=IwAR0_00tG-azkZK4NFo_4fEoFXmCYjlm7f_6zX4VrDIE_mRo4Xk6MGyPoyDA (Retrieved Sept. 9, 2019).
[iv] Max Fisher, “The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of the Earth, in 9 charts,” Washington Post, July 16, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/16/the-amazing-surprising-africa-driven-demographic-future-of-the-earth-in-9-charts (Retrieved Aug. 11, 2019).
[v] William F. Engdahl, “China Railway Links Ethiopia to Red Sea,” New Eastern Outlook, April 13, 2016, https://journal-neo.org/2016/04/13/china-railway-links-ethiopia-to-red-sea (Retrieved April 20, 2019); “An Investment Guide to Ethiopia,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, March, 2004, http://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationArchive.aspx?publicationid=466 (Retrieved April 20, 2019).
[vi] West’s richest men met “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation” The Times, May 24, 2009, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/billionaire-club-in-bid-to-curb-overpopulation-d2fl22qhl02 (Retrieved Aug. 31, 2019).
sixty million Italians never reached According to worldometers.com, Italy’s population grew until 2010 to 59,730,000 and is now steadily decreasing. See http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/italy-population (Retrieved April 16, 2019).
oldest in Europe world’s second-oldest “Italy to be oldest country after Japan,” ANSA, Oct. 3, 2017, http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2017/10/03/italy-to-be-oldest-country-after-japan_e06776ae-d0d1-437d-9bf7-ca9f0459558e.html (Retrieved Sept. 10, 2019).
will cease as a country David P. Goldman, It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations (New York: RVP Publishers, 2011), 16, 26.
[vii] German language David P. Goldman, op. cit., 15; Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 23–24.
[viii] J. M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, 67; Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest (New York: Penguin Books ebook, 2011), loc. 475, 516.
Europe . . . 12 percent Jack Goldstone, “The New Population Bomb: The Four Megatrends That Will Change the World,” Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2010, 32–33, cited in Patrick Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011), 164.
Western Civilization 2.0 Ferguson, op. cit., loc. 741.
[ix] difficult to reverse “Can Policies boost Birth Rates?” Policy Brief, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Nov. 2007, cited in Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower, p. 166–167.
pyramid standing on its point Russell Shorto, “No Babies,” New York Times Magazine, June 29, 2008, 71, cited in Buchanan, op. cit., 172.
[x] ussia struggling to recover “Russia Demographics Are Now Reasonably Healthy. Birth Rate the Highest in Europe,” Russia Insider, March 22, 2016; Anatoly Karlin, “The ‘Normalization’ of Russia’s Demographics,” The Unz Review, Nov. 25, 2014, http://www.unz.com/akarlin/normalization-of-russias-demographic (Retrieved March 16, 2019).
incentive for children . . . Order of Parental Glory “Russia May Have Turned the Corner in Demographic Crisis,” Breitbart, June 14, 2017.
make a baby day Wikipedia: Day of Conception (Retrieved Aug. 31, 2019).
it is still a rise “‘We’re OUTBREEDING you!’ Putin taunts West as he unveils drive to boost Russian birth rate,” London Express, Dec. 1, 2016; Russia’s rising birth rate gives new life to health care providers,” CNBC, March 20, 2017.
[xi] undermine the authority of the Christian Churches Walter Adolphe Roberts, “Birth Control and the Revolution,” Birth Control Review, ed. Margaret Sanger, Volume I, Number 6, June 1917, 7, https://lifedynamics.com/app/uploads/2015/09/1917-06-June.pdf (Retrieved May 1, 2019).
[xii] hundreds of children Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer, Bioethics: an anthology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 232, cited in Wikipedia: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute/Eugenics (Retrieved April 16, 2019).
43 percent Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1974), 158, cited in Buchanan, The Death of the West, 26.
suicide tablet Ibid.
[xiii] the chattering classes David P. Goldman, It’s Not the End of the World, 25.
For a lengthy treatment on the Orthodox Church’s historic stance against birth control, see the author’s article: Dean W. Arnold, “Saving the West: 17 Reasons to have married sex with no pills or condoms,” deanslist.info, Nov. 4, 2017, http://deanslist.info/saving-the-west-17-reasons-to-have-married-sex-with-no-pills-or-condoms (Retrieved Aug. 3, 2019).
[xiv] 7.1 to 7.2 World Bank statistics: Fertility Rates – Ethiopia, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=ET (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
27 to 51 million Population Statistics: Ethiopia, http://www.populstat.info/Africa/ethiopic.htm (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
Italy 2.4 to 1.3 World Bank statistics: Fertility Rates – Italy, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=IT (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
no country has ever recovered Report from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CGTN TV of China Media Group, https://youtu.be/nmjbV7PxZmc (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
Ethiopia has double Italy’s population For Ethiopia’s and Italy’s population by year see Population Statistics: Ethiopia, http://www.populstat.info/Africa/ethiopic.htm and for Italy, http://www.populstat.info/Europe/italyc.htm (Both retrieved April 19, 2019).
enemy’s capacity to reproduce J. G. Vanderheym, Une expedition avec le negous Menelik: vingt mois en Abyssinie (Paris: Hatchette, 1896), 71, cited in Jonas, Battle of Adwa, 223, 249.
continue to depopulate Africa Massimo Romandini, “Da Massaua ad Asmara: Ferdinando Martini in Eritrea nel 1891,” La Conoscenza dell’Asia e dell’Africa nel X1X Secolo, vol. III, 1989, 911–933, cited in Michela Wrong, op. cit., chap. 2, loc. 676, 745.
[xv] Britain’s numbers . . . pale to its African rivals Britain’s birthrate: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=GB (Retrieved April 19, 2019).
elected to pass out of existence David P. Goldman, op. cit., 15.
German tongue . . . fundamentalist theme park Ibid., 15, 16, 25.
[xvi] Girma Batu, Vice Academic Dean, Holy Trinity Theological College, interview by Dean W. Arnold in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 2016, and January 2018.
[xvii] from 8 to 29 percent “Ethiopians Seeking Birth Control: Caught Between Church and State,” NPR, Dec. 30, 2014.
52 percent by 2020 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia: Growth and Transformation Plan II (GTP II) 2015/16=2019/20, National Planning Commission, May 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 61, 190, https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/resilience_ethiopia/document/growth-and-transformation-plan-ii-gtp-ii-201516-201920 (Retrieved April 27, 2019).
[xviii] top four most fertile regions are Muslim “Muslim vs. Christian birth rates by tribe. Ethiopia: Demographic and Health Survey,” 2011. Report by Central Statistical Agency Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ICF International, Calverton, Maryland, USA March 2012, https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR255/FR255.pdf (Retreived March 16, 2019), 71.
1.9 percent birth rate “Fertility Decline Driven by Poverty: The Case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,” Journal of Biosocial Science, May 2008, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5660299_Fertility_Decline_Driven_by_Poverty_The_Case_of_Addis_Ababa_Ethiopia (Retrieved April 27, 2019).
82 percent Orthodox Christian “Addis Ababa Population 2019,” World Population Review, http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/addis-ababa-population (Retrieved April 27, 2019).
[xix] ship “Kebra Negast”: The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kebra Negast), trans. Sir. E. A. Wallis Budge (Cambridge, Ontario: In Parenthesis Publications, 2000), chap. 1o4, https://30bjgl1bdznn2o37ol2y4jex-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/kebra_budge.pdf (Retrieved Sept. 2, 2019).
if nobody nukes Africa “Doug Casey on Africa,” Casey Daily Dispatch, Feb. 22, 2019, comment Sept. 4, 2018, 18:39.
[xx] Kate Kelland, “Africa’s rapid population growth puts poverty progress at risk, says Gates,” Reuters, Sept. 18, 2018, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-global-gates/africas-rapid-population-growth-puts-poverty-progress-at-risk-says-gates-idUKKCN1LY0GQ (Retrieved March 16, 2019).
out of thre abrahamic faith. islam is the religion which has law (quranic verse) to ‘reduce’ the number of wives a man can marry at the same time from many wives into 4. but even then if he fear that he is unable to be justice amongst them (no one is perfect, so there will be injustices which may without pursose, be overlooked and can be forgiven), them marry only one. it is really
amazing when we always says that islam allow more than one wife. (the notion that is increasing in nature)
in modern muslim tend to have western lifestyle of monogamy. altough, i found through facebook of one country there is an association for mutiple wives club (not its real name) that now acts as support group and re-education hub for the citizen about this.
monogamy in christianity and judaism came not from the teaching of the prophet of their time
What is mostly ignored in Western Countries and its populace is that – as it seems to me the Islamic Prophet Mohamed knew it exactly – it is extremely difficult to divide time exactly proportional between more than one wife because it includes her children from her husband. And too the wealth has to be divided. In some islamic countries there were several jokes about this as women went to court and claimed time and money be equally divided between the wives and their children from their husband. Really funny!
Whereas we have in most Western Christian oriented countries men are used to have girlfriends while being not responsible for anything happening to them. Just for fun and if gets too difficult the girlfriends can be “forgotten”.
Europe is overflowed with prostitutes –
if one thinks carefully about family this trend is completely against family and shared responsibilities.
A small portion would be normal I think, but what we have here in Europe is out of proportion at all !! And the “sex-oriented” MSM are mostly supporting this trend as being “normal”.
How does that fit into family ties ?
“On May 5, 2009, a handful of the West’s richest men met in Manhattan to discuss what they considered the most dangerous, most critical threat to the planet. Those attending included Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, George Soros, and David Rockefeller, Jr. ”
God save the planet from that parcel of rogues and their criminal accomplices. They want to keep Africa backward and overpopulated so that an ignorant people can be more easily plundered and surplus population can be more easily exploited as cheap labour. I recommend a French book from the 1960s, L’Afrique Noire est Mal Placee, which compared Africa – which WW2 had hardly touched — with China which had been devastated by the war. He predicted that China would rise but Africa would fall. Africa had two problems: Anglo Zio Capitalists (like the rogue’s gallery listed above) plus a well-intentioned but socially mischievous combination of missionaries preaching against birth control and doctors saving childrens’ lives. Whereas China had Communism, fair sharing and a one-child policy (for a while) which enabled that huge population to muster their resources.
This writer apparently has never heard of Malthus. The earth has finite resources and a finite carrying capacity. Yeast in a vat expand exponentially until they consume all the resources and die off. Look at the human population graph on a long time scale and ask yourself if that is natural or sustainable. Encouraging unlimited human fecundity is insanity. Religions that do so have got to go.
“Our population is too large for safety and comfort. Fresh water is growing short, the atmosphere and the seas are increasingly polluted as a result of what has transpired on land. The climate is changing in ways unfavorable to life, except for microbes, jellyfish and fungi.” —Edward O. Wilson
Agreed.
More population is the problem – not the solution.
I am astonished that at this late date, people are still calling for population growth.
Did this author ever ask himself where it ends?
Does it end at a world population of 10 billion, 20 billion, 70 billion?
Imagine 70 billion. Imagine the town you are living in with 10 times it current population. Imagine 10 times the current demand on water, food, energy. New York City would have a population of 80 million people. London would have a population of 50 million. Shanghai would have a population of 240 million people.
And at 70 billion do we continue to argue against population reduction?
I can tell you we won’t – civilization will collapse long before it gets to that number.
+This writer apparently has never heard of Malthus.+
To cite as an undisputed authority an economist (fine as he was) that lived 200 years ago, as if his population theory has not been contradicted many times since, sounds quite half-educated for such a pretentious comment.
The commenter “apparently has never heard of”(c) the growth of agricultural productivity, which Malthus absolutely failed to take into account. The global food production *per capita* has grown more than 30% over the last 50 years (see https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person). Which means that the world food production has grown faster than the world population.
Now don’t forget that moving all those calories takes energy, energy that long ago was freer like the wind and sails, but today sits a top of an explosive fire cracker, any little glitch and the price at the pump quickly rises, the longer the disaster free days, the lower the price at the pump becomes.
So what i’m saying is just by logicsticals alone, the need to feed the population will always grow, but the guaranty to be fed a healthy product, will always be suspect to the next big looming disaster which can be seen on the horizon, but has yet to be fully recognized as one.
I’m not saying there are no new risks and costs associated with the new technology; all I’m saying is that so far, 200 years on from Malthus’ time, the humanity has coped just fine with its increase despite the doom and gloom of his predictions.
Clearly, there may be something looming “at the horison”, but it’s just not rational to inflict on ourselves *current* damage, such as limiting population growth, in the name of some vague and not yet well recognised and assessed future threat – when assessed, it may require very different means of dealing with it.
Layman,
The “green revolution” that has increased food supplies is a fraud. It relies on petrochemical based fertilizers which destroy the productivity of the land. The topsoil in the American midwest used to be 2 feet deep. Now much of the topsoil has been destroyed by petrochemicals. In large areas, the “soil” is little more than sand which only produces crops when heavy doses of fertilizer are added. I have seen this with my own eyes.
And the petrochemicals which produce that fertilizer are declining worldwide.
Here is a good critique of their use:
Earth may eventually be. But what about the universe?
Of course, to become emigrants from this little rock–which itself shall become dust, the astronomers tells us– will require better thinking (moral, scientific) and practice.
This process is known, in certain scientific circles, as increasing the relative potential population density.
see, e.g.
{ That is,
the potential population density for any given environment or one still on the “drawing boards”. Central here is can humans as such be rationally creative to live in certain specific environments: partially historically man-made (as today) and (as is typical) largely man made. So is human kind one that is such that it requires an increase of our rationality, our love/charity, our creativity? Or is it (as the too-frequently expression is these days) adaptative? (see, e.g., https://larouchepac.com/file/2-potential-relative-population-density-and-energy-flux-density-june-2930
Or as claimed (nominally, at least) in some religious sectors: is humanity made in the image and likeness of the Divine Creator?
‘Russia is keenly aware of its predicament, as it strives to recover from the 1.16 birthrate that existed when communism was overthrown in 1991.’
There may have been many issues with Soviet Russia but the birth rate was not one of them as the year 1990 was the only year with a birhrate lower than 2,0.
The figure 1,16 is from 1999 at the end of the Yeltsin-disaster whereas the figure for 1990 was 1,87.
Hi Dean !
I see you have taken a trip to Christian Ethiopia. It is a very interesting experience indeed. However matters of religion require a certain level of attention,awareness,and energy to bring about an ability to discern things as they are. Take Christianity for instance, one requires enough awareness to be able to realize that there is Christianity the Practice and Christianity the Institution. Corresponding to the inner and the outer life of man. Churches, sects , politics, crowds etc constitute the ‘Institution”. The “inner” search of man for God (“that which is permanent and unchangeable’) is the “Practice”. It is a Solitary inquiry/search taken by few sometimes with the aid of the path pointed out by Enlightened beings like Jesus, Gautama Buddha ,etc. Christianity as a religion emphasize a lot on “Faith” and “Love”. However it is inevitable for a seeker not to explore the question of awareness and/or consciousness. Writings and works of monks like the German theologian Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) and St Theophan the Recluse, attempt to bridge the gap from the christian side and the Sufi mystic/poet Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) does the same from the Muslim side.
What of the history of African navigation with the Malians going to the america’s with Mansa Abubakari II well before Christobal Colon got lost on the way to India. Cristobal colon and the arabs wrote about the african voyage in their archives. Mali was the richest medieval empire in the world at the time. Following his pilgrimage to Mecca (a logistical wonder) Mansa Musa in 1324 caused the price of gold to drop in the meditteranean for well over 15 years. The venetians and other europeans were well aware of the meaning and from the on plotted to destroy…
Court life in the empire of Mali
http://en.lisapoyakama.org/the-wonderful-civilization-of-the-benin-kingdom-nigeria-2/
All according to plan, some 50+ years ago
Study the Deagel Report, USA&EU massive depopulation because of lack of jobs, elderly can’t afford medical, young can’t find a job;
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx
Africa massive growth because of Chinese Investment
.
Before we get too excited here, lets remember that since 1970’s with HIV Africa has seen some 75% of its young men & women die, most places in Africa past 40 years the newspapers are 99% Obituary’s.
But yes, now that “Ft Detrick” ( people who created HIV ) CIA has ‘cleansed’ Africa for Rockefeller/Rothschild investors from China, all is good.
Meh, im not sold into this “Deagel Report”. Lots of tinkering and hypothesizing with scenarios – which are by definition – a creative act of its creators. It doesnt add much to its plausibility that no sources are detailed, let alone any hard information on causal chains to its.
In their own words:
Not sure RZ
This article contains several false assertions. Firstly, African fertility is declining, Ethiopian fertility included. The author both explicitly denies this (booming fertility) and acknowledges this (TFR from seven down to five). The author would do well to make up his mind.
Secondly, the author claims that Ethiopia was the only African country to have writing prior to European contact or colonization. Even if one were to consider all Islamic contact as colonial (several Sub-Saharan African languages used Arabic script prior to European colonization), both Somalia (old Somali script) and south-east Nigeria (Nsibidi) had writing.
Thirdly, the author claims that religious belief is causal in total fertility. Yet both the Muslim world and Sub-Saharan Africa have become more religious as fertility has declined (Russia from the Soviet to Yeltsin period would be another example), while the opposite correlation was sometimes observed elsewhere.
The issue of fertility does deserve addressing. I shall raise two issues, namely economic and biological.
Peasants usually have higher fertility, as they can afford children, and as children are after a youngish age also an economic asset—children often can help on the land and with animals. Urban child employment is usually opposed for the evils that go with it, and the scam of institutionalised higher education (itself dumbed down to the point of earning the label of a scam, and obscenely expensive) make children unaffordable. If one wishes to remove this obstruction, make substantial higher education free (e.g. through volunteer efforts for interested youth), and show the populace that higher education leads to poorer employment opportunities, and leads to malinvestment, as education then drives what employment becomes available.
As to biology, the biggest problem, which affects non-humans due to environmental contamination through humans, is probably gross spreading of animal estrogens in water bodies. Estrogens enter humans due to cattle being given substances that allow them to lactate while being pregnant and become pregnant while lactating, to keep up milk production with fewer cattle, thus exposing the population to far more estrogen than they would be from eating beef from (non-pregnant) cows. The same contamination also occurs from hormonal birth control—most water treatment cannot substantially remove pharmaceuticals, estrogens included. To some extent, animals (humans included) can maintain hormonal homeostasis, but when the levels become to high, or estrogen get converted to progesterone (e.g. with some anti-fungal treatments), homeostasis is undermined (progesterone is the basis of temporary chemical castration).
The posted comment of Johan Meyer is right to the point.
Completely right concerning development of used languages in Africa as well as concerning the pharmaceuticals (especially hormones).
In this concern I would like to mention the consumption (mostly in Western “well educated” countries ??!!) of far too much meat to the point that more men become infertile and/or too less and too slow sperm or women have severe problems for reproduction.
Besides: what would happen if in Western “developed” countries wouldn’t have electricity for one week (for example no TV, no movies, no computers etc. )????
Which entertainments can poor people enjoy ??
And which continents experiences the death of more than 25 thousand humans (mostly children) per day ??
elites have no need of people, what is the use for all these deplorables and useless eaters, robots can do everything. they need some boys and girls preferable of all colors for their pleasure but even here sex dolls can do the job.
Bernie, I respectfully disagree.
I have often wondered what drives people to obtain more money than they could ever possibly spend. I am beginning to think that one of the main motivations is that they have a need to feel superior to others.
In other words – without deplorables – the whole purpose of the game would be defeated. The so-called elite would be forced to face their own emptiness.
George Orwell came to the same conclusion in 1984. The object of the game was not money, it was power over others. And without “others,” the game simply makes no sense.
there is much truth in what you say, my comment was not to be taken so seriously but robots are increasingly replacing humans
Bernie,
Yes, I should have understood that what you were saying was half “tongue in cheek.”
And you are right. The machines are coming and it is going to be an incredibly disruptive event.
The new ‘machines’, controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), will be indeed ‘an incredibly disruptive event.’ A new socio-economic system will have to be developed to cope with the new reality, as only a genuinely socialist system will adequately take into account the new human necessities. Beyond effective distribution of rights and responsibilities, adequate measures will be conceived to cope with spare time such as continuous philosophical and scientific investigations (education), leisure and sport activities, cultural events, etc., etc., etc….
—————-
Please stay on topic – The Mod
I’ve never heard of Ethiopian soldiers castrating live prisoners during the Italian war. Perhaps the author is confusing this with the war trophy hunting habit of Abyssinian soldiers who used to cut the balls of fallen opponents, dry them, stack them and present them to their imperial leaders in loud outbursts of boastful poetry. The bigger the balls collection, the higher the reward.
So if there is a published source to back this live castration practice, I’d like to hear about it.
For the rest the author’s claim that the birth rates have dramatically declined is unduly exaggerated. They have declined from astronomical levels (>8) to healthy levels (4-5). The author also fails to mention that Ethiopia remains one of the last great rural mountain countries on earth on a par with Bolivia and Bhutan/Nepal. A finer analysis would reveal still very high birth rates in rural areas and a more reduced rate in growing urban centers. There would also be much to say about the historical demography cycles through which most of rural northern Ethiopia has gone over the past millenia.
They were indeed castrated live. From my book:
“Of the 1,900 prisoners taken, approximately seven percent were known to have been emasculated. A far greater percentage of those soldiers left dead on the battlefield had been castrated to acquire war trophies.
Giovanni Tedone, a captive, provides details on these ugly events on the day of the battle. He approached a wounded, stripped, and naked colleague who called out to him, and in a gesture of modesty “covered his genitals with his hand to conceal the wound created by his emasculation, which . . . had taken the scrotum but not the penis.” It left only a yellowish patch, and little blood was involved, he said. “Two lateral cuts, and then a cut from the bottom up, and that’s it.”
Source: p. 222-246. Raymond Jonas, “The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire” (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015).
So this Giovani Tedone gave this testimony to whom exactly ? Is it one case or a systematic practice ?
Still not convinced sorry.
I don’t even know how to respond to this! Just the fact he uses the Oligarchy to push the argument that population growth is good! I have traveled all over the world and I can tell you population growth and the greed of humans will kill us all. I should say is killing us all. Homelessness is growing everywhere, except maybe Russia. Climate disasters are running rampant across the world. Species decline is happening faster then any scientist expected. Australia and the US and Can. Even Russia are having fires that have never been so bad.
The Midwest in the US lost crops, to flooding this is happening everywhere. This is not some cyclical BS this is human caused climate catastrophe.
History notes that over population in many civilizations destroyed their communities. To little food to little water and ruined soil. Now we don’t have communities we have vast metropolises that rely on bad farming practices.
We rely on the oligarchs to give out measly jobs, war, mass prison populations, and of course war .
Wow how could anyone think we need more of this horrific virus.
Its a theory by the elites that requires a constant growth formula in order for the elderly (which they all become), to be taken care of by the youth. They realize that the youth both cant produce things and take care of the elderly simultaneously unless there are more youth than elderly. At some point the camels (or youths) back breaks and the formula goes to hell in a hand basket.
B/C one mans grade A achievements is another mans grade A disaster, and the disaster side is about to unfold its wings and spread its message.
Susan,
I also travel all over the world. And – as you say – population growth is killing us all.
In Guatemala, the people are so desperate for food that they farm/terrace mountainsides which are so steep that most people would have trouble climbing them. Sometimes the terraces give way taking down the “crops’ on that side of a mountain and all the slope below it – including any unfortunates who may be “farming there.” People there sneak on national parks to plant corn and sneak back on to harvest it. And the soil is degraded everywhere. In many places even weed cease to grow causing the land to gully and wash away.
It is the same everywhere, even in the developed world.
In the developed world, the populations are completely unsustainable. I was in Sicily not long ago and I was shocked by the population density. Most of the western world is the same – it is just one “oil shock” away from collapse.
Population growth must be controlled. No doubt about that. Call it planning, if you wish — it works like, for example, planning for the use of land. But, planning activity is distorted in capitalism, which is notoriously chaotic. Genuine planning is a characteristic of socialism, a superior socio-economic system.
Population explosion is a result of exploitation, neglect and ignorance, which are consequences of societies divided by social classes. Only genuine education, political awareness, and total inclusion taking into account rights and responsibilities can bring about a mature comprehension of the real problems of the world, whatever they are when this level of social development finally is realised. This will result in the conscious (collective) definition of measures to cope with those problems.
“resource fearmongering”
What makes the writer think that all the wars in the Middle East are not over oil, gas and pipelines? Where is the fearmongering?
I have never read such utter nonsense. The per capita consumption of oil in Black Africa has been dropping for 20 years – and the consequence is immense poverty. Why do you think they would all love to come to Europe?
Countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa were much better off when they could afford to consume more oil per capita.
The reality is that we are stuffed. The oil that comes from shale is too expensive to support a modern economy. Saudi Arabia only sold shares in its Aramco because the reserves are doomed.
So, why is it that there is so much poverty and violence in Nigeria where they have so much oil? Perhaps the poor Africans want to go to Europe (or somewhere else!) because they do not have access to their resources…
+Russia has instituted a national holiday on September 12, Day of Conception or Procreation Day—the people call it “Make a Baby Day”—where citizens get the day off to produce children.+
Not a national holiday (unfortunately…). It is a local holiday (indeed, with a day off) in one of the Russian regions – Ulianovsk region.
One of the best texts I have read, demography is future and that’s the reason why I am making christian babies like a machine
Just like the West dredged up liver eating jihadis to send into Syria to attack Christians the rich and powerful button pushers in the West will try to undermine the Christians of Africa.
The orthodox need to realize that the West hates anyone and anything that is similar (like Christianity) but not under their control. In Syria the Christians there now have this awareness and are allied with Muslims against the West.
It’s called “demographic transition”, part of the malthusian cycle. Africa literally never had one due to insane disease loads preventing the population from hitting the carrying capacity of the land (which increases as society progresses).
It goes like this: population hits carrying capacity, then there are 3 options: breakthrough (for example the industrial revolution, without it Europe would have become rather unpleasant yet again), collapse/disaster (black death) and stagnation/equilibrium trap (what happened to china and india). Stagnation is the worst – it can last really long until some massive disaster with no human control happens that decimates the population.
That’s only the “growth” phase, tho. At some point, birth rates fall as people lose interest in having children, and population starts falling. Societies encounter problems at this stage. Frequently some disastrous event occurs too, but not in a very important way to change the trajectory. At some real shitty point, the breeding rates start growing again. The previous fall is more like a dip, if you were to zoom out the population chart.
Imagine it as economic cycles – they correspond well too. Anatoly Karlin wrote a lot about it (start here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/where-do-babies-come-from/)
Africa with demographics is taking back the share of global population it had in 13th century, about 20%. And Africa likely is repopulating the rest of the world as it did some 60-80 000 years ago. Besides as everyone in this platform should know, evolution favors religious breeding culture enclaves. Non-African population is also offspring of only some 200-500 out-of-africa Africans and their gene pool is too small. That’s why mixing might be even necessary.
Eh, offspring can be tracked down to 200-500 people – but that was so long ago that mutations make them so distant that it doesn’t even matter
I mean, technically we all descend from literally 2 people who lived in vastly different times – yet somehow the direct descendants of others got eliminated, yet I don’t see many problems.
Really, the gene bottleneck only is problematic on recently isolated, small populations (Andaman islanders etc)
“However, as Muslims refuse to use the contraceptives…”
This is die hard myth among white nationalists and alarmists. Check facts and you will notice that fertility rate in some Muslim countries is already near that of Scandinavia, France and USA. In Iran and Tunis just about 1.8 and not much higher in Turkey and Algeria. It went down in Saudi Arabia from 6 to 2.3 in 35 years.
Africa has now 5 times more children (0-5 y old) than whole Europe. Even if its fertility rate go down 50% during next generation (unlikely) the rate will go to 1 to 10.
Besides politicians if they try hard can’t change this decline of European population. In this situation western young man have to finally understand that he should marry not emancipated secular western woman but feminine religious black African woman.
The idea of family with just two children was disaster but fueled by leftiest and Cultural Marxists who have never really liked children and never understood the demographics as base of society and economy. This family model means that real fertility rate will be around 1.5.
Less than decade ago evolution scientists Erich Kaufman and Michael Blume in their separate studies confirmed that evolution favors strongly religious culture enclaves and rejects atheists, agnostics and secular folks. Their studies have made Cultural Marxists furious but confused.
What an irony that evolution studies are actually backing ideas of religion and faith. This is the biggest nail to coffin of western liberals and marxists. Their tank is now empty.
Never in history has mankind had possibility to exchange ideas and know each other than now. Racism as ideology doesn’t sell well and interracial marriages are fastly growing all over the world. This all is telling one vital story – we might have reached to stage of universial mutual understanding to be one same human race. This is not the era of racial nazis what ever other issues we might have. And i do not follow the path of Muslim demonization. Don’t underestimate the process of modernization of Muslim world.
Missing in the article is urbanization. People in cities have less children than people in the countryside. There are several reasons. Children in the countryside are an asset – helping on the farm. There is seldom similar work for children in cities so they just cost money. The fact that houses in cities tend to be smaller don’t help either.
Africa is slow with urbanization. But in the end it has no choice. You cannot endlessly divide land among children: at some point the plots become too small.
“Africa is slow with urbanization. But in the end it has no choice. ”
I do agree. It’s necessary to kill myths of Africans and Muslims as super breeding group of people. Too many hysteric people and right wing zealots are following the narrative about Africans and Muslims “wiping out white race”. Muslims and Africans are focusing better secured life. They also are moving from country life to urban areas. That will automatically and sharply decline fertility rate. Claims that Nigeria’s population will pass mark of one billion is highly questionable. Most likely African population (now over 1.3 billion) will double surely and perhaps treble until settling to somewhere between 3 and 4 billion. Tens of millions of Africans will anyway move to Asia, Europe and America.
According latest demographic estimates Kenya will have fertility rate just 2.04 in 2030 (it’s 2.69 now). Another is Ghana (now 2.82). South Africa has fertility rate of just 2.14.
Africans are not something special baby boomers. They will follow the same path as Asians and Latinos: fertility rates will go sharply down in 2020’s and 2030’s.
In our society, hardly more than a generation ago, women on getting married immediately lost their jobs, stayed at home, looked after the children and the house.
If we returned to that culture our birth rates would explode, match Ethiopia’s, because bearing children would be the woman’s job.
“Ethiopia averages around five children per woman, as does the rest of Africa, making it the continent of the future.”
In honor of the West’s increasingly hysterical fears of its civilizational and demographic collapse as well as the Death of the West itself, here is a little music to cheer y’all up:
Fear of a Black Planet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5GAAxYIHp0&list=PL8Eps3cPqtnWW75sPGze6CTcxwWfT4WYn
Welcome to the future!
LOL.