05-30-2016, 07:36 PM
*** 31-May-16 World View -- Turkey's president Erdogan tells Muslims not to use birth control
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Thousands of refugees leave Libya for Italy, hundreds drown
****
![[Image: g160530b.jpg]](http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g160530b.jpg)
Boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized on Thursday as an Italian Navy rescue ship approached (Getty)
Human rights are describing as "catastrophic" the situation that
700-900 migrants drowned in the last week, attempting to cross the
Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy.
However, some 13,000 to 14,000 were rescued in the last week. These
numbers are similar to those from 2015. The numbers are expected to
increase over the summer, as there are some 800,000 migrants in Libya
waiting to cross. Almost all the migrants are coming from black
African countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan.
Earlier predictions that there would be a flood of refugees from
Syria, since the Aegean Sea route has been closed by the EU-Turkey
refugee deal, have not been realized so far. The Libya route is many
times more dangerous than the Aegean Sea route, and it's possible that
many Syrian refugees are waiting to see if the EU-Turkey deal will
fall apart, which could very well happen soon. The Local (Italy) and Eagle Online (Nigeria) and Express (London)
****
**** Turkey's president Erdogan tells Muslims not to use birth control
****
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again expressed his
support for procreation, saying that no Muslim family should ever
consider birth control or population planning.
[indent]<QUOTE>"We will multiply our descendants. They talk about
population planning, birth control. No Muslim family can have such
an approach. Nobody can interfere in God's work. The first duty
here belongs to mothers. ...
I am saying this clearly, we will increase our posterity and
reproduce generations. As for population planning or birth
control, no Muslim family can engage in such a mentality. We will
follow the road that my God and dear Prophet [Muhammad]
say."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Erdogan has previously been quoted as saying: "One or two children
mean bankruptcy. Three children mean we are not improving but not
receding either. At least three children are necessary in each family,
because our population is at risk of aging." He has previously
equated birth control with treason.
Erdogan's remarks were heavily criticized by women's groups for
telling women how many children to have and dismissing the Western
idea of gender equality. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Gulf Times (Doha)
****
**** Population growth rate of Muslims and Christians
****
Ever since I learned, years ago, that Muslims had the greatest birth
rate of all religions, then I've been trying to find out why.
According to Pew Research, this trend will continue for decades into
the future. According to Pew, from 2010-2050 population size is
expected to increase 73% for Muslims, 35% for Christians, 34% for
Hindus, and 16% for Jews, with the overall growth rate of 35%.
However, those figures assume that there won't be a new world war. As
we described yesterday,
the world
is already bulging with people, food is becoming more expensive, and
refugees are pouring out of Asia, the Mideast and Africa. This
becomes more unstable every day, as does global finance, with huge
interlocking debts in a giant credit bubble.
However, Muslims have been the fastest growing religion since the end
of World War II. Furthermore, when I researched this in the past, I
noticed that this applied to Sunni Muslim countries to but not to
Iran, a Shia Muslim country. So I reached the obvious conclusion that
this phenomenon applies not to Muslims in general, but only to Sunni
Muslims.
My theory has always been that after the devastating destruction of
Turkey's Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the Muslim world since the
1400s, Sunni Muslims developed either explicit or implicit communal
sense that the way to get the Ottoman Empire back was to have as many
children as possible.
I've asked any number of Muslims and Muslim scholars whether this
theory makes sense, whether there was some kind of fatwa issued by
some cleric in the 1920s or 1930s, telling Muslims to have as many
children as possible to recover from the destruction of the Ottoman
Empire. No one I spoke to supported this theory, and many explicitly
denied it, although were also surprised to learn the statistics that
Sunni Muslim populations have been the fastest growing populations,
something of which they had been unaware.
There is no prohibition against contraception in Islam. Abortion and
hysterectomies are prohibited, but ordinary contraceptive methods are
acceptable, including the IUD and the pill. In fact, the Catholic
religion is far more restrictive about contraception than Islam is.
So Erdogan's claims about birth control appear to be exaggerated.
But here we have Turkey's super-authoritarian president Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, who gives every sign of wanting to reconstitute the old
Ottoman Empire, saying that women should avoid contraception, have as
many children as possible, "multiply our descendants."
So I'm sticking to my theory. The reason for the high birth rate
among Sunni Muslims after World War II is because of of an explicit or
implicit communal sense that the way to get the Ottoman Empire back
was to have as many children as possible.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Erdogan's exhortation
is just one more crazy idea, of which there are many, from just one
more crazy politician, of which there are many. The Mideast is headed
for a massive sectarian war, and Turkey will be at war with Iran,
Russia and several Western countries, at the very least. As I wrote yesterday,
those wonderful
children will all be cannon fodder, and archeologists of the future
will enjoy digging up their bones from mass graves. Pew Research and Islamic Edicts on Family Planning
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libya, Mediterranean Sea, Italy,
Aegean Sea, Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan,
Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ottoman Empire, Iran, Russia
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Thousands of refugees leave Libya for Italy, hundreds drown
- Turkey's president Erdogan tells Muslims not to use birth control
- Population growth rate of Muslims and Christians
****
**** Thousands of refugees leave Libya for Italy, hundreds drown
****
Boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized on Thursday as an Italian Navy rescue ship approached (Getty)
Human rights are describing as "catastrophic" the situation that
700-900 migrants drowned in the last week, attempting to cross the
Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy.
However, some 13,000 to 14,000 were rescued in the last week. These
numbers are similar to those from 2015. The numbers are expected to
increase over the summer, as there are some 800,000 migrants in Libya
waiting to cross. Almost all the migrants are coming from black
African countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan.
Earlier predictions that there would be a flood of refugees from
Syria, since the Aegean Sea route has been closed by the EU-Turkey
refugee deal, have not been realized so far. The Libya route is many
times more dangerous than the Aegean Sea route, and it's possible that
many Syrian refugees are waiting to see if the EU-Turkey deal will
fall apart, which could very well happen soon. The Local (Italy) and Eagle Online (Nigeria) and Express (London)
****
**** Turkey's president Erdogan tells Muslims not to use birth control
****
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again expressed his
support for procreation, saying that no Muslim family should ever
consider birth control or population planning.
[indent]<QUOTE>"We will multiply our descendants. They talk about
population planning, birth control. No Muslim family can have such
an approach. Nobody can interfere in God's work. The first duty
here belongs to mothers. ...
I am saying this clearly, we will increase our posterity and
reproduce generations. As for population planning or birth
control, no Muslim family can engage in such a mentality. We will
follow the road that my God and dear Prophet [Muhammad]
say."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Erdogan has previously been quoted as saying: "One or two children
mean bankruptcy. Three children mean we are not improving but not
receding either. At least three children are necessary in each family,
because our population is at risk of aging." He has previously
equated birth control with treason.
Erdogan's remarks were heavily criticized by women's groups for
telling women how many children to have and dismissing the Western
idea of gender equality. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Gulf Times (Doha)
****
**** Population growth rate of Muslims and Christians
****
Ever since I learned, years ago, that Muslims had the greatest birth
rate of all religions, then I've been trying to find out why.
According to Pew Research, this trend will continue for decades into
the future. According to Pew, from 2010-2050 population size is
expected to increase 73% for Muslims, 35% for Christians, 34% for
Hindus, and 16% for Jews, with the overall growth rate of 35%.
However, those figures assume that there won't be a new world war. As
we described yesterday,
the world
is already bulging with people, food is becoming more expensive, and
refugees are pouring out of Asia, the Mideast and Africa. This
becomes more unstable every day, as does global finance, with huge
interlocking debts in a giant credit bubble.
However, Muslims have been the fastest growing religion since the end
of World War II. Furthermore, when I researched this in the past, I
noticed that this applied to Sunni Muslim countries to but not to
Iran, a Shia Muslim country. So I reached the obvious conclusion that
this phenomenon applies not to Muslims in general, but only to Sunni
Muslims.
My theory has always been that after the devastating destruction of
Turkey's Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the Muslim world since the
1400s, Sunni Muslims developed either explicit or implicit communal
sense that the way to get the Ottoman Empire back was to have as many
children as possible.
I've asked any number of Muslims and Muslim scholars whether this
theory makes sense, whether there was some kind of fatwa issued by
some cleric in the 1920s or 1930s, telling Muslims to have as many
children as possible to recover from the destruction of the Ottoman
Empire. No one I spoke to supported this theory, and many explicitly
denied it, although were also surprised to learn the statistics that
Sunni Muslim populations have been the fastest growing populations,
something of which they had been unaware.
There is no prohibition against contraception in Islam. Abortion and
hysterectomies are prohibited, but ordinary contraceptive methods are
acceptable, including the IUD and the pill. In fact, the Catholic
religion is far more restrictive about contraception than Islam is.
So Erdogan's claims about birth control appear to be exaggerated.
But here we have Turkey's super-authoritarian president Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, who gives every sign of wanting to reconstitute the old
Ottoman Empire, saying that women should avoid contraception, have as
many children as possible, "multiply our descendants."
So I'm sticking to my theory. The reason for the high birth rate
among Sunni Muslims after World War II is because of of an explicit or
implicit communal sense that the way to get the Ottoman Empire back
was to have as many children as possible.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Erdogan's exhortation
is just one more crazy idea, of which there are many, from just one
more crazy politician, of which there are many. The Mideast is headed
for a massive sectarian war, and Turkey will be at war with Iran,
Russia and several Western countries, at the very least. As I wrote yesterday,
those wonderful
children will all be cannon fodder, and archeologists of the future
will enjoy digging up their bones from mass graves. Pew Research and Islamic Edicts on Family Planning
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libya, Mediterranean Sea, Italy,
Aegean Sea, Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan,
Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ottoman Empire, Iran, Russia
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
