THERE ARE NO CHILDREN
Grzegorz Górny
Recently somebody has sent me the following report via email:
‘Leaders of Western Europe:
President of France Emmanuel Macron – does not have any children
Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel - does not have any children
The Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May – does not have any children
The Prime Minister of Italy – Paolo Gentilo – does not have any children
The Prime Minister of Holland Mark Rutte - does not have any children
The Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Lofven - does not have any children
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel - does not have any children
The chairperson of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker - does not have any children’
Below there was another report attached: ‘Leaders of Central Europe: the Prime Minister of Poland Beata Szydło – 2 children
The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Bohuslav Sobotka – 2 children
The Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico – 1 child
The Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic – 2 children
The Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban - children
The Prime Minister of Bulgaria Bojko Borisow – 1 child
The President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic – 2 children’.
A comment under the list was brief: ‘no comments’.
For my curiosity I decided to check how things in Muslim countries are. I took the first examples:
King of Saudi Arabia Salman ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Su’ud – 13 children (2 of them died).
Emir of Quatar Tamim ibn Hamad Al Sani -10 children
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan - 5 children
President of Egypt Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi – 4 children
President of Iran Hasan Rouhani – 4 children
President of Iraq Fu’ad Masum – 6 children (1 of them died).
President of Syria Baszar al-Asad – 3 children
Demography is inexorable, and elites have example-creating functions
Nature does not tolerate the void and an empty place will always be filled by somebody else. The Serbs in Kosovo have seen it. Dr. Stojan Adasevic, whom I visited a few times in Belgrad told me directly that secularized Orthodox Serbs had been defeated in a fight for Kosovo with the Muslim Albanians not on the fields of fights but in delivery rooms of maternity clinics. Only 50 years were needed: It is not accidental that the first blessing in the Bible sounds: ‘Multiply your families and make the land subordinate to you’ – said dr. Adasevic. – There is a dependency between multiplying and reigning. Somebody who does not accept procreation, he refuses to reign over the land. The land belongs to those who have full cradles.
A similar point of view is familiar to a lot of Muslim thinkers for whom Islam is life civilization and the West – death civilization. A dozen years ago a British historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that western civilization in the countries of the Third World had created an economic and political fullness, but on the other hand – a social and spiritual emptiness – Islam is entering this emptiness. Muslim politicians are quite aware of it. Therefore on every occasion the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan encourages Turkish families – both in the country and on emigration in Europe – to have minimum children.
The example of this country is very symptomatic. In 1960 Poland had 29.8 million inhabitants, whereas Turkey – 27.8 million, so 2 million less than our country. Today the Republic of Poland amounts to 8 million, whereas Turkey – about 80 million, that is, over twice more than Poland.
According to the data of the International Currency Fund from 2015. Poland is the 25th economy of the world with the Gross Domestic Product of 474 milliard dollars, whereas Turkey takes the 18th place with the Gross Domestic Product much higher than ours – 733 milliard dollars.
In the opinion of one of the most prominent management theoreticians in history Peter Drucker, a key to refer to the economic success in XXI century there will not be technology but demography, without a permanent birthrate as it will not be possible to build the economic power. It is happening so because aging of societies does not allow for complete satisfying needs of renewal and technological development. Without demographic growth it is impossible to maintain social systems and pension benefits at the current level.
Fertility rate guaranteeing generationality is 2.1 child per 1 woman. Countries which are below this rate, are aging and shrinking in number. According to the data from 2014, Poland with the rate coefficient 1.33 was classified among 224 counties and territories dependent all over the world in the ….212th place. No comments.
AA
„Niedziela” 37/2017