Tani Newton
As I said last time, the statistics tell us much, but also little. They tell us that the Western world is in population decline and extinguishing itself. Some would say that immigration is temporarily propping up the population, but it would be more realistic to say that immigration is replacing the population, exchanging the people of the land for those of other lands and cultures. This spells the end of the West just as much, and indeed even more, than if towns and cities were simply becoming empty spaces.
Nor is it only the West that is going down. China is also facing population collapse, as are its neighbours, North and South Korea and Japan. The long list of countries not replacing their populations includes those with the most people and the most land – even, mind-bogglingly, India. What does the world of the future look like?
Of the 50 countries with the highest fertility rates, 41 are in Africa. That suggests, on the face of it, that the future is African. But can that really be? It’s hard to imagine how the most undeveloped, the most exploited, the most dependent, the most suffering continent could rise to be a leader among the nations. Or could it? After all, Egypt and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) were powerful nations in the ancient world. Maybe if the rest of the world would stop ‘helping’, Africa could finally sort out its own problems and eventually have its day in the sun.
Mind you, the Arab world is also growing aggressively and much more visibly, as it deliberately spills over into other regions. Its threat appears both immense and unstoppable. But there have been some signs that after these people have made their homes in comfortable Western cities and adopted their affluent lifestyle, their birthrates decline also. So we’ll see what happens with that. The other region that still has high fertility is the Pacific Islands, which is worth noting, though its nations are tiny.
Is this really telling us anything? Let’s try looking at it by religion. According to Pew Research, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, followed by Christians; this is consistent with having something to live for that is bigger than yourself. Jews and Hindus are also above the global average and above replacement level, with non-religious people having the lowest fertility. Likewise, the nations with the highest fertility are majority-Muslim or majority-Christian. Islam is also attracting more converts than other religions, and is boasting that it will be the world’s dominant religion by 2060. This is not a cheering prospect for me personally.
But the most striking thing to see here is the low fertility of non-religious populations. The world is currently groaning under the invisible tyranny of a secular humanistic elite, the true heirs of the unmentionable tyrants of the 20th century. Their power seems unassailable, and yet, by attacking the population, they attack themselves and their own future.
So perhaps the battle for the future will be between Christians and Muslims after all. That’s an old war and it is a grim thought that it’s not over yet. But the end will be in the hands of God – and that is something that no statistics can predict.
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