As of Right

Falling fertility
Oct 29th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Astonishing falls in the fertility rate are bringing with them big benefits


Getty Images THOMAS MALTHUS first published his “Essay on the Principle of Population”, in which he forecast that population growth would outstrip the world’s food supply, in 1798. His timing was unfortunate, for something started happening around then which made nonsense of his ideas. As industrialisation swept through what is now the developed world, fertility fell sharply, first in France, then in Britain, then throughout Europe and America. When people got richer, families got smaller; and as families got smaller, people got richer.

Now, something similar is happening in developing countries. Fertility is falling and families are shrinking in places— such as Brazil, Indonesia, and even parts of India—that people think of as teeming with children. As our briefing shows, the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less—the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called “the replacement rate of fertility”. Sometime between 2020 and 2050 the world’s fertility rate will fall below the global replacement rate.

Nice to hear that, anyway, I am really grateful to those who have been struggling in this field since long time. In any part of the world, there are the kinds of people who make children over their capacity. It is up to the individual, and no one has a right to say anything to them. If they are happy, that is all.

But what I hardly understand fully is that some of them ask for the justification of their high fertility in their religion (especially in "a part of" Islam and Catholic) and in addition "some of them" complain of the poverty they experience. Moreover, "some of them" demand public aids as of right and sometimes accept even foreign aids as of right.

When I did not know much about Islam (still I do know nothing, though), I was astonished to hear from "a few of" Muslims; of course the value, the meaning and the right as a human being of Muslim is much superior to those of infidels to an unusual degree. It is better for Muslims not to be with infidels as much as possible and also not to live in a country where its majority is infidels if there are not any necessities. It is possible to use the products from infidels, like cars and PCs (I wonder in which country-a majority is Muslim-cars and electronic products or etc are being produced in a competitive level) , especially other than food even if it was halal for them. HOWEVER, they can (some say "should") demand and accept any kind of aid from any NGOs, NPOs, international institutions and govs.

I could not understand this logic at first, but then I was convinced. It was for sure hard for me to fully understand that I am inferior to them in every meaning, because I have believed every human being in the world is totally equal to others in the all meanings. But it was my arrogance and self-conceit.

Naturally I am inferior to them, but I still believe that I will contribute myself to the world in the future and I hope it would be of help for those Muslims who think like that.