“Today there are more Iranians in their mid-twenties than in any other age bracket. But they are not reproducing. An educated twenty-five year old Iranian today probably grew up in a family of six or seven children, but will bear only one child.”David Goldman, How Civilizations Die 2011
How Civilizations Die:
David Goldman, in his book, How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying Too), addresses probably the most under-reported crisis that is rapidly unfolding in Western Civilization: The crisis of depopulation. What surprised me is that there are westernized Muslim nations, such as Iran and Turkey, heading for a demographic collapse as well. What you might find interesting is what contributes to low fertility rates in both Western and Muslim countries.
To begin with, Goldman does point to one historical fact often overlooked by historians. Overpopulation was rarely, if at all, a real problem for civilizations throughout history. Rather, as Polybius lamented in 150 B.C., “[T]he evil of depopulation grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting our attention…” For some reason, pagan Roman in the first centuries of the Christian era did not learn this most valuable lesson from ancient Greece. After all, it died of just a few hundred years before Rome was beginning to decline. The Roman Empire, before it fell to foreign invaders in 410 A.D., experienced a steep drop in its fertility rates. The whole empire went from a population of 80 million to about 40 million in a few short centuries.
Examples of dying civilizations are before us. But even today most politicians, professors, and sad to say, even priests who have the ears of thousands every weekend, rarely breathe a word about the widespread practice of married couples not having children; at least enough children for a society to thrive.
The difference between Western and Muslim leaders in this regard is that the latter is quite alarmed by it and the former is not. As Goldman said, “Muslim leaders are more in a panic than Westerners.” There may be a good deal of credibility that Iran’s Ahmadinejad is a madman. Nonetheless, he got it right when he said the following on September 10, 2010: “Two children’ is a formula for the extinction of a nation, not the survival of a nation…That is what is wrong with the West. Negative population growth will cause the extinction of our identity and culture…To want to consume more rather than having children is an act of genocide.”
Western and Eastern Europe and Russia:
The first chapter of David Goldman’s book, How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying Too), is entitled The Closing of the Muslim Womb. He not only addresses what frequently leads to the closing of wombs both in the West and the Middle East, but he also projects, and quite candidly, what a childless civilization portends. For instance, he says, “The least fertile European countries will see their total population drop by 40 to 60 percent in the course of the present century.” He further adds that Eastern Europe and especially Russia are already facing a demographic death spiral. Without a solid base of young workers and tax payers to the support the upper tiers of society, the following is likely to happen:
• Tax revenues will implode
• Pension and healthcare costs will sky rocket
• Demographic winter means fiscal and social upheaval
• Reduced labor force
• Elderly population
• Reduction of a country’s international strength
• Gradual deterioration of culture and community identity
• Migration of personnel due to lack of opportunity
• Psychological problems for only children
Greece has begun to feel the pinch of being childless. Its birthrate is a whopping 1.38 percent. This, mind you, is far below the replacement level. I don’t dispute that Greece’s current problem, as well as the rest of Europe, has a lot to do with its government expenditures. But the very reason why European States can no longer get away with fiscally unsound policies is because of this demographic disaster: too few young people having to subsidize government programs for the elderly. It is of great irony that Greece is about to learn the same lesson twice: No children, no prosperity!
Iran Leading the Way:
As we come to consider the similar plight in Muslim countries, we find similar causes of that plight. Goldman reports that, “Today there are more Iranians in their mid-twenties than in any other age bracket. But they are not reproducing. An educated twenty-five year old Iranian today probably grew up in a family of six or seven children, but will bear only one child.” Currently, fertility rate of Iranian women averages at 1.7, a little higher than Greece’s.
What may not surprise you is that as nations become more secularized, such as Iran and Turkey, the less children they have. To be sure, faith has always served as a powerful incentive to have children in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
But here is what I find surprising. There is supposedly a correlation between the literacy rate of women in Muslim countries and their fertility rate. “As more Iranian women went through the school system, the researchers conclude, fewer had children.” And how do they compare with the rest of the Muslim world? Answer: “Iranian women are the best educated in the Muslim world.”
Java Online, a Persian language website, had proposed that the following factors contribute to the reduction of fertility:
• Increased education for women
• Increasing employment of women
• Improved health care and family planning
• Higher marriage age
• More frequent divorce
• Urbanization
“The moment Muslims learn to read,” Goldman says, “family size falls below replacement [levels]. Literacy explains about 60 percent of the fertility differential across the Muslim world.”
Separating Wheat & Chaff:
Now, there are some things we can take away from this and learn a thing or two; and there are other things we can leave behind. One of the conclusions that we can leave behind is that education in general, or education for women in particular, is somehow a negative because there may be a correlation between literacy and low fertility. What it does speak to, however, is that the correlation between literacy (or education) and the choice to have children applies to both men and women; not just in Muslim countries, but in Western countries as well.
This is a case when something good like education and the opportunities it affords, can have a corresponding weakness. Indeed, it may surprise us that the more educated and successful we are as a people, the less value we put on children. Invariably what happens is that children go from being perceived as an asset to being regarded as a liability. And what follows from this is the perception that material things are the "real" asset. Hence, we have fewer kids in order to save more money; and with more money we can buy more things. On a micro level, this pattern may seem harmless. But when these priorities gain currency and become the norm in society, it is a major contributor to the decline of nations.
One more lesson we can pull from the correlation between literacy and low fertility rates is how important the full-time commitment to one’s own children is. There are exceptions to every rule and extenuating circumstances for every family, however, throughout history mothers have been considered to be experts when it comes to their own children; and dare I say they still are. I know this offends many people. But setting political correctness aside, we do need reminding that women are inherently more relational than men. They are more intuitive than men. They are usually the first to notice problem spots in relationships; the first to get help when a relationship needs fixing; and the first to talk about it. Even with the cry of a new born baby, a mother is much more likely than a father to have a physical or emotional reaction. Without a doubt, the connection she has with each of her children finds no parallel in the universe; it is almost spiritual in nature.
Now, the glories of motherhood are perfectly consistent with professional opportunities and career ambitions. It is not one or the other; but one should come before the other! That is to say, before society can be made better through one's profession, it must first be made better first through one's parenting. Children and careers are blessings from God. But the care of our own children is the more important of the two.
Compared to Islamic and Protestant civilizations in the past, woman in Catholic countries enjoyed considerably more privileges and had an elevated station in the work force; especially during the Middle Ages and the Baroque period. Catholic women were not condemned to the “servility of kitchen duty” like many in academia would have us believe. No. Like St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Joan of Arc, women were found in high places in the Church and in the public square. But even the most ambitious and career-oriented women of this time period understood that the sublime calling of motherhood was of paramount importance. Raising children was widely considered to be a lofty and respectable vocation. As such, it was believed to be the very cornerstone of society.
In the absence of faith, however, the only two factors that lend themselves to higher fertility rates is poverty and illiteracy. In his book, How Civilizations Die, Goldman makes this very point.
Poor Muslim Nations:
“The only Muslim countries where women still give birth to seven or eight children are the poorest and least literate: Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Afghanistan.” Conversely, as for those Muslim nations that have been secularized, he says, “As soon as Muslims women break the constraints of traditional society, they have one child and sometimes two, but rarely three or four- and almost never six or seven children that their mothers bore.” These demographic and religious developments in Iran find a striking parallel in Turkey as well: “A third of the 88 percent-literate Turks never attend the mosque, according to the SVS polls, along with a quarter of 82 percent-literate Iranians…”
Yes, Muslims have made considerable gains by increasing their numbers, especially in Europe; but there are pockets in the Muslim world where this is not the case. The unique contribution of Goldman’s book is that he insists that Western Civilization, due to its wealth and resources, can better absorb a demographic winter (i.e. a childless future) than its Islamic counterparts. Don't get me wrong, the book How Civilizations Die sounds the alarm for the West too! To be sure, Japan, Russia and Europe are headed for some very difficult times ahead (As for America, there is still hope). But the difference is this: Whereas Westerners are unwilling to fight for their survival when they lose hope, Muslims, out of despair and desperation, are more willing to take others down with them. To use Goldman’s own words: “The real risk to world security is not the gradual triumph of Islam by demographic accretion, but an era of instability, social breakdown, and aggression impelled by despair.”
As stated, there are challenges ahead for Western Civilization and parts of the Middle East. The difference is that the Catholic Church still has some influence in the West. With her prophetic voice, anointed with the charism of infallibility, she can once again unashamedly proclaim the fullness of truth about sexuality, marriage and children. She can exhort husbands and wife to be generous with God in having many children. She can, from the highest levels of the Church, call attention to the closing of the Christian womb. No political authority, no social agency can open it again. Only faith and the grace that comes from God can open it.
