Reply #22: Correct [View All]

[bemildred]

It the "win" means control of the Israeli state. That has already happened. Win in the larger geo-political context, I very much doubt, unless the Deity does indeed come down at the correct time and set things right.

I will quote from Emmanuel Todd (2002, "After the Empire", English translation):

"A study of birth rates shows that the Muslim world, at least as a demographic block, does not exist. Among Muslim countries one notices the greatest divergence of birth rates from 2.0 births per woman in Azerbaijan to 7.5 in Niger. The Islamic world is a microcosm of the transitions of so-called Third World countries around the globe. The former Soviet republics in the Caucasus region and in Central Asia gained high literacy levels under Commununism, and are therefore in the lead with birth rates of 2.0 for Azerbaijan and 2.7 for Uzbekistan. Tunisia is quite far along with a rate of 2.3, which is lower than the 3.1 one finds in Algeria or 3.4 in Morocco. In general the Mahgreb region colonized by France has lowered its birth rate faster than other areas of the Middle East that constitute the heart of the Arab World and were less directly influenced by the colonial hand of Europe.

---

Non-Arab Muslim countries such as Turkey, at 2.5 in 2001, and Iran at 2.1 in 2002, though never colonized, have nearly achieved their demographic transition. If one looks even further from the Arab World to countries with more recent islamic traditions, one notices that Indonesia and Malaysia have also nearly completed their demographic transitions with birth rates in 2001 of 2.7 and 3.2 respectively.

In a certain number of Muslim countries, the control over reproduction is just beginning and one notices many birth rates remain above five, such as Iraq (5.6), Pakistan (5.7), Saudi Arabia (5.8), and Nigeria (5.8). The high birth rate of Palestine (5.9) is a sociological and historical anomaly - combat reproduction linked to the occupation - for which an analogous situation can also be noted in the Jewish population of Israel whose high birth rate is the exception among highly educated Western societies. The statistical evidence shows clear divisions within the Jewish population, since nonpracticing Jews and religiously moderate Jews show a birth rate of 2.4 while the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox show a birth rate of 5.0, an increase, in fact, over the 1981 birth rate.

There are still a number of Muslim countries where the demographic changes have not really happened yet, and one notices birth rates above six per woman, such as Afghanistan (6), Mauritania (6), Mali (7), Somalia (7.3) and Niger (7.5). However the rise in literacy rates in these countries guarantees that they will follow the same path as the rest of the world towards mastery of their own reproduction."