The baby myth

A bit of badinage today to distract from bombastic political meanderings that are getting quite mundane. They are in fact becoming an irritant, as more and more covert actions are supposedly uncovered by the ever-efficient media, all of which end up nowhere. The rumour mongers, however, seem to be having a whale of a time. Most definitely, the pundits deserve encomiums for retaining audience interest in a trumpeted drive to eradicate corruption, especially when the results remain nebulous at best. At the end of the day (since the crowds are enamoured by hyperbole why not play to the audience), patron interest needs to be assuaged for this column to continue.
A video clip came come out a while ago on social media. It was quite amusing even then and had a rather sobering effect upon realising how convincing the power of the written word really is, especially when accompanied by officious graphs and maps. Those sceptical of the power of the written word were reminded that the entire western population continues to be completely controlled by signs and graphs. In the process of deleting the file during my recent ‘Operation computer clean-up’, a capricious neuron activity in the cerebellum became the catalyst for today’s exposition.
The video presentation has an apocalyptic sounding beginning, “The world is changing. The global culture our children will inherit will be vastly different than it is today. You are about to witness a report on the world’s changing demographics.” Upon the conclusion of the mesmerising presentation, it was absolutely clear that fundamentalist Christians were calling their civilisation to action against future Muslim babies. What is gut busting in its hilarity is the implicit weapon of war, which cannot be explained further because of the editor’s censorious inclination towards the subject.
Do not be surprised; no civilisation has a monopoly over fundamentalism and each has a burgeoning percentage of fundos. Unfortunately, however, for a variety of reasons only Muslim fundamentalism seems to have been getting the spotlight for the last few decades. Even in the video, the quote purported to have been uttered by the late Muammar Gaddafi gives an initial impression that the whole concept is a brainchild of the Muslims. “We do not need terrorists, we do not need suicide bombers. The 50 plus Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent in a few decades.” On the other hand, to launch a fresh conspiracy, maybe this quote caused the attack on Libya, contrary to the belief that the attack was part and parcel of the ongoing currency war or over oil, as some believe.
How exactly is this conquest planned? The presentation sombrely explains: “The German government, the first to talk about this openly, recently released a statement saying: ‘The fall in the population, can no longer be stopped. Its downward spiral is irreversible…It will be a Muslim state by the year 2050!’” Do not get fooled; the German government is probably not even aware that any such quote has been attributed to it; this should be treated as another warning against the tendency to naively believe the sensational written word without a meticulous verification of the source. Next time someone flashes official looking paper around on a talk show or tweets such extracts, carefully read the fine print before jumping to conclusions.
The Muslim population in Germany is currently around 4.8 million, which is roughly 5.8 percent of its total population of around 80.2 million. Even assuming an annual population growth rate of three percent for the Muslims in Germany, which would be a stretch of the imagination, the current population will increase to approximately 13 million in 35 years. Unless the rest of the population gets afflicted by a calamity, Germany becoming a Muslim state in 2050 is highly unlikely. For the record, Pakistan’s current annual population growth rate is around 1.6 percent. However, there has never been a reliable census in history and it is amazing how statisticians arrive at these demographics.
Emulating scientific research, the video bases its apparently impeccable conclusions on a more complex ratio that laymen are generally clueless about: the fertility rate. Wikipedia defines fertility rate as the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime. It would appear logical that if a woman does not have two children in her lifetime, the population would decline. But then the anomaly, as always, is China; with a one child per family policy for more than 25 years, why has its population not declined? Why has the world population too been increasing for that matter? Maybe people are living longer now and the impact will come in the long run, when as Keynes puts it, everyone is dead.
Finally, a part of the video is about Muslims migrating to Europe. Unless half the populations of Indonesia and Pakistan move to Europe and the Americas soon, the conquest of the west will need to be put on the back burner. A more detailed analysis might be required to refute and disprove all the assertions of the presentation but that would be a complete waste of time. On the other hand, a more sinister plot might be the Chinese taking over the world by having two babies per family. They already seem to have conquered the Islamabad golf club for one. And to venture a guess, in about a decade, there will be more Chinese in Balochistan than the natives.
Another specious claim bashed to oblivion; today the baby myth, tomorrow capitalism and, finally, democracy! But what about Huntington’s famous clash of civilisations, the theory that refuses to go away? The undercurrent force behind the video is this very clash. But I will leave that debate for another day. Although, at some point, there is a need to revisit the previous articles and eventually sit down to articulate deliberations on all subjects, which were shelved for the future. Dear readers, I hope everyone enjoyed this bit of frivolity. But this was actually also an allegory about jumping the bandwagon every time a new trumpet is blown without getting the facts right. If lists are being prepared and the corrupt will be taken to task, we will have to see it to believe it.

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. He can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com and on twitter @leaccountant