“Population problems are of extreme importance…they have a vital bearing on world peace.” So wrote Mgr Giovanni Battista Montini, then Secretary of State at the Vatican, later Pope Paul VI, in 1953, in a letter to the Twenty-Sixth Italian Catholic Social Week.
Most of the world agreed with this. Europe, Japan, China, most other countries in the Far East, and belatedly, most countries in Latin America have all acted to control their population growth. Slowly but surely, as populations stabilise, prosperity and peace are spreading, first in Europe, now in the Far East, soon in Latin America.
In one region of the world population problems remain and world peace is threatened. This region is Africa and the Middle East to Pakistan.
In 1950, according to the United Nations, the population of Africa plus the Middle East to Pakistan, leaving out Turkey, was 306 million. By 2000 the population was 1151 million. And by 2050, it is expected to be 2330 million. This unprecedented increase of 1000 million since 1950, with an estimated further 1000 million before 2050, inevitably causes widespread poverty and conflict, and world peace is threatened.
Unfortunately for these countries and for the world, this extremely important population problem is virtually never discussed. The reasons for this semi-taboo can be found at my website www.gerrydanaher.com under The Consensus on Population.