Recently, radio-netherlands, after tongue-in-cheek warning
politically correct listners to 'switch-off', broadcast the findings
of 40 years of a demographic researcher.
The demographics researcher told [as I recall]:
* young men are [evolutionarily determined] to be fighters
between 15 to 30 years of age;
* throughout history when societies have had a surplus of
young men with few life-op****tunities -- because only
one son can inherit the farm -- they have served as cannon
fodder;
* in N.African: eg. Algeria & Tunis the previous demographics of
6 & 7 children has dropped to 1.7, although the Arab women
from N. Africa who have emigrated to France still have big
families, because there they can live on welfare, which they
couldn't do in N. Africa;
* that the demographic time-bomb of big families has decreased
across the whole of the arab world, except for Palestine
[territories] because the europeans pay welfare money for
Palestinian children, and that consequently the Palestinian
young are the most educated arabs in the world, but with little
hope of finding employment, hence frustrated and agressive.
Since this researcher from Bremen university told other relevant
facts, which all resonated well with me, I've tried to locate his
publications via google. One seems to be:-
> http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflicts/democracy_terror/
> islamism_war_demographics_rage
> ---
> If Afghanistan's "unlimited reservoir of fresh fighters" cannot be
> located in its burial-grounds, could its maternity wards provide a
> clue to the difference between central Asia and north Africa? Could it
> be that the crucial difference is the relative birth-rate? As early as
> 1990, Tunisia's total fertility rate fell below four children per
> woman. Today, total fertility in Tunisia stands at 1.74, close to
> Canada's 1.61. In Afghanistan, however, the [95]birth-rate is four
> times higher than in Tunisia and shows no sign of abating.
>
> War's supply-side
>
> Since 2002, I have been warning that the increasing turmoil in
> Afghanistan is due to factors other than religious fanaticism or
> abject poverty. Those factors have always been there - and in times
> when there was no substantial civil insurrection. Instead, the blame
> should be placed on Afghanistan's [96]baby-boom, which has created
> half a century of "youth bulges" in the country's population. The
> study of history shows clearly that when 30% or more of a nation's
> male inhabitants are in the 15-29 age bracket, the result is chaos,
> violence and upheaval.
>
> Between 1916 (6.4 million people) and 1940 (7.5 million people),
> Afghanistan's population was hardly growing ([97]see Table 1). Then,
> between 1950 and 2006, the population of Afghanistan suddenly
> quadrupled, exploding from 8 million to 32 million. In 2006, out of a
> total of 15.3 million males, 4.12 million are between 15 and 29 years
> old.---
> In the coming decades, close to 500,000 Afghani males will reach
> fighting age each year. Almost all of these young men want to prove
> themselves in the traditional warrior spirit of their homeland. Since
> 1945, every Afghan father who has retired from the battlefield has
> left his unfinished fighting to three or four sons. Almost none of
> these sons can find a legal job, i.e. in [98]opium-free agriculture or
> within the army and police units financed with western money. But
> these aid measures continue to provide better food, education, and
> medical care than ever.
>
> This is a marvellous humanitarian achievement. Yet, no combination
> could be more explosive. Peace activists promise that the victory over
> hunger will also bring victory over war, and triumph for democracy.
> [99]Youth-bulge research, however, shows again and again that when
> hunger is not an overwhelming issue and jobs remain scarce, the
> killing starts in earnest. Why? Because humanitarian measures have
> made millions of sons stronger and better educated. It is easy to
> multiply rice bowls and textbooks. It is impossible to do the same
> with careers. Moreover, for bread, people will beg; for positions in
> society, they will fight. And fighting offers a tempting choice for
> some 350,000 angry young men out of the half million coming of
> age every year.
=================
This view agrees with that of a UK comentator who told "you will
never beat the Afghanis because they love to battle, even more than
europeans like a good game of football !
=================
> The young divided themselves between guerrillas
> for freedom and soldiers for the law.
This is a bit like new-South Africa, where half work as criminals
and the other half get jobs as 'security guards'.
========
Of course he had relevant comments on African demographics.
IMO demographics is the single most im****tant socio-economic
determining factor. Also eg. the once in millenium/S chinese
sudden dependency-ratio drop, due to the age-buldge moving
into the most productive age, as a result of the one-child
policy, before it moves into the oldies-age like germany
and japan.
== Chris Glur.
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