Is Islamophobia Shaping US Policy in Middle East and South Asia?

As the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rolls out "Nakbah 2023", a former senior US diplomat has been caught on a viral video telling an Arab street food vendor in New York that the killing of 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza is "not enough". The video shows Stuart Seldowitz, who worked on the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under President Barack Obama, beginning by insulting Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the Holy Quran, and then goes on a hateful anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian tirade. Seldowitz also served as deputy director/senior political officer in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. This incident raises the question: Is Islamophobia shaping the US policy in the Middle East and South Asia regions? 

Stuart Seldowitz, Former US Senior National Security Official

US-Pakistan Ties:

US-Pakistan relations hit an all-time low during the Obama years when Stuart Seldowitz worked on the National Security Council South Asia Directorate. Did Seldowitz contribute to the downward spiral? Would the ties have tanked as rapidly and as far as they did if he wasn't there? Were there other Islamophobes in policy roles who caused it? Seldowitz's recent hateful comments about Muslims and Palestinians do raise all these questions. 

Nakba 2023:

"We're rolling out Nakba 2023", said Israeli government minister Avi Dichter, referring to  Israel's genocidal war on Gaza on November 12, 2023, according to Haaretz newspaper.  Nakbah, meaning catastrophe, is what the Palestinians call their forced removal from their homes and lands by violent Zionist militias in the 1940s. 

Since Dichter's statement about "rolling out Nakba 2023", another Israeli minister,  Gila Gamliel, has  explained in a Jerusalem Post op ed why Israel has made large parts of Gaza un-inhabitable. In her words, Israel wants to "promote the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the Strip."  

Palestine Partition Plan of 1937

The Nakba 1 happened in contravention of the Balfour Declaration on British support for a Jewish state in Palestine that clearly stated: "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Balfour Declaration. Source: Jewish Virtual Library

Settler Colonialism: 

What has followed the Balfour Declaration of 1917 is essentially settler colonialism. It is similar to the displacement of the indigenous populations and their replacement by Europeans in  places like America and Australia. It was endorsed by top British politicians like Winston Churchill.  

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Peel Commission in 1937, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

Zionist Psyche: 

How do Zionists like Stuart Seldowitz, Avi Dichter and Gila Gamliel think about what is going on in the Middle East? I wrote the following piece a couple of weeks ago to explain it: 

Zionists are "secular" but they use God as their "land agent" who gave them the "promised land", says Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University. Jews are God's "chosen people" who are exempt from the rules that apply to non-Jews, according to Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy. Israel is carrying out "ethnic cleansing … and that may become genocide”, adds Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov. "No, Palestinians did not commit acts of terrorism, Israel did", tweets Miko Peled, an ex IDF soldier and son of a former Israeli general. These few quotes summarize current thoughts of some of the former Zionists.  

Israel Turns Gaza into Rubble

Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy:

The core of Zionism is the "feeling of being chosen people" that is "deep rooted" in Israel. A consequence of it is that the rules and laws that apply to others do not apply to Israelis. Here's a quote from one of his speeches:   

"This is the core of Zionism. This feeling of chosen people is still very deep rooted in Israel. The consequence is that everything which refers to any other country in the world does not refer to Israel. That we are a special case. That international law should be implemented everywhere, but we are a different case. That a Molotov bottle against a Jewish soldier is not like a Molotov bottle against a Russian soldier because we are different, because we are chosen, because of this damned Jewish supremacy". 

On Israel's campaign of dehumanizing Palestinians, Levy says:

“My biggest struggle is to rehumanize the Palestinians. There’s a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and I’m a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that it’s very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us… So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard.”

Levy believes that the talk of the peace process and two-state solution is a scam perpetrated by Zionists. Here's Levy in his own words:   

"Now the real turning point should be, for us, the moment that each of us realize that the Israeli occupation is not a temporary phenomenon. I think that most of the people, if not all of them, understand that the occupation is there to stay. And Israel never had the slightest intention to put an end to it. All the efforts were only to mislead the West and to maintain the occupation. All this longest peace process in history, which never led to anywhere, was never aimed to lead to anywhere. All those efforts were only in order to mislead you and enable the occupation to grow, including Oslo". 

Professor Avi Shlaim:

Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim believes that Israel "prefers land to peace", adding that "land grabbing and peacemaking don't go together". Here's his exact quote:

"Land grabbing and peacemaking don’t go together, it’s one or the other, and by constantly expanding settlements, Israel showed that it prefers land to peace....Israel by its actions has shown that it is not interested in having a Palestinian partner for peace because it wants to maintain its control over the territory. Israel refuses to accept Hamas as a negotiating partner. Israel’s position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation – pure and simple. It will never negotiate with it. Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has been to let Hamas rule the Gaza Strip, but to contain the Gaza Strip, and this policy collapsed, because Gaza could not be contained."

Professor Omer Bartov:

Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has warned of "genocide" in Gaza. He has talked about "clear intention of ethnic cleansing" in the narrow strip of two million Palestinians under heavy bombardment by Israeli forces since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. Here's a quote from him:

"So, my sense is the following. Israeli political leaders and military leaders have made very startling and frightening statements about Gaza, speaking about flattening Gaza, speaking about Hamas, but by sort of extending it also, by extension, also Gazans, in general, as human animals, speaking about moving the entire population of Gaza out of Gaza. That is a clear intention of ethnic cleansing. So, those statements show intent. And that’s a genocidal intent, which is often very difficult to prove in genocide. People who carry out genocide don’t always want to say that they’re doing it". 

Former Israeli Soldier Miko Peled:

Miko Peled, whose father was a general in the IDF and who himself served in the Israeli military, says that Israel is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Talking about the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, he says that "Israel is behaving like a gangster who has been humiliated taking vengeance upon innocent civilians, killing thousands upon thousands". "It's not a question of self-defense, it's a question of brutality and revenge because Israel was humiliated", he adds in an interview on Al Jazeera English. 

Peled accuses Israel of lying about the October 7 attack. He said the testimony is now showing that most of the Israeli civilians on October 7 were killed by the Israeli helicopters firing indiscriminately.  He says the western governments who support Israel “are supporting the fight against justice, the fight against peace”.

Peled says that “liberal Zionism” is a myth and all forms of Zionism amount, in practice, to the denial of fundamental rights and freedoms for the Palestinian people. This process starts at a young age for Israeli children whose history textbooks claim that the Palestinians left their homes of their own free will, that they were not driven out by Jewish militias in the 1940s. These history books deny what the Palestinians call "Nakbah", meaning Great Catastrophe, that forced them to flee their homes as part of the Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse what is now Israel. 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Modi and Netanyahu: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Israel's Gaza Attack is Criminal, Not Defensive

Pictorial Review of Israel's Young Gaza Victims

American College Campuses Rise Up Against Israel's Genocidal War on Gaza

Israeli Settler Colonialism

India Promotes Half Truths About UNSC Kashmir Resolutions

Obama's Parting Shot Against Pakistan

Total, Extended Lockdown in Indian Occupied Kashmir

What is India Hiding From UN Human Rights Team?

Indian JNU Professor on Illegal Indian Occupation of Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland

Riaz Haq Youtube Channel

VPOS Youtube Channel

Israeli Scholars Provide Insights into Zionist Psyche

Zionists are "secular" but they use God as their "land agent" who gave them the "promised land", says Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University. Jews are God's "chosen people" who are exempt from the rules that apply to non-Jews, according to Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy. Israel is carrying out "ethnic cleansing … and that may become genocide”, adds Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov. "No, Palestinians did not commit acts of terrorism, Israel did", tweets Miko Peled, an ex IDF soldier and son of a former Israeli general. These few quotes summarize current thoughts of some of the former Zionists.  

Israel Turns Gaza into Rubble

Israeli author and journalist Gideon Levy:

The core of Zionism is the "feeling of being chosen people" that is "deep rooted" in Israel. A consequence of it is that the rules and laws that apply to others do not apply to Israelis. Here's a quote from one of his speeches:   

"This is the core of Zionism. This feeling of chosen people is still very deep rooted in Israel. The consequence is that everything which refers to any other country in the world does not refer to Israel. That we are a special case. That international law should be implemented everywhere, but we are a different case. That a Molotov bottle against a Jewish soldier is not like a Molotov bottle against a Russian soldier because we are different, because we are chosen, because of this damned Jewish supremacy". 

On Israel's campaign of dehumanizing Palestinians, Levy says:

“My biggest struggle is to rehumanize the Palestinians. There’s a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and I’m a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that it’s very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us… So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard.”

Levy believes that the talk of the peace process and two-state solution is a scam perpetrated by Zionists. Here's Levy in his own words:   

"Now the real turning point should be, for us, the moment that each of us realize that the Israeli occupation is not a temporary phenomenon. I think that most of the people, if not all of them, understand that the occupation is there to stay. And Israel never had the slightest intention to put an end to it. All the efforts were only to mislead the West and to maintain the occupation. All this longest peace process in history, which never led to anywhere, was never aimed to lead to anywhere. All those efforts were only in order to mislead you and enable the occupation to grow, including Oslo". 

Professor Avi Shlaim:

Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim believes that Israel "prefers land to peace", adding that "land grabbing and peacemaking don't go together". Here's his exact quote:

"Land grabbing and peacemaking don’t go together, it’s one or the other, and by constantly expanding settlements, Israel showed that it prefers land to peace....Israel by its actions has shown that it is not interested in having a Palestinian partner for peace because it wants to maintain its control over the territory. Israel refuses to accept Hamas as a negotiating partner. Israel’s position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation – pure and simple. It will never negotiate with it. Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has been to let Hamas rule the Gaza Strip, but to contain the Gaza Strip, and this policy collapsed, because Gaza could not be contained."

Professor Omer Bartov:

Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has warned of "genocide" in Gaza. He has talked about "clear intention of ethnic cleansing" in the narrow strip of two million Palestinians under heavy bombardment by Israeli forces since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. Here's a quote from him:

"So, my sense is the following. Israeli political leaders and military leaders have made very startling and frightening statements about Gaza, speaking about flattening Gaza, speaking about Hamas, but by sort of extending it also, by extension, also Gazans, in general, as human animals, speaking about moving the entire population of Gaza out of Gaza. That is a clear intention of ethnic cleansing. So, those statements show intent. And that’s a genocidal intent, which is often very difficult to prove in genocide. People who carry out genocide don’t always want to say that they’re doing it". 

Former Israeli Soldier Miko Peled:

Miko Peled, whose father was a general in the IDF and who himself served in the Israeli military, says that Israel is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Talking about the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, he says that "Israel is behaving like a gangster who has been humiliated taking vengeance upon innocent civilians, killing thousands upon thousands". "It's not a question of self-defense, it's a question of brutality and revenge because Israel was humiliated", he adds in an interview on Al Jazeera English. 

Peled accuses Israel of lying about the October 7 attack. He said the testimony is now showing that most of the Israeli civilians on October 7 were killed by the Israeli helicopters firing indiscriminately.  He says the western governments who support Israel “are supporting the fight against justice, the fight against peace”.

Peled says that “liberal Zionism” is a myth and all forms of Zionism amount, in practice, to the denial of fundamental rights and freedoms for the Palestinian people. This process starts at a young age for Israeli children whose history textbooks claim that the Palestinians left their homes of their own free will, that they were not driven out by Jewish militias in the 1940s. These history books deny what the Palestinians call "Nakbah", meaning Great Catastrophe, that forced them to flee their homes as part of the Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse what is now Israel. 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Modi and Netanyahu: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Israel's Gaza Attack is Criminal, Not Defensive

Pictorial Review of Israel's Young Gaza Victims

American College Campuses Rise Up Against Israel's Genocidal War on Gaza

Israeli Settler Colonialism

India Promotes Half Truths About UNSC Kashmir Resolutions

Pakistan-China-Russia Vs India-Japan-US

Total, Extended Lockdown in Indian Occupied Kashmir

What is India Hiding From UN Human Rights Team?

Indian JNU Professor on Illegal Indian Occupation of Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland

Riaz Haq Youtube Channel

VPOS Youtube Channel

Mascarenhas' 1971 "GENOCIDE" Story Biased All Media Coverage of East Pakistan

Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas' sensational story headlined "GENOCIDE", published by London's Sunday Times on June 13 1971,  had a profound effect on all subsequent media coverage of East Pakistan, according to veteran BBC South Asia correspondent Mark Tully.

Mascarenhas (1928-1986) worked for "Morning News", a Karachi-based English language daily, when he was sent to report on East Pakistan in 1971. It's not clear how he ended up reporting for Sunday Times (now owned by Rupert Murdoch) but it's known that he and his family moved to take up residence in England before the publication of his "GENOCIDE" story. Here's how the BBC reported it: "Pretending he was visiting his sick sister, Mascarenhas then travelled to London, where he headed straight to the Sunday Times and the editor's office".

In a radio interview, Tully said in Urdu: "There are still significant questions in my mind as to whether the media coverage of Pakistani military crackdown in 1971 was balanced.....it (balanced coverage) became especially difficult after the Mascarenhas' exclusive dispatch (headlined "Genocide") published in The Sunday Times".

Mascarenhas'  "Genocide" story was accepted on face value and widely disseminated by major western and Indian media outlets without any verification or fact-checks. Decades later, Sarmila Bose, an Indian journalist and scholar, finally scrutinized the story and found it to be "entirely inaccurate".

 Bose's investigation of the 1971 Bangladeshi narrative began when she saw a picture of the Jessore massacre of April 2, 1971. It showed "bodies lie strewn on the ground. All are adult men, in civilian clothes....The caption of the photo is just as grim as its content: "April 2, 1971: Genocide by the Pakistan Occupation Force at Jessore."  Upon closer examination, Bose found that "some of the Jessore bodies were dressed in shalwar kameez ' an indication that they were either West Pakistanis or ‘Biharis’, the non-Bengali East Pakistanis who had migrated from northern India". In Bose's book "Dead Reckoning" she has done case-by-case body count estimates that lead her in the end to estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were killed on all sides, including Bengalis, Biharis, West Pakistanis and others, in 1971 war.

Here are the relevant excepts on the Mascarenhas story in Sarmila Bose's Dead Reckoning:

On Page 10: "An interesting example is Anthony Mascarenhas' famous report in Sunday Times published on 13 June 1971. His eyewitness description from Comilla of how a Bengali, especially a Hindu, could have his life snuffed out at the whim of a single army officer serves as a powerful indictment of the military action, but his description of the army's attack on the Hindu area of Shankharipara in old Dhaka on 25-26 March--where he was not present--given without citing any source and turns out to be entirely inaccurate according to the information obtained from my interviews with survivors of Shakharipara".

On Page 73: "In his (Mascarenhas') book that followed his report in the Sunday Times condemning the military crackdown in East Pakistan, Anthony Mascarenhas wrote ," In Shankaripatti an estimated 8000 men, women and children were killed when the army, having blocked both ends of the winding street, hunted down house by house:". This is not an eyewitness account, as Mascarenhas was not there, and he does not cite any sources for his information---which in this case s totally wrong in all aspects. Mascarenhas' reports, like many foreign press reports in 1971, are a mixture of reliable and unreliable information, depending on where the reporter is faithfully reporting what he has actually seen or is merely writing an uncorroborated version of what someone else has told him.......According to survivors of Shankharipara, the army did not go house to house. They entered only one house, Number 52".

Aided and abetted by the Indian and western media with stories like Mascarenhas', the Bangladeshi Nationalists led by the Awami League have concocted and promoted elaborate myths about the events surrounding Pakistan's defeat in December 1971.

Sheikh Mujib's daughter and current Bangladesh Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina alleges "colonial exploitation" of Bengalis by Pakistan and "Bengali genocide" by the Pakistan Army. They claim economic disparities between East and West Pakistan as the main cause of their "war of independence" in which "Pakistan Army killed 3 million Bangladeshis".

Let's examine the Bangladeshi claims on the basis of real facts and data known today as follows:

1. The per capita income in West Pakistan was 60% higher than in East Pakistan in 1971. But they never tell you that the per capita income in East Pakistan was higher than in West Bengal and India. They also don't tell you that the ratio of per capita incomes between Bangladesh and Pakistan has changed little in the last four decades since "independence'.

Per Capita Incomes Source: World Bank

2.  Bangladeshi nationalists claims that "three million people were killed, nearly quarter million women were raped". These claims have failed the scrutiny of the only serious scholarly researcher Sarmila Bose ever done into the subject.  Bose's investigation of the 1971 Bangladeshi narrative began when she saw a picture of the Jessore massacre of April 2, 1971. It showed "bodies lie strewn on the ground. All are adult men, in civilian clothes....The caption of the photo is just as grim as its content: "April 2, 1971: Genocide by the Pakistan Occupation Force at Jessore."  Upon closer examination, Bose found that "some of the Jessore bodies were dressed in shalwar kameez ' an indication that they were either West Pakistanis or ‘Biharis’, the non-Bengali East Pakistanis who had migrated from northern India". In Bose's book "Dead Reckoning" she has done case-by-case body count estimates that lead her in the end to estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were killed on all sides, including Bengalis, Biharis, West Pakistanis and others, in 1971 war.

3. Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury, a Bengali nationalist who actively participated in the separatist cause, in his publication "Behind the Myth of 3 Million", challenges the falsehood. Citing an extensive range of sources to show that what the Pakistani army was carrying out in East Pakistan was a limited counter-insurgency, not genocide, the scholar discloses that after the creation of Bangladesh, the new de facto government offered to pay Taka 2,000 to every family that suffered loss of life but only 3,000 families claimed such compensation. Had there been three million Bengalis dead, a lot more of such families would have come forward. The actual fighting force of Pakistan was 40,000 not 93,000. They were given the responsibility to maintain law and order and protect civilians from the India-backed insurgents of Mukti Bahini. India's Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw praised the professionalism and gallantry of Pakistani soldiers facing the Indian Army's 50:1 advantage in the 1971 war.

4. Now declassified US State Department transcript of an April 6, 1971 conversation between then Secretary of State William Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger reveals that the US diplomats in Dhaka were also misled by false media reports of mass graves. Kissinger told Rogers that a reported mass grave of 1,000 dead Bengali victims of "genocide" turned out to be baseless.

Recent books and speeches by Indian officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ex top RAW officials, confirm what Pakistanis have known all along: India orchestrated the East Pakistan insurgency and then invaded East Pakistan to break up Pakistan in December 1971.  Unfair and inaccurate media coverage payed a large role in helping India succeed.

Here's Sarmila Bose, the author of "Dead Reckoning" on the events of 1971:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OihBdcLvETA




Here's a video of Indian Army Chief Field Marshal Manekshaw talking about Pakistan Army in 1971 War:

https://vimeo.com/55461334



Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw on Pakistan Army's gallantry in 1971 War from cherie22579 on Vimeo.


What Happened in East Pakistan (Yuri Bezmenov Former KGB Psychological Warfare Expert). Yuri Bezmenov ex KGB Psychological Warfare Expert Explains What Happened in East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) in This Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bb_fXONk2Y



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

India's Water Plans Alarm Bangladeshis

Ex Indian Spy Documents RAW's Successes in Pakistan

Shaikh Hasina's Witch Hunt

Bangladesh and Pakistan Compared

Economic Disparity Between East and West Pakistan

Is this a 1971 Moment in Pakistan's History? 

India's Hostility Toward Pakistan

Girl Feticide in Chindia Cuts Population Growth

The last century saw the largest total population increase ever in the history of the world. At the start of the twentieth century, there were 1.6 billion people, according to Gaia Watch. At the end there were 6.1 billion people. However, the total fertility rates in the world are now rapidly declining; it is happening in America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. With increasing urbanization and rapid economic growth, there are tremendous pressures being felt to reduce the family size in the emerging economies of the world. And it's a trend often missed by the casual consumer of frequent sensational media stories warning us about "the population bomb". Dramatic increase in female Genocide or gendercide—the title of a 1985 book by Mary Anne Warren—is seen as an unintended consequence of pressure to have smaller families in countries like India and China.



As we are constantly bombarded by such stories and arguments about the the dangers of increasing world population, let's consider the following: Is it necessarily a good thing that the fertility rates are reaching sub-replacement levels of less than 2.2 in many nations of the developing and the developed world? Why are the disappearing daughters in India and China bearing the brunt of this decline? How will this heavily skewed male-female ratio impact social stability and economics in the largest Asian nations? What will be the impact of declining fertility rates on the welfare states in Europe? How will different nations cope with the consequences of fewer workers and aging populations? Who will pay the taxes to cover the escalating costs of caring for the elderly? Will the elderly be required to work well beyond the prevailing retirement age? Or will it be the new immigrants who will join the work force to pay to sustain the welfare states in Western Europe? Before answering these questions, let us look at what is happening to the world population today.



Fertility rates are declining, and the baby girls are paying the heaviest price in the rapidly unfolding tragedy of female genocide. This is particularly true for the most populous Asian nations of India and China, with the pressure to have small families combined with the ancient preference for male children. Add to that the widespread availability and affordability of ultrasound scan technology used to determine fetus gender, and you see all of the ingredients of a "gendercide" that, according to the Economist magazine, is responsible for 100 million missing baby girls in the world today.

Here's how the Economist magazine puts the issue of "gendercide" in its recent issue: "For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale". It is estimated that at least 50 million Indian girls have been aborted in recent years, partly contributing to the decline in India's fertility rate from 3.11 to 2.81 children per woman in the last decade. China's TFR has actually increase slightly from 1.70 to 1.73 during the same period. To put it in perspective, the world average TFR declined from 2.65 to 2.55 children per woman from 2000 to 2009.



Among the consequences of more boys than girls in society, the Economist story on gendercide points out rising social instability in parts of the developing world. It explains, "Throughout human history, young men have been responsible for the vast preponderance of crime and violence—especially single men in countries where status and social acceptance depend on being married and having children, as it does in China and India. A rising population of frustrated single men spells trouble."

The list of countries and territories where the total fertility rate has dropped below sub-replacement level is long, and it extends beyond Europe and Asia into the conservative Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. Of the 195 countries and territories listed on the UN TFR ranking, 85 have fertility rates of less than 2.2, considered an acceptable replacement level. Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation by population, has sub-replacement fertility level of 2.18, and it is declining. Turkey is at 2.14; Tunisia is at 1.93; Iran is at 2.04, slightly lower than the US's 2.05.

With increasing urbanization, Pakistan's population growth rate has declined from 2.17% in 2000 to 1.9% in 2008. Based on PAI Research Commentary by Karen Hardee and Elizabeth Leahy, the total fertility rate (TFR) in Pakistan is still the highest in South Asia at 4.0 children per woman. Women in urban areas have an average of 3.3 children compared to their rural counterparts, who have an average of 4.5 children. The overall fertility rate has been cut in half from about 8 children per woman in 1960s to about 4 in the last decade, according to a study published in 2009.

In a book titled "The Empty Cradle", the author Phillip Longman warns that the declining birth rates around the world will cause many social and economic problems. As a consequence of declining fertility, by 2050 the population of Europe will have fallen to what it was in 1950. Longman says this is happening all around the world: Women are having fewer children. It's happening in Brazil, it's happening in China, India and Japan. It's even happening in the Middle East. Wherever there is rapid urbanization, education for women and visions of urban affluence, birthrates are falling, disproportionately cutting female births in some of the most populous nations such as India and China. Having and raising children is seen as an expense and a burden.

"So we have a "free rider" problem. You don't need to have children to provide for your old age -- but the pension systems need them." Says Longman, referring to the coming Social Security crunch as the number of retired people rises faster than the number of workers.

In addition to outsourcing in Asia, America is relying increasingly on immigration from the developing world to fill its jobs, according to report in Daily Mail. The nation is reaching a "tipping point" when the babies born to minority parents outnumber whites for the first time. More white women than ever before are postponing having children until they are older, while minority mothers are still having babies at younger ages, according to a US study published recently.

Europeans are also starting to face the problems stemming from their declining birth rates and aging populations on the solvency of their pension systems, and the need to increase immigration from the developing world to fill the jobs in their domestic economies. Some of the European corporations are choosing to move jobs to developing nations, which cuts their costs but also reduces government revenue. Both of these options are causing backlash against immigrants, and fueling protectionist policies against trading partners.

Looking to the future, it is quite easy to see the rapidly declining worldwide birth rates, and it is important to recognize the impact of this trend on national economies, global trade, immigration policies, social structures, and politics around the world. Instead of continuing to harp on the potential adverse effects of the "population bomb", the mass media need to balance the conversation by highlighting the negative effects of the ongoing baby bust.

Here's a video clip about the wanton destruction and dumping of female fetuses in India:




Related Link:

Do Urban Slums Offer Hope?

Pakistan Most Urbanized in South Asia
Sub-replacement Fertility Rates

Female Genocide Unfolding in India

Missing: 50 Million Indian Girls

Population Growth and Migration

The Empty Cradle By Phillip Longman

Demographics Trend Favor Muslims in the West?

Female Genocide Unfolding in India

The land of former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi is killing its daughters by the millions. Economically resurgent India is witnessing a rapid unfolding of a female genocide in the making across all castes and classes, including the upper caste rich and the educated. The situation is particularly alarming among upper-caste Hindus in some of the urban areas of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, specially in parts of Punjab, where there are only 300 girls for every 1,000 boys, according to Laura Turquet, ActionAid's women's rights policy official.



ActionAid collaborated with Canada's International Development Research Center (IDRC) to conduct research and produced a report called "Disappearing Daughters".

The report cites findings from sites across five states in north and northwest India reveal that the sex ratio of girls to boys has not only worsened but is accelerating compared to the last national census in 2001. One of the reasons for this accelerated rate of female feticide is the abuse of ultrasound technology to determine the gender of the unborn. The purveyors of the ultrasound business in every city, town and village of India entice parents by telling them to "spend 500 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later.” The cost of the ultrasound scan is Rs. 500 and the required dowry for marrying daughters off exceeds Rs. 50,000.00.

And everywhere else, with the exception of Rajasthan, already low figures are continuing to slide. Even in Rajasthan, the proportion of girls is well below what should be the norm of around 950 girls born for every 1000 boys.

ActionAid has also found that girls are more likely to be born but less likely to survive in areas with more limited access to public health services and modern ultrasound technology. In rural Morena and Dhaulpur, deliberate neglect of girls, including allowing the umbilical cord to become infected, is used as a way to dispose of unwanted daughters.

Such neglect ensures fewer surviving daughters, with the best chances of being born and surviving as a girl depending on the birth order in your family.

All survey sites showed a decline in the proportion of girls among second-born children. And in three of the survey sites, for every 1000 third-born boys, there were fewer than 750 girls.

The problem of female infanticide is not just limited to the states in Northern India. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, female infanticide is so frequent that all second daughters are known as "the girl born for the burial pit", according to a documentary produced by ABC Australia.

The Indian diaspora is not immune from the cultural bias against female children, either. The male-female ratios of British Indians are also getting increasingly skewed in favor of male children. Since the 1970s, the at-birth male-female ratio of British Indians has dramatically change from 103:100 to 114.4:100, excluding the birth of the first or the second child.


Here are the latest statistics from the CIA's The World Factbook on male-female ratios at-birth in India, Pakistan and selected nations:

India at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.1 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.9 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

China at birth: 1.1 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

Pakistan at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.88 male(s)/female
total population: 1.04 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

United Kingdom
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.76 male(s)/female
total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

United States
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2009 est.)


The at-birth male-female ratios in Pakistan are comparable to most of the rest of the world, including the West, but the Indian ratios are the worst in the world. In spite of China's one child policy, the ratios in China are better than India's.

India Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh, who has three daughters, has recognized the accelerating horror of female genocide in India. In response, he has launched the “Save the Girl Child” campaign. He has said that no nation could claim to be part of a civilized world if it condoned female feticide. An estimated 50 million girls have been sacrificed because of son preference.

"Census figures illustrate that in some of the richer states the problem is most acute. These states include Punjab which had only 798 girls (per 1,000 boys), Haryana 819, Delhi 868 and Gujarat 883 girls in the 2001 Census. Growing economic prosperity and education levels have not led to a corresponding mitigation in this acute problem," he said.

"Female illiteracy, obscurantist social practices like child marriage or early marriage, dowry, poor nutritional entitlements, taboos on women in public places make Indian women vulnerable. The patriarchal mindset and preference for male children is compounded by unethical conduct on the part of some medical practitioners," Mr. Singh said.

When the facts of this tragedy are brought up, many defensive Indians offer the examples of famous Indian women like Indra Nooyi, Kalpana Chawla, Saina Nehwal, Kalpana Morparia, Sunita Williams and Naina Lal, and ask how India is still able to produce such women of accomplishment with growing female infanticides. Instead of looking at the accomplished middle-aged Indian women, Indians should compare the at-birth male-female ratios and worry about the fact that India is now killing future Indra Nooyis.

If this female genocide continues unabated, India's male-female ratio will be so badly skewed in a decade or two that girls' families will start demanding dowry to marry off their daughters, representing a fundamental shift in the balance of power. And the contributions of the well-educated and economically string girls will earn new respect by the male-dominated Indian society.

The first step toward correcting a problem is to acknowledge it, as India's prime minister has done. But legislation alone will not help. As early as 1795, female infanticide was declared murder by the initiative of John Duncan, the British East India Company's resident in Benares, according to Dharma Kumar. But the enforcement has been extremely difficult. The key is to couple stricter enforcement with grassroots education effort to change Indian society.

My sincere hope is that men of honor and goodwill such as Manmohan Singh will step up their national campaign to stop this ongoing female genocide in India before it's too late.

Here are a couple of video clips about India's female genocide:




Related Links:

Status of Women in Pakistan

A Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change

"Disappearing Daughters"

The World Factbook

India's Save a Girl Child Campaign