Macron, May & Merkel: Will Europe’s childless leaders halt demographic decline? By Iben Thranholm.
What do Macron, May, and Merkel have in common, apart from their neatly alliterative names and being leaders of Europe’s largest nations? They have no children. They are by no means exceptional, however, in this respect. Many European political leaders are childless.
The same is true of Holland’s Mark Rutte, Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni Switzerland’s Simonetta Sommaruga, Sweden’s Stefan Löfven, Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon.
Is it pure coincidence that these top European leaders are involuntarily childless? Possibly, but not very likely. In fact, they are a reflection of Europe and that continent’s lack of will to reproduce and place the family at the center, literally as well as culturally. This disturbing trend threatens to bring down Europe.
The other characteristic shared by childless leaders is their multicultural, globalist policies, replete with open borders, mass immigration, and the traditional family – at least that of Europeans – fragmented into atoms and replaced by an individualistic lifestyle. Families are increasingly becoming a pragmatic construction based on individual whim and preference. …
Feminism the culprit:
Europe’s leaders are undiluted products of a dominant feminist culture. …
A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that the number of young men in the US who want to marry has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. American author Suzanne Venker claims the pervasive cultural influence of feminism is the cause. Venker states that men explain their lack of desire to marry with the observation that “women are no longer women” and for this reason, men don’t feel like having a family with many kids. …
The feminist ideology views childbearing and children as an obstacle to self-realization. … Women who, like myself, grew up in the 1970s were brainwashed with the necessity to be independent of any man, and that abortion was every bit as natural as giving birth, if not more so. Feminism was largely successful in severing sex from reproduction. This was considered progressive, a step forward that liberated women from caring for their children, so they could join the labor market and realize themselves.
Feminism, however, now threatens to put an end to Europe. Birth rates are so low in most European countries that populations no longer reproduce.
The world’s childless leaders, those idols of globalism, share the trait that no loyalty binds them to family, nation state, culture, religion or tradition. …
Perhaps childless political leaders live out their need for exercising parental responsibility and self-sacrifice by inviting in migrants as a kind of adopted children. However, they completely disregard the fundamental and irreversible impact this will have on European culture. …
Parenthood teaches men and women alike to set aside themselves and make a sacrifice for another human being. This role is not part of the life experience of many European leaders. Neither have they any on whom to bequeath their culture. They act as individuals, on the basis of immediate benefit. …
Demography is destiny.
Against this barren and infertile Western culture stands Islamic culture, which places emphasis on family and having many children. Muslim women take pride in saving their virginity until marriage in which they foster many children. Turkish President Recep Erdogan recently called for all Turks residing in Europe to have five children each. This will make the future of Europe yours, he declared.
An imam, whose name I don’t recall, added at a dialogue meeting with priests: “You have democracy, but we have demography.” Islamists need not launch a military attack on Europe or use terrorism, because a couple of decades from now they will reign by the womb, by demographic proliferation, so to speak.
