Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Iranian fertility

I found an article several weeks old--Sex, Drugs, and Islam--by Spengler in the Asian Times that makes some fascinating statements about Iran.
Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever.

A better explanation of Iran's population implosion is that the country has undergone an existential crisis comparable to encounters of Amazon or Inuit tribes with modernity. Traditional society demands submission to the collective. Once the external constraints are removed, its members can shift from the most extreme forms of modesty to the other extreme of sexual license. Khomeini's revolution attempted to retard the disintegration of Persian society, but it appears to have accelerated the process.

Theocracy subjects religion to a political test; it is hard for Iranians to repudiate the regime and remain pious, for religious piety and support for political Islam are inseparable, as a recent academic study documented from survey data.

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