“Who would have guessed that a constellation of formerly atheistic, Communist countries would become the vanguard of the family?”
(Samuel Hammond writing at National Review)
It isn’t just in Hungary either. In Poland and especially in Russia the push is on to encourage marriage and then the all important follow-up—more babies!
Why? They want to produce their own replacements and stop the flood of third world migrant workers that globalist corporations say are needed to keep the economy humming. Never mind that the migrants have no interest in maintaining Hungarian, Polish or Russian culture (even if they work and don’t depend on welfare payments).
I guess you can tell, I love this guy—Viktor Orban—because he has no fear of telling the truth.
And, this subject interests me because in the 1970’s I was steeped in this idea that no family should have more than two children in order to save the planet. But, guess what, only white educated young people listened.
And, in fact, no one I ever knew made any serious effort to tell it to those in the Middle East and Africa especially where Muslims were pushing their people to produce babies for Allah and to migrate.
Here is a detailed account at National Review of what, first Hungary is doing to boost its population, and what is happening in Russia and Poland to do the same.
It strikes me that a renewed focus on American family-building might be something Donald Trump should incorporate into his campaign message.
Surely you knew that the US birthrate is now below replacement levels.
Born in Hungary
(Emphasis below is mine)
From dubbing refugees from North Africa and the Middle East “Muslim invaders” to proclaiming Hungary a Christian homeland, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is prominent mainly for his brand of right-wing populist nationalism. Yet behind the vitriol that defines Orban in the Western press is a government embarked on what may end up being the biggest natalist policy experiment in modern history — an experiment that is redefining the possibilities for modern social conservatism. Can government policies coax people to have more babies? We’re about to find out.
Demographic transition — the shift from having many children per woman to just a few — is normally something hoped for in a developing country as a signal of improvements in employment opportunities and infant mortality. Yet across the developed world, birth rates have continued to fall and now dip significantly below replacement levels. It’s a phenomenon that is particularly acute in the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, but it has been exacerbated by emigration to richer parts of Europe. In Hungary’s case, a country of 9.8 million has lost approximately 1 million people since its population peaked in 1980.
Speaking at the World Congress of Families in Budapest last year, Orban unveiled an “action plan” for goosing Hungary’s birth rate of 1.5 children per woman to 2.1, the normal replacement rate, by 2030, thus turning the demographic tide. “Europe, our common homeland, is losing out in the population competition between great civilizations,” he told the audience of Christian conservatives. “Fewer and fewer marriages are producing fewer and fewer children, and the population is therefore aging and declining.”
Author Hammond here gives us a lengthy detailed report of how certain countries are attempting to increase birth rates and then wraps with this:
Nonetheless, American social conservatives have a lot to learn from Eastern Europe’s experience with family policy. Despite conservative successes on the Supreme Court, progressive cultural ascendancy — from the crystallization of gay marriage and abortion rights to the ubiquity of race and gender politics — has left many traditionalists feeling beleaguered, without an agenda, and pining for a monastic life off the grid.
Meanwhile, though the jury is still out on Hungary’s birth rate, between 2010 and 2016 marriage rates increased 46 percent after declining over the previous decade.
Official statistics clearly show, in a trend that predated Orban, that reported abortions have dropped by more than a quarter over the same period, reaching historic lows. Is it so unreasonable to think that generous financial support and the cultural celebration of new mothers and their children had something to do with it?
With Trump’s presidency creating political disequilibrium where established party coalitions once stood, America’s social conservatives — from working-class families to cultural Catholics — have a roadmap for renewed relevance.
Go here to read more about Hungary, and here for my ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.
Endnote: So when is Donald Trump going to invite Viktor Orban to the White House? Waiting!