Popoli – 09/1994
UN – Population Conference, Cairo
Parish Bulletin
One of our parishioners, born in Egypt of Syrian-Lebanese parents of Catholic faith and profound knowledge of the Arab world, participated as an observer on behalf of some publishers in the recent “International Conference on Population and Development” held in Cairo. He reported these interesting impressions that we offer to our readers’ attention.
Cairo, September 1994.
Impressions of an Observer
The UN recognizing the growing interdependence between world population, development and the environment has called for an “Inter National Conference on Population and Development” to adopt appropriate macro / socio-economic policies to promote growth in the context of population problems. In essence, to trace the fundamental lines in order to contain the demographic growth of the next 20 years in the world.
Three thousand five hundred delegates from 182 countries, five thousand members of four hundred non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and three thousand eight hundred journalists intervened in Cairo, around fifteen thousand in all, including the logistics with equally active security personnel
The Conference was an opportunity to verify the enormous difference in mentality that exists between economically more developed countries and the rest of the world. The former come from a long history of socio-economic, demographic and military revolutions and consume 75% of the world resources available, even though they represent only 20% of the world population.
In their eyes, the third world is guilty of developing insufficient economic resources to sustain its demographic growth, and thereby cause unbridled emigration to relatively “rich” countries. The first version of the document presented to the delegates proposed, in practice, to reduce the birth rate growth of the population in developing countries using for this purpose, a large part of the economic aid approved as a lever to incentivize the poorest people to conform to this understanding. Many delegates of the developing countries indicated that they will apply the decisions of the Conference only if they are compatible with their traditions, culture and religions.
At the conference, The Vatican (to which the countries of Latin America, Africa and the block of Islamic countries joined) was the protagonist of the defense of human values and family. The Vatican delegate exclaimed “we have come to a de-Christianized Europe”. The ambassador of Iran and other Islamic countries have expressed their intention, for the future, to agree to adopt a common and unitary policy towards all the problems that touch the human race, declaring that in the Koran and the Sharia (Islamic laws) it is find solutions to population problems.
The question remains: What does the future hold? Will the block of Islamic countries will be the bulwark of defending Christian life and values?
At the Conference I met various Christian communities among which I found a great and participatory devotion to an extent, I would say almost, inversely proportional to their economic well-being. The Christian people in their respective churches followed the religious functions and the sermons that connected the gospel of the day to daily life very carefully
I also met many Islamic exponents from the secular and university world who welcomed me with great cordiality, sincerely and unanimously convinced to consider friendship and faith in God as an indispensable premise for trying to solve problems among men. Fundamentalism, in their opinion, is the result of the misery, ignorance and constant disillusionment suffered by the Islamic people and originated from the various governmental regimes that succeeded one another in the twentieth century, without forgetting, then, the Israeli Palestinian conflict that is a red hot button in the whole region
The Islamic people seek in the Koran and in religion the certainty for the future and the answer to its still unsolved problems. They are also unanimous in favorably considering the emigration of young people seeking the solution to their economic problems in the West: They see these young people as valid pawns of Islamic expansion because, through the conclusion of mixed marriages (with Christian girls who become Muslims ) they realize the islamization of the European family.
Giuseppe Samir Eid
Free web translation from the original in Italian
The published articles intend to provide the tools for a social inclusion of the migratory flow, shed light on human rights and the condition of life of Christians in the Islamic world from which the author come from. Knowledge of the other, of cultural and religious differences are primary ingredients to create peace in the hearts of men everywhere, a prerequisite for a peaceful coexistence and convinced citizenship in the territory.