Capitalism, Population Control and the Culture of Death

By Achike Chude

I read Dr. Alex Otti’s article published on the back page of  THISDAY Newspaper  of September with great gusto.  Therefore I feel obliged to join issue with Dr. Otti in his said article with the alluring title: ‘Aren`t We Too Many? because the issues he raised therein are vital to our developmental processes. I must begin by stating that those who set the rules for today`s population debate were very smart.

They were deep thinkers also, but most important, they were capitalists. The capitalists do not live in the past but in the future. That is why they are so good at what they do – making money. And money is the real, true god. The other God, who is supposed to have created the world gets in the way much too often. Therefore, to advance the ends of capitalism, that God  has to go. It doesn’t matter if He is the God of the Christians, or the Muslims or the Hindus or the Shintoists. He might even be the God of our ancestors or of the numerous peoples straddled across the human landscape. Afterall, the great philosopher,Frederick Nietzche had proclaimed years ago,  “Dieu  est mort et tout est permis” (God is dead and everything is permissible). He has to be gotten rid of so that humanity can move in the direction put forward by the ‘wisest, the most influential, the most sophisticated,the most wealthy and the most powerfulof the human race’.

Charles Darwin the proponent of `survival of the fittest’ has been re-invented and Hitler`s concept of the ‘super race` has at least undergone some modification to bring it in tune with the temperaments and demands of the modern era. To the capitalists therefore,the values that a theocentric world view brings to humanity is unwholesometo a `proper’ more `pragmatic’ world view that places man at the epicenter of creation and the pinnacle of human activity.  Such a god–focused worldview that would constantly take its bearing from the transcendental order would naturally place limitations in the part of man`s insatiable lust to outdo himself in the Darwinian human construct.

The population debate has raged for ages as the struggle for the advancement of the quality of life of the human person has intensified. This battle has magnified even in the midst of the contradictions of about five percent of people across countries and continents, owning close to ninety five percent of the resources of their entire geo-political spaces. Reference is here made to the ‘Aren`t We Too Many?’ THISDAY back page article of September 4th 2017 by the very accomplished ex-banker and former governorship candidate of Abia State,  Otti. Perhaps, in the absence of both protagonist and antagonist in the debate, . Otti, a first class graduate from the University of Port-Harcourt  as well as a recipient of numerous other international certifications played both postulator and devil`s advocate in the said article. Still you can`t help but get the feeling that while he was sensitive to religious and cultural nuances of the people, the economist in him naturally tilted towards the line of population control but not without advancing very strong reasons.

Fighting the cause of population control has naturally produced effects which have impacted negatively on whole peoples and civilisations while generating at the same time, profits in the billions of dollars to international pharmaceutical companies and Non-Governmental Organisations involved in implementing the ‘culture of death’ associated with population control measures. What is happening today is a result of a well scripted plan by the United States to put itself in perpetuity in a position always to continue its world domination not just economically but also politically. In the process, old stereotypes and mindsets are reversed and cultural values overturned.

Brian Clowe, a world renowned expert on population control in his extensive research traces todays population debates to the overall National Security Strategic Imperatives of the United States of America.

On December 10, 1974, according to him,the United States National Security Council promulgated a top secret document entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM-200), also called The Kissinger Report.  It wassubtitled, “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.”  This document was declassified in 1989.  It laid out a detailed strategy by which the United States would aggressively promote population control in developing nations in order to regulate (or have better access to) the natural resources of these countries.

 In order to protect U.S. commercial interests, NSSM-200 cited a number of factors that could interrupt the smooth flow of materials from lesser-developed countries, LDCs as it called them, to the United States, including a large population of anti-imperialist youth, who must, according to NSSM-200, be limited by population control. The document identified 13 nations by name that would be primary targets of U.S.-funded population control efforts.  The named countries were India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

 According to NSSM-200, elements of the implementation of population control programs could include: a) the legalization of abortion; b) financial incentives for countries to increase their abortion, sterilization and contraception-use rates; c) indoctrination of children; and d) mandatory population control, and coercion of other forms, such as withholding disaster and food aid unless an LDC implements population control programs.

NSSM-200 also specifically declared that the United States was to cover up its population control activities and avoid possible charges of imperialism by inducing the United Nations and various non-governmental organisations especially the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Pathfunder Fund, and the Population Council to do its dirty work.

While the CIA and Departments of State and Defense have issued hundreds of papers on population control and national security, the U.S. government has never renounced NSSM-200, but has only amended certain portions of its policy. NSSM-200, therefore, remains the foundational document on population control issued by the United States government.

The reason NSSM-200 was written in the first place is explained in the document itself:  “The U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries.  Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.” NSSM-200 does not mention national welfare or the raising of the standards of living of the people of a nation; its only motivation is to allow the United States to get its hands on the natural resources of developing countries.

NSSM-200, Section 30(a), says:  “Concentration on Key Countries. … Assistance for population moderation should give primary emphasis to the largest and fastest growing developing countries where there is special U.S. political and strategic interest. Those countries are: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Columbia. Together, they account for 47 percent of the world’s current population increase.”

NSSM-200 also says that “No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion.”

Malcolm Potts, a former Medical Secretary of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), said as much “….. itappears unlikely that developing countries can ever hope to see any decline in their fertility without a massive resort to induced abortion legal or illegal.”