First World,
Third World, and Population Control: Racist Terms?
Who would of have ever thought that the terms “First World, Third World and Population Control” were not only racist but misleading as well? In case you did not know, they are racist. We use these politically, ideologically, and racially-motivated words as if they were accurate and fair descriptions of countries and their people. Little do many of us know that not only these terms are deceptive but also they are intended to create a false sense of superiority and inferiority of race, culture, and ideology.
Let us start with “Population Control”. Now it is incumbent upon us to learn some little history behind terms like “Population Control” to better understand the devious purpose of telling a part of the world to “control their population” while in the meantime other parts are encouraged to increase it. The “Reverend” Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was a British economist who worked for the East Indian Company as a priest; he would propose a bone-chilling plan as an “advice” to his company’s employees. This plan was basically to plunder and rape British colonies of their resources and then blame whatever calamity that fell on the innocent people in these colonies on “natural laws”. He even tried “justifying” his position with universally false and discredited theories such as the one where he postulated that the human population would always exceed food supply. He contended that human population grows in geometric progression (2, 4, 6…), while food supplies grow in arithmetic progression (2, 3, 4…), and as a result, leading to a “population crisis”. This of course is false because since 1950, the world’s population has doubled but the food supply has tripled. Experts claim that the world can feed anywhere from 10 billion (on the same amount of land currently used for agriculture) to 33 billion people. So how on earth did people get the idea that we need to control the world’s population in order to avoid a food shortage?
Many people were inspired such theories as presented in Malthus’ book “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” European intellectuals such as Charles Darwin et al. embraced the ideas from Malthus’ book and formulated many of their beliefs based on his assertions. In the article “The Scientific Background of the Nazi Race Purification Program” by Theodore D. Hall, it explains how 19th century Europe adhered to Malthus’ views on population control:
“In the opening half of
the nineteenth century, throughout Europe, members of the ruling classes
gathered to discuss the newly discovered ‘Population problem’ and to devise
ways of implementing the Malthusian mandate, to increase the mortality rate of
the poor: ‘Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should
encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower,
crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the
country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly
encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations,’ and so forth
and so on.” (Theodore D. Hall,
“The Scientific Background of the Nazi Race Purification Program”, http://www.trufax.org/avoid/nazi.html)
But wait, it gets even more interesting. Getting back to the issue of “controlling” the population, countries that happen to be called “First World” (i.e., Western countries with capitalist systems) are encouraged to increase their population, while countries that are considered “Third World” are told to decrease or at least “regulate” the growth of their population. Let us begin comparing some numbers for a moment to get a better idea of what I am talking about. England has a population of 57.4 million people. The country consists of 245,778 square kilometers with a density of 233 persons per square kilometer. As expected, England wants her population to increase while on the other hand, a country like China desires the exact opposite with its “one-child” policy and even forced sterilizations and abortions; although the density of people in China is much less than England’s -- only 116 for China. The Netherlands has a whopping 397 persons per square kilometer in an area of 37,446 square kilometer while Indonesia on the other hand has 99 people per square kilometer. But guess what, it is Indonesia and not the Netherlands who wants “population control” while the densely population Netherlands actually wants an increase in their population! With a density of 221 people per square kilometer, Germany gives families a “birth bonus” for having children while in China, families are penalized if they exceed the “one-child” policy.
Why the double standards? Why do most “First World” countries want a population increase while “Third World” countries do not, even when many of the “First World” countries have denser populations than “Third World” countries? Major cities in “Third World” countries like Mexico City or Cairo are “overcrowded” but why do not we hear densely populated major cities in “First World” countries like New York City, London, or even Tokyo being called “overcrowded” as much as their “Third World” counterparts?
Let us now have some facts presented to us so that they can answer the above-mentioned questions. Evidences are quite plentiful when it comes to exposing ideological nations like America and Great Britain’s attempts in making the world a friendlier place for them. Of course nothing is unusual with wanting the nations around you to like and help you, but when it is done at the expense of people’s lives, their resources, land, wealth, honor, and so on it becomes a problem. It becomes more of a hegemonic aspiration than humanitarian and moral one to have countries subjugated under your control or at least have them not be in the way of any imperialistic enterprise. Allow me for a moment to give you an example of what I am talking about; this coming straight from the horse’s mouth. From the notorious 1974 document (which was declassified in 1989) “National Security Study Memorandum 200” (NSSM200) in which the Department of Defense, State Department, CIA, the U.S. AID and Department of Agriculture concluded that population control must be a key element of how America practices her foreign policy because:
1) Significant population
growth in certain larger nations would give them greater political status and
influence and would thereby have adverse geopolitical implications for the
United States;
2) The United States'
military and industrial sectors require supplies of critical mineral resources
available almost exclusively in the Southern hemisphere, and access to such
resources might be jeopardized by the political demands created by larger
societies;
3) The growth of population
in poor nations and the relative youth of societies with high birth rates tend
to give momentum to nationalist movements that cause political problems for the
U.S.;
4) Growing nations in the
South might be tempted to nationalize foreign investments in order to better
absorb into the national economy the wealth generated by these firms
What we just read was quite self-explanatory and confirmed the belief that the West uses racist policies in order to ensure its hegemonic dominance and superiority. The West coined terms such as “First World” and “Third World” in order to give people the sense that the Eurocentric Capitalistic West was indeed in first place on the list when it came to human progress and enlightenment. In the meantime, the poor and backward “Third World” nations were struggling hard to catch up and emulate the “First World”; so that those countries would be considered and given the assurance that they are now “civilized” (according to how the West defines the word). We forget that the West arrogantly and arbitrarily tries to coin and define terms that would make it look superior and exclude itself from looking inferior. They got some nerve to take it upon themselves (and themselves only) to impose their interpretation of a word so that any negative connotation does not apply to them but to those not like them. And guess where the “First World” gets most of its resources? In the often exploited “Third World” of course. The “First World” nations have the audacity to plunder a “Third World” country’s resources; exploit its people and allow them to be subjugated under inferior standards of living and education (even though the “First World” would be “Third World” if they didn’t pillage the resources of “Third World” nations); just to go around and call them “Third World” while they are reaping the benefits of taking the their resources? Racism by another name is still racism.
But racism is not the main reason why they want populations in developing countries to be kept low; the geopolitics of the matter is really behind all of this as was proven earlier. Not only that, but it would be considered to a slap in the face to hegemonic nations for a former colony or puppet regime of countries like America or Great Britain to pose as an ideological challenge to their former colonial and imperialistic masters.
So let us be fair as well as accurate by trying to avoid using racially and ideologically motivated terms such as First World and Third World and replace them with words that really give a precise and realistic description. Furthermore, I hope after digesting the information presented above, we do not buy into the hype and have this idea the world is getting overcrowded (which is it not) -- that there needs to be some type “population control” program instituted -- because we now know that it has been used for racist and ideological purposes; not for trying to sustain a society. We do not want fall victim to the racists and imperialists’ game and habit of mislabeling in order to serve their agenda by duping the masses with these loaded clichés. It is about high time to define terms that reflect the reality and not try to make the reality reflect a term that is based on wishful thinking and manipulation.