Summit affirms natural family - Averthanus L. D’Souza

GOA, July 12, 2011, 18:00 Hrs (Averthanus L. D’Souza):

At a recent summit meeting on “Family and the Future of Humankind” which was held  in Moscow on June 29th. and 30th, 2011, demographers and other experts  from 65  countries reaffirmed the natural family as “the basic unit of society and the fundamental social value, that is a necessary prerequisite for the very existence of world civilization and the whole humankind.”   A Final Declaration issued by this summit states that:  “The Natural Family is a necessary condition with no alternatives for survival and stable sustainable development of all nations and states, basic and integral condition for the demographic well being.”  

The Final Declaration of this summit meeting concludes by reiterating the definition of the family as codified in the final document of the Dialogue of Civilizations World Public Forum which took place between 7th to 11th. October, 2010 on the Greek island of Rhodes.  It affirms that:

• Family is the basic unit (first element) of society with the following inherent characteristics:

• Union of man and woman (according to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on 10th. December, 1948;

• Voluntary nature of entry into marriage;

• Co-residence of the spouses;

• Joint household management;

• Entry into marriage through a procedure of social recognition in the form of State registration of marriage and/or the relevant religious rite;

• Wish to give birth to, socialize, and bring up children.  Family is also a sine qua non demographic condition for the existence, reproduction and sustainable development of civilizations.  The mother and the father have, inalienably and in conformity with human nature, the fundamental, priority and primary rights and duties to directly educate, bring up, protect and provide comprehensive spiritual, moral and psychological support to their children;

• Indissolubility of marriage – initial mutual intention of the spouses to be together for life despite any difficulties of life.

This Final Declaration of the Demographic Summit in Moscow is very heartening and very welcome, specially in the light of the many judicial and even legislative attacks being made against the integrity of the family.  There are political pressures in some countries to change the definition of  marriage as the exclusive union between a man and a woman, as codified in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights of December 10th. 1948.  These political pressures are coming from a miniscule minority of  vociferous and aggressive practitioners of sexual behaviours which are not only socially undesirable but which are highly  hazardous from the point of view of public health.

The Declaration rightly dismisses the myth of the bogie of ‘overpopulation.’   “With reference to the objective and widely accepted scientific data and forecasts of the leading demographers, we express our deep concern about the dangers of the approaching worldwide depopulation.  Despite wrong and biased information about “overpopulation” threat promoted by some mass media and international institutions, in reality already for several decades in a row we have been witnessing a global process of demographic degradation.  In recent years this dynamic has assumed a threatening scale and magnitude.  As a consequence of the global decrease in fertility below the replacement level (2.1 – 2.2) 42% of all humankind live in the countries where even simple replacement of old generations is not taking place.  This destructive process of swift drop of fertility and birth rates has swept all the continents on our planet.  In the nearest historical period, the negative demographic trends can bring about extinction of whole peoples, destruction of States, and disappearance of unique cultures and civilizations.  Even according to conservative estimates by the U.N., within the next three decades, the total fertility rate will go down below the population replacement level all over the world.”   

The Final Declaration goes on to “[We] call on the governments of all nations and on international institutions to develop immediately a pro-family demographic policy and to adopt a special international pro-family strategy and action plan aimed at consolidating family and marriage, protecting human life from conception to natural death, increasing birth rate, and averting the menace of depopulation.  Nowadays, in most countries of the world, against the backdrop of devaluation of family values, the rights of the family are prejudiced in the information space, in the legal and socioeconomic spheres.”  

“We also insist on putting an end to interference with private life of the family under the pretexts of so-called “family planning,” “protection of the rights of the child,” and “gender equality.”  We consider it inadmissible to continue the policy of birth control, regarding this policy as one of the greatest threats to the survival of humankind  and as a means of incursive discrimination against the family.  Every family has the right of reproductive choice, inviolability of family life and bringing up their children in harmony with the culture and traditions of a specific country.  Parents have absolute primary and priority right to support, bring up and educate their children.”  

This Declaration of the Moscow Demographic Summit has come at a very opportune time when irrational forces are working in overdrive to weaken and even destroy the family as the very basis of society.  Very recently, some LGBTQI groups have attacked the Minister of Health of the Government of India for asserting that the practice of men having sex with men is not only unnatural but is the single most likely cause of the spread of AIDS in society.   They hold the view that this practice is ‘normal’  in spite of the National Aids Control Organization’s   published statistics that only about 4.2% of all sexually active males in India are believed to have sex with other men.   The stand taken by the homosexual groups defies all the rules of logic and common sense.  If the deviant practices of a miniscule minority is  ‘normal’ then the practices of the vast majority has necessarily to be considered to be abnormal!

The Health Minister had rightly asserted that homosexuality is a disease;  but under political pressures he changed his statement to assert that he was referring to AIDS as the disease rather than to the practice of MSM.  Being a politician it is understandable that he has to adjust his public statements so as to not hurt the ‘sensitivities’ of any group of citizens.  But from a purely clinical point of view his original assertion is completely in accordance with the  view of the majority of Psychologists and Therapists that homosexuality is a behavioural aberration which can, and should be, treated like any other mental illness.

What is of greater concern to the common citizen, of course, is the growing trend among the judiciary and even among the legislatures to “decriminalize” behaviours which are clearly subversive of the integrity of society and which contribute to the disintegration of social harmony and peace.  It appears that any anti-social behaviour which cannot be controlled by the government is now being subjected to the process of “decriminalization”.  Thus, prostitution has been officially converted into a ‘normal’ economic activity and prostitutes are now euphemistically referred to as ‘commercial sex workers’;  the use and distribution of drugs is gradually being ‘decriminalized’ on the ground that the government does not have the ability to control it. Gambling has not only been made acceptable, but governments actually collude with big time gambling syndicates which provide the money for their survival in power.  

There is a gradual but discernible erosion of moral values in societies and governments have become complicit in this unfortunate degradation.  The ongoing popular uprising against corruption is only a hazy indicator that citizens are dissatisfied with the kind of governance to which they are subjected.   They are trying to make their governments more responsible and more accountable.  The remedies which they suggest may not be the most suitable, but it is important to take cognizance of the strength of their opposition to the current dispensation.
The Final Declaration of the Moscow Demographic Summit needs to be studied carefully and its call for a change of strategy needs to be taken very seriously.

- Averthanus L. D’Souza