Jordanians and Condoms

Our government is taking the first step in distributing one and half million free condoms to Jordanians. Although I understand most people would have preferred a free tank of gas, I still think this is a great idea. (For detials click here. English here).

To start with, the government has been taking serious steps in birth control for many years. This was a 2-way process, first the government wanted less people because they figured out that's better for the country, and people started realizing they cannot have six or seven kids anymore. They can barely raise one kid a decent life.

Not too long ago a Jordanian woman had to bring 10 kids to life for just 2 or 3 of them to survive. My father had at least 5 siblings who died in their infancy from pneumonia or plague. As health care in Jordan improved and vaccinations became available the life expectancy of Jordanians had significantly improved (in your face vaccines-are-dangerous freakish mothers). Jordan now has the best life expectancy in the entire Arab world, also ahead of countries like Denmark, Ireland and the United States, according to the CIA's 2008 World Factbook.

So, when a Jordanian is born, he's likely to live too long, way too long. If you think there are too many people in Jordan now just imagine how it will look like in a few decades. There will be quite a lot of old people, much more than now. Meanwhile the prices are super-high and regardless of who's responsible for that, it doesn't look like it will get better anytime soon. Even if it did, it won't be like the good old days when middle-class families were able to raise a few kids and put them in college and even go on vacations in neighboring countries. That's over and sadly I think it's over for good. We have to be realistic. There's no coming back from this. We'll reach a stage when having 3 siblings means you have a big family. Unfortunately I think this is necessary, and with more wars going on in the region and Palestinians then Iraqis then God knows who else will flee to Jordan the country cannot take it anymore.

Some like to live in denial so they hate any move by the government to control the number of kids they want to have. Someone has to wake these people up. Men have to realize that their ego of being served and loved (although not always) by many kids when they get old doesn't serve his family's or his country's best interests. It also exhausts his wife(-ves). He has to put on that piece of latex or at least stop beating his wife if she refused to experience another 9-month journey with another miserably-poor child to be.

Look at the misfortunes that Jordan and other Arabs went through in history and you'll realize that having not having too many people was never the reason behind any of them. We never lost a war with Israel because there weren't enough Arabs. Having more people wouldn't have prevented corruption or poverty or thefts or wars between neighboring countries. In fact it would have intensified such problems. For those who believe Jews are controlling the world, the number of Jews is estimated to be only 15 million worldwide. There are more Egyptians living in Cairo.

Jordan has changed and we have to understand this and make others understand it before we get overwhelmed with the number of humans we have came up with. Having very large numbers of people who look like us doesn't mean anything if these large numbers can be dominated by others who were raised in more luxurious societies and received all what a child needs for a decent life. Maybe we had an Einstein living among us but he didn't have a chance to excel or even ask a question in class packed with 50 other students, or his father pulled him out of school to beg on the streets so each of his 7 brothers can get to have one meal a day.

I think it's time every Jordanian should consider birth control for his own sake and for the sake of others.

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