Slavic suicide

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1674948,00.html?gusrc=rss

Alcoholism, tuberculosis and Aids - as well as road accidents, suicides and other unnatural causes of death - are eroding the population at an alarming speed.
Circulatory diseases, exacerbated by stress, are a major killer. Life expectancy for a man has sunk to 58 years (72 for women), the lowest bar two of the 52 countries in the WHO European region.

Russia's population has plummeted by almost 7% to 143 million in the last 15 years, and is predicted to drop by another 20 million by 2025.

"This is our tragedy," she said. "The decline in industry, the closure of factories, the uncertainty of the period of reforms, the inflation, the poverty - all those things contributed to high mortality."

However, demographers insist low birthrate remains the overriding factor in the population decrease, and can only be changed by stimulating business.

"The recent collapse of fertility in Russia has been almost completely economic," Carl Haub, a researcher at the Washington-based Population Research Bureau, said. "When people are uncertain about the future, they don't have children."

Interesting that there is no mention of Russian culture as contributing to the problem, but perhaps understandable that religion would not make it unto England's secularist radar.

All those years of Communist indoctrination have taken their toll for both Russia and Poland. Although different cultures, they are both Slav, sharing Slav traits.

In Poland it was the Catholic Church that defined the Polish culture against Communist doctrine. The Poles culture was severely injured by the ruling ideology and economy, yet were able to hang in there. Although Western influence is putting large pressure on Polish culture, Poland’s strong Catholic faith is providing a bulwark. The small towns are emptying, just like Russia’s are, because people’s growing Western lifestyle appetite, coupled with the growing but thin economy, draws them to the cities. But this has happened all over the developed world.

From what I understand about Russia, it is mean, gruff, mafia infested, and the men are mainly always drunk. The Russian Church under Communism, unlike Poland, was so infiltrated and diminished, that it had ceased to exist outside the Church walls. Today Russia is still largely without the Church’s effective role in society.

Putin thinks it will take a long time for Democracy to grow to adulthood for Russia, and it would seem it will also take a long time for the Church to grow again to it’s rightful place of influence and relevance. Russians will have to take notice of Jesus again, because they have forgotten.

In the mean time, the government may improve the health and food situation. People may even live longer. But where are the babies?

Only the Church through God can make the lived environment welcoming for parents wanting to live life by participating joyfully in life’s continuation, and doing that in abundance.

With God, the economy and food part of the equation become secondary. Although this Guardian article misses God entirely.