Blank fear is rising in the Islam-hating US about the rapidly changing face of Russia after a government expert on Russian nationalities recently predicted that Russia could have a Muslim majority within the next 30 years.
The city of Moscow has swelled to 10.4 million people, and one-fifth are Muslims. The Russian capital has the biggest Muslim population of any city in Europe.
Russia is the only major industrial nation that is losing population. Its people are succumbing to one of the world's fastest-growing AIDS epidemics, resurgent tuberculosis, rampant cardiovascular disease, alcohol and drug abuse, smoking, suicide and the lethal effects of unchecked industrial pollution.
In addition, abortions outpaced births last year by more than 100,000. An estimated 10 million Russians of reproductive age are sterile because of botched abortions or poor health. The public health-care system is collapsing. And many parents in more prosperous urban areas say they cannot afford homes big enough for the number of children they would like to have.
The country has lost the equivalent of a city of 700,000 people every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only partially offset by an influx of people from other former Soviet republics.
Sergei Mironov, chairman of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament, said last year that the population would fall to 52 million by 2080 if the trend did not change.
"There will no longer be a great Russia," he said. "It will be torn apart piece by piece and finally cease to exist."
There are serious questions about whether Russia will be able to hold on to its Far East lands along the border with China over the next century or field an army, let alone a workforce to support ill and elderly people.
US experts fear that a politically weak and physically unhealthy Russia could destabilise Europe, making it harder to fight so-called "terrorism" (i.e. Islam) and possibly opening the gates to a regional pandemic, The West Australian writes.
KC
Our button
print version
