(2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Kongens Have, 31.7.2015. Foran sad en af mange afrikanske dåsesamlere.) – Igår kunne man se Søren Espersen og Stine Bosse i Deadline (You Tube her) i et af de sædvanlige TV-mundhuggerier, der skal gøre det ud for en samtale eller en diskussion. Stine Bosse talte flere gange om “en holdbar løsning” på Europa’s begyndende flygtningekrise – altså de første bitte-små rystelser vi oplever nu, der varsler det egentlige befolkningsjordskælv i dette århundrede.

Spørgsmålet er, om Europa overhovedet kan undgå at blive skyllet bort af Afrika’s menneskemasser, selvom vi skulle beslutte os for at ville overleve den afrikanske befolkningseksplosion. Europa er for tiden i gang med at øse af det samme bundløse kar, det vil drukne i, fordi ikke en kæft orker at se  bare ti år ud i fremtiden. Ikke engang EU’s milliarddyre analyseapparat, kan drage en rationel konklusion.

Deadline-samtalen foregik ikke i virkelighedens verden, men hvad, den gør hele den europæiske politik på området heller ikke. Enhver flygtningediskussion, der ikke berører afikansk demografi, er en pseudo-samtale.

Bosse og Espersen berørte ikke demografien en gang, men flere gange talte Bosse om ‘en holdbar løsning’. Hun uddybede ikke, hvad hun mente med plusordet ‘holdbar’. De talte begge om flygtningekrisen, som om den var et forbigående fænomen. Den er knap nok begyndt, og den vil være kronisk.

Generalsekretær i Dansk Flygtningehjælp, Andreas Kam har beskrevet det vi oplever som “et jordskælv.” Hvilke jordskælv varer i mindst 100 år, og bliver kraftigere og kraftigere? Samme dag læste jeg Dan Roodt’s nye artikel An African Planet? Is this the way our world ends? Jeg plukker i den:

Africa has become an unprecedented biological, environmental, and socio-political experiment: It is the scene of the biggest population explosion the world has ever seen. According to authoritative figures published by UNICEF in 2014, the number of Africans will grow from 1.033 billion in 2013 to a mammoth 4.2 billion in 2100. In the next 35 years alone, two billion African babies will be born. By 2100, half of all children on earth will be African. These are not simply straight-line projections of present trends, but the best estimates based on current data and historical precedents. This population explosion has huge implications not only for Africa but for the entire world.

In the terse language of the UNICEF demographers we learn that:

The future of humanity is increasingly African. More than half the projected 2.2 billion rise in the world population in 2015-2050 is expected to take place in Africa, even though the continent’s population growth rate will slow. On current trends, within 35 years, 1 in every 4 people will be African, rising to 4 in 10 people by the end of the century. Back in 1950, only 9 among 100 of the world’s number of inhabitants were African.

Over the last 60 years, thanks to Western healthcare, better nutrition, and large amounts of aid, infant death rates declined on the continent, and its population quadrupled from 200 million in 1950. The population will quadruple yet again over the next 60 years, meaning that in the 150 years from 1950 to 2100, the continent’s population would have increased by a staggering 1,830 percent.

Many European countries have just a few million people. For Slovaks or Latvians, for example, Germany, with its 80 million people feels like an overpowering presence. China (1.4 billion), India (1.3 billion), the USA (323 million), and Indonesia (253 million) are also huge.

But Nigeria alone already has a population of 178 million–more than double the size of Germany–and over the next 35 years 21 percent of all African and 8 percent of world births will be Nigerian. By 2100, assuming current projections hold, Nigeria will have a population of 914 million, and will rival China and India as a demographic superpower. Other African nations are growing even more rapidly.