I wonder if they include Gaza and the West Bank, or the Muslim half of Cyprus. The population figure they give for Cyprus suggests the north of the island is not included in the listed statistics, so could be considered a separate banned "land". Although given the way the United Kingdom has been variously called, Britain, Great Britain, and British Isles, we know that political nuance often escapes them.
The "30 Other Lands" in the Worldwide Report - revealed!
by cedars 116 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cedars
slimboyfat - I would love to know how the Society lists certain countries. It's a complete mystery. For example, French Polynesia is missing from the list, but it is neither communist nor muslim and the Society have written positively of the work in that country in its publications. Why it is missing from the list baffles me, perhaps because the figures are listed under France. If that is the case (without wishing to spark a fight!) why are the Falklands listed separately from the UK?
I suspect Gaza and the West Bank are incorporated under the newly-listed "Palestinian Territory". I have no idea about Cyprus. It would be nice if the Society could create a list that is more compliant with the way countries are recognized internationally, but since when has the Society ever felt compelled to play by the rules?!
I suspect there's quite a lot of 'creative accounting' going on with how the report is drawn up.
Cedars
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jookbeard
wondering what the amount are Dubs are active in Senegal and the Ivory Coast, both seeing an increase in thier Muslim growth, surprised Indonesia is listed , what are the active pubs there?
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cedars
Senegal had a peak of 1,139 pubs to 12,434,000 population.
Ivory Coast had a more impressive peak of 9,146 pubs to 20,185,000 population.
Indonesia had a peak 22,594 pubs to 237,600,000.
The yearbook is available on the following link for those who are interested!
http://download.jw.org/files/media_books/yb12_E.pdf
Cedars
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dozy
I wonder whether they split the UAE into it's constituent parts ( Abu Dhabi , Sharjah etc ). Certainly would be typical of the WTBTS who have a habit of including tiny islands with 2,000 population.
There certainly is a JW presence there , which is tolerated ( as long as the JWs don't evangelise. ) I worked for a while in Dubai & attended the meetings there - I would guess there were probably about 250 JWs across the various nationalities & languages. Mainly a few retired ex-pat Brits & Yanks , wives of business people there and a lot of OFWs from various countries ( mainly Phillipines ). I remember being roped into giving a public talk & looking on at perhaps 20 brothers & 120 smiling filipinas - certainly an experience you don't get in the West!
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jookbeard
cedars could you do an illustration of all the banned countries and the large amount of countries with huge pops with JW's simply not even scratching the surface?
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cedars
jookbeard, I was actually thinking along similar lines after reading some of the comments.
I'll try to put something together today and post it on this thread.
Watch this space!
Cedars
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slimboyfat
I never realised Palestine was listed.
You can get maps that show the size of countries relative to their population rather than their geographical area, as here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6249395/Population-atlas-shows-world-in-a-new-light.html
I wonder if there is a program where you could plug in the JW figures and produce a map to show where JWs are bunched together.
Although JWs are largely absent from many countries, they are far more evenly spread than the Mormons for example. If I remember rightly 50% live in the United States and 90% in the Western hemisphere. Of the rest most live on islands for some reason. The Adventists also do very well on islands and a few African countries in particular.
So you can overstate the uneven spread of JWs. In fact if an extensive analysis was done I would not be surprised if JWs are the most evenly spread of any global religion. They seem to tend toward around 1 in 400 of the population in most lands. Those lands where they are largely absent are also hostile to other Christian groups.
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cedars
slimboyfat - yikes, that map gives me a headache just looking at it! It makes sense, although I have to say I prefer good old-fashioned maps with gradiated colour to show population density.
I agree that JWs are more evenly spread out than the Mormons, but I don't agree that their weak presence in many parts of the world can be overstated simply because other christian denominations are absent from the same areas. Remember that, from a JW perspective, God is supposed to be gathering all men (against whom he is "not partial") from all four corners of the world, irrespective of political or cultural boundaries. The map in the OP demonstrates that this is clearly not happening.
As I've said in another post, JWs are actually almost inconsequential as a religion, which is why hardly anyone talks about us (and why I find it nigh impossible to generate media interest). JWs only seem like 'a force to be reckoned with' to JWs themselves, or the ex-JW community. The Society has done an excellent job of creating a false impression (even among its opposers) of the organization's size and scope. I can think of few better examples of a religion punching above its weight.
Cedars
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slimboyfat
Well I don't take their claims to divine direction seriously to start with. So I think their fairly even global spread is impressive in and of itself when compared with other groups. Plus a JW might argue that the Bible predicted they would have success mainly in the lands of Christendom by reference to the dragnet parable.
"I can think of few better examples of religions punching above their weight."
I can't agree with that comment. Because of their aversion to politics, or public involvement generally, JWs consistently punch well below their weight. For example about 750,000 people attend church of England serivces each Sunday compared with around 130,000 active Witnesses in the UK. Yet there is no way that JWs have anything like 17% of the power, influence or (positive) media exposure that the CofE does. The JW community in the UK is similar in size to the Jewish community, yet while many people will have heard Jonathan Sacks at one time or another, no one knows the first thing about JW leaders. In lands where JWs could have exerted influence, such as Zambia where the president and his wife attended the Kingdom Hall, they positively scuppered their chances by ostracising them and pushing them toward joining another religious group when he got into power.
If JWs ever did decide to become active in the public sphere they could exert a measure of influence, especially in secular lands where others religious groups have been decimated, leaving JWs as a comparably significant if peculiar minority.