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Crowdfunding and a Better World

By Sentot Imam Wahjono

The old adage “there is strength is numbers” is most evident in the field of crowdfunding. Projects and activities which seemed impossible to undertake have been supported by mass funding in different parts of the world. In this article, the author elaborates on how the development of this alternative financial take can create a path towards a better world.

 

Barack Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States in early 2009 brought back the role of crowdfunding for the great things that changed the world. The large amount of Obama campaign fundraising is a testament of people’s willingness to support someone through finance to whom they trust before the person runs his promise, this financial participation is called crowdfunding. Several multi-funded projects have reached the aspect of urban development. Mass funding changes people’s perceptions and creates something that seems impossible. The urban development in this mass funding phenomenon has taken place in Bogotá, Colombia. The $240 million Skyscraper called BD Bacata has been built right in the heart of Colombia’s capital. All funds from these skyscrapers have been collected through mass funding campaigns with the support of more than 300,000 Bogotá citizens. Crowdfunding has also been able to finance the expansion of the Suez Canal in Egypt. The canal has been operating since 1869 because it can save time and travel costs of the ship from a distance of 19,800 km to 11,600 km. As much as $8 billion has been donated by Egyptians since July 2014, it is now almost complete. The three examples of fundraising above for both the political needs of the presidential election, the urban social needs as well as the necessity of the ship’s maritime traffic to excite the business can be met by crowdfunding replacing the already large and non-agile banking functions. This shows that the involvement of the crowd to fund unusual and creative projects has proved that crowdfunding is not only an opportunity but has already demonstrated success. There is a great opportunity for crowdfunding to become an alternative funding for business, social, and community projects to build a better and more humane world.

Mass funding changes people’s perceptions and creates something that seems impossible.

Crowdfunding is a generally accepted financial instrument, meaning it can also be implemented in a non-ruling Islamic economic system. So when crowdfunding will be implemented in the Islamic economy there must be an institution that ensures that crowdfunding system and procedures must meet the requirements of halal business according to Islamic Shari’a. And that can be fulfilled by forming a Sharia Council or Board of Sharia that serves as a filter and validator of a crowdfunding platform halal.

Condition of Islamic Finance in theWorld 

The Muslim market is huge and potential. The 57 member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) have recorded a Muslim population of 1.70 billion or 23.18% of the world’s population. Even by 2030 the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by 35% to 2.2 billion. A large Muslim population is a potential market because they need food, clothing, education, health, housing and other necessities. During this time they meet the needs and goals of their lives more than imports. They mostly export natural product commodities such as mining, plantation, fishery, and agriculture. They have an unfavourable ability to meet their needs independently, such as being self-employed. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2015 the number of people doing entrepreneurial activity in Muslim-majority countries (such as Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) is low between 15%-25% only.

The economic structure in Islamic countries is dominated by small and medium enterprises, almost 80-95% are SMEs. The biggest challenge for MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) is the ability to access banking or other financial institutions. In Islamic countries as well as in developing countries, access to financing ranges from 15% to 42%, the smallest in Indonesia is 15% and the highest in Saudi Arabia, meaning only 15% of credit proposals from Indonesian SMEs are approved for funded by Indonesian banks. While 85% of SMEs’ and new or creative projects funding needs cannot be served by banks and other financial institutions. Another problem is the credit collateral as a guarantee requirement for each bank financing.

The usury-free Islamic financial instruments can be used to solve access and guarantee problems. Islamic banking and finance have grown tremendously since the 1970s, global success, both in terms of growth, development, institutional and product diversity. In the last 5 years, the sharia banking and finance industry has grown an average of 17% per year and assets of USD 1.87 trillion in 2014, consisting of banking assets of USD 1.47 trillion, USD 294.7 billion Sukuk, Islamic Fund Assets of USD 75.8 billion, and Takaful Contributing USD 21.4 billion.

The biggest challenge for MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) is the ability to access banking or other financial institutions.

In general, Islamic financial assets are concentrated in the Middle East and Asia. GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE) is the largest contributor of Islamic financial assets. This region accounts for 37.6% of the total global Islamic financial assets. MENA (Middle East and North Africa such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq and Iran) excluding GCC is in second position, with a share of 34.4%. Asia ranks third, 22.4% of the global total, driven largely by Malaysia’s Islamic financial market. The contribution of Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly to the European region is relatively small. The sharia banking and finance industry is supported by nearly 400 Islamic financial institutions operating in more than 70 countries, including countries outside the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries such as Britain, Germany, Singapore, Luxembourg, the United States and Mauritius. However, the fundamental problems for banks, including Islamic banking, are low access for SMEs and owners of creative projects. This is an opportunity for alternative financial institutions like crowdfunding.

 

Crowdfunding Conditions in Islamic Countries

To close the funding gap of banks in SMEs, crowdfunding is one of the alternatives. But there are Crowdfunding Platforms that do not meet the criteria desired by Muslim consumers, among them is that the source of funds is lawful and not usury. Likewise, the use of funds is not contrary to Islamic law such as pornography, food and alcoholic beverages, containing pork, blood and carrion.

Some Muslim countries have successfully established and run crowdfunding. Egypt with AqarFunder established since 2012 has managed to organise a fundraiser for the Suez Canal widening. Shekra which was established in Cairo since 2013 with the principle of profit sharing managed to finance many special projects or startup business. Yomken, founded in 2012, has financed 1,500 innovators, completed 41 social challenges, and provided solutions to 132 existing problems in Egyptian society, accounting for 82% of project funding success.

Yomken, founded in 2012, has financed 1,500 innovators, completed 41 social challenges, and provided solutions to 132 existing problems in Egyptian society, accounting for 82% of project funding success.

Indonesia may be the crowdfunding capital of Asia with two Kickstarter-like sites that listed initial successes in raising money for creative projects and business startups. There are currently no clear rules regarding crowdfunding in Indonesia, although there are several crowdfunding platforms already in operation: Kitabisa.com is a crowdfunding platform that is open to facilitate technology, creativity and business projects. Kitabisa.com succeeded in funding 2,388 projects worth $100 billion collected from 140,971 people and or community together. Kitabisa.com runs on the basis of donations and does not expect returns or rewards, working on humanitarian grounds without basing themselves on religion, ethnicity and groups. An example is the “Rebuild Masjid Tolikara Papua” project. The project aims to rebuild a mosque in Tolikara, Papua, Indonesia that has been burned by Christians when Muslims perform Eid prayers, 2015. The project raised $3 billion. It also operates several crowdfunding platforms, such as Kopernik, Wujudkan.com, GandengTangan, and AyoPeduli.

In Iran although there is no clear rule from the government, crowdfunding platform has been in operation since 2014. There are several active crowdfunding among them Fundiran, Mehrabane, 2nate, Fundorun, Hamijoo, and Fundly.ir. In Jordan, at least two crowdfunding platforms are operated: Liwwa and AFkarmena. Liwwa is a crowdfunding based on lending and equity, serving SMEs in Jordan and even in some Middle Eastern countries. Established since 2013, at least has funded $2 million for 95 loan projects. Liwaa has even used the concept of Islamic financing by implementing Murabaha in designing a financing contract between the owner of the money and the borrower.

Malaysia is the only Islamic country that has clear rules on crowdfunding, based on the state agency has allowed six crowdfunding platforms to operate in Malaysia: Alix Global, Ata- plus, Crowdo.com, Eureeca, PitchIn, and MyStartr.

 

Crowdfunding Solves the Problem 

Given the limitations of banks in funding businesses especially SMEs and new and creative projects it is better to give the opportunity to crowdfunding to grow, even in an Islamic country. We can implement one or four types of crowdfunding available: Donation-based, Reward-based, Lending-based, and Equity-based. Let’s support crowdfunding for more SMEs and creative funded projects for a better world.

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About the Author 

Sentot Imam Wahjono is an Associate Professor of Management in his hometown of Surabaya, Indonesia, teaching undergraduate and master programmes. Now assigned to teach in UTeM (Malaysia) from UMSurabaya (Indonesia). He has a long-standing interest in research on Financial Economics.

When Democracy and Centralisation Meet in Leadership

By David De Cremer and Tian Tao

Business leaders face a plethora of challenges and one of those is finding the leadership approach that would benefit the company and its employees. In this article, the authors elaborate on how the right amount of democracy, mixed with the right amount of centralisation, makes an efficient leadership strategy and how it is embodied by Chinese telecom giant, Huawei.

 

Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, an abundance of debates are being held to discuss the type of leadership that is needed to organise and direct financial institutes to incorporate the interests of all stakeholders available (and not only the interests of the shareholders). In the last few years, these debates about leadership effectiveness in financial institutes has been extended to organisational leadership in other industries (e.g. automobile industry) but also into the political arena as a result of the surprising outcomes of the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum in the UK. All these leadership debates have one thing in common and this is whether democracy as a decision-making tool has reached its limits and whether centralised power is needed more. With more centralised decision-making fear, however, exists that the social glue that binds societies and organisations together will be lost. These debates thus have important implications on how organisations nowadays can create a strong basis of belongingness for its employees, but at the same time achieve the most optimal balance between being a democratic versus a centralised decision-making authority.

In a time where financial resources are scarce, a shift has emerged in which employees’ motivation needs to be enhanced more by relational means such as making employees feel that they are valued and inclusive organisational members.

Current discussions on the importance of employees feeling that they belong to the organisation are motivated by the desire to bring back more humanity to the work place. In a time where financial resources are scarce, a shift has emerged in which employees’ motivation needs to be enhanced more by relational means such as making employees feel that they are valued and inclusive organisational members. Specifically, leadership is increasingly being recognised as an organisational element that contributes significantly to the identity of employees, and preferably so in ways that both the weaknesses and strengths of those employees are accepted and worked with by their leaders (i.e. a focus on compassionate leadership). This view point is somewhat different than how organisations have usually thought about the influence that leaders can exert. The influence of a leader is usually recognised as primarily having decision power over how to distribute valued and tangible (financial) outcomes. The limitations of looking at leadership effectiveness in terms of tangible outcome distributions are that (a) it associates leadership too much with the notion of power and (b) introduces too often a win-lose situation for the employees involved. Both the issues of defining relationships in terms of power and win-lose allocation decisions do not contribute to belongingness feelings but rather create feelings of exclusion.

 

A Common Leadership Challenge in East and West?

Today, it seems that this traditional viewpoint on leadership may move centre stage again, especially in light of the debate whether democratic decision-making systems have to be sacrificed for more centralised ones. Critics do point out that if this would happen an emphasis on centralisation will undermine belongingness feelings and therefore present a threat to leadership effectiveness. Important to note is that this debate is not only happening in the Western world, but a largely similar debate seems to be taking place in Asia, and more specifically China. China is transforming its economy into a more service-oriented one and this type of transformation implies that innovation is becoming a key competitive asset and in order to facilitate this process companies need to know what they stand for. They need to create organisational cultures in which employees feel that they belong so that they can represent the values of their company and where needed voice suggestions, opinions and improvements for the welfare of the organisation. From the perspective of the value “harmony”, as postulated by the Chinese philosopher, teacher and politician Confucius, installing a feeling of belongingness among employees should not necessarily be a problem. A potential problem, however, may be that belongingness in Chinese philosophical tradition goes together with a strong respect for hierarchy and authority. And, it is this latter value that makes that belongingness and voicing opinions – as is known in the democracy model – do not necessarily go together in Chinese business settings. In fact, because hierarchy is so important, decision-making is centralised, leaving little room for discussing opposing views with the aim to change the system if the environment requires it.1 Put differently, a strong focus on respecting (and actually maintaining) hierarchy in the strict sense installs a culture where there is little transparency and conflicts of interest may easily grow underneath the surface. In light of this consequence, it may therefore maybe be no surprise that Chinese president Xi Jinping has recently asked State Owned Enterprise (SOEs) to improve significantly on their governance by making decision-makers more accountable and enhancing cooperation with private companies to bolster innovation. 

In a way, because of economic needs (i.e. the service-oriented economy), in China the centralised decision-making model may need more democracy by building voice cultures. So far, it thus seems clear that in both East and West, the ultimate challenge today is to promote feelings of belongingness among their employees, whereas at the same time find the appropriate level of decision-making power, which asks for some level centralisation. The reason for this is that in an ever changing global economy, companies need to be built on inclusive cultures that create shared values by means of voice (i.e. democracy) whereas at the same time being able to make decisions quickly (i.e. centralisation) without being slowed down too much by enduring discussions. What kind of leadership is needed to achieve such balance?

Procedural Fairness to Balance Democracy and Centralisation

Our research efforts have proven that an important element in this task is the use of procedural fairness, which refers to the perceived fairness of procedures used to make decisions. An important assumption associated with this concept is that fairness is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, based on own experiences and expectations people can differ in how they evaluate the fairness of events. Procedural fairness is different from what is known as distributive fairness which refers to “what” you receive. Although the outcome (e.g. salary, bonus, promotion and so forth) you receive can also be evaluated in more subjective ways (e.g. when one compares one’s bonus to the bonus of a colleague), it has undeniably more objective features than the perceived procedures used when making decisions. That is, a bonus, for example, is a tangible outcome and its financial value is transparent and clear to all. Procedural fairness is referred to as the “how” of decision-making. Specifically, in the process of making decisions, do feel employees feel respected, treated with dignity, are they listened to, are biases and stereotypes suppressed and can wrong decisions be corrected. All these procedural elements refer to the treatment one receives from leaders when they make decisions. This type of fairness reveals non-tangible outcomes, which make its interpretation subject to personal biases and preferences.

Our research has demonstrated that if the procedural treatment is perceived as fair, employees feel more included in the organisation, their self-esteem and confidence is higher, and they are motivated to contribute more to the interests of the organisation.
It is exactly this type of treatment that can make leaders effective in balancing democratic with centralised approaches to decision-making. Our research has demonstrated that if the procedural treatment is perceived as fair, employees feel more included in the organisation, their self-esteem and confidence is higher, and they are motivated to contribute more to the interests of the organisation.2 In turn, these effects create a culture of psychological safety where trust can grow.3 So, procedural fairness allows for creating fertile ground to make employees belong via building a voice-expression culture. At the same time, the use of procedural fairness also allows for centralised decision-making to be accepted. For example, research has shown that if the outcomes (“what”) one receives are judged to be negative or unfavourable, the use of fair procedures by the leader nevertheless leads employees to accept and comply with these outcomes.4 In other words, procedural fairness installs a belongingness culture that helps promote compliance to centralised decision-making.5 And, it is exactly this balance that organisations and societies nowadays are looking for.

 

Leader Procedural Fairness in China: Huawei’s Decision-Making Model

Our analysis of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei revealed that this company known for its mix of Chinese and Western management ideas is building exactly a culture where democracy and centralisation meet each other (i.e. we refer to this situation as “controlled democracy”).6 And, when looking at what makes this balance possible, it is revealed that – in line with our earlier mentioned research on procedural fairness – exactly the building of a voice-expression culture that creates belongingness (harmony by accepting diversity) combined with a more centralised decision-making platform (respect for hierarchy and decisions made) is doing the trick.

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei in 1987 in Shenzhen and emerged as the world leader in the telecommunication industry when it surpassed Ericsson in terms of sales revenue and net profit in 2012. Because of its success at the global level, the company is often hailed as the example for other Chinese companies to strive for. In fact, many Chinese believe (and hope) that knowing about and then applying Huawei’s management practices will make them also successful. However, it is not that simple. First of all, Huawei is the only Chinese company that receives more sales revenue from markets outside (67%) than from inside China. This statistic implies that Huawei must adopt a different a focus than any other Chinese company. As a company that started with strong Chinese roots, Huawei transformed gradually – by pursuing a mix of Chinese and Western management styles – into an organisation able to deal with different voices and demands as communicated by its diverse work crowd and international clients. In contrast, Chinese companies are relationship oriented but take place within a very hierarchical work culture where employees and lower levels of management do not voice their opinions and feedback easily (in contrast to companies from more egalitarian Western countries).

The building of a voice-expression culture that creates belongingness (harmony by accepting diversity) combined with a more centralised decision-making platform (respect for hierarchy and decisions made) is doing the trick.

Second, in addition to bringing employees and customers with different cultural backgrounds together, Huawei is also a company populated by many “knowledge” workers (i.e. 1 out of 2 employees are engineers and thus involved with some aspect of R&D). Because of this employee composition, Ren Zhengfei provides more freedom – than most observers expect – to its employees on how to execute decisions.  Even in Huawei’s early years (when the primary focus was on surviving as a company) Ren Zhengfei fully empowered employees when it came down to R&D, compensation and benefit allocations. The general idea is that people in pursuit of knowledge cannot be constrained else the innovation process will be severely disrupted. 

Having pointed out the emergence of the more Western ideas of information sharing and feedback loops from bottom to top and vice versa in Huawei’s culture, it is important to note that Ren Zhengfei does not believe in an unlimited democratic form of decision-making. In fact, he does not trust people to the extent that no restrictions are needed in how they pursue their jobs. Rather, his idea is that a sense of freedom needs to be present in this industry but because of people’s inherent weaknesses a centralised and institutional decision-making system is also needed. Today, Huawei makes use of a democratic mode of thinking and acting in combination with an appropriate level of centralisation. For this reason, Ren Zhengfei considers the act of leadership as similar to the workings of a fireplace. Within a controlled space (the fire place), people can be free to a very large extent (as the fire is within the fireplace). This idea is closely related to Western management thinking in which the relationship of a person to organisation, or a person to a company, is considered to be contractual. It gives you rights, but at the same time, these rights must be bounded. This leadership approach is illustrated by finding different forms of voicing (democracy) at different hierarchical levels in the company.

A first level is referred to as the “Top Layer Democracy”, taking the form of standing board member committees characterised by collective decision making mechanisms involving thorough discussion (also think about the rotating CEO-system that Huawei uses).7 A second level takes place at the middle-management level where major business and HR issues are discussed using their “Administrative Team” system characterised by debates and sharing collective responsibility. A third level is referred to as “All-Inclusive Democracy” involving all employees using the online “voice community” intranet. Most of the major decisions taken by higher levels, and policies implemented that directly affect the interests of the employees are published on this intranet community for employees to fully discuss and question those decisions.

Although a hierarchical structure remains very present, Huawei has consciously implemented voicing opportunities across all levels, because, in line with research on procedural fairness, the company believes in building voice communities to contribute to the identity, loyalty and feelings of belongingness of its employees. Providing opportunities to voice signals to employees that they are a valued and important resource to the company. In fact, Ren Zhengfei has mentioned several times that he is proud and happy with the many talents out there. Creating a voice community will help to identify all these talents and employ them in the best positions possible. Listening to people and giving them the opportunity to bring diverse opinions to the table is a guideline that Huawei endorses to identify their future leaders. In this way, Huawei considers voice communities as directly bringing value to the company.

Listening to people and giving them the opportunity to bring diverse opinions to the table is a guideline that Huawei endorses to identify their future leaders.

A final and noteworthy point is that this attitude is a challenging one for many Chinese companies to take on – hence, the reason why we mentioned that applying Huawei’s management practices are not necessarily easy to translate to organisations working only in China. Indeed, many Chinese work cultures breed the attitude of avoiding opposing voices, which makes that organisational leaders are not trained to deal in constructive and not defensive ways with criticism and diversity in opinions. In addition, the personality of Huawei’s founder and leader, who constantly ruminates and analyses doubts about different strategies to promote the survival of his company, further contributes to the organisational habit to collect different points of view. As we have noticed in our interviews with employees, this attitude has contributed to the perception that the Huawei leadership is confident in dealing in open ways with dissident voices. And, it is this perception that makes the Huawei leadership legitimate in employee’s eyes and able to motivate them to pursue excellence in their job. After all, as humans are social beings, it is no surprise that we all like to be listened to but prefer to share responsibilities when it comes down to decision-making. In organisational cultures that are perceived as legitimate this kind of decision-making process will always produce the best outcomes.

Featured Image: Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Founder and CEO, at World Economic Forum, Davos, January 22, 2015, 

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About the Authors 

David De Cremer is the KPMG Professor of Management Studies at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK, where he heads the Department of Organisational Leadership and Decision-Making. He is the author of the book Pro-active Leadership: How to overcome procrastination and be a bold decision-maker (2013) and co-author of “Huawei: Leadership, culture and connectivity” (2017).

Tian Tao is Co-Director of Ruihua Innovative Management Research Institute at Zhejiang University. He is also the author of the book “Huawei: Leadership, culture and connectivity” (2017) and Founder and Editor in Chief of Top Capital magazine.

 

References

1. Liu, W., Zhu, R., & Yang, Y. (2010). I warn you because I like you: Voice behavior, employee identifications, and transformational leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 189-202
2. De Cremer, D., & Tyler, T.R. (2005). Managing group behavior: The interplay between procedural fairness, self, and cooperation. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 37, pp.151-218). New York: Academic Press.
3. De Cremer, D., & Tyler, T.R. (2007). The effects of trust and procedural justice on cooperation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 639-649.
4. Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B. M. (1996). An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: Interactive effects of outcomes and procedures. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 189–208.
5. See, for example, how procedural fairness helped the New York Police Department to be accepted by the local community, Sunshine, J..& Tyler, T.R. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law and Society Review, 37(3), 513-548.
6. De Cremer, D., & Tian, T. (2015a). Huawei’s culture is the key to its success. Harvard Business Review, June.
7. De Cremer, D., & Tian, T. (2015b). Leadership innovation: The rotating CEO system of Huawei. The European Business Review. November/December, 10-13.

Rich but Poor Africa: Can Agriculture Help Tackle Its Looming Food Crisis?

By Hamlet Hlomendlini

As populations rise, food demand goes up and not everybody might be ready. In this article, economist Hamlet Hlomendlini sheds lights on the economic and political realities faced by Africa and how the region could approach the looming food crisis.

 

Global food demand is expected to increase substantially by 2050, owing to rapid population growth, urbanisation, and rising incomes, especially in developing economies. Consequently, this is driving up food demand and poses significant challenges for food security especially in Africa.

According to the most recent United Nations’ estimates, the world population is nearly 7.6 billion as of mid-2017 (see table 1). This implies that the world has added approximately 1 billion inhabitants over the last 12 years.

 

Table 1: Population of the World and Regions, 2017, 2030, and 2050

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017)

The United Nations estimates that by 2050, the world will be home to more than 9.7 billion people. Africa is expected to house more than 2.5 billion people, slightly more than a quarter of the world’s population. This is raising fundamental questions with regards to the ability of the continent to effectively meet its growing food demand.

Africa, amongst all the continents in the world faces the hardest challenges. Corruption and political dictatorship are the two top challenges eating up the soul of and are major factors linked to the failure of many states in the continent. Factors such as poor governance, inferior political institutions, weak legislative and judicial systems among others are mooted as the core causes of corruption and dictatorship in the African states.

While corruption in particular is quickly becoming a global phenomenon which every country in the world is confronted with, in most African states corruption and dictatorship are not a new trend.  It is apparent that since independence, cases of official abuse of public resources for selfish enrichment have been and continue to be the feature of most state in Africa. Areas of natural resources (mainly land and oil) and financial resources are usually the main targets of most African leaders immediately when they are elected into power, whether by hook or by crook.

In countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa and few others where corruption has become rampant and the rule of law is not respected by leaders, wealth becomes captured, income inequality, unemployment and poverty levels rise and governing capacity is reduced. Unfortunately, the poor tend to be ones having to bear most of the burden thereof.

If Africa wants to see growth and development, it must reduce its dependency on the West and start relying on itself.

However, having said that, it must be said that the West has played a role in exacerbating both corruption and dictatorship in Africa. This statement however, should not be interpreted as saying the West is the direct cause of corruption and dictatorship in Africa but that the West has certainly played a key role in impeding the eradication thereof. For example, it is the West that helps keep corrupt African leaders in power and continue supporting them through the so called “foreign aids” which are supposedly facilitate development and reduce hunger in Africa. While in most instances foreign assistance helps feed the hungry, it renders some African states prisoners to the West and create dependency culture of the least developed countries on donor countries.

Of course, that is not to say, “foreign aids” are all bad. For example, recent reports by the USAID suggest that foreign aid continue to support South Sudan’s refugees that are flowing in numbers in neighbouring countries. Moreover, Africa accounts for around 20 percent of US aid, with Egypt, Kenya, and South Sudan being the biggest beneficiaries.

Africa is known as a continent endowed with rich natural resources, including precious metals (such as diamonds, gold, platinum etc.), significant reserves of oil and gas and large tracks of arable land, yet many African countries are ranked top amongst poorest states on earth. Notwithstanding that, the exploitation and sale thereof to the Western companies does not make the situation any better or different but only strengthen Africa’s dependency on the West. If Africa wants to see growth and development, it must reduce its dependency on the West and start relying on itself.

Interestingly, the African continent has something very unique, a young population which is the greatest asset at its disposal. For example, the World Bank estimates that in around 40 African countries, over 50% the population is under 20 (see map 1). By contrast, in 30 richer countries, less than 20% of the population is under 20.

 

Map 1: Percentage of Country’s Population Under 20 Years Old in 2015

Source: World Bank

Unfortunately, Africa is not taking full advantage of its young population. It known that everywhere in the world, the youth is a strong force for both social upliftment and political change. In South Africa for instance, the youth is playing a key role in the political arena and they are making their voices heard. It is the likes of Mmusi Maimane (leader of the official opposition party in the South African National: the Democratic Alliance-DA) and Julius Malema (leader of another significant opposition party: Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF), both in their thirties that are responsible for the recent vote of motion of no confidence against the South African President, Jacob Zuma. The motion was however not successful, given the large number of representatives from the ruling party (the African National Congress-ANC) in Parliament. Most African countries can learn something from South Africa in this regard.

It is not only in political arena where the African youth must challenge the status qou. In most African countries including South Africa, the agricultural sector is in dire need for Youth involvement. Given the increasing food demand in the continent, revitalising agriculture must become a priority for African countries. Agriculture has a key role to play in addressing the continent’s food security and mitigating the risk of potential food crisis emanating from rapid increase in population.

Due to the sustained neglect of the agriculture, Africa has shifted from being an exporter of agricultural products in the 1960s to a net importer currently. The attributes in this regard include poor infrastructure, the lack of developed supply chains and insufficient financing which contribute to low yields and unreliable supply from smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of the sector’s production base. Africa must and great with urgency address the challenges thereof. Failing to address these challenges will lead to the demise of the agricultural sector in some states. Perhaps, it might help the African states to revisit the Maputo declaration on agriculture and food security, especially considering the fact that investment to the agricultural sector across Africa is way lower that what proposed in Maputo in 2003.

It has been long advised that long-term investment in sector of potential growth like agriculture has a potential to address food insecurity and reduce poverty and unemployment particularly amongst the African youth. Perhaps, in that way, Africa could avoid the looming food crisis.

Photo: Women plant rice in paddy field part of the flood plain of Betsimitatatra, Antananarivo, Madagascar, September 2013 © Getty Images

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About the Author

Hamlet Hlomendlini is an Agricultural Economist based in South Africa. Currently, Hlomendlini serves as Chief Economist at Agri South Africa, working in the advocacy policy space with special attention on trade policy, industrial policy, taxation, financing, and land reform. He has written a number of thought leadership articles on economic and trade issues relating to the South African Agricultural Sector.

Barcelona – The Hypocrisy of Sorrow

By Peter Koenig

The forces of terror are real, but who they really are is a different topic. In this article, Peter Koenig elaborates on the recent attack on Barcelona, the whats and whys of the event, and how it all connects to the global terrors we are all facing.

 

Barcelona, 17 August, 5 PM – a white van plows with 70 km/h into a mass of pedestrians, many of them tourists, on the famous Rambla, in the heart of Barcelona. The death toll, 13 plus more than 100 injured. In an adjacent event, the police kill one alleged perpetrator. The main suspect flees and is still at large. Or is he? – Maybe he has already been killed.

All the recent truck killings were carried out by white vans. Does it mean anything? Maybe not. But importantly ISIS has already claimed responsibility, through their news agency Amaq, so say the presstitute media. Does anybody other than the msm check? – Probably not. Doesn’t matter. When ISIS claims responsibilities, it puts hearts and minds at ease. The culprit has been found. It’s always the bloody Islamists-jihadists. We can rest in peace. And life goes on.

Indeed, life must go on and being prepared for more and increasing terror attacks is what the Mayor of London and Mr. Macron, the novice French President, already predicted. They must know a thing or two we don’t. OK, let’s brace ourselves. Much else we can’t do anyway – or can we?

The French head of the conservative Republican Party, François Fillon, a losing contender of the recent Presidential elections, said with regards to the French tourists who died in the Barcelona attack: “We must assume our responsibility…” referring to the fact that he was not elected President – as he, Monsieur Fillon, would have done away with this Islamist terror. How low-low can you sink? There are no words, no comments.

Fortunately, the chief perpetrator leaves, as usual and conveniently, a passport behind in the cabin of the white van. So, he can be traced to Melilla, a Spanish exclave in Morocco. In a related event, in a small town, Alcanar, some 250 km south of Barcelona, where on Wednesday night – well before the deadly Rambla run, a massive explosion took place in a residency, leaving one person dead and 7 injured. One person was arrested by police. One of the injured persons was suspected to be the driver of the white Rambla van.

When ISIS claims responsibilities, it puts hearts and minds at ease. The culprit has been found.

In the early morning hours of Friday, hours after the Barcelona van-ram in the beach town of Cambrils, some 120 km south of Barcelona, another van runs a police barricade, attempting to embark on a similar terror attack against a tourist-packed pedestrian strip. Apparently one pedestrian was killed. The police however, so the “news”, killed all five alleged terrorists in the van. The police now say they suspect one of them was the driver of the white van that rammed the Rambla. Dead men can’t talk.

All has – sadly but predictably – the putrefied smell of another false flag. And the “system”, the deep-deep dark state, again, gets away with it.

The mix of information, is seemingly incoherent and purposely very confusing. Connections must be fabricated. Let chaos reign. Keep people confused. Keep them in the believe that police are on top of it and on the guard. You people must not think. Indeed, shopping, according to RT is almost back to normal. There is a candle vigil going on in plain daylight – and a bit of a sombre ambiance – and a crowd is holding an anti-islamisation rally in the centre of Barcelona. All the while the Rambla is overflowing with tourists as usual. That’s the way it should be. Shopping is first. Put police in charge. They will protect us henceforth. In case they can’t handle it, the military are right at hand.

In the meantime – and foremost – and immediately after the horror massacre, messages of condolences poured in from such illustrious personalities, like Theresa May, Madame Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Sweden’s PM Stefan Löfven, from Belgium, Denmark… Sorrow, no end.

Let’s not forget, in the last year the Ram-Truck-Terror, now a convenient tool of horror, fear and killing, has hit Nice, France – 14 July 2016, Promenade des Anglais, 86 killed, almost 500 injured; Berlin, 19 December 2016, Christmas Market, 12 people dead, 56 injured; England twice, 22 March 2017, Westminster Bridge, 5 dead, more than 50 injured; London Bridge, June 2017, 7 dead; Stockholm, 8 April 2017, the city’s busiest shopping street – 4 died, 15 injured. And now Barcelona Spain.

The condolences of these leaders sound hollow and so hypocritical because they, the very leaders, are at the heart of the problem. If not the direct instigators of this simply patterned string of terror attacks, they are utterly complicit, allowing the strings being pulled on their secret services by order of the Master Global Deep State, whose goal it is to subdue Europe, to convert her into a police-military state, chaos, possibly civil war. A civil war not as bad as to curtail essential consumption. But civil strife all the same. Give corporate finance enough room to escalate their debt and profit spiral, but leave the populace poor enough to produce a Europe that is devoid of thinking; no time to reflect, no time to protest – as people will struggle for their sheer survival.

You don’t believe it? Look at Greece and elsewhere, what’s going on around you. Militarisation slow motion. Macron is fully committed to it – and doesn’t shy from saying so. The French have understood, and Macron’s popularity has sunk from 66% after the “election” to less than 35% today. Never mind. He is there to stay for 5 years. The French Constitution says so. A (people’s) miracle would have to happen to remove him.

On another occasion, I have mentioned the sophisticated hundreds of millions of euros worth ghost town being built in a German military camp in Saxony-Althaus – for the very purpose of training urban warfare – just in case, you and your fellow protesters, when you can’t take it anymore, you may take to the streets and go on the barricades – that’s when the urban trained forces of power come in to oppress you, even kill you, if necessary. What you saw in Hamburg at the G20 Meeting in early July was just a benign precursor of what’s to come.

Yes, that’s what’s expecting us Europeans – the US is already there, they are always a few notches ahead of us, they are doing the trial run for us. – Barcelona is just a little stone in the mosaic, in the Big Picture of “Full Spectrum Dominance” – the ultimate goal of the PNAC (Plan for a new American Century) – the Washington’s and the Deep-Dark One-Eyed State’s Bible, written and periodically updated by the ultimate One-Eyed Anglo-Zionists on top of the echelon. We are almost there.

Why now Spain? – Spain has been spared of major terror attacks since the 11-M (11 March 2004) attack, when a few explosions at Madrid’s Atocha train station killed 192 people and injured over 2000, three days ahead of Presidential elections. This had nothing to do with Jihadism. Though the terror was immediately blamed on Al Qaeda, no proof was ever found. It was the work of the right-wing government under PP (Partido Popular) in power at the time, blaming the Socialist Party (PSOE), hoping to defeat it. It backfired. The socialists won and stayed in power for two terms, a total of 8 years. But in the second term neoliberal might descended also on the socialists in Spain, as it did and does everywhere in Europe. The Socialists became and still are to this day, traitors to the people.

Today, Spain, with a smooth Parliamentary coup in 2016 that went almost unnoticed, has quietly slipped back to the neoliberal Rajoy Government. So, Spain is supposed to be safe for the system. It also followed the strict rules of the IMF, today reaching 100% debt to GDP, up from about 66% before the neoliberal manufactured crisis hit Europe and the western world in 2007/2008.

That’s exactly what the system wants. Spain is ready for another economic collapse, orchestrated in connivance with her leadership. Ready for another round of rent taking – more privatisation, pension and base salary cuts – the usual. Again, look at Greece and you see the pattern. Wall Street’s appetite is never satisfied. It’s the fraudulent dollar (and euro) economy we are enslaved to that makes this human tragedy possible – and people don’t seem to even notice who and what is behind the planned misery.

Spain is on track for further “milking”. So, why more suffering now? – Spain is an important NATO country with three naval and military bases. The majority of the population hates NATO, would like to get rid of it. What better way of convincing the people that the forces of NATO are useful defenders against Islamist attacks. Yes, weak and with fear you accept (almost) anything. Actually, you call for your hangman to protect you – in fact, it’s the collective Stockholm syndrome.

Therefore, let’s not get sidetracked by the hollow and hypocritical words of sorrow of the chief vassal-leaders (sic) of our three most powerful European countries which are meant to lead the way for the people of the European Continent to become gradually but surely enslaved into mere hapless and powerless serfs, deprived of civil and human rights. We are well on the way there. Have you noticed?

Spain is on track for further “milking”. So, why more suffering now? – Spain is an important NATO country with three naval and military bases.

It’s called Fascism with a smile. It’s a slow-moving soft but deadly fascism that fascinates you at every corner, pulling you deeper and deeper into the hole of no return. It’s the neoliberal fascism, that has abrogated and done away with every law, every regulation that may have protected you and your hard-earned savings and public assets; it conveyed everything to the market. Even your pensions and your saving. They are no longer yours. The market decides. Don’t believe it? – Just look at Greece. – “Hasn’t happen yet to me” – Well it will, I guarantee it, if you don’t take over your nation and make her again YOUR sovereign country. Act rather sooner than later. Time is running out.

Naturally, the situation will become unbearable to the point where you can’t take it anymore, and you will want to take to the street. It’ll be too late. Urban warfare will be ready against you.

Fascism with a smile has brought you to the point where there is no going back. It’s a new fascism. It’s not Hitler’s fascism. It’s soft, sophisticated and deadly, if you oppose it. You are manipulated by a blue-managed matrix, encircled by police and military, ready to fire – but you will be fine and get fed as long as you nod, as in agreement.

Barcelona, Nice, London, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm – and whatever else is to come, are mere little pebbles in a growing mosaic. You better look ahead what the picture, the mosaic may look like when its finished – the Big Picture is nasty, very nasty.

Think about the message of sorrow Mr. Putin sent to King Felipe VI of Spain: “We strongly condemn this brutal and cynical crime against civilians. What has happened once again emphasises the need for the global community to join efforts to fight against the forces of terror.”

Mr. Putin has not mentioned Islam. He knows that he talks to western leaders who are in bed with terror, that getting them out of bed is a pipe dream. They are bought or threatened – with promises of heaven – to lead this system of terror all the way to a One World Order, or as India’s President Modi said so eloquently in a recent RT interview – until the world is eventually one happy family. Bingo.

But it is not the end. There are alternatives. The western world is like a sinking ship. It’s a slow sinking ship, slow and smiling as the fascism that drives it. We may not notice it. But look all around you, the massive killing, the fraud, the lawlessness at every step, up to the highest levels of government. Forget the msm presstitute, they are lying.

Most everybody knows this today. The next few centuries or more, are the Age of the East – Russia and China are opening the gates for an Economy of Peace, led by President Xi Jinping’s initiative, the enormous multi-pronged OBI – One Belt Initiative, formerly the OBOR – One Belt One Road; a new Silk road that stretches from Shanghai to Hamburg and from Vladivostok to Lisbon and connecting Syria and Iran in the South.

Be brave! Dare to detach. Detach from the lie and fraud we have been living for the last two millennia, all the way back to the Roman Empire and which may be reaching soon a peak, a fiery and bloody peak which may end life as we know it in a nuclear all-annihilating holocaust. Because the dying beast may not want to leave survivors on this planet of ours.

 

Featured Image: Forensic police officers search for clues near the area where a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain, August 17, 2017. © Reuters/Sergio Perez

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About the Author

koenig-webPeter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

From the Trans-Atlantic Axis and the Trans-Asian Axis          

By Dan Steinbock    

The ASEAN faces old and new challenges, and a huge long-term opportunity. The next three decades could witness the shift of global economic momentum from the Trans-Atlantic axis to the Trans-Asian axis.

 

Recently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) marked its 50th anniversary in Manila with President Duterte hosting the celebrations. Despite its importance, the Summit’s international coverage remains unacceptably marginal. But times are changing.

Today, ASEAN’s combined population amounts to 640 million, which makes it the world’s third-largest market. The combined ASEAN economies total $2.6 trillion. The grouping is a major regional power.

What matters even more is how important ASEAN and Asia could become globally in the next three decades.

 

Need For Unity and Leadership

“The biggest challenge for the ASEAN moving forward will be for it to stay united”, said Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh in a recent interview. I first met him a few years ago in Singapore, while serving in the EU-Center. Then, too, he expressed similar concerns – for a reason.

As major powers compete more intensely with one another for influence in Southeast Asia, ASEAN will come under competing pressures. Until recently, Washington still saw the grouping as an extension of its postwar hubs-and-spoke security system, while Brussels perceived the ASEAN as its weak replica, a sort of EU lite.

The biggest challenge for the ASEAN moving forward will be for it to stay united.

In the EU, integration was often seen as a norm for other groupings; in the US, regime changes have often been justified in the name of US view of “freedom”. North Korea is a textbook case (and one that could, under some circumstances, result in tragic devastation). In the recent Summit, Washington sought to pressure ASEAN to downgrade diplomatic exchanges with North Korea. But it is neither the ASEAN way nor its experience to isolate another country and condemn them. They know that imposing sanctions simply will not work.

In the case of Myanmar, Washington and Brussels isolated Myanmar and imposed sanctions; the ASEAN countries didn’t. As Koh put it, “We brought them into the family, we tried to influence them in a very gentle Asian way, and the Myanmar leadership, the military leadership, decided on their own volition – not because of external pressure – to develop their own roadmap to democracy.”

Instead of isolation, condemnation and imposed sanctions that won’t work, violations of international consensus should result in elevated cooperation, integration and positive rewards, which do work. That’s the ASEAN way, which offers great lessons not just in Southeast Asia.  

In the past, Koh would patiently explain to the EU officials the ASEAN way, and its basic principles; cooperation, amity, and non-interference. To Brussels, that meant integration without integration. To ASEAN, integration is not conceivable without sovereignty. That’s the lesson of colonial subjection.

From Washington’s Shadows to Economic Development

When the ASEAN was created in 1967, Southeast Asia was still overshadowed by America’s might – and miscalculations.

Washington hoped to use ASEAN as a front against communism in Vietnam and insurgencies within the region, including Philippine efforts to defuse the former Hubalahap militants through amnesty, Suharto’s anti-communist “New Order” in Indonesia, the Malaya fights against communists and so on.

Yet, it was not just the perceived external enemy that led to the creation of ASEAN. It was fuelled by the thirst of economic development.

After centuries of colonialism and the decision by Washington and Moscow to export Cold War and its conventional wars to Asia, living standards had fallen far behind the Western averages in Southeast Asia. Even in Singapore, the wealthiest ASEAN economy, per capita incomes were barely 15% of those in the US; in the rest of Southeast Asia and China  just 1-5% of the US level.

By 2022, at the end of the Duterte era, the Philippines will be the second-largest ASEAN economy, right after Indonesia. 

Assuming continued peace and stability, US per capita incomes could rise to $70,200 by 2022. But in Southeast Asia, the catch-up will be even faster. In Singapore, per capita income, based on purchasing power parity, will exceed the US level by a whopping 50%. In Indonesia and the Philippines, the corresponding figures could be 24% and 17%, respectively; in China, about a third of the US level.

In the West, secular stagnation will ensure subdued growth rates; in Southeast Asia, continued catch-up is likely to keep them relatively high, due to solid output potential. By 2022, at the end of the Duterte era, the Philippines will be the second-largest ASEAN economy, right after Indonesia. 

The collective economic power of the ASEAN is likely to climb to $4.1 trillion in the next half a decade, right after the US, China, and Japan. A decade later, the economic size of China will surpass the US, while India and the ASEAN have potential to leave behind Germany and – over time – Japan.

However, the catch-up requires peace in the region, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and rule of law (read: elevated struggle against corruption), and inclusive pro-growth policies – as well as accelerated regional integration

 

The Trans-Regional Giants of the Future

Let’s try to see even further. By 2050, Indonesia’s population could climb to 327 million, and the Philippines would be the world’s 10th most populous nation with some 155 million inhabitants. In the ASEAN, 820 million people would represent the world’s third-largest grouping.

Indonesia would be the world’s fourth largest economy, followed by the Philippines (23rd), Vietnam (24th), Malaysia (28th), and Thailand (29th). With their combined economies, these ASEAN-5 economies alone would put the region ahead of Japan, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and UK.

Unlike the EU’s deep integration or shallow approach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the ASEAN represents a balancing act between national sovereignty and economic size.

In the past, it was the transatlantic axis – that is, economic cooperation between the US and the four core EU economies of the UK, Germany, France and Italy – that drove global economic prospects. By 2050, it will be the trans-Asian axis; that is, economic cooperation between China, India, and the ASEAN-5 that will fuel global economy, politics and security (see Figure 1).

 

Figure 1: From the Trans-Atlantic Axis to the Trans-Asian Axis (2016-2050)

 

By then, the transatlantic economy of the US and the EU-4 could amount to $70 trillion, but the trans-Asian economy of China, India and ASEAN-5 would represent $95 trillion, which could grow by another $10 trillion with East Asia – Japan and South Korea.  

But none of these achievements will happen automatically. They require unity. In order to deliver the future, the ASEAN must not only cope with pressing short-term and medium-term challenges, it must also remain focussed on the long-term perspective.

This commentary originally released by The Manila Times on August 14, 2017

Featured Image:  Department of Foreign Affairs Republic of the Philippines/ Facebook

 

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About the Author

Dan Steinbock is the Founder of Difference Group and has served as Research Director of International Business at the India China and America Institute (US) and a Visiting Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net

Is Brexit a Neo-Liberal Coup Against 45 Years of Life-Protective Law and Regulation?

By John McMurtry

The European Union’s rule of life-protective law is never really seen on media’s coverages and public discussions. In this article, Dr. McMurtry shares an in-depth analysis on Brexit, contentious elements revolving it, and how all these point to a coup against EU’s life-protective law and regulation.

 

The self-maximising growth of private-money power over all life and life support systems – life capital in a word – to exploit for non-producer profit is not yet recognised as a master degenerative trend built into the ruling meta programme of which Brexit and Trump are the latest Anglo-American expressions. Central to this unseen meta trend is the compulsive dismantling of life-protective law and rights whose masking justification has shifted from “globalisation” to “nationalism”. The Left is befuddled. It sees the anti-Labour implications in both the financialised EU and the de-regulating Brexit with no coherent programme to overcome both. The Right blindly follows the inner logic of the ruling economic model while Liberals offer only partial and incompetent market fixes for collective life capital sustainability. All fail to see Brexit’s giant step towards life capital degeneration and eco-genocide at the margins as environmental and civil commons are stripped of their public funding by privatisation and de-regulation. The cumulative carcinogenic conversion of organic, social and ecological life organisation into ever faster private money-profit sequences multiplying to the unproductive few is the predictable system result.

There has been much written on “Brexit”, but almost nothing on the tax, social- policy and environmental revolution backwards that it entails.

Little or no common life substance, historical bearings, or defined policy grounds analysis of what is happening. Even 30 months after Brexit suddenly dominated the news cycle as a marketing site for mass discontent and diversion from Britain’s real problems, there is no connection of the dots.

There are many dots to join, and all of them are compounded by the unseen programme of Brexit – ever rising inequality, bankrupting tax cuts to the corporate rich, cumulative dispossession of the poor by Tory “austerity”, runaway disease-causing industrial-chemical farming and frankenfoods growing into epidemics of obesity and other ills, London financial enrichment as the public sector shrinks while banks are recapitalised by public money, and – most unseen of all – mounting pollutions by multiplying carbon and waste miles built into every unneeded commodity transportation across oceans that the Paris Agreement does not touch.

 

Why Brexit is an Historic Fraud

No-one seems to know on the public stage that the Brexit referendum “victory” is legally non-binding from the start and has never been supported by the vast majority of British voters, with ever less support since the 37% peak of support in June 2016 referendum.

So it follows that Brexit’s new leader since this poll, to which she was once opposed, PM Theresa May, tells a big lie when she continually says that Brexit “is the will of the British people”. Her nose, and that of the Tory rich behind Brexit, grows longer when she keeps insisting on this falsehood after a British majority voted against her in the June 8 2017 election which she proclaimed the “defining election about Brexit”. A snap election PM May called for despite warnings of uncertainty from Tory election strategist Lynton Crosby.

The multiple fraud is, however, important to keep alive. If the majority of the British people have never in fact supported Brexit nor the Great Repeal Bill PM May still takes forward to EU negotiation without any defined policy whatever, and she has a lost election that was to boot about Brexit, then the whole house of cards on top of which she is visible queen, falls into the bin of history where it now should go.

But who connects across the sudden and secretively funded and orchestrated 30-month movement of Brexit through all the lies it has spun – including the $450 million a day to be saved for the iconic but crumbling National Health Service (one fraudulent claim that has been noted in the corporate media). Who questions the legitimacy of the whole affair at all levels – including the leading known liar bolding it out front to be rewarded as Foreign Minister even as his fellow cabinet-Brexit member and the independent press show he is unfit to hold high public office.

Who brings up the connected facts that the big losers of Brexit are the 90% of farmers requiring its agricultural subsidy to survive, the young professional classes losing their precious passports to EU jobs and travel, the competitive green exporters who meet the strict EU market standards for renewable and non-toxic products which Big-Ag-Food specialise in, and the many millions very much in favour of the independent EU Court of Justice and of Human Rights with 60 years of legal standards and precedents on workers’ and citizens’ rights – not to mention the further millions who support EU Organic Agriculture and Endangered Species Directives leading the world against profitably ecocidal practices.

Who connects the widespread feeling that “things have gone wrong” which the Brexit referendum capitalised on by scape-goating the EU to the real causal factors of the long Great Recession brought on by Wall Street and the cruel Tory health, education, public service and social cutbacks to pay for it? Cause-effect thinking has been suspended all around by the Brexit diversion.

Who is behind it all? Boris Johnson’s and Nigel Farage’s London financial pals are front-line candidates but are not named, and the billionaire press tub-thumping for them and Brexit has sustained the great diversion from the UK’s real problems. PM May and Foreign Minister Johnson can even abet mass murder with no press follow-up as they approve billions of dollars of licensed armament sales to Saudi Arabia for its biblical eco-genocide of the poverty-stricken Yemini people.

Yet the unspeakable point about Brexit across domains is to make life-destructive London profit sovereign again against all international laws and regulation.

 

Cui Bono? The Unseen Beneficiaries of the Brexit Coup

In the official background, Britain’s Electoral Commission has had to investigate Brexit’s voluminous and shady private financing with little luck given a campaign-long timelimit on disclosure and other blocks. Tranparency International has run into them too. There seems to be nothing on Brexit’s backroom origins before the double-talk lobby group, “Britain Great in Europe”, began its slickly promoted media-spectacle campaign with even its master slogan a brazen falsehood.

The mass media conversation is especially empty on the very big private money stakes that are at work in Brexit. After all the media’s major advertising spaces are bought by these very wealthy interests at very high returns. No-one in this company wants people to read that Brexit entails the legal erasure of EU market rules protecting human rights, the environment and London financial inspections.

Private London financial interests are especially unexposed. Vast “investment banking, cross-border sales of securities, Euro liquidity to clearing houses, non-performing loan recognition, coverage and write-offs” all escape the planned independent EU inspection and supervision on these very defined issues at exactly the same time as Brexit started.

The definition of the EU Central Bank’s mandate to investigate and supervise “the business model, risk management, and capital, liquidity and funding” of private-profit bank and financial institutions via a rigorous “Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process” led by elite teams of professional accountants must strike terror and rage in the high echelons of the City. All such independent intervention, regulation and accountability is anathema to the unregulated daily trillions in hard currency substitutes that are bet and switched daily in the US-UK global financial matrix which can fabulously enrich private agents and hollow world economies overnight.

 

The Dots are Not Joined

Few observe that Brexit is based on a non–binding referendum unsupported by two-thirds of voters, and finished with an eerily timed terrorist attack days before the June 8 2017 election to decide the Brexit go-ahead. Such terror attacks invariably spike polls upwards for governments, and it is revealing of the dark forces at work that PM May spookily blamed a “too tolerant” Opposition and “public sector” as encouraging the terrorists.

Even then, even with virtually all UKIP votes, the Tory PM lost the majority counted to be overwhelming to cement Brexit in. To be exact on the historical figures here, the original 17, 410,742 voters supporting Leave in a rush referendum whose wording itself changed in the spectacle process hardly exceeded a third of the electorate (46,500, 001) as enumerated by the UK Electoral Commission. Moreover, no mainstream media ever featured the 12, 948,018 voters left out, nor the fact that those not voting later voted 2:1 against Brexit once the results were known  .1

In the June 8 2017 election, the Tories and PM May lost any majority whatever. even in the snap election against the promised 2020 date to exploit a 24% poll lead, even with illegal financing and non-stop misrepresentations of the facts headlined in the press-baron media, and even with a sudden terrorist attack right before the election reliably known to boost leader polls.

All things considered, it is difficult to avoid concluding that “Brexit” is a major political operation to end the established order of government from within ruling circles – a coup d’etat – which has proceeded by stunning positional switches, policy-empty promises, leadership flip-flops and lies, all outside of Parliamentary control, never supported by even 40% at any stage, and with no binding legitimacy any step of the way.

One is reminded here that such coups within the established political order have been recurrent in recent years against social democratic systems – as the EU is – in Brazil (with times more population and real wealth than the UK), as well as Argentina, Honduras, Paraguay, and Haiti.

 

The Nationalist Mask of Brexit

Yet who connects this built-in agenda to the transnational bank and corporate goliaths who most benefit from holus-bolus privatising, de-taxing and de-regulating the UK economy?

In this way, the long-established form of the UK’s EU governance in economic matters is overthrown for secretive and carte-blanche rewrite. Yet who connects this built-in agenda to the transnational bank and corporate goliaths who most benefit from holus-bolus privatising, de-taxing and de-regulating the UK economy?

The best way to divert any public from the hard facts of a coup by the unproductive rich is to attack a familiar enemy or scapegoat, and beat a national drum to unify the many reliably ignorant dupes of the stratagem.

I have formally explained this fallacy in a logic journal as the ad adversarium fallacy. But anyone can see it once it is exposed. In the Brexit gambit, the popular enemy has been a combination of EU nabobs grinding down poor countries to pay private banks, arrogant bureaucracy and oppressive regulations beyond tolerance, and – after years of catastrophe – globalising rules hollowing out the true nation and its glory across time. The Trump-Brexit connections are clear.

They make for an explosive cocktail. It. does not matter if its beneficiaries have stood for the very sins for which is the enemy evil is scapegoated – as with Putin Russia for “interfering in the US election” or “pursuing policies of aggression” in which the US leads the world by many-country miles over a century.

The key is to divert people’s attention from what the blamer does in spades to the unpopular Other to beat up instead.

Brexit has been run on this ploy from day one with press-baron media exhuberance. Trump even beat the media in the US to get elected by the same war-drum group-think, as does his opposition now with Putin Russia as the devil.

The Trump-Brexit connections are clear.

For both, the “nationalist” mask is adopted to ground the roll of militant ignorance over all facts and – in Hannah Arendt’s lucid phrase – “negative solidarirty” – to gain supreme rule for the historical moment.

What is diverted from by this master track-switch of thought is transiently game-winning for the blaming party, but ruinous in fact to the common life interest of the nation. In the case of Brexit, the system payoff is the dominion of non-productive financial rule, de-regulation, de-taxation and privatisation of the nation’s natural and social wealth, and war state methods to sustain and advance the life-blind system of unaccountable money-party rule. .

Systemically understood, the UK and US “nationalist” movements abolish life-serving law and regulations to engineer economic circuits to serve private money powers as the nations’ “freedom”. There are four degenerate trends:

  1. sweeping income-tax reductions to private corporations and the rich to the lowest level in history of 10-15% (the “incentive” card);
  2. ever more privatisation and corporate public “partnership” schemes that cost the public 30 to 50% more in hidden profit-levies, poorer services and upkeep investments (the “eliminate red-tape” card);
  3. rising armed-force spending for pervasive policing at home and war-criminal threats and occupations abroad to enforce the growing life-system depredation (the “get tough” card);
  4. systemically ecocidal deregulation as the need for more organic, social and ecological life standards become more urgent (the “freedom” card).

 

The False Justifications of Brexit

There is certainly a widespread feeling in the UK that the movement of foreign-speaking cultures into everyday poorer Britain for social benefits and low-wage competition with UK workers has inflamed anti-EU passions.

A similar widespread feeling has inflamed anti-foreign passions in Britain in the past – with the xenophobic Enoch Powell who much impressed the City-based leader of Brexit, Nigel Farage. Yet such ability to raise primal resentments against the foreign cannot justify a political counter-revolution against an evolved system leading the world in environmental, labour, and human rights.

Much too has been made of “Brussels” as an oppressive foreign rule choking Britain in “bureaucracy and red tape”. But this is the standard complaint against any public regulations perceived to lower private profits by increasing costs.

Research can find no sustainable example of such bureaucratic oppression. For example, the new EU regulation against massive throwing away of fish catches in falling-stock seas is despised by Brexit-UK Minster of the Environment, Michael Gove. But his family business has long profited from this no-cost waste and ignored the ecological necessity that the EU Common Fisheries policy prescribes.

Fury has been poured on “bureaucratic” regulation against destroying (animal and bird habitat) of hedges and trees, and for imposing genetically engineered seeds and methods on the countryside that are genetically dominant and contaminate other crops and natural ecocycles – two of the EU most condemned regulations in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and Organic Agriculture Regulations.

More sweepingly and eco-blindly, the current Tory Minister of Agriculture, George Eustace, publicly repudiates the pre-cautionary principle itself as “the wrong way to go”. He wants to erase this central EU and scientific principle for corporate “risk assessment” and other profit-friendly evasions of environmental responsibility.

As always with Brexit leaders, there is no coherently defined policy to replace the life-protective rule of law of over 45 years in the European Community and Union. All specific meaning disappears into vague PR sound-bites and slogans like “opportunity for innovation”, “lower regulatory burden”, and “less red tape”.

So too the financial suits behind Brexit. They want no regulations or costs of their specialty of trillions-a-day currency speculations (enabled and protected by public infrastructures), not even a small fraction of one percent proposed by the tiny Tobin tax over 40 years with near-unanimous public support. They are used to no public regulation or costs for their money tree at others’ expense.

The big banks and speculators have avoided, even after the 2008 collapse from historically unprecedented private big-finance fraud and predatory greed, any regulation requiring them to actually have the money they spend on derivative and other speculations to pay for their titanic gambles to enrich them alone with their failures paid for by public bailouts.

If the “democratic accountability” of private banks and big finance promised by the EU and laboured on since 2008 by European experts (including British citizens) on behalf of the peoples of 26 nations destabilised by the greatest financial fraud in world history is not stopped by Brexit, the City’s financial funnels into the productive economy’s lifeblood will continue as usual.

The overdue EU Capital Requirements Regulation and Directives on reporting and supervising “risk management and capital, liquidity and funding” of each of the City’s big banks is intolerable to them. This upcoming supervision and regulation of London-cum-Wall Street by qualified international public servants not subjugated to ancient City inducements and threats was under attack as soon as it was announced in 2015 with Brexit as the vehicle of overwhelming political pressures. The new $500 million Goldman-Sachs building in central London provides US-global back-up and partnership in the “too big to regulate” scheme of an era of big-bank rule – or “financial fascism”, in the words of one EU minister.

Brexit and the Great Repeal Act are the master dodge by “the masters of the universe” inside London against any incorrigibly independent and globally expert regulation in situ and backed by 70 years of international institutional experience.

 

Diversion to the Populist Enemy Enables Reverse of Life-Protective Civilisation

No-one evidently connects across the dominant financial forces most of all gaining by Brexit clearance of over half a century of democratic civilisation and binding life-protective norms at all levels.

Indeed there seems no media or political connection made of Brexit to the Big Banks and Big Agri-Chemical-Food. They have overwhelming interests in stopping the evolved rule of EU law from regulating out their US-style methods and predatory profits.

The de-regulated system has cumulatively degenerated from production and reproduction of life means with cumulative gain – life capital – to ever-growing consumption and waste of organic, social and ecological capital as far more profitable for private investment. Even the universal life support systems of breathable air, clean water, living oceans, rivers and aquifers are being degraded and despoiled at once.

The course of the macro-economic disease has been diagnosed in depth from 1995 on with medical and legal confirmation, but the carcinogenic macro trends are avoided and diverted from. There is no life substantive connections across the privatising, de-taxing, de-regulating and eco-blind meta programme at work in official society and culture.

Not even the same demagogic method in Trump and Brexit movements for massive de-regulation of an already insufficiently regulated and collapsing global life support base is deconstructed. Instead the ancient method of powering a movement against a vague enemy diverts everywhere – especially the desperate ignorance of dispossessed masses and opportunistic well-off telling self-serving lies. If the divert-to-the-enemy movement is given enough publicity without public analysis of its derangement, it can undo a lot of life-coherent civilisation to benefit top dogs and their packs in unseen ways.

In the US, for example, the accepted enemy of Russia is the only diversion which has worked against nationalist Trump’s own spectacular success with this same population-firing psychological operation. Brexit is a kind of Trump of the UK.

I long ago analysed this nearly omnipresent fallacy in formal logical terms as the argumentum ad adversarium. This means diverting from a substantive life-and-death issue at stake to the evils or foibles of a well-known enemy of the audience who is being gulled.

If many have been dispossessed and are looking for a scapegoat, the ad adversarium diversion works like black magic. It is the master track-switch of history and wars hot and cold.

If the divert-to-the-enemy movement is given enough publicity without public analysis of its derangement, it can undo a lot of life-coherent civilisation to benefit top dogs and their packs in unseen ways.

The designated enemy must have some bad karma for this “psy-op” to prevail over time. For example, the European Central Bank’s post-2008 financial torture of Greece and other poorer EU nations has been so life-blindly vicious on behalf of big private banks that the bemused Left stumbles in its next steps. Even the former Economic Minister of Italy, Giulio Tremonti, has publicly called it “financial fascism”.

At the level of the realpolitik of the only beneficiaries of Brexit, European Union life-protective law and regulations themselves are attacked as the problem. The private money-sequencing mind in control cannot compute that European Community regulations and norms have managed over 70 years and better than any other continent to develop life-coherent regimes of production and products not poisoning and destroying people’s health and environments.

This has been a long secret outside the EU. In America, only a few have the research backgrounds to know it. This is why Brexit run in a US-style attack campaign has almost succeeded in the leading the greatest step backwards in the evolution of homo regulans, the differentiating intelligence of the species.

 

What is Not Seen: The European Union’s Rule of Life-Protective Law

Unrelated to Brexit in the press are facts such as UK air pollution kills 50-60,000 people annually with the highest pollution content of all 28 EU states in violation of the EU standards with the EU now issuing a “final warning” before stiff fines against mass killing – revealingly at the same time as Tory PM May is forcing Brexit as the “wide-open eyes” and “will of the British people”.

It is “oppressive EU regulatory burdens” which are alone set to solve the problem. The EU Ambient Air Quality Directive is exactly researched and covers all known emission sources, including all forms of factory and traffic emissions and the specific pollutions and acidifications, a decades-advanced scientific document with the standard feedback documentation and incremental enforcement that normally characterise EU regulation and norms.

Yet government action on the worst lethal air pollution in Europe is only one of many life-protective regulatory actions that Brexit stops. Less seen are the faster-rising deaths and diseases from junk-food obesity and cumulative ecological ruin by the US-style gigantic-scale toxic Big Agri-Food processes and products increasingly feeding Britain. They also pervade organic and ecological life organisation with growing chemical inputs, concoctions and wastes.

Yet already Tory demands have been made for UK hygiene standards to be changed from EU to US rules so as to permit chicken meat sanitised only by chlorinated water, to allow beef raised with growth hormones, and to free genetically engineered substitute foods or GMOs from production and label restrictions. Already Big-Ag-Food US-style is setting up to compete outside the EU – Brexit’s “wider engagement with the world” – by far lower food, animal welfare and environmental standards.

These are the dark side meanings of Brexit’s “glorious new market opportunities”, “lack of red tape”, and “regulatory flexibilities” promised by Brexit.

The EU Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee is also moving to restrict advertising and sale of high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) foods and beverages to children with the UK set to comply just when Brexit is force-moving negotiations to end EU standards in Britain.

Even ever more pervasive noise pollution is effectively regulated against by EU regulations, including on vehicles, lawn-mowers and boat motors (compare Brexit-supporter Donald Trump’s Harley-Davidson inaugural salute and full-blasting 6-foot amplifiers in hotels). But where in the ad-filled media have you ever read about this EU standard of civilisation?

In renewable energy too, EU Directives lead the UK and the world again by a strict Renewable Energy Directive which requires 20% renewable energy in all 26 states by 2020. This may seem inadequate in our carbonised world where the air and oceans acidify and trillions of carbon miles are built into transcontinental commodity shuttles while only downstream “climate change” is targetted. In deeper fact, destabilised hydrological and weather cycles increasingly destroy the very conditions of life. Yet at least the EU Directives are not more markets in rights to pollute which do not reduce carbon gases.

The Tory UK’s planned exit from the most developed rule of life-protective law is set to spike carbon-miles further by every “wider trading opportunity” it brings outside of short-miles Europe where the distance between London and Berlin is a very small fraction of the carbon miles to and from Chicago or Toronto. Brexit is yet another crank up of the blackening system to the de-regulated US model where big finance, agri-food and military-industrial drivers rush further out of control at a turning point of cumulative stress on local and planetary life supports.

For the wider view, EU life standards have evolved over many decades of painstaking regulation of material processes and products to be a social immune system of the most productive and efficiently recycling system in the world – despite their deadly internal conflict with Wall-Street financialisation since its 2008 crash which has since hollowed out the public sectors of the developed world by at least $26 trillion in transfer of money demand from the public to private banks and unproductive private financial accounts.

Brexit is yet another crank up of the blackening system to the de-regulated US model where big finance, agri-food and military-industrial drivers rush further out of control at a turning point of cumulative stress on local and planetary life supports.

Most impressive in “social immune” terms is the EU’s world-leading Organic Agriculture Directives and, more deeply, its REACH regulation of hazardous chemicals (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). Over 20 years in the making involving lead British scientists, REACH has instituted regulations across domains in licensing processes and commodities in the legal market to stop every man-made chemical life insult now pervading the world in tens of thousands of forms.

Yet in every case of life-serving norm and regulation in which the EU leads the world in pollution reduction – including the near-pervasive commodity toxification and invasion subsidised and normalised elsewhere as “the free market” and “growth”. The EU’s detailed and scientifically validated regulations actually do reduce pollutions and life hazards by exact enforcement. They step-by step require life-coherent standards to be applied – as opposed to the regulation-bashing and swashbuckling ignorance of the Brexit-Trump forces as “sovereignty” and “freedom”.

 

Conclusion

Brexit exemplifies the pathogenic pattern which is not seen by the advertisement press, the corporatised academy, or the captive state. The life-and-death meaning, is blinkered out, the binding power of all EU life standards by the omnibus Great Repeal Act is secretively abolished, all losses of voting support are arrogantly ignored, and life-serving democratic civilisation is reversed.

The macro-economic pattern is carcinomic. Masked to surrounding life as “Great Britain’s sovereignty”, unprecedentedly dominant private transnational money sequences grow and multiply in nano-second speculations, unproductive titanic takeovers and debt-powered dispossessions to metastacise unseen into all corners with no defined policy, democratic mandate or committed life function whatever.

Featured image: An EU flag flies above Parliament Square during a Unite for Europe march, in central London, Britain March 2017 © Reuters

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About the Author

Dr. John McMurtry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and author of the three-volume study, Philosophy and World Problems of UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). His most recent book is The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: from Crisis to Cure.

Reference

1. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/10/24/brexit-is-not-the-will-of-the-british-people-it-never-has-been/

The Lessons of Terrorism in Mindanao

By Dan Steinbock

The Ramawi terror did not come out of the blue. It is a result of decades of economic polarisation, political exclusion, neglect of terrorism by the Aquino administration, and ISIL’s collapse in Syria and Iraq. If the stabilisation fails now, terror will spread beyond Mindanao. – This is the second commentary about the Philippines from an international viewpoint.

 

On May 23, 2017, the ongoing armed conflict started in Marawi, the capital of Lanao del Sur in Mindanao. Philippine government forces were surprised by affiliated militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), including the Maute and Abu Sayyaf Salafi jihadists groups.

Initially, President Duterte declared a 2-month martial law in Mindanao hoping to suppress the terrorist insurgency immediately. In July, government extended martial law in Mindanao to the year-end. By August, after Duterte informed the leaders of the Senate and House about “new terror plots in Mindanao,” he asked for 30,000 more troops to crack down on ISIL and other emerging threats.

Despite some criticism, the simple fact is that, without Duterte’s decisive action and martial law, Jihadists would have gained a foothold in Mindanao and terror would already be spreading in the Philippines and regionally.

To the old entrenched interests, the Marawi story is inconvenient domestically and internationally.

 

Domestic Neglect, International Geopolitics

In March 2016, after years of gross neglect of emerging terrorist threats and the 2015 Mamasapano massacre, then-President Aquino stated that the Islamic State had no presence in the Philippines, despite ISIL’s recovered insignias and documents, a foothold, training and jihadist loyalists in the country. Moreover, the number of ISIL sympathisers had been on the rise since 2014; perhaps since US military interventions in the Middle East in the early 2000s.

Without Duterte’s decisive action and martial law, Jihadists would have gained a foothold in Mindanao and terror would already be spreading in the Philippines and regionally.

Domestically, it was this neglect that led to the rise of the ISIL-led coalition under Isnilon Hapilon, who had fought in the Moro National Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf group, and the Maute brothers; scions of a political family clan, who used to head a private militia that engaged in extortion and pledged alliance to ISIL a year before President Aquino still denied its presence in the country.

It was this fatal neglect that allowed ISIL to infiltrate Mindanao, but also to escalate the regionalisation of Jihadist terror. Today, the “East Asia Wilayah” comprises jihadists from several Southeast Asian nations (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar), and potentially others from the Middle East, North Africa and Chinese Uyghurs. Indonesia alone has the largest Muslim population in the world and there are ISIL cells in most provinces.

International media has contributed to the neglect by “geopoliticising” the roots of terror in Mindanao. Last June, New York Times released a story by Richard C. Paddock which claimed that “Duterte, focussed on drug users in Philippines, ignored rise of ISIS.” In reality, Duterte has for years warned about the emerging terrorist threat in the country, even when others ignored such calls.

A month earlier Paddock had released another story, “Mysterious Blast in Philippines Fuels Rodrigo Duterte’s “Hatred” of US”, in which he used amateur psychology to explain away the infamous Meiring case in Davao in the early 2000s. Reportedly, the latter case was a CIA effort to cooperate with Jihadists to foster destabilisation through Mindanao in the Southeast Asia, which would then be used to legitimise greater US presence in the region (US collaboration with “moderate jihadists” in Syria in the 2010s suggests similar footprints).

But how did the impoverished Mindanao morph into a terror foothold?

 

Mindanao as Islamic State Destination

When the Aquino administration opted for its pivot to the US, re-established old military ties with the Pentagon, and invited American troops back to Philippines, it – unintendedly and yet by design – virtually ensured that the Philippines would morph into a major target for jihadists.

In June 2012, months after the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia, the Khilafah, a major jihadist website, argued that since “the US will keep six aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific and will shift 60% of its warships to the region, over the coming years until 2020”, it obligated the Jihadists to bring Islamic power in the region.

When the ISIL began terror in Iraq and Syria in 2014, I warned that the first ISIL-affiliated attacks in world capitals and Asia were only a matter of time, no longer a matter of principle. Historical and geographic forces fuelled the coming upsurge.

In March 2016, Wikileaks released a massive load of US diplomatic cables dating back to 1979. According to Julian Assange, the evidence indicated that the decision by the CIA and Saudi Arabia to plough billions of dollars into arming the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union paved the way to the creation of al-Qaeda and, eventually, to the ISIL. US counter-terrorist studies support the claim.

Historically, Jihadism originates from the Mujahedin – the guerrilla-type Islamist Afghan warriors in the Soviet-Afghan War – which Washington exploited in the 1980s. Yet, preferences for destinations have changed over time. Until 2001, Afghanistan, where volunteers went to join al Qaeda or the Taliban (or the Mujahedin in the 1980s), was the key destination. After US overthrow of the Taliban government, Pakistan became the preferred destination. Events in Somalia made it the preferred destination in 2007-8, while the civil war in Syria began to attract foreign fighters, with the number increasing in 2013-14 (Figure 1).

 

Figure 1: Intended Destinations of Would-Be Jihadists Over Time

Source: RAND, 2014

In each case, US interventions paved the way to massive destabilisation, which in turn supported the spread of terror. Nevertheless, the footholds of devastation – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen – that preceded the ISIL were largely regional and had few spillovers internationally.

Iraq and Syria changed the old status quo. Now Middle East battlefields became sites of international interventions, which had worldwide consequences and frequent spillovers, especially when the fighters would return home; often with battle-weary resentment but knowledge about fire-arms, explosives and insurgency. 

At the same time, the role of Asia and the Philippines have become central to the Jihadi world. The most recent issue of Rumiyah, the ISIL online magazine used for propaganda and recruitment, features a cover story about “The Jihad in East Asia” (in Caliphate parlance that connotes Southeast, South and East Asia). Typically, it portrays the Marawi fight as a struggle between good (ISIL) and evil (“Filipino crusaders”), which derives from decade-old efforts of the Abu Sayyaf Islamic movement “to open a jihad front there”.

Clearly, the strategic objective of the Rumiyah is to recruit new cadres of militants to launch multiple terror fronts in Asia. But why have the ISIL and its precursors pushed Mindanao as the key destination? 

 

Mindanao’s Economic Suffering

Geographically, Mindanao is often seen as the Philippines’ “food basket”. Historically, it has witnessed colonial violence by Spain, America and Japan; several communist insurgencies; armed Moro separatist movements, and now terrorist attacks.

Along with Palawan, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is the only area in the Philippines with significant Muslim presence. In 2012, the struggle for greater autonomy in the ARMM deteriorated with President Aquino’s failure to establish the Bangsamoro.

ARMM is a distinct territory, with its own culture and identity and has served as home to Muslim Filipinos since the 15th century. The Moros share a 400 year resistance of Bangsamoro (Moro nation) against Spanish, American, and Japanese rule. Historians remind us that the US surveillance state and torture, including waterboarding, was first used in Mindanao more than a century ago.

According a decade-old US intelligence assessment, the Mindanao may have “untapped minerals worth between $840 billion to $1 trillion”, which explains the great domestic and foreign interest in the region. Yet, today the ARRM remains one of the most impoverished areas in the country.

Income polarisation is alarming. While real per capita income in Philippine capital region is almost three times the national average, it is 17 times higher than average per capita income in the ARMM. In international comparison, metro Manila’s capita incomes are about the same as the average in Mexico, Brazil or China. But in Muslim Mindanao, per capita incomes are more comparable with those in Mozambique and Congo. Among Jihadist locations, ARMM is behind Syria, Pakistan and Yemen but at par with Afghanistan – which makes it an ideal target (Figure 2).

 

Figure 2: Per Capita Incomes in International Comparison, 2016

Sources: IMF, World Bank, CIA

Despite their struggle against economic, political and military odds, the majority of Muslims in Mindanao continue to have great hope in peace and the Duterte administration. Before the jihadist fighting, criminal and narcotic activities actually declined in the area. But now the future of Muslim Mindanao’s ailing and decent population is threatened.

 

Four Steps Toward Progress

Due to legacies of insurgencies, ethnic and religious disparities and huge income polarisation, Muslim Mindanao could serve as an ideal target for Jihadist footholds, training, recruitment, and propaganda. Such nightmare scenarios can be avoided, but only by decisive actions.

1. Restoring peace and stability in the near-term. In the short-term, Duterte administration’s effort to pacify terror in ARMM is vital, including the extension of the martial law. The threat must be neutralised now when it is still marginal, soft and fragmented and the majority of the ARMM supports government’s efforts to restore peace and stability in the region.

2. Acceleration of economic development across ARMM. In the medium-term, it is critical to escalate all viable efforts at economic development, through the stabilisation of key cities and host regions, by prioritising the Mindanao Development Corridors to intensify development.

3. Initiation of medium- and long-term regional integration. This is vital to ensure regional integration in parallel with other regional corridors. Stabilisation is not possible without cooperation with neighbouring countries that share similar threats, especially Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, even Australia and Japan.

4. Cooperation with major Asian and Pacific powers. This is critical in economic development (foreign investment, trade, aid), China-led pan-regional globalisation (OBOR) and regional counter-intelligence. The joint patrols in the Sulu Sea are a good start, but only a beginning. The long-term objective is predicated on greater collaboration with not just China and the US, but Russia, Japan and Australia, as well as Saudi Arabia and Iran – that is, nations that have a significant presence in Asia and that are central to stabilisation in the Middle East.

True development requires peace and stabilisation in Mindanao, while national integration in the Philippines supports regional integration in Southeast Asia. Major powers have a supportive role in conflict resolution, if they can offer support.Failure is not an option because it would mean the spread of terror first into major Philippine cities, and then across Southeast Asia.

The original version was published by The Manila Times on August 7, 2017

Featured Image: President Duterte salutes in front of the flag-draped casket containing one of the Marines killed in the fighting in Marawi © ABS-CBN

 

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About the Author

Dan Steinbock is the Founder of Difference Group and has served as Research Director of International Business at the India China and America Institute (US) and a Visiting Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net

Venezuela – The National Constituent Assembly is in Place – But the Fight for Sovereignty Isn’t Over

By Peter Koenig

Venezuela is set to have a National Constituent Assembly, but the struggle to regain its sovereignty is still facing powerful foes. In this article, Peter Koenig explores Valenzuela’s past and current political realities and its connections to the real dictators of the western world.

Venezuela has voted on 30 July for a National Constituent Assembly (ANC – Asamblea Nacional Constituyente) with a resounding close to 8.1 million votes, or over 41% of the total eligible electorate. The figure was confirmed by the president of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena. The Chavistas battle cry before the elections was Venceremos! – Ché Guevaras favoured revolutionary slogan. And the day after, 31 July, the victorious Ganamos! Accompanied by dancing in the streets.

To counter the mainstream presstitute mass media slandering of Venezuela, calling the legitimate democratically elected President a dictator, and that the vote was illegitimate and against the present Venezuelan Constitution – lets explain upfront what the Constitution says:

Article 347 of Venezuela’s constitution:

“The original constituent power rests with the people of Venezuela. This power may be exercised by calling a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of transforming the State, creating a new juridical order and drawing up a new Constitution.”

Article 348 states

“(t)he initiative for calling a National Constituent Assembly may emanate from the President of the Republic sitting with the Cabinet of Ministers; from the National Assembly by a two-thirds vote of its members; from the Municipal Councils in open session, by a two-thirds vote of their members; and from 15% of the voters registered with the Civil and Electoral Registry.”

Article 349 states

“(t)he President of the Republic shall not have the power to object to the new Constitution. The existing constituted authorities shall not be permitted to obstruct the Constituent Assembly in any way.”

The process to vote for the ANC is complex but highly democratic. The 30 July election chose 545 members to the National Constituent Assembly, of which two thirds (364) were elected on a regional or territorial basis, and one third (181) by sectors of professions or activities, i.e. students, farmers, unions of different labour forces, employees, business owners – and so on. This cross-section of people’s representation is the most solid basis for democracy. See also http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-is-venezuela-in-the-white-houses-crosshairs/5594240.

The process to vote for the ANC is complex but highly democratic.

The 8.1million pro-ANC vote may, at first sight, with 41% of total eligible voters, not constitute an absolute majority, but they are a legitimate majority analysed from different perspectives. The only historic data we currently have on Venezuela is the one from the 1999 Constitution (still valid today), which President Hugo Chavez Frias, elected in 1998, initiated after asking the people whether they agreed to the drafting of a new Constitution. He received an overwhelming 80% support.

Assuming that on average about 20% to 25% of the electorate do not vote (based on the past 19 elections since the Bolivarian Revolutionary Government took over in 1998), of the 20 million eligible electorate, about 15 million could be expected to vote. With 8.1million ANC supporters, the National Constituent Assembly resulting from the 30 July elections is a clear majority, about 54%.

The election result is another resounding victory, when compared to the opposition’s plebiscite, illegally held a week earlier. The opposition claims having received 7.2 million votes against the ANC. However, by all observers, including internationals, this is a highly questionable and probably vastly inflated figure, based on their election boots which were a fraction of those of the ANC election process countrywide. Plus, the announced result cannot be checked, as the voter’s bulletins were burned by the opposition, as soon as they informed the public of the plebiscite’s result. However, even assuming this figure was correct – which it most likely isn’t – the total alleged votes cast between the official ANC process and the illegitimate referendum would amount to 15.3 million, of which 8.1 million represents about 53%, or an absolute majority of the votes cast.

For analysis sake, let’s just look at the curious composition of votes the oppositions claims having received. In their referendum people had to respond with yes, or no to three questions, with each one being a leading question against the ANC. Each one of the three answers counted for one vote, thus, there were up to three votes per person. The same people also were allowed to vote in several districts. During the press conference held by the opposition, a journalist asked whether it was correct that one voter could cast his/her vote 17 times. The answer of one of the directors was yes, but it may be discovered at the final count. There were also stories of 10-year old kids and other minors voting. Also, there are 101,000 eligible voters abroad – but according to the opposition, the votes received from Venezuelans living outside Venezuela were almost 700,000. 

The illegitimate – yes, illegitimate – opposition vote is pure farce. Though it can never be checked, since the votes were burned and given the above details, the promulgated results of 7.2 million votes against the ANC would have to be discounted by at least 30% to 50%. Yes, illegitimate, as the Constitution does not allow interference from anybody, once the ANC process has been launched.

Curiously though, the opposition, having the majority in the National Assembly could have initiated themselves an National Constituent Assembly. They didn’t. They could have actively participated in President Maduro’s ANC vote and presented their own candidates as they would have, had they respected the principles of democracy. They didn’t do that either. It is clear, they are not interested in a democratic process. They are not interested even in dialogue, one of Mr. Maduro’s priorities for conflict resolution. They want a violent “regime change” – that’s what their Washington masters want and pay them for.

The most vociferous critics of the process came from the usual villains, CNN, BBC, Washington Post, NYT, even The Guardian, but so far relatively few from the EU and her members. One of the countries that sticks out most with her unsolicited comment is “neutral” Switzerland, where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on President Maduro, to cancel the elections for the new National Constitutional Assembly in “respect of democracy”. It further declared through the Swiss state-run radio-TV station, SRG, that the elections were illegal, as they are against the Constitution – which is a blatant lie, the Swiss Executive is aware of, but it pleases for sure Washington.

The Trump Administration also said it would not recognise the vote and slammed more heavy sanctions on Venezuela, among them, blocking President Maduro’s alleged “assets held in the US”. This in itself is a massive and ridiculous propaganda falsehood. It must be clear to any dimwit, that President Maduro does not have assets in the US. Washington forced “sanctions” will probably also follow from its European vassals.

The right-wing puppet leaders (sic) in Latin America have of course also immediately played to the tune of their northern masters. The first one to do so was Peru’s President Pablo Kuczynski, saying that his government would not recognise the result of the elections. But who cares what Peru thinks about sovereign democratic Venezuela? – His arrogance went as far as calling upon the Peruvian Prime Minister to form a committee that should look into possible actions Peru could and should take against Venezuela. If one knows the level of corruption that literally runs Peru – one of the worst, if not the worst of all Latin America – and the way Kuczynski was “elected”, or rather shoed in by his Washington Masters, one can just chuckle in disbelief. If there was any un-bought, uncorrupted functioning legal system in Peru – the last five consecutive Presidents would now be in jail for corruption and crimes against humanity, including the present one.

Of course, Colombia and Mexico, among the staunchest vassals of the northern empire were also accusing Venezuela’s ANC initiative as being illegitimate, anti-democratic, for the sole purpose of allowing President Maduro to become a dictator and to bend the new Constitution so that he may stay President for life. None of this is of course intended or in the cards, or indeed allowed under the Constitution and the National Assembly still in place. In fact, according to the Constitution, neither the President or the National Assembly which is not being resolved or replaced by the new National Constituent Assembly, have a right to interfere in ANC’s process of drafting a new Constitution.

On a recent visit to Mexico, the ultra-right-wing (Tea Party) CIA chief, Mr. Pompeo, pledged for both Mexico and Colombia to help assure that the situation in Venezuela is being corrected. Let’s not forget, Colombia’s President Santos (the latest Peace Nobel Laureate!) has already several months ago asked Brussels to send NATO troops to Colombia. They may already be there. With a 2,200 km porous border between Colombia and Venezuela, infiltration of Colombian and NATO troops into Venezuela would not be complicated.1

Among the few but strong supporters of the ANC and which called for the world to respect this legitimate and democratic process, were Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Iran, China and Russia. Others may follow. So far Brussels has only been mumbling. What remains to be seen is how these countries, notably Russia and China, would react, when it comes down to the wire with a possible CIA/US/NATO instigated coup à la Maidan, in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2014.

The purpose of a new or reality adjusted Constitution has precisely to do with foreign interference to the detriment of Venezuela’s economy.

Why did President Maduro call now for a National Constituent Assembly to modify or redraft the current Constitution? – The answer is simple. Dictators around the world, like France under Macron, the UK under Mme. May, and probably soon Germany under Mme. Merkel, would call for Martial Law to clamp down “legitimately” on the peoples’ rights and carry through their atrocious militarisation and austerity programmes, as well as to “selectively curtail foreign influence”. 

President Maduro, instead, follows democratic principles to the core. The purpose of a new or reality adjusted Constitution has precisely to do with foreign interference to the detriment of Venezuela’s economy. They include outside orchestrated food and medical supply shortages; from Miami manipulated black-market vs. official exchange rates, ruining local purchasing power, thereby causing inflation and a sagging economy; foreign news networks deadly propaganda; and infiltration of foreign trained, armed and funded violent terror groups to help organising the relatively small Venezuelan elitist opposition to cause havoc and civil unrest – as we have seen over  the last several months in the runup to these ANC elections. The US State Department funded NED – National Endowment for Democracy – is a key sponsor of violent opposition in Venezuela, as well as elsewhere in the world. The new or adjusted Constitution is expected to allow the government to sovereignly control its borders and its economy with whatever means it has to take to keep the criminals out and regain full sovereignty.

These vicious foreign supported groups have cost the life of some 110 people during the last few months leading up to the ANC vote, through the most horrendous acts of terror, including lynching, burning alive, shooting, looting of shops, attacking and destroying schools, public infrastructure, police headquarters and more. There is no end to the list of heinous crimes committed by the so-called opposition – which is nothing else as a tool for the Washington tyrant-in-chief, who will not let go until he has achieved “regime change”.

The presstitute doesn’t present this real picture of things. They portray the violence and dead toll as the government’s responsibility. In fact, thanks to the diligence of national police and the 200,000 military forces deployed throughout the country in the last couple of weeks to protect the population, the voters, in the leadup to the elections, violence and dead tolls were kept in check. Violent outbreak would have most likely been even more atrocious without the military deployment.

The overwhelming people’s support for the ANC has further cemented the solidarity within the Bolivarian Republic – and given the revolution new energy. Venezuela will prevail.

A new puppet government would return Venezuela to the pre-Chavez years – or most likely much worse – giving away Venezuelans world’s largest hydrocarbon deposit is to US petrol giants and torturing Chavistas and anybody who had in the past opposed and still opposes the violent undemocratic, oppressive servile-to-Washington elite.

What’s next for Venezuela? – Well, it’s not over. The National Constituent Assembly is just the first step. The rabid bulldog will not let go. He keeps attacking and biting relentlessly and without mercy sovereign democratic and un-obedient Venezuela. The steady internal foreign instigated economic and social decay, the build-up to what prompted President Maduro to initiate the ANC vote, was very reminiscent of the fascist 9/11/1973 CIA instigated military coup in Chile.

The Chile coup was also preceded by artificially and outside instrumented shortages of food and medical supplies – paying people to protest in the streets. The only difference there is that the Chilean army was split and high ranks defected President Allende. This doesn’t seem to be the case in Venezuela. – The overwhelming people’s support for the ANC has further cemented the solidarity within the Bolivarian Republic – and given the revolution new energy. Venezuela will prevail. Venceremos!

Featured Image: Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro called for a National Constituent Assembly © AP

 

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About the Author

koenig-webPeter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

Reference

1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-washingtons-latest-defamation-to-bring-nato-to-south-america/5575480

 

The Myths and Realities of Duterte’s Infrastructure Initiative

By Dan Steinbock

A huge upgrade of infrastructure is vital for Philippines economic future. That’s why it is contested by entrenched interests, including foreign powers. This is the first in a series of occasional commentaries about the Philippines transformation from an international viewpoint.

 

In the past year, President Duterte has initiated a series of economic reforms to accelerate economic development. Despite much “political noise”, the government seeks sustained growth around 6.5- 7% in 2017, by banking on multiple initiatives, especially higher infrastructure spending.

According to Ernesto Pernia, Director General of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), investment spending must be ramped up to 30% of GDP for Philippines to become an upper middle-income economy by the end of Duterte’s term in 2022, and to pave the way for a high-income economy by 2040.

Yet, the huge infrastructure investment effort has been often misreported internationally. Infrastructure investment is a case in point.

 

The Allegation: Infrastructure as “Debt Slavery”

In early May, Secretary of Budget and Management Benjamin Diokno estimated that some $167 billion would be spent on infrastructure during President Duterte’s six-year term. Only a day later, US business magazine Forbes released a commentary, which headlined that this debt “could balloon to $452 billion: China will benefit”.

According to the author, Dr. Anders Corr, the current Philippine government debt of $123 billion is about to soar to $290 billion because China, the “most likely lender”, would impose high interest rates on the debt: “Over 10 years, that could balloon Philippines’ debt-to-GDP ratio as high as 296%, the highest in the world.”

These figures assume absence of transparency by the Duterte government and China on the interest rate, conditionality and repayment terms of $167 billion of new debt for the Philippines. Due to accrued interest, “Dutertenomics, fuelled by expensive loans from China, will put the Philippines into virtual debt bondage if allowed to proceed.” He assumes China’s interest rate would amount to 10%-15%.

But why would the Philippines accept such a nightmare scenario? Because, as Corr puts it, “Duterte and his influential friends and business associates could each benefit with hundreds of millions of dollars in finders fees, of 27%, for such deals.”

He offers no facts or evidence to substantiate the assertions, however.

The Official Story:  Debt Decline, Despite Infrastructure Investment

Recently, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) anticipated the Philippine debt position to remain sustainable, despite deficit spending for infrastructure. Between 2017 and 2022, the Duterte government plans to spend about $160 billion to $180 billion to fund the “Golden Age of Infrastructure”. An expansionary fiscal policy shall increase the planned deficit to 2-3% of GDP.

To finance the deficit, the government will borrow money following an 80-20 borrowing mix in favour of domestic sources, to alleviate foreign exchange risks – which would seem to undermine the story of China as the Big Bad Wolf.

Between 2017 and 2022, the Duterte government plans to spend about $160 billion to $180 billion to fund the “Golden Age of Infrastructure.”

The fiscal strategy is manageable because the economy, despite increasing deficit, will outgrow its debt burden as economic expansion outpaces the growth in the rate of borrowing. So what is the expected impact on the debt-to-GDP ratio?

Given deficit spending of 3% of GDP, the DBM assumes growth will be 6.5%-7.5% this year and 7%-8% from 2018 to 2022 (plus inflation of 2%-4%). As a result, it projects the debt-to GDP ratio to decline from 41% in 2016 to 38% in 2022.

 

The Realities:  Growth Over Deficit Financing

The current Philippine debt-to-GDP ratio compares well with its regional peers. It is half of that of Singapore and less than that of Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos and Thailand (Figure 1). The starting point for a huge infrastructure upgrade is favourable. True, in a downscale risk analysis, Philippine growth performance might not reach the target, but would be likely to stay close to it – which would still translate to a manageable increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio.

 

Figure 1: ASEAN: Debt-to-GDP Ratio, 2016 (%)

 

Yet, Corr claims that Philippine debt ratio will soar seven-fold in the Duterte era, whereas the DBM estimate offers evidence the debt could slightly decline. The difference between the two is almost 260%.

Today, Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 250% of its GDP. However, at the turn of the 1980s, the ratio was still closer to 40%, or where the Philippine level is today. Yet, Corr claims Duterte government would need barely 4 years to achieve not only Japan’s debt ratio today but a level that would be another 50% higher!

The realities are very different, however. The contemporary Philippines enjoys sound macroeconomic fundamentals, not Marcos-era vulnerability. Moreover, Corr’s tacit association of Duterte’s infrastructure goals with former President Marcos’s public investment program (and the associated debt crisis in the 1980s) proves hollow. Duterte is focussed on infrastructure (his infrastructure budget as percentage of GDP is 2-3 times higher in relative terms).

Today, borrowing conditions are also more favourable (365-day Treasury bill rates are 3-4 times lower than in the Marcos era).  Furthermore, the Philippine gross international reserves, which amount to 9 months, are relatively highest among ASEAN economies and 3-4 times higher than in the Marcos era (Figure 2).

 

Figure 2: Gross International Reserves, 2015-16 (months)

 

In addition to realities, Corr’s analysis ignores the dynamics of debt. Any country’s debt position is not just the nominal amount of the debt, but its value relative to the size of the economy. An economy that is barely growing and suffers from dollar-denominated debt lacks capacity to pay off its liabilities, as evidenced by Greece. In contrast, with its strong growth record, the Philippines has the capacity to grow while paying off its liabilities.

 

Geopolitical Agendas, Economic Needs

Corr could have challenged DBM’s assumptions about Philippines future growth, potential increases in infrastructure budget, contingent adverse shifts in the international environment and so on, but his purposes may be political.

He is close to US Pentagon and intelligence communities, which strongly oppose Duterte’s recalibration of Philippines foreign policy between the US and China. According to US Naval Institute, he has visited all South China Sea claimant countries and undertaken “field research” in Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei. He has been an associate for Booz Allen Hamilton (as once was Edward Snowden). Though he has ties with international multilateral banks, he is less of an “economic hit man” and has more interest in U.S. security matters.

In any real assessment, simple realism should prevail: When the rate of economic expansion exceeds that of debt growth, low-cost financing for public projects can make a vital contribution to the Philippines’ economic long-term future.

Corr led the US Army social science research already in Afghanistan and conducted analysis at US Pacific Command (USPACOM) and U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC) for U.S. national security in Asia, including in the Philippines, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Currently, he is researching Russia and Ukraine for the Pentagon. He has urged President Trump to use stronger military presence in the South China Sea, bullied Pakistan with sanctions, and supported independentistas in Hong Kong and Taiwan, labelled Chinese students abroad as Beijing’s informants, while exploring US nuclear options against North Korea.

Such objectives are far from neutral economic observation, but they do reflect political partisanship that is typical to Washington’s neoconservative and liberal imperial dreams – but not the views of most Americans, according to major polls.

In the Philippines, Duterte’s supporters see Chinese debt as a business deal that will ultimately support the country’s future. After Forbes, the Duterte government’s critics were quick to report the story, but without appropriate examination of its economic assertions and possible strategic motives. Overall, while liberals tend to oppose the debt plans for geopolitical reasons, their economists are more sympathetic.

In any real assessment, simple realism should prevail: When the rate of economic expansion exceeds that of debt growth, low-cost financing for public projects can make a vital contribution to the Philippines’ economic long-term future.

The original commentary was released by The Manila Times on July 31, 2017

Featured Image: 2018 proposed national budget presented to Duterte. Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/

 

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About the Author

Dan Steinbock is the Founder of Difference Group and has served as Research Director of International Business at the India China and America Institute (US) and a Visiting Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net

Germany – is Madame Merkel up for a Ruse?

By Peter Koenig

It’s not surprising that the US Congress has new sanctions against Russia, but what’s interesting is Madame Merkel’s objection on the sanctions. In this article, Peter Koenig elaborates on how the German Chancellor seems to be up for a ruse, the deep state’s manipulation, and why we should all wake up and stop being deceived.

 

Everybody with a clear mind is up in arms about the US Congress’ latest sanctions against Russia – and as usual – sanctions for naught – zilch, zero – since Russia hasn’t done any of the things Washington and the servile west accuses her of, like interference in US elections (US secret services have repeatedly said there is no evidence whatsoever), interference in Ukraine (Washington/NATO/EU have instigated and paid for the bloody Maidan coup in February 2014); annexing Crimea (an overwhelming (97%) vote by the people of Crimea for reincorporation into the Russian Federation – their given right, according to the UN Charter). Even if Russia wanted to, she couldn’t correct any of her “mistakes”. They are all invented.

None of the accusations have any substance. But the western presstitute keeps hammering them into the dimwitted brains of the populace. We can only repeat with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any Nation into a herd of Pigs”. Well, the western Anglo-Zionist propaganda machine has successfully turned western civilisations (sic) into a herd of pigs.

Even if Russia wanted to, she couldn’t correct any of her “mistakes”. They are all invented.

Is every member of the US Congress really that stupid to believe, for example, in Russian interference in US presidential elections? – Or do they simply believe “We, the US of A and Masters of the Universe, do it all the time, so Russia must be doing it too”?

Although President Trump appears to utterly dislike that the Senate – his Senate – has followed the direction of the House and overwhelmingly approved the new “sanctions” – El Donald has eventually signed them after all. Was his dislike just another scam?

Madame Merkel too appears to be “up-in-arms” about the new set of sanctions – which by the way won’t do anything to Russia. Russia is way beyond being affected by economic sanctions, as her economy is largely detached from that of the west. Russia as well as China, and the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) have learned fast.

 

President Putin, while making a straight face in view of more stupid sanctions, must be chuckling about western ignorance still believing in the Master of the Universe’s right in handing out punishments to his “underlings” when they don’t behave – even when chastising is based on total lies. In fact, these anti-Russia sanctions would penalise Europe for being stupid vassals. Hilariously, they would, for example, fine European companies participating in joint Russian-European pipeline projects.

So, why do the “sanctions” continue? – Propaganda, stupid! – The rest of the world must believe America is the greatest, most powerful and can police the world at their whim. That’s Washington’s ultimate tool for survival – a web of lies clad in massive propaganda – exactly following the edict of Goebbels.

Which brings our western system to the point – total lawlessness, no morals no ethics – an everything-goes neoliberalism, turned neo-fascism. Make no mistake – open your eyes – in case you haven’t noticed, that is what we are living today. Destruction of ancient civilisations; Greece, as well as the cradle of today’s western culture mercilessly devastated; Syria, Iraq and almost the entire Middle East and North Africa up in flames – and nobody says peep. It’s become the new normal. The sick western society just gulps beer and watches football. A full-blown, careless, selfish “redneckization” of the West.

The entire Hamburg G20 Conference was an orchestrated farce, a trial run for worse, much worse to come.

But Madame Merkel doesn’t belong into the category of “stupid” – she just wants by all means to be elected. Or better said, she is ordered to be re-elected for the 4th time on 24 September 2017 by the Deep Dark State. Therefore, she has to do what makes her popular at home, even to the seeming detriment of her relationship with Washington. Trump, by the way, too, is just a minion of the Deep Dark State and has to do their bidding. He knows it, she knows it. A little make-believe spat between the two doesn’t matter. It’s just a game to further dupe the populace into confusion and into believing that finally Europe may become a sovereign continent again, thanks to the apparent leadership of Madame Merkel, turning away from the Atlantists, taking back responsibility and sovereignty. Of course, not to forget her siblings in crime, the other two “Ms” – Macron and May – will follow her lead. Therefore, every lil’ thing is gonna be alright.

Madame Merkel has joined the chorus of those condemning the “sanctions” – saying enough is enough. Same tone she used at the recent G20 Summit in Hamburg – “we have to take responsibilities in our own hands” – basically admitting that she and the other EU vassals had left the responsibility in the bloody claws of Washington.

The entire Hamburg G20 Conference was an orchestrated farce, a trial run for worse, much worse to come. It was a training ground for police and bought violent protesters. It’s part of urban warfare drill – as is more quietly being prepared in Saxony-Althaus, where the Bundeswehr and NATO are building an entire ghost town in one of Europe’s most modern army camps to train military and police for repressing people’s resistance against coming neofascist tyranny and austerity.

These are the signs for what’s to come in the near future, as the Deep Dark State thinks it’s close to the NWO – Full Spectrum Dominance. Wake up, people. It’s never too late – before they militarise every street of your town and strip you of what’s left of the meager remnants of your civil rights. Martial Law will soon be inscribed in EU members Constitutions, beginning with France. That’s certainly in the plan and in the cards. The three “Ms” (Merkel, Macron, May) are cooperating hard to make it happen. And if the three Big Ones do it, the NWO clan believes the other EU vassals will follow in lockstep. And they may – as the criminal propaganda machine is sending deadly salvoes of lies into the western public.

Madame Merkel’s “taking back responsibilities” and her outcry against new US sanctions for Russia should make her popular again – should make her electable – again, in less than two months-time. This is what the German people want, the vast majority of them anyway, an independent and sovereign Germany and Europe, one without the Brussels-NATO-Washington dictatorship.

People and even more so businesses, are sick and tired of the anti-Russia discourse. They want peace and normal relations with Russia; natural relations of neighbours, as they have been existing for centuries before the new Anglo-empire across the Atlantic came to the fore. Mind you, the new Anglo-empire is made up from European defectors – and ruthless warriors, who felt much safer between two shiny seas, than tethering close to the conflict-ridden old despotic continent. In the meantime, the new empire has been infested by the Deep Dark invisible state.

One thing is for sure – the big nasty bulldog won’t let go until he has achieved its objective, in this case, the PNAC objective – Full Spectrum Dominance.

Back to Madame Merkel. What if her grievance with the latest sanctions is just a ruse, a manipulation of public opinion to be reelected? And when she is reelected, will she turn her back again on Putin and shake hands with Trump? All is possible. It’s a blueprint of typical neoliberal chaos and confusion. Put people in delirium and you can do whatever you want with them. One thing is for sure – the big nasty bulldog won’t let go until he has achieved its objective, in this case, the PNAC objective – Full Spectrum Dominance. This means subjugating Russia and China, an alliance made of steel.

However, against this alliance of steel, the bulldog may succumb for lack of oxygen and faltering energy. This new alliance, also called SCO, for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, is offering a new and real economic perspective, the New Silk Road, also called the One Road One Belt (OBOR), or One Belt Initiative. President Xi’s OBI is rapidly gaining new momentum and allies, more strength and more attraction for all those western nations which always wanted to defect from the nefarious western dictate, but were afraid to dare.

And yes, it can’t be said often enough – the Future is in the East. The West is slowly but surely drowning itself in its blood-drenched violence and propaganda of lies. Madame Merkel, better take note of it.

Photo Courtesy: REUTERS | John MacDougall

 

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About the Author

koenig-webPeter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

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