This link is to the MoD's Global Strategic Trends page, which allows you to download the current issue of that report (and fill in a feedback form if you wish.)
It's about one hundred and sixty pages, although not exactly small print, so it's not a casual read. But it does give some insight into why some groups might want to target and harass other groups in society.
The report predicts both resource wars and ethnic conflicts, although it's pretty clear to Medawar that the main driver of ethnic conflict is when a powerful elite tries either to harness an ethnic group in order to control a natural resource, or to destabilize and perhaps deport or even exterminate an ethnic community in order to remove them from control of resources. This could well be the sort of thing that's behind the organized stalking of native American leaders, journalists and artists that Terri Hansen has reported. It definitely is what's behind the relentless ethnic persecution of non-Burman ethnic groups in Burma, especially as the Karens control some areas of the countryside, despite enormous pressure, and other deceased ethnic groups had a strong presence on geographically-viable trade routes into neighbouring countries. (The extraction route is as important as the resource in many cases, nowhere more so than in Burma. Burma only looks small on the map because it is between India and China: it's a large country with an awful lot of natural barriers in it, so a small tribe living on a navigable river will inevitably become a target for the regime's genocide programmes. Venuzaela's (unfounded) claims to territory in Guyana are motivated as much by the need for routes to extract natural resources as the resources themselves, Guatamala's claims to Belize are entirely so motivated, as Belize has less of everything than Guatamala, save for access to the Caribean and therefore the Atlantic.)
In some cases, parties wanting to exploit resources may attempt to boost the position of an ethnic minority that happens to live in the right region, or is in the process of moving into it. But in the long run, this is as hostile to that community's interests as immediate persecution, because whoever is displaced or disadvantaged by this now has a reason to cooperate with some rival power-broker who wants the favoured ethnic community out of the way.
So, if one political grouping seems very hostile to the Saami people in Northern Scandinavia, for example, and their rivals seem "sympathetic", the attentions of both political groupings are probably unhealthy in the long run.
In any case, a read of the strategic trends document, and it is frequently updated, may help Cornflakers develop the right kind of insight to understand why some really bizarre things are being done, by the authorities or powerful persons unknown, in a number of countries.
The 2007-2036 version of this document was more focused on the risks posed to global stability by very rich individuals than the current draft seems to be, but that's a change of emphasis not a change of fact: that sort of "Goldfinger" oligarch is a real risk, and it's interesting to see that even the MoD recognized that risk, albeit nearly forty years after Ian Fleming and Len Deighton!
Strategic understanding is an essential part of any sort of intelligent activism against genocide and other human rights abuses. Know why, know who, know how, and perhaps you can make an effective case against it all.
It's about one hundred and sixty pages, although not exactly small print, so it's not a casual read. But it does give some insight into why some groups might want to target and harass other groups in society.
The report predicts both resource wars and ethnic conflicts, although it's pretty clear to Medawar that the main driver of ethnic conflict is when a powerful elite tries either to harness an ethnic group in order to control a natural resource, or to destabilize and perhaps deport or even exterminate an ethnic community in order to remove them from control of resources. This could well be the sort of thing that's behind the organized stalking of native American leaders, journalists and artists that Terri Hansen has reported. It definitely is what's behind the relentless ethnic persecution of non-Burman ethnic groups in Burma, especially as the Karens control some areas of the countryside, despite enormous pressure, and other deceased ethnic groups had a strong presence on geographically-viable trade routes into neighbouring countries. (The extraction route is as important as the resource in many cases, nowhere more so than in Burma. Burma only looks small on the map because it is between India and China: it's a large country with an awful lot of natural barriers in it, so a small tribe living on a navigable river will inevitably become a target for the regime's genocide programmes. Venuzaela's (unfounded) claims to territory in Guyana are motivated as much by the need for routes to extract natural resources as the resources themselves, Guatamala's claims to Belize are entirely so motivated, as Belize has less of everything than Guatamala, save for access to the Caribean and therefore the Atlantic.)
In some cases, parties wanting to exploit resources may attempt to boost the position of an ethnic minority that happens to live in the right region, or is in the process of moving into it. But in the long run, this is as hostile to that community's interests as immediate persecution, because whoever is displaced or disadvantaged by this now has a reason to cooperate with some rival power-broker who wants the favoured ethnic community out of the way.
So, if one political grouping seems very hostile to the Saami people in Northern Scandinavia, for example, and their rivals seem "sympathetic", the attentions of both political groupings are probably unhealthy in the long run.
In any case, a read of the strategic trends document, and it is frequently updated, may help Cornflakers develop the right kind of insight to understand why some really bizarre things are being done, by the authorities or powerful persons unknown, in a number of countries.
The 2007-2036 version of this document was more focused on the risks posed to global stability by very rich individuals than the current draft seems to be, but that's a change of emphasis not a change of fact: that sort of "Goldfinger" oligarch is a real risk, and it's interesting to see that even the MoD recognized that risk, albeit nearly forty years after Ian Fleming and Len Deighton!
Strategic understanding is an essential part of any sort of intelligent activism against genocide and other human rights abuses. Know why, know who, know how, and perhaps you can make an effective case against it all.
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4 comments:
Very interesting M! Thank you for posting this.
Here is a Google Video 2 hour movie that I suggest you watch which is exactly on point.
It is about Kevin Annett's struggle to obtain justice for the thousands of Aboriginal children murdered in the Indian Residential School System in Canada as well his struggle for justice for the hundreds of thousands of survivors.
A lot of noise is being made in the media about white children and the abuse they suffered at the hands of the Church which is as it should be.
Why are the Aboriginal children being ignored so completely by the Canadian Media?
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133#
The film is called Unrepentant, is nearly two hours long but is well worth watching if you have the time. These children weren't just abused - they were tortured.
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
A list of Mass Graves was produced.
It's interesting to note that one of the graves was located on National Defense Dept land where the Native Indian Hospital had been built. This is where survivors claim that they were subjected to medical experiments (abuse).
A second mass grave is located behind Allan Memorial Hospital, home of the MKUltra program and where survivors claim that they were subjected to both medical and psychological experiments (abuse).
The person exposing this, Kevin Annett says that he continues to be a follower of Christ but has rejected religion and the Church because of it's hypocrisy.
He has been the victim of Organized Stalking techniques as you can see in the film, including having his career ruined, blocked from getting his PhD, The United Church encouraged and financed his wife's divorcing him in exchange for information from his wife, car vandalized, and is unemployable. All things threatened by the Church and those threats made good on.
Shameful!
The Church needs the non-conformists to keep it on the straight and narrow!
Canada's worst behaviour towards native Americans seems to have been exhibited in the 20th century, rather than the 18th and 19th. It would be interesting, albeit controversial, to see whether worsening attitudes towards native Americans were associated with the rise to political and economic power, rather than the first arrival, of particular waves of immigrants.
British Explorers generally had a very positive view of native Americans and this was reflected in 18th and 19th century literature published in Britain. By the time of Canadian independence, British emigrants were mostly going to Australia, South Africa, East Africa and Argentina.
It is by no means unusual for native Americans in Patagonia to speak their own language and Welsh, rather than English or Spanish. Some Patagonian schools teach in Welsh! But by the time Welsh settlers arrived, some of the nations, like the Aush and Ona, had already been all but wiped out by the Spanish.
This seems to have been an arbitrary policy, or a habit, because the Spanish/Argentinians figured more in the political administration of Patagonia than in its economic development. Those actually doing the work, did their best to get along, those drawing lines on the map, wanted a landscape as clean of people as the pages they were working on.
Where individuals, who aren't key members of their community, are subject to organized stalking, it can be because they know too much about organized crime, or because somebody wants their property or other assets.
On which basis, Jezebel had Nahob stalked, falsely accused and lynched, so that her husband, King Ahab, could turn Nahob's vineyard into a vegetable garden.
(See first book of Kings, chapter 21.)
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