“Ring out the old, ring in the new,” a poet wrote. The year 2019 like a head of state whose term is coming to an end is outgoing and in its place 2020 is incoming. The new year will take up where the old year will leave off. Of the many concerns that we have had to deal with for the last twelve months and are going to face in the next twelve months is the question of national or individual security. Whether we like it or not, the world is driven by conflict: particular people, social, racial, economic, confessional, ideological and national groups have of necessity divergent and contradictory interests and willy-nilly or with ill-intent they position themselves on a collision course with their competitors at different levels of human activity.

The December issue of Gefira focuses on state or national security because if this can be guaranteed, if governments have a strong grip on societies and political, religious, ideological, economic entities operating within and outside the many states, if governments can settle the differences dividing countries in a diplomatic way, then the chances are relatively big that huge upheavals caused by smaller players can be stopped in their tracks.

Security is the reverse of the same coin where conflict is its obverse. Since the side that is viewed as unfavourable cannot be done away with, the only thing that one can do is strike a balance between the two. Our authors have pondered over current many-faceted threats to security which governments will need to brace themselves for in 2020.

 

The European elites pay homage to their new idol: “the refugee”, the immigrant. At the same time their fellow citizens are of little interest to them. They prefer to invest in the electorate of the future: in the arrivals from Africa and Asia, who are slowly but surely replacing the indigenous European population.

Germany
The discrimination against German citizens is embodied in the new Integration Act, which gives “refugees” substantial advantages that the German government does not guarantee the German people. One example is enough: the refugees who enrich German society in this way are given free courses where, in addition to the German language, a daily four-hour programme is also offered, during which they can learn the basics of some trades. Such a programme is not available to the German unemployed.
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Greta Thunberg, a teenager berating prime ministers and presidents over the lack of appropriate conservation of the environment, Pacha Mama, an Inca goddess in the Vatican and the Pope prioritizing the ecological sin as the gravest crime, or the Ecuadorian constitution and Bolivian legislation confers on Mother Earth with legal rights: the world is watching the unfolding events with bated breath. What is happening? Is humanity entering a new era? Is environmentalism to be viewed as a new, universal religion or a mere smokescreen that masks other objectives? The planet Earth as the human habitat can serve as the only imaginable uniting common denominator for all humankind, paving the way for a world government, or the feared the new world order. The agreements and protocols constraining and progressively eliminating the use of fossil fuels signed in Montreal, Kyoto, Paris and other places act jointly like a harness imposed on the whole planet. It is for the first time in the history of mankind that the environment rather than national, social or religious matters seem to be taking the centre stage of global politics and economy. Are we facing a Copernican revolution in the making? The November issue of Gefira takes a deeper look at this nascent phenomenon.
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A piece of stats news has been broken in Poland that the number of surgeons has dropped by a quarter (one fourth, twenty-five percent) as compared to 2006. Within thirteen years. Make a guess: what happened? How did that large number of doctors disappear? Young people stopped being interested in medical studies? No. Make another guess. The demand for surgery is much smaller since society at large is healthier and healthier courtesy of the salutary regulations and decrees of the European Union? No. Make yet another guess. The surgeons emigrated to Western countries? Spot on! Bingo!

The Western intellectual circles regard it as evil to exploit weaker nations, especially the Third World countries. They love calling such behaviour fascism (a very fashionable offensive appellation) or racism or what not. Occupying moral high ground, they applaud sending doctors to Somalia or Nigeria or Bangladesh. Yet somewhat miraculously this principle does not apply when physicians from Eastern Europe keep coming to the Western states, draining East European health care systems. Why shouldn’t they after all? We need them – say Western intellectuals – our societies are growing older, there must be someone willing to take care of them.

How do the Western intellectuals reconcile their indignation at exploiting poorer (Third World) countries with depriving Eastern Europeans of their doctors? Oh, come on, another lofty principle is made use of: human rights, among which the freedom of movement is especially enshrined. So the story goes that “we do not rob the poorer countries of their doctors (engineers, teachers, professionals of any kind): they merely use their human rights and flock to places where they have better economic conditions.”

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Manifesting itself through clubs or stones, bows or chariots, musketeers or cannon, tanks or aircraft, chemical or nuclear weapons, war has always been with us and will always remain. The history of mankind is a sine wave where peaks and troughs are periods of peace and war: the usual human activity determined by conflicting interests.
All the elements of warfare have always been present though some of its facets are more pronounced now than ever before. Since in the modern age hot war means enormous material wipeout and a huge loss of human life coupled with assured mutual destruction, modern war is waged more with economic, IT and especially propaganda means. An aggressor does not necessarily need brute force to subdue the will of his opponent: a modern aggressor may resort to a whole gamut of weaponry such as psychological operations, stock exchange speculations, colour revolutions, coups d’état, human-rights movements, geopolitical vacuums, international treaties, (seemingly) non-governmental
organizations, supranational corporations, international awards and all other conceivable instruments that are at the aggressor’s disposal to bring a political, moral or economic pressure to bear on the aggressor’s target state. This modern warfare goes by different names of which hybrid warfare, stealth war or intangible war are the most frequently used. The October issue of Gefira presents the theory and practice of this kind of international conflict. Read more

Populations grow despite the best efforts of abortionists. Even a cursory look reveals that abortions routinely only take place in high income countries. Populism occurs where people express its dissenting voice i.e. vox populi and mobilization is where the underclass is organized to dissent (protest) against its elites.

From an elitist point of view the age-old question is always how to manage the underclasses. It can be compared to a CEO managing the company night watchman or an African King his herdsman. In an organized structure these managerial techniques are generally successful because the manager is ahead of the curve, while with respect to populism or mobilization, it is behind the curve.

Generally speaking a company manager is subtly reminded on a daily basis of the performance of low level employees and the same holds good for the African King. When referring to “elites”, it becomes obvious (by their very actions) that they are so far removed from reality that all control is essentially lost. The elitist lifestyle becomes decadent to the extent that they don’t care what their underclasses do and are always surprised by those “deplorable populists” and their mobilization.

The reaction of the elites to these “uprisings” differ with respect to whether it is populist or mobilized. In high-income America they become viciously anti-populists while in communist China they exert MORE control.

Violence against high-income country populists is also visible in Francewhile almost no action is taken in low-income (communist) South Africa against xenophobiawhere the elitesare also attempting to improve measures of control (such as to reduce unproductive protests against municipal service deliveries).

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Despite being a second-class citizen in South Africa,I may still express my opinionin a country that has declared itself a democracy.This article is therefore written in the context of “Fair-Discrimination”meaning that I am not allowed to discriminate against any person of colour, but that any person of colour may discriminate against me for the content of this (white) article (even if it is published in a different country – in which case I should use a pseudonym).

South Africa, a country with roughly the size of Texas and a population of less than 60 million people, has 9 provinces and eleven official languages. There are two main cities, one of which is Cape Town – the seat of parliament, and Pretoria – the seat of the government and home to the diplomatic corps. Besides, Johannesburg is the business and Durban the harbour city. Cape Town is also home to hi-tech because of the juncture of undersea cable connections and a preferred destination for royal elites who are attracted by its mild Mediterranean climate. Unfortunately though, Cape Town is also the world’s murder capital. That this would affect the economy is no surprise.
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