France 24 recently reported on a book from Renaissance Capital that confirms my belief that Africa will continue on a rapid growth curve for the foreseeable future. Like all liberals, Charles Robertson affirms that although the transition from subsistence farming is always painful, with inequality comes an overall increase in well-being.

The coming decades will see if he’s right. For the time being, Africans displaced from ancestral lands by agro-business would disagree: The profits are not for them, and their resentment feeds political violence.  Had Europe and the United States engaged in peaceful relations with Africa over the last century, increasingly educated indigenous rulers might have been able to gradually steer a peaceful transition from medieval Islam to the modern Islam now trying to birth. Instead, colonial rule gave way to an American Middle East and African policy that conflicted with  unchanging religiously-inspired cultural traditions setting off a wave of Islamic resistance, starting with Al Queda.

The Egyptian referendum on a constitution drafted by the Muslim Brotherhood should be seen as part of an Islamic Reformation. This transition is made more difficult by the fight to the death between Christian and Muslim fundamentalisms, both equally retrograde. Is there a qualitative intellectual difference between the rapture and seventy-two virgins? Or between Mohamed’s flight to Jerusalem and Jesus’ resurrection?

It’s only a short step between the rapture and God wanting us to rule the world, and an equally short step from believing that God’s law trumps man’s to resisting man’s laws to the death. The Egyptian Constitution, with all its flaws, must be seen as a valid alternative to Boko Haram and other Salafist militias intent on imposing God’s law exclusively.

Today the big news for me is that Fareed Zakaria has been allowed to inform his listeners that the best countries to live in are those of Scandinavia!  And this was no passing remark.  The CNN talk show host used the United States’ low grades in everything from education to health care compared to other countries to explain that although Sweden, Denmark and Norway tax more than other developed countries, their citizens are better educated and have the highest standard of living in the world.  Departing from the decades-long dismissal of the northern welfare states as both unsustainable and too expensive, Zakaria admitted that taxes are high, but in return no one is left in need.  At a time when austerity is rampant elsewhere these countries would not consider putting limits on unemployment compensation or other supports to those in need.

The fact that a widely watched TV host can now provide these facts without being obligated to add a strong of negatives or condemnation is the equivalent of a ship initiating a one hundred and eighty degree turn. We know this can only be done gradually because ships are cumbersome, but hopefully, this ship represents a different second term for Obama.

An ever so slight change in Hillary Clinton’s and Obama’s tone vis a vis Israel following the UN decision to grant Palestine non-member observer status – which implies recognition – was con-demned by the U.S., however that condemnation was followed by an equally unmistakable condemnation of Israel for initiating building 3,000 new settlements which would cut the occupied West Bank in two, virtually foreclosing any possibility of a two-state solution.

Although mainstream television can talk of nothing but the fiscal cliff, the real news these days is that notwithstanding very scary contradictions, the American ship of state may at last be slowly beginning to turn toward the rest of the world.

In my enumeration of future trends I failed to mention the one that partly underlies all the others, and that is the exponential increase in world population and the ever more authoritarian methods governments feel they must use to keep populations in line, given the conflicting aspirations of the two groups.

Populations benefit from new means of communication with which to meet the increased use of force by government, but the latter will inevitably win out.

This brings us to another major trend, that between centralization, technology and the rape of the earth and the decentralizing, earth friendly aspirations of Occupy and other grass roots movements around the world.

Rather than a clash of civilizations, we are witnessing a clash of cultures, as expressed in all the other trends.

Sixty-seven years ago, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a new world was born, which after a world war and a cold war is now fully matured: current newscasts tell us or imply that:

a) unemployed American youth end up either in jail or in the military;

b) in future the military will  rely ever less on humans and more on drones and droids;

c) increasingly, covert operations will rule the day, fomenting revolts mainly in the Middle East oil pit so that we can invade ‘to save lives’ and replace old dictators with new ones;

d) Europe will gradually become a Russian sphere of influence via oil and gas pipelines;

e) Islam will gradually replace Christianity as the dominant religion in Europe,

f) as brown people from the southern hemisphere gradually outnumber whites;

g) India and China will duke it out in the Asian Pacific seas,

h) as Latin American countries follow the lead of Ecuador and Bolivia, writing constitutions that reflect 21st century human and planetary rights.

i) The United States will continue to disregard international legal and human rights standards as well as the threat of catastrophic global warming in an increasingly futile effort to spread its domina-tion across Africa and the Middle East.

The pursuit of material goods goes hand in hand with violence and sexual vulgarity.  Although class antagonisms will never disappear, the fault lines of the twenty-first century will be less ideological and more cultural. Russia and China will continue to support a return to pre-counter-cultural morality, making common cause with Islam in that respect. (It is not clear whether India will ultimately do likewise, but this seems unlikely.)

The crisis in Egypt is largely a cultural one, in which a modernizing Islam faces opposition from a public ‘liberated’ from religious dogma but in thrall to the absolutism of ‘freedom’ epitomized by a First Amendment definition of free speech.  That freedom is contradicted by ever the increasing surveillance of our telephone and cyber conversations, adding another dimension to 21st century struggles: between a world in which the haves use hierarchical organization and technology to thwart aspirations for decentralization and solidarity among all living entities, including the planet.

Here is a letter from a German Jewish orgqanization, European Jews for a Just Peace Germany, commenting on yesterday’s historic UN vote granting the Palestinian territories observer status.

“On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution for the founding of two states: The state of Israel and the state of Palestine, between which the land of Palestine was to be divided.

Exactly 65 years later, the Palestinians have appealed to the UN to honor that decision, only this time they are asking the UN to recognize a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, on a mere quarter of former Palestine.

The Juedische Stimme (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace, EJJP Germany) firmly believes in the right of the Palestinians to life, freedom and self-determination. Regardless of the various opinions over which is the best way to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, or what kind of state or states should be formed to best serve the people living in the area, we believe that the Palestinians have the right to choose their own destiny and to be recognized by the international community.

As European citizens, we are particularly appalled by the hypocrisy of the German government, which decided to abstain. For two decades the German government, among others, has been calling for a “two-state solution” as a way towards “peace.” Now it is clear that it meant no such thing. The German government has shirked its responsibility to support the Palestinian demand, which is both peaceful and legitimate.

Over the past two decades, Germany has played a destructive role in EU discussions   over the Israeli occupation. German votes in the European Council have often been used to block sanctions against Israel, thereby giving Israel full freedom to continue its occupation in the knowledge that there will be no consequences, leaving Israel unaccountable for its crimes. We should like to remind the German government that complicity in crime is also a crime.

We are outraged that German government policy is based on the fact that it can profit more from war (for example through the sale of weapons) than from peace in the Middle East.

As Jews, we also wish to emphasize that the forming of a Palestinian state is a prerogative of the Palestinian people and should in no way be used to justify the existence of Israel as a “Jewish” state in the sense of Jews having more rights than other citizens. Whether an independent Palestinian state is established or not, we will continue to struggle for democracy and for the equal rights of all people living in the area and will not accept any laws that favor one religious, racial or national group over another.

As Jews, we also reject outright any argument that Germany should deny the Palestinian right to self-determination because of its “special relationship” with Israel. Abusing the rights of Palestinians can never compensate for past crimes against Jews, and Israel does not have the right to exploit the Jewish people to justify its illegal territorial expansionism.

29. November, 2012″

In a recent interview to the French news agency AFP  and the newspaper Le Figaro, Russian Prime Minister and former President Dmitri Medvedev made two remarks that  one doesn’t often hear from political figures.

The first remark was a nod to an ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus who famously said that one could not enter the same river twice.  Asked whether he would consider running for president again, Medvedev used his humanities credentials to make a political point, saying: “Generally, one should never decline anything. Never say never, as you know, especially since I have entered this river already and this is a river that can be entered twice.”

The second remark blew my mind.   Asked whether certain new laws had restricted freedom, Medvedev said: “I do not think that is so.” Then he asked: “What does a ‘free person’ mean,” It’s not a person who is told by his government, ‘You are free.’ No, a person is free when he feels free irrespective of his place of residence – whether it be Russia, Europe or Africa.”

The French interviewer thought this meant that ‘freedom is only measured individually’.  I take it to mean that Medvedev is one of the few politicians who understands that freedom is something we carry inside, for, contrary to the freedom to act, it  cannot be limited by others.

In my next blog I will comment on a recent NY Times article on Putin’s search for a new ideology.

It’s disheartening to watch/hear the cream of American political commentators defending Israel’s nth insult to international law and decency.

What can be behind the seeming suicidal behavior of a small country that is surrounded by more or less hostile neighbors?  (A country as big and powerful as Russia fears encirclement, as its opposition to the European defense shield shows.)  Is Israel living a self-fulfilling prophecy (the world hates us, we must defend ourselves, and the best defense, as our tragic history has shown, is offense)?

Or could there be a grand capitalist plan behind all this?  Get rid of pesky left-wing governments in the Middle East in order to grab the oil, taming the peoples’ desire for equity so that Israel can continue to flourish?

Here is a statement by Noam Chomsky that reached me from my Italian publisher (sic):

The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.

The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.

Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.

When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying someone else’s land. 

Having at last uploaded the final version of my memoir, which hopefully will be available next week, I can turn to the events that have – or have not – been making the headlines lately, depending on your news source.

The most significant events were the coordinated twenty European country mass demonstrations, work stoppages and general strikes that took place early in the week.

Then came the Israeli attack on Gaza, in retaliation for a few homemade missiles launched by an occupied people against their occupier – launches that have been going on for years.  This morning on RT’s website an Israeli peace activist revealed that negotiations for a settlement were under way with the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated to start the latest round of aggression.  RT also revealed that Anonymous has hacked into hundreds of Israeli official websites in support of the Palestinians.

These and other events taking place daily across the planet bring to mind two things: one, that Lenin’s injunction ‘Workers of the World, Unite!’ is finally being heard; and two, that Khruschev’s seemingly absurd nineteen sixties warning, ‘We will bury you‘ could also be coming true, and three, that it may be time for a worldwide version of the French Revolution’s  ‘Estates General’.

Neither the French nor the Russian Revolutions had worldwide capabilities.  But thanks mainly to the IT revolution, activists in the oil rich Niger Delta and Brazilian tribes determined to stop construction of a major dam, all know what each other are doing, feeding off of each other, sharing tactics, and coordinating actions, with the ability to disseminate their actions worldwide.

As for Russia, Westerners are familiar with the salient political events of the twentieth century, but RT provides a sense of the immense mineral wealth within that country’s borders at time when the world’s greatest assets are underground.  For decades the Soviet Union tried to influence Third World countries politically, building or delaying the emergence of socialist regimes (see Cuba), details of that support little known outside the political circles concerned.  Today, Russia has other cards to play: its support for Third World countries, mainly in Africa, comes in the form of news reports and documentaries on the dire living conditions of its peoples, broadcasting worldwide the struggles against Western mineral conglomerates that are raping the continent. (RT also has an Arabic service and a Spanish service….)

This morning I heard that in response to China’s growing clout President Obama is preparing to tour several Asian countries. China’s new President, precisely because he is not elected and doesn’t have to contend with filibusters and other forms of congressional opposition, can announce with the smile that has replaced Hu’s stern demeanor, that China will press forward both economically and militarily. And on the occasion of the 15th Communist Party Congress that anointed him, RT took its cameras to the streets of major cities and shopping malls, in which the high collar blue denim uniforms of old have been replaced by the latest Western fashions. (In the Soviet Union, blue denim jeans replaced drab Communist garments, eventually ushering in perestroika and what followed…)

In 2008 I still felt the American elections were crucial to the entire world because of the aura of the United States and its sheer military might.

Difficult as it will be for most Americans to admit, and notwithstanding our thousand bases around the world, that is no longer true.

The hopeless wars we are fighting are only one piece of evidence.  Every week brings new events that usually however do not make it into the mainstream media. Last week if you happen to be an RT viewer you would have learned that China and Nicaragua are planning to cut a new canal through Central America – right in our own back yard.  (Yet we still do not recognize the government of Cuba….)

There’s no point in reiterating how low our reputation has fallen abroad, especially in the Arab world, but let me just say here that I’m getting pretty tired of hearing the media imply, as MSNBC just did, that the 100 point drop in the Dow at opening was due to the financial situation in Europe.  One of the best kept secrets these days is that the Euro crisis is a direct consequence of the irresponsible behavior of Wall Street that brought on the 2008 crash.

I’ll be writing more often once I finish proofing the paperback edition of my memoir:  ‘Lunch with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel: A Journey from the Cold War to the Arab Spring’.

These days, if you want to understand the Big Picture, pay attention to short takes. Friday, Brits demonstrated in huge numbers across the country against austerity.  One of their fears is that they could lose the National Health System (one of the numbers at the opening of the London Olympics was an obviously fond salute to this institution created after the Second World War, and which Britons can’t conceive of doing without).

Coincidentally, a report on Libya noted that one of the reasons for the continuing chaos is that the post-Ghaddafi government plans to nationalize the health service. Most people in the U.S. and perhaps also in Europe, assume that the regime we overthrew in Tripoli was not only authoritarian, but benighted. Although it was a dictatorship, it was politically progressive under the aegis of a little green book that emulated Mai Tse Tung’s little red book.

The Syrian regime, like Saddam’s Iraq, and the Mullah’s Iran, also has a national health system. Bashar al Assad’s regime, however ‘dictatorial’ is a politically progressive regime, as was that of Ghaddafi in Libya, under the aegis of a little green book that emulated Mao Tse Tung’s little red book. Is it just a coincidence that these countries have either been devastated by U.S. sponsored attacks or are slated to be?

The end of the Cold War did not mark the end of American hostility toward any even vaguely socialistic regime. The focus on oil obscures Washington’s determination to stamp out regimes that engage in re-distribution. Yet isn’t this what global demonstrations are about?

But there’s more to the current Big Picture. Also on Friday, RT mentioned that the presidents of both Turkey and Iran, who back opposing sides in the conflict in Syria met at a regional meeting, with Turkey agreeing on the need for a ceasefire although it supports the regime.

Turkey’s slight retreat from its hard line against Syrian President Assad reveals a broader situation: the Sunni Arab Middle East is bracketed by two non-Arab nations, Sunni Turkey and Shi’ite Iran, who have long and proud histories, as opposed to their neighbors. (Saudi Arabia is the other major player in the area, but it cannot refer to either a glorious cultural past or home grown military power.)

Is this meaningful in the days of social media and face recognition? I believe it is, because populations are aware of history, and those of the Gulf monarchies that today conspire with the mainly Sunni Syrian opposition to overthrow the only remaining progressive Arab government know that their sands were barren until oil was found.  (Some of my readers will argue that Israel is the most progressive government of the region, but more and more people around the world believe its behavior toward the Palestinians, whom it displaced, prevents it from any longer claiming that title.)

I believe that the ideological and the religious tracks in the upheaval of the Muslim world will increasingly converge, the Sunni/Shi’a divide evolving from a strictly religious enmity to a divide between the haves and the have-nots, or as we say today, between the 99% and the 1%.

If you think this is wishful thinking, consider that Egypt’s Sunni President Morsi recently went to Teheran to attend the Non-Aligned Summit, meeting with the Shi’ite host, President Ahmed-inejad, to discuss the Syrian crisis. For decades Americans have been told that there are two opposing forces, Communism and Capitalism, with only the latter being civilized. It is difficult for them to wrap their heads around a blurring of this line. Yet just yesterday, the Colombian rebels who fought the neo-liberal government for five decades met in Oslo for peace talks intended to bring about a more progressive regime in that Latin American country – with a second round of negotiations set to open in Havana. (Yet Obama cannot even contemplate calling off the Cuban blockade.)

For Oslo, capital of the highly successful Nor-wegian welfare state, and Havana, which is no longer a strictly communist economy, to be playing dual roles in Latin America is the equivalent of the Turkey/Iran role in the Middle East. Both of these developments signal profound changes in the big picture, which any future American President should – but probably will not be allowed to – recognize, at least publicly.

In 1989, my book ‘Une autre Europe, un autre Monde’, was published in France.  In the context of what I had been the first to call ‘A Europe of Thirty’ as I foresaw the continent’s reunification, I noted that Turkey would only feel it had ‘arrived’ when it could join the European Union, but that this sentiment betrayed its history as the seat of the Ottoman Empire that had dominated the Islamic world for five hundred years.

Today, Turkey is a key player in an escalating Middle East crisis. By spearheading Western aggression against Syria to protect Israel from an imaginary attack by Iran, it is paying back NATO for the decades during which it benefitted from the alliance’s ‘protection’ against the Soviet Union. (In the West, Turkey was known as ‘NATO’s sou-thern bulwark’ against the Communist threat.) Turkey’s neighborhood has changed dramatically since the Cold War, yet for NATO, Moscow is still an enemy, as it protests the Alliance’s interference in Syria’s internal affairs.

Not unrelatedly, this week, the Nobel committee awarded its annual Peace Prize to the European Union, citing the successful transformation of thirty countries that had warred for centuries into a peaceful and prosperous polity. Most observers were astonished by the prize, given the potentially earth-shattering crisis of Europe’s common currency, the Euro. And while the Nobel Committee piously hopes its decision will encourage a peaceful resolution, neutral Switzerland gears up to once again receive refugees.

The Second World War has not been forgotten by  Greece which suffered a brutal German occupation, followed by the defeat of its powerful left wing under heavy-handed British/American influence. As for the Spanish, they have not forgotten their Civil War against a fascist dictator that set the stage for Hitler’s aggressions. But should Europe descend once again into conflict, it will not be over territory, but about the chasm between the 99% and the 1%.

To understand the significance of what is happening today, we should go back to 1848, when the Communist Manifesto enjoined the workers of the world to unite. The slogan was subsequently adopted by the Soviet Union and many workers’ parties, but until now, the capitalist system had remained too powerful for the workers of the world to think as one.

Until now. Three weeks before what is perhaps the most crucial American presidential election, populations in thirty-odd countries are in the street banging on pots and pans in opposition to the world America has created, while neither candidate can be expected to break from the policies that led to that opposition.

In 1989 I surmised that one of the reasons why the United States had not imposed sanctions on China after the events of Tiananmen Square was to prevent a rap-prochement between China and the URSS. Thirteen years later, the two former communist countries are united in their opposition to Western military action against the Syrian government, support Iran’s right to peaceful use of nuclear technology, and share similar attitudes toward just about any American policy you can think of.

The common front of these two rising powers is a response to the near total loss of control over world events by Western leaders who bought into the American dream of unlimited wealth. As China and Russia call for coope-ration and dialogue, the energy of desperation flows through the world system at an accelerating rate, driving it toward a bifurcation whose outcome no one can predict. And yet, no special concern is palpable.

Was the world similarly oblivious as Hitler built up his armies to overpower Europe in 1939? No one had dreamed there could be war in 1914 until an assassin’s bullet killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in partly Muslim Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today, as Europe’s politicians and bankers ponder how to save the Euro, its peoples spearhead worldwide opposition to Wall Street rule, while a dispute over power in a small Muslim country on its border could ignite the entire Eurasian continent.

If the Christian/Muslim enmity begun in the Middle Ages, and the struggle for equity that began with the French Revolution come together in what could be an ultimate conflagration it will be the fault neither of Iran nor of Syria.

Even the mainstream media today admit that Hugo Chavez’ re-election to a fourth term as President of Venezuela is thanks to the oil money he has consistently spent on his people’s welfare.

Yesterday, for the first time I heard a pundit declare with evident satisfaction that the Euro crisis signals an end to the European Welfare State built up after the Second World War. If this is true, we can only wonder why after half a century, that model is in peril, and we would probably have to conclude that a new element has been introduced into the system.

A financial expert recently remarked that the European Union is the biggest economy in the world, followed by the United States. This suggests that economies can in fact remain buoyant while taking equitable care of populations, as long as they steer clear of the dicey games of global finance which, over the last ten or so years, have increasingly affected systems worldwide.

The unraveling of the European Union would constitute a crushing blow to peace in the world, exposing the multi-ethnic Eurasian peninsula to yet another replay of past conflicts between neighbors, while Eurasia’s southern, Muslim tier explodes in religious wars that increasingly enfold demands for equity.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the period since the Second World War has also seen repeated, determined efforts by the United States to prevent Latin America from wresting control of its assets from American companies in order to better the lives of its peoples.  In the last ten or so years, the number of Latin American countries having elected left of center governments has seen an unprecedented increase, to the certain displeasure of international mineral and agricultural conglomerates.

If we add to these developments Washington’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, supposedly to contain China, we have to seriously consider the possibility that what is actually driving the world today is international finance’s determination to keep the global 1% on top, with war as an economic tool in service of that goal – as it was after the Great Depression.

We will have to face the fact that the great conflict of the twentieth century between right and left has not ended, but is merely disguised as ethnic and religious intolerance.