NOVEMBER 2001
This months View is somewhat different from the usual collection of weird news and jokes. We are indeed living in interesting times, and I believe what happened on the 11th of September has accelerated trends that has excisted for some time now.
For one I think we are seeing the beginning of the end to the Nation States, at least as we understand them. Already the world is divided into 2 different systems; the visible official one and the changeable unofficial one , that we sometimes see glimses of before it mutates into something else. There are countries without goverments, and governments without countries. There are groups of people capable of waging war, both conventinal and unconventional, of manipulating the economy, both locally and worldwide, that owes allegience to no country.
It is sometimes difficult for people living in a modern democracy to realise
that the Nation State is
not the norm worldwide. Most countries are still basically tribal areas kept
together by varying degree of force. The last few years have seen the collapse
of some of these states even in Europe; we need only to look at the former Soviet
Union, Yugoslavia and Checkozlovakia.
Let us look at some of the trends. First we are seeing a population movement unrivalled since the Migration Area into America, Europe and Australia, neither of which have the capability nor the political will to resist in any meaningful way. Mostly people move for economical reasons, which is by the way in my view, just as legitimate as applying for political asylum; starvation and torture are both something one would rather avoid if at all possible.
Secondly many of the Great Powers have become dinosaurs unable to react to changing circumstances. Also for various reasons the so-called Welfare States are having to renegate on promises to their aging population who had expected to be looked after by the State in their old age. An understandable cynicism regarding Government is now rampant in the West. There are also the problem of unenforceable laws, especially the drug laws, which have alienated a whole generation. Also Western population have become infantalized; most of us would no longer be able to survive during a prolonged crisis situation.
So who are these new group or indeed tribes starting to challenge the Nation States. At this moment the obvious ones are the various terrorist groups with Osama bin Laden as the main focus. The terrorists have connection with the various criminal groups and with certain fundamential religious groups. Other terrorist have connection with different criminals and different religious groupings. Into all this comes illegal movement of people, capital, drugs and weapons, either of which can be organized by any of the 3 main sources, terrorist, crimenal or religious in an everchanging, worldwide web; Muslims, Christians,Jews Hindus; the Mafia, the Russian gangs, the Triads, the Yakuza, the Columbian gangs, the Yardies; the al-Qa'ida, the Hizbollah, the Real IRA, the ETA; the list can go on and on.
But there are also less sinister groups that have sprung up in recent times,
mainly because of the internet. People that share an interest and are developing
into virtual tribes. These tribes tend to be united along religious/political/philisophical
lines, and again we see a loose network of people worldwide. I will come back
to these groups later.
As I write this news is coming in that another plane has crashed in New York
killing all 155 passengers and crew plus an as yet unknown number on the ground.
Whether accident or terrorist action is not known so far. The Taliban is being
routed in the North of Afghanistan with the Northern Allience poised to enter
Kabul. Israeli forces are smashing up houses belonging to suspected terrorists
on the West Bank. A 16 year old boy dies in Belfast as the pipebomb he was throwing
at Catholics blows up prematurely. The Labour Government for all practical purposes
suspends Habeas Corpus and opts out of Human Rights legislation.
A society of sheep must in time begat a government of wolves. - Bertrand de Jouvenel
" 'Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it
is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."~William Pitt
"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it." (Nadia Boulanger)
The Stav Community sits at the centre of a potential web with possible connection
to other groups of people interested in crafts, European and non-European martial
arts, healing, magic, history and religion (and probably a raft of others that
I'll think of later). So far many of these groups seems to have regarded Stav
more as a threat than a source for advancing their own interest, but this is
slowly changing. The problem now is how much contact do we want.
I have started to teach Stav at a local comprehensive. Erling and I did a
demonstration, and last week we had 24 kids coming to class. It will be interesting
to see how many (if any) sticks with it. I have a feeling a lot of them mostly
wanted to know about flying owls, shades of Harry Potter. I have to admit that
Arthur is more attractive than me, though.
Beverley Town Council has unanimously voted in favour of supporting the Stav
Fair and Games planned for the second weekend of August next year. The Fair
Commitee will have its first meeting early next month. We will post regular
updates on what's going on, and a specific webpage is in the pipeline for early
2002.
Heimbu has just been informed that Stav Practitioner Sachio Akiyama, now Sachio
Michihata, has recently married her Ken. Congratulations to both.