The FINANCIAL — In an interview with The FINANCIAL, Gerald Celente, American trend forecaster says that the accelerating political protests in the middle east and Arabia is very likely to be moving to Europe and the wider Caucasus including Georgia.
The FINANCIAL — In an interview with The FINANCIAL, Gerald Celente, American trend forecaster says that the accelerating political protests in the middle east and Arabia is very likely to be moving to Europe and the wider Caucasus including Georgia. The main reasons for the political unrest as said by him will be rampant corruption at the top of governments and business, high youth unemployment, and rising commodity prices.
Revolutions will be repeated in Georgia and Ukraine and essentially for the same reasons they are erupting in the Middle East and N. Africa, Mr. Celente said in an online interview.
Conversely Dr. Alexander Rondeli, President of the Georgian Foundation For Strategic and International Studies does not consider any such scenarios likely to develop in Georgia;
“Those who foresee such trends, don’t have good knowledge of the region itself – not only Georgia,” he told us during a phone conversation. “I don’t expect any outbreaks based on the fact that the country has just started rebuilding from the aftermaths of war and economic crisis. The revolutions which occurred in the Middle East or Arabia were rooted mainly to long established, corrupt elites and governors hence the demand for democracy there was very high; which apparently was reflected in people’s reactions towards the regime which still continues to persist,” believes Rondeli.
Mr. Rondeli is a former director of the Georgian Security Analysis Centre of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has acted as a scientific researcher in the London School of Economics and Political Science and in Woodrow Wilson’s School at Princeton University. He has been a guest professor at Emory University, Montholioki College and Williams College.
Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is an American trend forecaster publisher of the Trends Journal author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking (Warner Books). He makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance.
He has, startlingly, often appeared on Russia Today, the Kremlin financed TV Station.
His forecasts since 1993 have included predictions about terrorism, economic collapses and war including the recent economic crisis developed in the U.S.
In summer of 2010, before the revolutions erupted in the Middle East, Celente predicted, in his Trends Journal, that what was happening in Greece would spread worldwide as economies were declining.
“As we wrote before Tunisia and Egypt erupted, the outbreaks would go global and the reasons behind the unrest would be more about bread and butter issues than politics. As economies decline, unemployment rises, taxes are raised and services cut – while those at the top get richer and most everyone else gets poorer – revolutions will continue to spread.
But that’s not the way it’s being represented by the same people who didn’t see it coming. The media, pundits and politicians have misrepresented the historic geopolitical events that have occupied the news since the onset of the New Year. Virtually overnight, the revolutions have been glorified as courageous fights for freedom and liberty by democracy-hungry-masses,” believes Celente.
“But it is not hunger for democracy that drives them. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, monarchy – right, centre, left – it is mostly a gut issue…an empty gut issue. When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets. It’s a simple equation. A few at the top have too much, and too many others have too little,” explained Celente.
“What we are witnessing is the start of the “1st Great War of the 21st Century”. While nations will face different levels of conflict, the entire world will be at war. At the onset, all the revolts leading to the Great War will be ignited for the same basic reasons, rampant corruption at the top of governments and business, high youth unemployment, bleak prospects for the future and rising commodity prices,” wrote Mr. Celente in answers to The FINANCIAL.
Q. Georgia already experienced the Rose Revolution in 2003; as well as Ukraine. These changes were supported by Western countries. Do you think that revolutions can be repeated instead?
A. Yes, their revolutions will be repeated and essentially for the same reasons they are erupting in the Middle East and N. Africa. Georgia and Ukraine’s previous revolutions were very much politically charged events.
This time around they will resemble the student and worker revolts that spilled into the streets of Europe that led to our initial forecast … not nationality, religion, politics and ethnicity.
It was the imposition of draconian austerity measures – higher taxes, tuition hikes, lost benefits, curtailed services, public sector job cuts that has young and old raging against a rigged system that pandered to the privileged and punished the workers to pay for bad bets made by banks, hedge funds, private equity groups, etc. My saying is: “When the money stops flowing to the man-on-the-street, the blood starts flowing in the streets.”
Q. What about Azerbaijan? A country which did not change its old rule, but is still supported by the West because of its involvement in Azeri energy projects.
A. Once again, it depends on how many unemployed youth and underpaid employed there are in Azerbaijan; how difficult it is for people to buy food with prices dramatically rising and whether or not corruption is rampant enough for citizens to revolt. Muslim, Christian, Jew … the revolutions rocking the Middle East & North Africa – that will spread to Europe and beyond – have very little to do with religion, democracy, monarchy.
At this time we forecast that economics, not political allegiances are the dominant force behind the uprisings. For the current and near-term-future, revolts will be driven largely by “stomach issues”: food, clothing and shelter … not repression, politics, allegiances or ideology. Those will play secondary roles.
When people are financially satisfied and have plenty to eat and little to worry about, they are likely to tolerate a regime.
Having said that there may be a “false flag” or some type of terror attack that could rally the people against a common enemy. But while those may constitute as the “flash point” to go to war, they will not be the underlying reasons.
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