Agitation Years

Agitation Years

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Frederick Douglass

By: Erreh Svaia

Napalm Death had a song called “The World Keeps Turning”, it said: “The World Keeps turning, we spin out of control”, I think: “The world really keeps turning, and it is also shaking”, it seems in recent years social agitation has been building up all around, the world economic crisis of 2008, whose effects are still suffering, the rise of new brands of populists and extremists, the Latin American economic growth riddle, big hopes for North America, Europe reinventing itself, the crazy train known as China slowing down and passing the mantle to India…We spin out of control? In the media agitation is not something new, in the past just as Pearl Jam fought against Ticketmaster, nowadays Taylor Swift fights against Apple, and Neil Young launches a bitter venom spewing record against biotech monster Monsanto.

In politics the Latin vote in the US is becoming essential to win the elections, thus minimizing the possibilities of Republicans to win, Democrats always at the side immigrants seem to be the potential winner spawning even radical left contenders like Bernie Sanders, while on the Republican side a figure like Jeb Bush could be the clue to convince the more conservative sides of the Party and at the same time get some sympathy from Latin voters, perhaps his biggest concern is his last name, any of the choices dictate that the US is about to change from the inside and Latins might become a major force in our neighbor from the north, Donald Trump? Please a second hand hater, Hitler wanna be and his hopes for a Presidential run is the stuff of child nightmares, but nothing more than that.

Latin America is still a tough riddle, plagued with ideology, corruption and violence the continent seems impotent to develop sustained growth and incapable of creating powerful commerce blocks that could traduce the leading economies of the region like México (now turning a little bit to the left, but with big hopes in conjunction with Canada and the US), Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru into a powerful union much in the way of the European one, education and pragmatism playing a major role here could be the clues for a better future if we are smart enough to envision it and embrace it.

But talking about unions, we have seen people’s disenchantment with the Euro Zone, as Greece seems destined to leave it propitiating a major defection from it by other countries in similar unhappy situations like Spain, Portugal or Italy, countries that liked Greece are starting desperately to seek solutions in the east, in Vladimir Putin's czarist Russia, and division may seem to run in parallel with something the experts are calling a “new cold war” without the fun of the last one.

 

Many put their money on China, many thought the future was behind that Chinese Wall, but Chinas economic growth slowed down in recent years, and investors eyes went to the south, perhaps India would be the futures winning horse, India and South Asia nations like Singapore or Vietnam may teach us a few lessons about pragmatism, the great ism beyond communism, socialism or capitalism, the big lesson here will be how the biggest democracy in the world, India organizes itself to become the dynamo it is destined to be, and how the south Asia economies with the aid of pragmatism and education show us the way to get out of the crisis.

Africa looks a little bit out of tunes with the times, as Nigeria and South Africa, the big giants of the region look troubled and incapable to keep sustained growth or true progressive development, while on the Middle East extremist movements like Isis keep gaining more and more momentum as the rest of the world seem to ignore it, attacks in the month of the Ramadan are happening all over the world, hope it doesn’t get worst, hope it wont´s be too late to take action.