Geopolitics of Religions: 2020, The Clash of Frankenstein Monsters

The millions of dollars dumped in South America by evangelical churches have brought the eighth world economic power (Brazil) into their hands, knowing that the first (the US) is already conquered. In Africa, it is the Pentecostals who spread their hatred of others and try to place their aficionados inside the governments. The sixth world power (India) and its huge diaspora exudes a Hindu radicalism in the name of which Christians and Muslims are murdered. Within ASEAN, the so-called ‘saffron’ Buddhists are persecuting Muslims : the act ruthlessly in Myanmar against the Rohingya in the east of the country, but they are also active in Thailand and Sri Lanka. As for the twelfth power (Russia), its ‘Moscow and all Russia Patriarchate’ has proliferated brand new monasteries and churches in all its former zones of influence. Better documented is the damage done by millions of Saudi petrodollars via Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Boko Haram, etc… or the Hezbollah related to Iran. Jewish fundamentalists are colonising the occupied Palestinian territories. Everywhere the same technique and the same objectives are used: financing a radicalism of state religions for expansionist geopolitical purposes. But these movements, partly conceived in secret agencies, have developed a life and path of their own, nourished by the economic and civilisational worries of the people. As of now, they are associating with so-called nationalist political movements and are gradually getting closer to power, leaving the creators powerless to control their creatures.

This combination of fanaticism, nationalism, imperialism and the dream of ethnic purity is all too familiar. However, the risk of seeing humanity sink into a new period of organised bloodthirsty madness (wars and/or totalitarian systems) in the near future appears high enough to us to decide to launch an alert.

Certainly, there is a risk that the stock markets will collapse by 2020, but that is not what history will remember of the coming days… if, unfortunately, our anticipation is right…

Global Systemic Crisis and Renaissance 4.0 

As we’ve said many times before, the historical period of humanity we are going through now is of the same nature as that of the Renaissance, though of greater magnitude. As in the 14th century, new technologies and openness to the world are bringing about a profound and radical transformation of human beings and their societies. The Renaissance has remained – rightly – in History as an incredibly positive period in terms of art, philosophy (humanism), economy (thanks in particular to the invention of modern finance)… However, the Renaissance was born in pain (plague, wars and the serfdom of the medieval period; religious heresies and counter-reactions of the Inquisition…) and caused further suffering (wars of religion in the 16th century, derived from the heresies and serfdom of the Middle Ages[1]).

With modern time acceleration, the new form of Renaissance that the 21st century is proposing looks like it will have a much shorter time span than that of the 14th-16th centuries. Hence religious wars are already looming on the horizon, at the precise moment when – maybe because – humanity is tilting into the new era.

Resistance to change 

Those who are observant will know that our planet is in full tipping point right now. But it is tipping in the direction it has been aiming at for decades, even centuries. The time is now ripe for an open society that is more enlightened and connected (Internet), cleaner (end of the all-oil time, renewable energies), more money free (virtualisation and sharing), more diseases free (genetic reinforcement) and with less and less hard work (automation, computerisation, Artificial Intelligence…)[2]. Those utopias which humanity has been dreaming of (with origins precisely in Renaissance) are today technically possible. The plans and foundation stones of the ideal future mega-cities (NEOM in the Middle East,[3] Amaravati in India[4] and many more yet to emerge[5]) are in place, whilst their financing is being made available. The foundations of a better world – although new – are being put in place as a logical consequence of human invention and the Internet revolution (the Internet has actually changed the whole situation). But for 13 years now, whilst disclosing the irresistible forces of transformation, GEAB has continued to observe, describe and anticipate the mechanisms of resistance to change. And it is not by chance that the tipping point towards tomorrow’s world that we are currently reaching[6] strictly corresponds to a tipping point of the forces most resistance to change – nationalism, finance and religion – which are currently combining to produce a probable short-term shock to civilisation (2020)... Read more in the GEAB 129

[1] European wars of religion. Source: Wikipedia.

[2] If wealth production can be dehumanised, it will leave room for humans to concentrate on the more ennobling activities, such as teaching, arts, social bonds, human services… The end of labour which enslaves in favour of activity that liberates is the future we are permitted to hope for from new technologies, if they are positively perceived and framed.

[3] Source: ConstructionWeekOnline, 25/10/2018

[4] Source: CNN, 15/10/2018

[5] Source: World Economic Forum, 10/10/2018

[6] We are in the geopolitical, political, economic, technical, cultural tipping-point phase of the global systemic transition. The one who knows how to observe cannot doubt it.