Originally posted in 2020. This is from my book Rastafari and Its Shamanist Origins. Which will be republished in 20206.
Excerpted from Rastafari and Its Shamanist Origins by Wade A. Bailey.
Ethiopia’s bedrock belongs to the earth’s first continent, a continent called Gondwanaland by geologists, of which Africa forms the last intact remnant. The structures of this 600-million-year-old land, made up of hard, massive folded pre-Cambrian crystalline rock, have been covered over throughout most of Ethiopia by recent formations. Ethiopia is called the cradle of mankind by some geologists and anthropologists. The Bible records in Genesis 2:8-14 that: ‘And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison, that is, it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good, there is Bdellium and the Onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second is Gihon (Blue Nile) the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel, that is, the river which goeth toward the east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. As per the biblical description Eden was a huge landmass and the river that flowed out of it, straddled more than one country, Ethiopia is one that was specifically named as being completely surrounded by one of the rivers namely Gihon (Blue Nile), judging from the biblical description the Garden of Eden is placed on the African continent, interestingly said placement is in agreement with, scientific, archaeological, historical references and evidence.
Here we have a visual map aide showing the proximity of Arab countries to Africa; from those countries, Cannabis was introduced to the continent. Ethiopia is located in northeastern Africa, the ‘Horn’ of Africa, so-called because of the horn-shaped tip of the continent, which demarcates the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. Ethiopia is bordered by Sudan on its western border, Somalia to the southeast, Kenya to the south, Djibouti to the east, and Eritrea to the north and northeast. Ethiopia consists of four major river systems. The first system consists of the Takaze, also known as the Atbara, the Abbay or the Blue Nile, and lastly the Baro, originating in Sudan, then flowing westward into the Nile.
According to the officially available figures, Ethiopia’s population is about 76 million people, making it the third most populous nation in Africa. The varying ethnicities that comprise Ethiopia’s populace is diverse and are grouped as follows: the Amhara and Tigrinya, 32 per cent, the Oromo 40 per cent, Sidamo 9 percent, Somali 6 percent, Shankella 6 percent, Gurage 2 percent, Afar 4 percent. There are hundreds of languages spoken in Ethiopia that fall into four major categories. Three of which have a common ancestry that is called proto-Afroasiatic by linguists (Afro-Asiatic is Hamitic-Semitic). The three are known as Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic. Harold G. Marcus wrote in his seminal work, A History of Ethiopia, published by the University of California, that: ‘Evidence is strong that the Afro-Asiatic (Hamitic-Semitic) group of languages developed and fissured in the Sudan-Ethiopian borderlands. The Proto-Cushitic and Proto-Semitic began their evolution. In Ethiopia, the Semitic branch grew into a northern group, today echoed in Tigrinya, and a southern group, best heard in Amharic. It simultaneously spread to the Middle East, whence, millennia later, it returned in a written form to enrich its cousins several times removed. Cushitic includes the Agaw, the Somali, the Afar, the Saho, the Hadiya, the Kambata, the Oromo, and the Gedeo. Omotic, the term Omotic is derived from the fact that the people thus designated traditionally lived on both sides of the Omo River. The following nationalities comprise the Omotic, the Dorze, Janjaro, Maji, Kafa, Waylata and the Dizi.
The last category is the Semitic Geez, which is the oldest Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is largely confined to the religious sphere, i.e. sacral literature and theology. Other Semitic languages are Amharic, Tigrinya, Harari, and Gurage. There are the Nilo-Saharan language groups, which are not connected to the Cushitic, Omotic, and Semitic language groups previously cited. They are as follows: the Anuak, the Nuer, the Kunamain in southwestern Eritrea, the Gumuz in western Gojam and the Manjanjir. Linguistic and archaeological evidence points to a prehistoric genesis for Ethiopian culture. Early evidence of human existence has been found in the varied array of stone tools found in many parts of Ethiopia. Village farming was developed in Ethiopia during the Neolithic period. There is empirical evidence that Stone Age culture endured in Ethiopia during different epochs. The Watta of Ethiopia were related to the hunting groups of northeastern and eastern Africa. The Agau is an early population that still exists today in Ethiopia. The Agau discovered new strains of plants, the domestication of the donkey and mule breeding regionally. The plateau peoples are grouped into three groups, linguistically and anthropologically; they are referred to as the Central Agau and Eastern Cushites. During the second Millennium, the population increased dramatically; as a result, the Cushitic population who lived in the southern fringes expanded into Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika. The migrations of the Bantus into Ethiopia changed the population dynamics in Ethiopia and all other southern African societies. Along with the aforementioned and the erection of the phallic stones in southern Ethiopia, the basis for the development of states in Ethiopia was established. The development of city-states in Ethiopia was spurred by various socio-religious dynamics and the interpersonal relationships of the various people groups vis-à-vis their counterparts. One of the ethnicities in Ethiopia credited with helping advance the proto-city state to the contemporary city-state is the Oromo.
The Oromo lived in the Ethiopian highlands in areas like Bali, the borders of what is now the Republic of Somalia. They claim to have emerged from the Borana region of southwestern Ethiopia. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, powerful Abyssinian kings by force of arms made the Oromo move west and southwest into the barely habitable, salt pans, lava fields, and toward the boulder and sand deserts near Lake Rudolph. Some Oromo groups, over time, developed powerful monarchial states. The Oromo are notable for their martial feats, specifically as cavalry (mounted soldiers). Ancient Ethiopian literature is replete with mentions of or praises to the Oromo for their exploits on the battlefield. In 1776, the civil war ushered in the era of the ‘age of princes’; the war and political intrigues persisted till 1855. The civil war ultimately resulted in the proto-provincialism that is prevalent even today; as a result, the various provinces competed for territory and resources against the other provinces in a struggle for ultimate hegemony. The period saw the ascendency of various provincial dynasties, each province was demarcated along ethnic and national lines, the loyalty of the people was not to Ethiopia, but to their provinces and their kings who ruled over them. The Gondar monarchy’s decline led to an increase in the influence of the Galla. Gondar was once Ethiopia’s largest city and a hub of religion and art. Gondar was Ethiopia’s de facto capital from 1635 to 1867. By this time, the Solomonic dynasty and ethos extant for hundreds of years were well established. Since the Galla at the time were a well-established and powerful ethnic group, the royal family forged strong ties with the Galla through marriage.
The Ethiopian imperial monarchy was diluted because the majority of Galla were Muslims; the throne then was not a legitimate manifestation of Christian power but was an instrument of power wielded by Muslims. One dynasty that laid claim to the Solomonic heritage, as well as being a mainly Christian polity in its hierarchical structure, was Shoa. Shoa, an alternate spelling is Shewa, free of the rampant civil strife sweeping the rest of Ethiopia, was able to create a largely coherent bureaucracy that was characterised by a heterogeneous coexistence among the varying ethnic and religious groups. The unification of Shoa was solidified under a Christian dynastic monarchy, which waged wars of hegemony till the end of the 18th century. In the reign of Sahle Sellassie (1813-1847) an Amhara Negus, he had many children, one of them being Haile Melekot, the father of Menellek II. When his father was murdered, Sahle Sellassie seized the throne although he had older male siblings. Sahle moved swiftly to consolidate power with the help of his mother’s kinsmen. He marched from the monastery at Sehla Dingay, where he was enrolled as a student, to his father’s capital at Qundi and claimed the succession; he was proclaimed Ras of Showa. Some of his male siblings reached Qundi at a later date and were promptly imprisoned.
Shortly after his proclamation as Ras, he proclaimed himself Negus of Shewa. In 1829, Shewa was hit with a debilitating famine; shortly thereafter, a cholera epidemic struck, killing two-thirds of the stricken. Again, misfortune struck when one of the Negus’ generals rebelled, Medoko, several of the elite Matchlockmen (infantry with guns) deserted with him and they joined with the Oromo. Together, they burned Angolalla and waged battles against Shewa. When Sahle Sellassie was able to put down the rebellion (1835), another catastrophe struck. Shewa was afflicted by a drought which decimated crops and livestock, bringing famine to the province. Sahle Sellassie responded to the famine by opening up the royal storehouses to the people. This act greatly enhanced his status with many viewing him as a wise, loving, and generous king. Sahle Sellassie was a great reformer. Some of his notable reforms are as follows: he limited executions to murder, treason, and sacrilege; executions required the consent of the Negus. He further ceased the practices (torture) of his predecessors, such as brandings with hot irons, executions, and severance of limbs of accused persons and criminals. Many death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment or property forfeiture. Blood money was paid to a murder victim’s relatives, instead of handing them over to the relatives of the victim’s family (an ancient tradition in Ethiopia still practised at the time). He instituted tax reforms and greatly increased the store of firearms available to the state at the time.
He signed friendship treaties with both France and England and even encouraged foreigners to settle in Shoa. In the following, I will highlight Ethiopian Orthodoxy, Ethiopian history, iconography, music, art, and culture. Ethiopian artists have produced an enormous amount of work, particularly the artwork of the Tewahedo Church, murals, manuscripts, ceremonial furniture, including their unique crosses and panel paintings on wood. Ethiopian iconography depicts a wide variety of sacred imagery used for a variety of reasons, both devotional and apotropaic objects (amulets), i.e. having the power to ward off evil or bad luck. The national dress of Ethiopia is the Shamma, a rectangular shawl of three feet in width, handwoven from cotton. Men wear jodhpurs, which fit tightly from the knee to the ankles. Women wear blouses with full skirts of ankle length.
Men and women wrap barnos around their shoulders (especially in the highlands) when the weather cools or is breezy. The national dish of Ethiopia is called injera, a locally made sour, fermented flatbread with a spongelike texture, and wat ot zegeni, which is a type of curried stew made of beef, mutton or chicken. Hard-boiled eggs are added and are seasoned in the Ethiopian manner with red pepper (berbere) and other spices. It is at times served with tedj, a honey mead fermented
drink, or tall an Ethiopian beer. Names and naming ceremonies in Ethiopia, like most Middle Eastern and African countries, are of paramount importance. Asfa Wossen Asserate, the great-grandson of Haile Sellassie, wrote in his book; ‘King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Sellassie’, the following: ‘Ethiopian naming conventions have no concept of the division into Christian name and surname that is usual in Europe. People have a single given name. This is often followed by the father’s name, thus Tafari Makonnen is Tafari, the son of Makonnen. If a child dies, and another is born, the newborn child’s name oftentimes is Kassa, meaning restitution. Common male names are Hagos (joy), Desta (pleasure), Tesfaye (my hope). Some common names for females in Ethiopia are Ababa (flower), Zewditu (crown), Terunesh (you are pure), and a host of others, but these are commonly recognisable even in this work since the famous Etege Zewditu Menellek’s daughter’s name is one of the most common female names in Ethiopia. Common Christian or baptismal male names are names compounded with, for instance, Gebre (servant of), an example is Gebre Yesus (servant of Jesus), Walda (son of), Haile (power of), and Habte (gift of). Well-known female baptismal names are, often compounded with the following Amete (maid of), like Amete Maryam, maid of Mary, or Walatta (daughter of), for example, Walatta Sion (daughter of Zion).
Above the logo of the Soualiga Youth Foundation. Profiled on this BLOG in the HOME section.
ST PETERS Sint Maarten: Since 2000, the Foundation Soualiga Youth wrote a detailed report which was presented to the Minister of Education,n Sarah Wescott Williams. In said report, the Foundation outlined a comprehensive plan of action pertinent to Economic revitalization of the Caribbean economies, using Agriculture and Eco-Cultural Tourism as an alternative to the present hedonistic people-destructive trend in tourism. The plan was never taken seriously, and experts worldwide are predicting the imminent collapse of the Tourism sector as a viable economic pillar regionally. This article is a mirror of what the Soualiga Youth presented to the government of Sint Maarten.
Nov 21, 2012 (Menafn – Caribbean News Now – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –There is indeed a continuing conversation in many global quarters about the type of prescription necessary for the revival of the Caribbean economies. In Washington, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) are lamenting about the evolving middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While they have exercised much care and caution about defining the specific nations where the middle class is emerging, we must not lose sight of the fact that these two powerful agencies have not substantially addressed the growing poverty issues and decrease in quality of life among certain sectors of the region’s population. In addition, there have been no indicators from these two agencies as to how an emerging middle class will contribute to the control of poverty, improve youth employment and improve the quality of life for the disadvantaged in a sustained manner.
To the great disappointment of many other global observers, the Washington and Geneva multilateralists are aggressively pursuing their selfish development agenda through the deployment of financial resources and development of phony collaborative partnerships with their regional counterparts.
These agencies and their collaborators are yet to come forward with any viable and achievable suggestions regarding the revitalisation of our economies; managing our foreign policy reserves by decreasing imports, and most importantly, development strategies for a sustainable path that would alleviate the region’s social and economic ills.
Addressing youth unemployment, rural development, access to information technology tools and ensuring some initiatives will bring tangible benefits to the disadvantaged are innovations and expectations that should become key development and policy planks in the region.
As efforts and suggestions are developed for advancing and sustaining the Caribbean economies, there are at least three sectors that require immediate attention and hopefully will result in some improvements. However, it must be noted and recognised that successful and sustainable outcomes will only be derived from a genuine change of attitude, recognition of the need for broad-based planning, participation and an acceptance that the global community is changing and Caribbean governments and institutions are obligated to fall in line with these global changes.
Agriculture has long been recognised as the central mainstay of Caribbean economies. Unfortunately, this economy has disappeared, and there has been no coordinated or demonstrated effort to revive and sustain it. Short-term tourist dollars seem to be the priority. Accumulation of foreign currency in any Caribbean nation should not be dependent only upon tourism.
Many of our small farmers have been abandoned as weak-kneed regional policy experts associated with various governments have embarked upon a wild and ill-fated chase for tourism dollars, which is unlikely to increase.
While the chase of tourism dollars might be justified by the weak-kneed policy experts, evidence clearly indicates that Caribbean economies should not rely only on the tourism sector, given global economic uncertainties in Europe and North America. Tourism should not be embraced as the saviour of Caribbean economies. Agriculture should be the priority.
In reviving and sustaining this important industry, there are several factors that require a radical change in thinking and perception about production and market penetration. The application of new information technology tools, identifying and building new partnerships, creation and creating and sustaining a strong national marketing board that will assist agricultural stakeholders in exporting and selling their products.
The days of the Geest Line, Harrison Shipping, Atlantic Lines, the Saguenay and Canada Steamship Lines are remembered by many for transporting our agricultural products in better times. Unfortunately, maintenance and sustainability of these exports are disappearing, and very little efforts are being made for the production and export reliability of these products. Like the tourism industry, they are foreign currency income earner,s and this is why the rationale and need for the agricultural economy is vital to our future.
The tourism industry is an important sector for the region. While the importance of this industry is recognised and encouraged, like the agricultural industry, it also requires radical changes and understanding. The Caribbean tourism industry is very competitive and exceeds the old antique marketing strategy of white sand beaches, bikini-clad women with tantalizing physique and beautiful white teeth.
Potential vacationers are looking at affordability, safety, quick, accessible transportation and potential venues or attractions that suit their interests. These expectations require many changes in the management of this industry. Pricing, target marketing, and promotion are essential if Caribbean nations are interested in holding their niche.
Tourism income earnings are fine and must always be encouraged. However, consideration must be given to a more intricate and sustainable link with our agricultural industry. Tourist vacationers must be encouraged to consume more local foods and other consumption goods associated with the tourist industry.
Preserving Local Cultural Economic Models:
The preservation of the local arts and craft industry is of critical importance. This would require effective monitoring and maintenance of existing legislation that addresses trade preferences and the import of these products. Irrespective of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) hype, our local arts and crafts industries should always be protected.
As I examine the plight and future of the region’s disadvantaged, it is crystal clear that unemployment, sexual exploitation, youth delinquency, crime, and lawlessness will continue to confront Caribbean governments. At the same time, many regional individuals have embarked upon further education only to discover after graduation that there are no immediate employment opportunities at home.
Therefore, Caribbean governments need to broaden their perception of another potential foreign income source. Given the decline of the tourism industry, the collapse of the agricultural industry and limited export products, the denial must end, and our leaders need to get down to work to address local economic conditions and stop blaming global economic conditions.
No Need To Reinvent The Wheel:
Jamaica and Barbados maintain fairly good tourism and trade infrastructures that earn them foreign exchange. However, these two CARICOM nations are actively and aggressively engaged in labour export that provides opportunities for their unemployed skilled workers to seek temporary foreign employment in the United States and Canada. While these two nations, like their other regional colleagues, are engaged in the Canadian seasonal farm workers program, they recognise that it is minuscule and there is a need for sourcing other potential opportunities.
Many of our regional governments need to take a page from Barbados and Jamaica, as labour export generates good foreign income and also contributes to the improvement of the quality of life. Those regional governments with tunnel vision on labour export must understand that they need to go beyond the seasonal farm workers program.
Exploiting New Growth Avenues:
Our governments can begin exploring new labour market opportunities by putting their consular officials to investigate and identify employment opportunities for skilled unemployed workers in their domain. Canada and other Western nations have growing temporary employment opportunities that can utilise the skills of our employees. We need to move beyond the farm workers program.
Recognition and implementation of the above suggestions require our regional Ministries of Labour to become more innovative and forward-looking in addressing labour market opportunities in their domain. They might wish to solicit the assistance of the Trinidad-based International Labour Office (ILO) if they decide to become innovative and creative.
The murder of Trinidadian, Venezuelan, and other Caribbean nationals by the American government under the Trump administration is unprecedented in modern times and completely illegal, as per Western international law. Placing the entire Trump Administration in the criminal bracket. Calling Trump a war criminal is an oxymoron. Who is America at war with in the Caribbean? Which Caribbean country is at war with America? Is Venezuela at war with America? Is Cuba at war with America? The boats that Trump has ordered destroyed in Caribbean waters are fishing vessels. All illicit narcotics shipments to America are sent by submarine vessels and through shipping ports, or go fasts. Not fishing boats, which cannot safely reach the US.
The US government, which touts itself as a paradigm of democracy and a protector of democratic freedoms, have murdered defenceless fishermen classified as terrorists. The insanity of present American geo-politics vis-à-vis the Caribbean is mind-boggling to say the least. Presenting no evidence, the US government is conducting an insidious pogrom in our region, in direct contravention of international law. The ramifications of the actions of the US government under Trump will have far-reaching, dire consequences for decades to come. For fishermen in many Caribbean islands, their industry has been devastated their ability to feed themselves and their families, all but taken away. Fisherfolk are forced to remain on land since no one knows when they will be targeted by the US government if they dare venture out to sea to fish.
Regional uncertainty:
Many Caribbean governments are in a state of uncertainty due to the mercurial nature of the present American foreign policy, which has negatively impacted the region’s economy, which is heavily dependent on its tourism sector. Climate change, illicit narcotics trafficking and the modern gangs spawned in the Caribbean, government corruption and recently terrorism.
Dire regional reality:
The phenomenon of many nationals of Trinidad and Tobago making Hijra to Syria and Iraq to fight on behalf of ISIS/ISIL is a reality threatening peace and security in the Caribbean. With the addition of the insane and criminal policies of Trump, the Caribbean is faced with a dire reality: which leaders will stand forth to guide the region beyond these troublesome times, certainly not the present crop of useful idiots. The NGO’s effective thought leaders and the many innovative leaders on the ground in the region are needed more than ever before in the Caribbean if any meaningful and effective changes are going to be brought to the fore. More to come on the serious, fast changing geo-political reality in the Caribbean.
Iam elated to announce that, after a long hiatus, this blog has been upgraded and will soon become a full-fledged website. Much has changed in my personal life. I still live in and work in Rotterdam, and now, increasingly, we work outside of Rotterdam. The Foundation Lalibela is now functional in North Africa, namely Morocco; more about that at a later time. Soon to come, my forthcoming book, “Soldiers”: a dive into terrorism, illicit narcotics trafficking, gang culture and corruption in government, from a Caribbean-centric perspective. The book takes the form of a novel and is based on factual events, with, of course, some fiction. Stay tuned for much more from us on this site. Bless.
In Tibet, the pre-Buddhist cultural value system is referred to by anthropologists, the Tibetans themselves as well as a host of other disciplines and professions as a Shamanist culture. The Tibetan practitioners of Bon consider themselves to be Shamen. The Shamanism of Tibet is ancient, and it incorporates Black magic as well as so-called “white magic”. The Tibetans have written extensively about their spiritual value system a well-known work on Tibetan Shamanism is the: “Tibetan book of the Dead”. The Bonpo Shamen were and still many are members of a clan guild. The Bon Shaman like Shamen of every culture globally are visited and then possessed by an “ancestral spirit”, a god or a demon this is their own account, not mine. The possessed would then become “divinely mad”; temporarily retreating into the wilderness the Shaman lived primitive existences i.e., “like an animal” and saw visions of him/herself devoured by animals. After the possessed returned to their clan they were taught by elder Shamen how to use their powers and how to invoke spirits to do their bidding through the incantation of mantras.
Figure: above is of Mantras/Runes carved into the rock in Tibet. The word Rune means secret or mystery in early English and related languages.
The flag of Tibet is a culture wholly given over to Shamanic principles and has been thus for thousands of years. The sun symbol is easily recognized on this flag, the “yin yang” between the lions, the two Snow Lions (associated with the heavens); they represent the East, cheerfulness, a precise and clear mind free of doubt, and the earth element. The Snow Lion is one of the Four Dignities which are the Lion, Tiger, Garuda, and Dragon they four are symbolic of the confidence the leader must develop in order to rule with wisdom and compassion.
Image: an illustration depicting the Four Dignitaries the sun is again a central theme here.
Tibetan Shamanism existed and was practiced in Tibet hundreds, if not thousands of years before Buddhism came to Tibet, it is a distinct spiritual value system that today has incorporated Buddhism. A true study of Tibetan spirituality for example, the Tibetan book of the dead will expose the student to Buddhist thought already being explored in Tibetan Shamanism, any study and practice of Buddhism will not necessarily expose one to the multi layered and complexed nature of the Shamanic culture in Tibetan Shamanism also known as Bon, Bon-po ,or Bön. Bon religion is also incorporated into their spiritual practices by Satanists as well as Witches. Iam inferring here that Tibetan Shamanic practices, are a highly complexed set of magical rituals complete with spirit possession, that is of such sophistry, that secular scholars equate their spiritual manuals as historical and cultural but have no comprehension of them , or they choose to ignore the inherent “spirituality”, as practiced by the Tibetan Shamen. The present “living god”, of Tibetan Lamaism, is the Dalai Lama Tenzien Gyatso. The Dalai Lama is held to be a god in flesh, by his followers, and a reincarnation of Buddha. A quote here from Helena Blavatsky’s “Isis Unveiled Volume I”, will lay bare some of the essence of what is being said herein. “Lamas-Buddhist monks belonging to the Lamaic religion of Tibet, as for instance friars are to the popish or Roman catholic religion. Every lama is subject to the grand Taley-, the Buddhist pope of Tibet, who holds his residence at Lhasa and is a reincarnation of Buddha”.
The “Tibetan Shamanic Wheel of Life”, which predates Buddhism yet it, incorporates in its entirety Buddhist thought. The Samsara Wheel/The Wheel of Joy is the middle illustration in the painting. From the: Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The Gyankil Chakra above represents the Samsara wheel to the left of the page. As an example of the idea of Buddhist taught in a pre-Buddhist culture let us examine the Samsara Wheel. This Chakra is replete with Buddhist thought and it predates Buddhism, to call Tibetan Shamanism Buddhism is to miss the point entirely. Bon in its darkest manifestation is an ancient form of Sun god spirituality as such witchcraft and Satanists can and do incorporate and draw from this spirituality as it is authentic pristine sorcery. Many will be offended by the above statement their offense stems from their ignorance pertinent to spiritual matters. I will quote from the Tibetan Buddhist text entitled: “The Epitome of The Great Symbol”. “Whatever thoughts, or concepts, or obscuring [or disturbing] passions arise are neither to be abandoned nor allowed to control one; they are to be allowed to arise without one’s trying to direct [or shape] them. If one do no more than merely to recognize them as soon as they arise, and persists in so doing, they will come to be realized [or to dawn] in their true [or void] form through not being abandoned. By that method, all things which may seem to be obstacles to spiritual growth can be made use of as aids on the Path. And therefore, the method is called “The utilizing of obstacles as aids on the Path. “Though the text is called Tibetan Buddhism the thought processes expressed. were known to Tibetan Shamen and present in their literature. The quote is of the type that, “Left Hand Path”, practitioners i.e. Satanist’s”, delight in uttering hence their incorporation of Tibetan Shamanism, into their own practices.
Another example of a spiritual value system being used to sell everything, from cologne to soap is the line of Samsara products. Presently what people refer to as secular society, is not secular at all, since civilizations are built from the value systems of the people within them, and all “secular” states and governments still gather inspiration from the mythology, culture and spiritual values of their forebearers.
The flag of South Korea this flag is fully Shamanistic in its entirety. At left an original rendering of same.
The white background symbolizes the cleanliness/purity of the people, taeguks/trigrams represent the origins of all things universally, red represents the earth and blue heaven/sky. For those who may think that what I propose here is mere supposition, I refer you to the book Liber 777 by Aleister Crowley. In the editorial preface Liber 777 is called a cabbalistic dictionary of ceremonial magic, oriental mysticism, comparative religion, and symbology. Crowley on page 67 used the taeguks or trigrams below, in his Trigrams of the Yi King with their various attributes. The fact that the trigrams shown below, all correspond to an element namely wind, water, earth, fire all necessary for the practice of witchcraft is telling in the sense that, the Korean’s knowingly placed such symbols along with the, “Ying Yang”, on their flag thus signalling their spiritual values to the symbol literate. The Korean Sam-Taegeuk is to the right of the page. This flag begs the question why a secular government would incorporate Shamanism, in modernity into their national flag? The lessons that history and etymology has taught humanity, has largely gone unnoticed by the majority of people, yet these symbols that are representative of “spiritual value systems”, are being used throughout modern society globally, pointing to the very spiritual nature of human beings, even in the twenty first century . I will continue here with the explanation of the colors on the Korean flag, yellow is for the Korean people, blue is symbolic of the heavens, red is the earth. The symbolism on the sides, of both flags above are characters that have the same meaning; the meanings are as follows:
This symbol above on the right of both flags is a Korean character it is called gam.
The variant meanings of the above character are as follows moon, winter, north, intelligence, son, water, and wisdom.
This character is seen at the lower half at right of both flags above called in Korean gon it stands for, earth as in nature, summer, west, courtesy, mother, earth as in one of the four elements, vitality.
The final character ri is representative of the following and can be seen on the bottom left on both flags, sun, autumn, south, justice, daughter, fire, fruition. The Shamanist characteristic of South Korea is visible throughout the flag and its symbolism.
The Logo of the World Conference against Racism racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance a creation of the United Nations. Observe the logo an ancient Shamanic symbol used in many cultures as we have already shown throughout this book. Today it is showing up in the logo of a United Nations created “representative” body. It is indeed not surprising to me in the least as the UN is a known supporter of all things esoteric and occultic. Again, we see that organizations globally that claim to be “secular” are nothing but fronts for a spirituality that is expressly forbidden in scripture. The flag to the right of the page was once used by what is now communist North Korea supposedly two opposing ideologies both using the same symbolism as the symbols are representative of spirit and spirit is universal and all encompassing.
The present flag of North Korea. The blue, red and white are still present and have the same meanings as the South Korean flag. Ironically, the state is called The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, all this from a dictatorial, government.
The presidential seal of the President of Communist Korea two Phoenix birds on both sides, with the national flower the Hibiscus middle at bottom of the seal. The Phoenix bird is also a sunsymbol and a prominent feature in Shamanic, occultic and esoteric spirituality globally, its use on this seal is in keeping with that tradition.
The phoenix is known in the mythology of all cultures globally the mystical bird which self-combusts into flames and is miraculously reborn from its own ashes. The phoenix also corresponds and is shown directly in the book the Goetia or the Lesser Key of Solomon, as the demon Fennex a great Marquis of Hell and has twenty legions of demons under his command, he teaches all wonderful science, he is an excellent poet and is very obedient to the conjurer his color is purple as he claims royalty, other spellings of his name is Phoenix, Pheynix and Phoenix.
This post dovetails unto one of the oft repeated claims on this blog, of the overt pro-satanist imagery, in western pop culture and the music industry in particular.
Shensea is a Jamaican Dancehall performer, who after signing with the American label Interscope, underwent a dark transformation in her music video content. Proving again the overt agenda, by the corporate entertainment industry in particularly the US, in the promotion of a pro-satanic anti-Christian cultural value system.
One of her latest videos Run Run, directed by Christian Breslauer, is a poignant example of satanic imagery in a music video. Breslauer also directed Lil Nas X’ Industry Baby and most notably Rexha’s Sacrifice, a video about human sacrifice. Being that Shensea is a Caribbean entertainer and this Blog deals with all things Caribbean, I will dissect some of the content in her video, their symbols and meaning.
Above Shensea holding a knife while chasing a male in the video. Notably the knife or dagger rather is reminiscent of a typical ceremonial dagger .
The image above hearkens on the theme of seductress. Shensea is dressed like a belly dancer, who were prostitutes in the ancient Middle Eastern cultures.
Above the male in the video being prepared to be sacrificed. Shensea attired in typical bondage or Dominatrix garb. Her headpiece is topped by two horns, just in case you thought the imagery is all innocent and coincidental.
Above Kali the Hindu goddess standing above her husband Shiva.
Kali in her role as destroyer holding aloft the severed head of one of her male victims.
The themes here are all reminiscent of those found in the Shensea video, namely dominance of the feminine principle over the masculine, which theme is central in witchcraft .
Shiva is also called Kala, Kala is the masculine of Kali and Shiva is the lord of death hence the name of his consort Kali meaning the eternal time, death and night. Kali is also Durga the warrior goddess, of ecstatic sexual rites, rite as in worship.
In Hinduism, the female principle takes precedence over the male, as the feminine in Hinduism is the most powerful aspect. The preceding concept is clear even in the names of the two demons portrayed in the painting above, Shiva or Kala comes from Kali, she preceded him in the cosmogony of Hinduism. In the painting kali stands on Shiva in order to pacify her anger, the subservient position of Shiva to Kali is a perfect rendering of the type of Goddess worship the Hindu‘s engage in.
Above the censer, usually used ceremonially to burn flesh, contains a human heart and live snakes. The snake or Serpent biblically is a symbol of Satan, Lucifer.
Above the male bowing (subservient), handing the ceremonial dagger to Shensea standing above him in the (dominant), role.
Shensea in this clip holds a live Serpent in her hand above her head.
The video imagery for Run Run, is totally deliberate and it actually portrays various culturally relevant themes and symbols. The attire of Shensea in this clip hearkens on the theme of seductress witch, again the Serpent symbol of Lucifer is held aloft above her head, denoting submission.
The central themes in this video of dominance, of female over male , Satanic imagery and overt human sacrifice themes, witchcraft and seductiveness are all deliberate used in an attempt to calm lull and allay, the viewers into acceptance of its content. Shensea Koffee, Vybzkartel , Tommy Lee and a host of others in the Caribbean are being used to push, the liberal values of the Western Cultural Value system along with its gang friendly music culture, fostered by the political elite within said system. The Western Anglo cultural value system has destroyed the very fabric of the social order in the Caribbean, which is a culture predicated on Bible values i.e. Christian values. This post is part of a series of posts entitled: Satanism in Popular Culture.
What follows was written in my book Shamanism as a Global Cultural Value System and its Antithesis Apostolic Culture. That brook was published in 2007, what follows is even more relevant today that, when it was first published.
In January 2011, the world saw in the corporate media what were called spontaneous and indigenous uprisings in North Africa and throughout the Middle East. In April 2011 an article was published in the New York Times headlined: ― A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing.
from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington. The article went further and reported on the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED); The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department‖.( U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings, The New York Times, April 14, 2011). (International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House).
December 3-5 2008 saw Egyptian activists from the April 6 movement in New York City, for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movement. In New York they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYMs corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department. James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the policy planning summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives. April 6 would then go on to Serbia to train under US funded CANVAS, previously known as Otpor. Otpor was a primary instrument in the overthrow of the Serbian government in 2000. A New York Times article said of Otpor; ―well-oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the United States. Foreign Policy magazine reported in an article titled: ―Revolution U , that CANVAS assisted protesters in the ―Rose Revolution‖ of Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” of the Ukraine, and is currently working with networks from Belarus,
Myanmar (Burma), all across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as with activists in North Korea, and 50 other countries. President Vladimir Putin recently remarked, (Thursday November 20th 2014), that; ― we must prevent a color revolution in Russia‖, Putin’s comments at a meeting of his advisory Security Council on combating extremism, underlined his wariness about Russia being hit by a popular uprising like those in the former Soviet republics known as the color revolutions. Putin said: ―In the modern world extremism is being used as a geopolitical instrument and for remaking spheres of influence (see the New Middle East). We see what tragic consequences the wave of so called color revolutions led to, for us this is a lesson and a warning . We should do everything necessary to insure nothing similar ever happens in Russia‖. Putin said the United States is trying to subjugate Russia , he rightfully laid blame for the overthrow of the Moscow backed Ukrainian President at the Western powers‘ feet and he accused Washington of stoking protest‘s against him in the 2011-2012 winter protest‘s in Moscow.
Putin‘s words ring true, as I already revealed in this book(Otpor now called CANVAS, is a US funded organization which assisted protesters in the “Rose Revolution” of Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” of the Ukraine), as reported in Foreign Policy magazine see (Revolution-U).
Image: Otpor in Serbia, a prototype for future US backed color revolutions.
In February 2010, April 6 the movement, after training with CANVAS returned to Egypt along with El Baradei the UN IAEA chief.
Image: Politics of every hue indeed makes strange bedfellows. This is a photo of ElBaradei, at the time this photo was taken he was the International Atomic Energy Agency chief.
ElBaradei announced his bid for the Egyptian presidency from as early as 2010. Along with April 6 member Wael Gonim of Google, and a united front of opposition parties. ElBaradei‘s National Front For Change was at the forefront of the coalition parties. It is no mere coincidence that ElBaradei was in bed with Wael Gonim who was with Google at the time, insuring that the events of the ―Arab Spring‖, would be permanently etched in the consciousness of people since Google is the most used search engine on the planet.
Consequently if anyone would care to recall when the Arab spring was in full bloom Google was putting out Arab Spring related propaganda which was in full support of the ―peaceful protesters‖, when all along it was a sham concocted by the corporate-multinationals and their Arab dupes and ―useful idiots‖, who were the young people used, to fuel the farcical uprisings. In the run up to the Egyptian staged uprisings, the staged uprisings in Tunisia, were in full swing and some very interesting players were at work in Tunisia. January 16th 2011 Al Arabiya reported in an article that Moncef Marzouki had returned to Tunisia the article was titled; ―Tunisia reformist to head back home‖.
Moncef founded and headed the, ―Arab Commission for human Rights‖, a collaborating institution with the US NED, he participated in a World Movement for Democracy third assembly. All of the NGO‘s and assemblies named are sponsored by NED and George Soros‘ open society and USAID. After fact checking all of the info given above, it soon became apparent to me that, the United states of America and its corporate sponsors, the real owners of America, have been from the early 1900‘s, plotting and fomenting incursions throughout the earth, in many sovereign nations under the guise of ―democracy , with the Military Industrial Complex and its corporate paymasters being the immediate beneficiaries of the US incursions into other sovereign nations. Baradei is also a long standing member of the Wall Street funded International Crisis Group (ICG), other members include the then Israeli president Shimon Peres, the then governor of the bank of Israel Stanley Fisher and former Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben Ami. Other prominent ICGers are American bankers and geo-political movers and shakers, including George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage, Samuel Berger, and Wesley Clark. After having digested the twisted tangled web of lies and deceit that the persons named and institutions named in the preceding have lain, in their Manichean ―Globalist‖ plot it became absolutely clear to me that these people are all aligned under an agenda of a ―One World Government‖, not only for self-enrichment and aggrandizement, but some are absolutely convinced of the validity of their plot and they will succeed all in fulfilment of bible prophecy. The Western media or the ―Corporate‖, media reported that ElBaradei is anti-Israel and anti-America, given the evidence in the preceding of his memberships and affiliations in numerous NGO‘s and groups how could he be remotely anti-anything American or Israeli, since the membership of the ICG is replete with Jews and Americans a glance at their first and last names will attest to their heritage. El Baradei is no more anti-Israel than Shimon Peres, he is definitely not anti-America since the State Department is one of his paymasters. To put it succinctly ElBaradei is a stooge and a servant of the corporate financiers and Washington elites that he serves, his public ―anti-Israel or anti-American‖, statements are all designed for public consumption, those who take the time to dig a little deeper will soon discover, the monumental fraudsters that Baradei and his ilk are.
Image: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its partner organizations and corporate backers. A financial and ideological arm of those in the US government and their corporate paymasters, who are dedicated to the goal of Globalism. The partner organizations and financial backers of NED are some of the most known names in their respective spheres of endeavor, for instance Brookings Institute is a ‗think tank‖ that concerns itself with foreign policy formation, and most of their recommendations or projections, are actual policies already being enacted or on the books in the American governmental apparatus. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), is another huge decider of American foreign policy, its founders and financiers are an interesting lot to say the least, one of the founders is Colonel Edward Mandelhouse John Foster Dulles (of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.), and Allen Dulles (also of Kuhn, Loeb & Co). The CFR was officially founded on July 29, 1921. Money for the founding came from J.P. Morgan, Bernard Baruch, Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff, Paul Warburg, and John D. Rockefeller, among others. The funding for the RIIA in London came primarily from the Astor family. An appropriate quote from War on Syria is in order here: ―US Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman issued a joint statement declaring that Bashar al- Assad had ―lost the legitimacy to remain in power in Syria.‖ They continued by stating: Rather than hedging our bets or making excuses for the Assad regime, it is time for the United States, together with our allies in Europe and around the world, to align ourselves unequivocally with the Syrian people in their peaceful demand for a democratic government. The US Senators‘ statements remain unequivocally dishonest, as McCain and Graham are both members of the International Republican Institute, an organization openly implicated by the New York Times in funding opposition groups who took part in the ―Arab Spring. Likewise, Lieberman is a member of the Neo-Conservative lobbying firm deceptively named the ―Foundation for Defense of Democracies(FDD), which features a host of Projects for a New American Century (PNAC) signatories including William Kristol, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Paula Dobriansky, as well as Council on Foreign Relations members, Newt Gingrich and Charles Krauthammer‖. The power of the corporate elite is concentrated in the Bilderberg group, as I will show here using their words as the proof to substantiate my claims. Daniel Estulin investigated and researched the Bilderberg group for well over 14 years. Estulin‘s The True Story of The Bilderberg Group ―Slowly, one by one, I have penetrated the layers of secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg Group, but I could not have done this without help of conscientious objectors‘ from inside, as well as outside, the Group‘s membership. Estulin describes the Bilderberg group as a Shadow one World Government . Estulin detailed how in 1954 the worlds power elite congregated . The most powerful men in the world met for the first time, in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, debated the future of the world, and decided to meet annually in secret. They called themselves the Bilderberg Group . The membership of the group consists of a who‘s who of the world‘s elite and powerful such as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Lloyd Blankfein, George Soros, Donald Rumsfeld, Rupert Murdoch, other heads of state, influential senators, congressmen and parliamentarians, Pentagon and NATO brass, members of European royalty, selected media figures, and invited others, even President Obama and many of his ―top-officials‖, have been present at Bilderberg conferences. Always well represented are top figures from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), IMF, World Bank, Trilateral Commission, EU, and powerful central bankers from the Federal Reserve, the ECB‘s Jean-Claude Trichet, and Bank of England‘s Mervyn King.
The objective of the Bilderberg group is to supplant, nation-state sovereignty by a global government controlled by corporations that are empowered by a militarized police state case in point Ferguson Missouri. It will become increasingly difficult for the average citizen to distinguish between the police and military, combat fatigues and armored vehicles will be and is already fast becoming standard issue for police departments globally, and particularly in the western hemisphere. Estulin wrote the following in his book: ―Imagine a private club where presidents, prime ministers, international bankers and generals rub shoulders, where gracious royal chaperones ensure everyone gets along, and where the people running the wars, markets, and Europe and America say what they never dare say in public.‖ ―Early in its history, Bilderbergers decided ―to create an ‗Aristocracy of purpose‘ between Europe and the United States (to reach consensus to rule the world on matters of) policy, economics, and (overall) strategy. NATO was essential for their plans – to ensure ―perpetual war (and) nuclear blackmail to be used as necessary. Then proceed to loot the planet, achieve fabulous wealth and power, and crush all challengers to keep it‖ (quoted from from Global Research). The rules of the Bilderberg groups steering committee are the following: ―the invited guests must come alone; no wives, girlfriends, husbands or boyfriends. Personal assistants (meaning security, bodyguards, CIA or other secret service protectors) cannot attend the conference and must eat in a separate hall. (Also) The guests are explicitly forbidden from giving interviews to journalists‖ . An elite private club comprised of a global elite that rules the world and are sworn to secrecy . Estulin wrote the following suggesting that Bill Clinton was ―allowed‘, to become President of the US for the specific purpose of: There, David Rockefeller told (him) why the North American Free Trade Agreement….was a Bilderberg priority and that the group needed him to support it.
The next year, Clinton was elected president . Clinton attended the meeting in 1991 on January 1st 1994 NAFTA went into effect. The Bilderberg group has a Grand Design , for the world which is outlined in the following. a One World Government (World Company) with a single, global marketplace, policed by one world army, and financially regulated by one World (Central) Bank‘ using one global currency.‖ Their objectives are: – one international identify (observing) one set of universal values; – centralized control of world populations by mind control; in other words, controlling world public opinion; – a New World Order with no middle class, only ―rulers and servants (serfs), and, of course, no democracy; – a zero-growth society, without prosperity or progress, only greater wealth and power for the rulers; – manufactured crises and perpetual wars; – absolute control of education to program the public mind and train those chosen for various roles; – centralized control of all foreign and domestic policies; one size fits all globally; – using the UN as a de facto world government imposing a UN tax on ―world citizens; expanding NAFTA and WTO globally; making NATO a world military; – imposing a universal legal system; and a global welfare state where obedient slaves will be rewarded and non-conformists targeted for extermination. A prominent partner organization of the Bilderberg group is the Council on Foreign relations. Edward Mandell House a CFR foundation member was Woodrow Wilson‘s, during House‘ tenure the Federal reserve Act was passed in December 1931, extending the power to create money to bankers, the 16th Amendment was ratified in February creating the federal income tax to provide a revenue stream to pay for government debt service. The Trilateral Commission is another key organization that advances the Globalist agenda. Founded by David Rockefeller a prominent Bilderberger and a CFR Chairmen Emeritus, Rockefeller funds and supports the following organizations: nearly all presidential candidates of both parties; leading senators and congressmen; key members of the fourth estate and their bosses; and top officials of the FBI, CIA, NSA, defense establishment, and other leading government agencies, including state, commerce, the judiciary and treasury. The global super-state advocacy of the CFR entails America and other western powers ceding their sovereignty to a world power. The founder of CFR was a member of Roosevelt‘s ―Brain Trust‖. In 1950, his son, James, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: We shall have world government whether or not you like it – by conquest or consent. Henry Kissinger intoned at the 1992 Bilderberg conference that: Today, Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow, they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence.
It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil….individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by their world government‖. The United Nations an instrumental organization in the power elites push to usher in a one world government, according to Estulin was formed by: ―the UN began with a group of CFR members called the Informal Agenda Group. The original UN proposal was drafted by members of the CFR. According to Professor William Donhoff author of ―Who Rules America‖ the CFR operates in micro groups of twenty five operatives: ―small groups of about twenty-five, who bring together leaders from the six conspirator categories (industrialists, financiers, ideologues, military, professional specialists – lawyers, medical doctors, etc. – and organized labor) for detailed discussions of specific topics in the area of foreign affairs‖. Domhoff emphasized that : ―The Council on Foreign Relations, while not financed by government, works so closely with it that it is difficult to distinguish Council action stimulated by government from autonomous actions. (Its) most important sources of income are leading corporations and major foundations, most notably the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation are key corporate sponsors of the CFR. Richard Salant former CBS news president outlined the corporate media‘s role in the twisted tangled web of global corporate hegemony: ―Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.‖ CFR influence in the administrative process of America and indeed the western hemisphere is staggering to say the least: The National Security Act of 1947 established the office of Secretary of Defense.‖ Since then, 14 DOD secretaries have been CFR members. Since 1940, every Secretary of State, except James Byrnes, has been a CFR member and/or Trilateral Commission (TC) one. For the past 80 years, ―Virtually every key US National Security and Foreign Policy Advisor has been a CFR member. Nearly all top generals and admirals have been CFR members. Many presidential candidates were/are CFR members, including Herbert Hoover, Adlai Stevenson, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter (also a charter TC member), George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and John McCain. Numerous CIA directors were/are CFR members, including Richard Helmes, James Schlesinger, William Casey, William Webster, Robert Gates, James Woolsey, John Deutsch, George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta. Many Treasury Secretaries were/are CFR members, including Douglas Dillon, George Schultz, William Simon, James Baker, Nicholas Brady, Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, and Tim Geithner. When presidents nominate Supreme Court candidates, the CFR‘s ―Special Group, Secret Team‖ or advisors vet them for acceptability. Presidents, in fact, are told who to appoint, including designees to the High Court and most lower ones. The dumbing down of the world‘s population is not limited to the world of pop-culture but permeates every facet of the human experience.
Above left: Stepan Banderas.
Stepan Banderas is a World War II leader, of the Ukrainian Nationalist Independence movement. Bandera naturally in contemporary times is a polarizing figure, revered by nationalist groups in Ukraine like Right Sector and Svoboda. Banderas was a nationalist whose organization was allied to Nazi Germany for a time, I must say here that they were also imprisoned by the Germans. Banderas was assassinated in Munich, Germany, in 1959. Right Sector ,Azov Battalion and Svoboda incorporate Ukrainian nationalist ideology and symbolism as well as Nazi i.e. Nordic symbolism and mythological symbiology, such as runes et al in their tattoos and flags. These are the groups that the US, is actively supporting both materially and militarily in Ukraine at present. The leaders in the US government demonstrate their, rabid hegemonic ambitions which, they realize time and again through the use of neo-Nazi proxies in Eastern Europe and al-Qaeda and other such groups in the Middle East .
US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland together with Neo Nazi Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok (left), right Ukrainian Prime Minister Arselli Yatsenyuk. (Photo credit Reuters). Nuland stated that: ―We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. … We will continue to promote Ukraine to the future it deserves.
Above right: John McCain with Neo-Nazi leader of Svoboda Oleh Tyanybok left center. Andriy Parubiy , co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was appointed Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee, a key position which oversees the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence. The RNBOU is a central decision-making body. While it is formally headed by the president, it is run by the Secretariat with a staff of 180 people including defense, intelligence and national security experts. Parubiy is one of the main leaders behind the Orange Revolution in 2004. His organization was funded by the United States and its western allies, mainly the NATO allied nations. Both Andriy Parubiy and Oleh Tyahnybok are students of Stepan Bandera.
Neo Nazi‘s march in Ukraine in honor of Stepan Banderas, his photo prominently displayed above.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky wrote in an article on Global Research posted on February 26th 2015: that According to the New York Times, ―The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another lowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.‖ ( After Initial Triumph, Ukraine‘s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility, NY Times. com, March 1, 2014). The US using their pre-eminence in NATO and their influence over the EU initiated the present Ukrainian crisis during the, so called ―Orange Revolution‖. The present war footing that the US is on with Russia, does not bode well for the planet, since both these ―super-powers‖, possess awesome nuclear arsenals, that if activated will spell absolute annihilation for the Earth‘s populace. The insanity of the present American government‘s expansionist policy in Eastern Europe using Ukraine as its gateway is a step on the threshold of a possible nuclear showdown, between Russia and the US, which will most likely involve China and Iran. America‘s NATO allies all fit the biblical description of Ezekiel 38‘s war of Gog and Magog.
Nowhere in the corporate western media are these facts espoused. The fact that America‘s Ukrainian proxy government, is integrated by neo-Nazi‘s seems not to ruffle the feathers of the elite, within the US government. How then can the US government claim to be the vanguard of , human rights while bolstering the openly Nazi-nativistic regime in Kiev?
According to the BBC the Azoz Battalion is not a neo-Nazi organization. The photo above shows members of the Azov Battalion, posing with a Nazi flag, the NATO flag and the banner of their battalion.
Above is the Sector Right.
On Thursday, December 4th 2014, Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin addressed the Federal Assembly, including State Duma deputies, members of the Federal Council, the heads of the Constitutional and Supreme courts, regional governors, heads of Russia‘s traditional faiths and public figures at the Kremlin in Moscow.
President Vladimir accused the US and its NATO allies of seeking to carve up Russia, destroy its economy, and to punish it for becoming strong, Putin stressed that Russia would rise to any challenge. In a fiercely patriotic state of the union speech, the Kremlin leader defended his annexation of Ukraine‘s Crimea peninsula, praised the Russian people for their strength, accused the West of ―pure cynicism‖ in Ukraine and said that Russians must develop their own economy in the wake of economic sanctions.
Putin accused the west of trying to bring another iron curtain down around Russia. ―I‘m certain that if all this did not take place, (the Ukraine crisis), they would come up with another reason to contain Russia‘s growing capabilities‖. Putin claimed that Crimea which his troops seized after a Moscow- backed president was toppled in Kiev held sacred meaning for Russians forever. Putin is still riding a wave of high popularity since his rise to power amid Russia‘s currency collapse and default. As a result of the precarious What follows is from the Ethiopian book of Enoch, pertaining to Gog and Magog. ―When Alexander was king and had subdued countries and cities, and had arrived in the East, he saw on the confines of the East those men who are of the children of Japheth i.e. (Aryans, Caucasians or Europeans). They were more wicked and unclean than all other dwellers in the earth; filthy peoples of hideous appearance who ate mice and the creeping things of the earth and snakes and scorpions.
They never buried the bodies of their dead, and they ate as dainties the children which women aborted and the after birth. People ignorant of God and unacquainted with the power of reason, but who lived in this world without understanding like ravening beasts. The names given for the European tribes are as follows: ―Gog, Magog, Nawal, Eshkanaz aka Ashkenaz, Denaphar, Paktaye, Welotaye, Humnaye, Parzaye, Daklaye, Thaubelaye, Darmetaye, Kawkebaye, Dogmen (Cynocephali), Emderatha, Garmido, Cannibals, Therkaye, Alanaye, Pisilon, Denkaye, Saltraye‖. The tribes and clannish alliances mentioned above, though found in mythology are instructive to where I am going in this portion. Gog and Magog, is not only mentioned in mythological accounts of the Aryan, Nordic, Saxon and Slav people‘s among other in Western and Eastern Europe, Gog and Magog is also spoken of in the Torah and Quran. Needless to say that in this work my primary point of reference is the Holy Bible, it is yet fascinating to see that all three books, when read objectively actually complement and bear up each other, pointing in my view to their divine origin i.e. inspired by, ―The One True God‖. situation in the Ukraine, Chechnya and many of the breakaway former USSR states and a ramped up US-led NATO presence in some of Russia‘s former territories , Russia‘s Ministry of Defence announced on the 3rd of December 2014, the inauguration of a new military-political entity which would take over in case of war.
In May 2014 the Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) was in the US senate (S2277), calling for the militarization of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and the stationing of US and NATO troops close to Russia‘s borders. The Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) was in the US senate (S2277): Directs the President to: (1) implement a plan for increasing U.S. and NATO support for the armed forces of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and other NATO member-states; and (2) direct the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO to seek consideration for permanently basing NATO forces in such countries. Directs the President, to submit a plan to Congress for accelerating NATO and European missile defense efforts. In mid-July, NATO‘s Europe commander General Philip Breedlove in consultation with the Pentagon and Britain‘s Ministry of Defense, called for:―stockpiling a base in Poland with enough weapons, ammunition and other supplies to support a rapid deployment of thousands of troops against Russia‖,(RT, July 24, 2014).
He plans to recommend placing supplies — weapons, ammunition and ration packs — at the headquarters to enable a sudden influx of thousands of NATO troops‖ (Times, August 22, 2014.) As a response to NATO‘s deployments on Russia‘s borders, conducted early in November a series of war games in the sea of Barent. The Russian military tested: ―it‘s entire nuclear triad consisting of strategic bombers; submarines‖ and the ―silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast‖ on November 1st. On November 18th a major resolution H. Res. 758 was introduced in the House of Representatives. situation in the Ukraine, Chechnya and many of the breakaway former USSR states and a ramped up US-led NATO presence in some of Russia‘s former territories , Russia‘s Ministry of Defense announced on the 3rd of December 2014, the inauguration of a new military-political entity which would take over in case of war. In May 2014 the Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) was in the US senate (S2277), calling for the militarization of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and the stationing of US and NATO troops close to Russia‘s borders.
The Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) was in the US senate (S2277): Directs the President to: (1) implement a plan for increasing U.S. and NATO support for the armed forces of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and other NATO member-states; and (2) direct the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO to seek consideration for permanently basing NATO forces in such countries. Directs the President, to submit a plan to Congress for accelerating NATO and European missile defense efforts. In mid-July, NATO‘s Europe commander General Philip Breedlove in consultation with the Pentagon and Britain‘s Ministry of Defense, called for:―stockpiling a base in Poland with enough weapons, ammunition and other supplies to support a rapid deployment of thousands of troops against Russia‖,(RT, July 24, 2014). He plans to recommend placing supplies — weapons, ammunition and ration packs — at the headquarters to enable a sudden influx of thousands of NATO troops‖ (Times, August 22, 2014.) As a response to NATO‘s deployments on Russia‘s borders, conducted early in November a series of war games in the sea of Barent. The Russian military tested: ―it‘s entire nuclear triad consisting of strategic bombers; submarines‖ and the ―silo-based Topol-M intercontal .
Russian analysts say that Putin‘s statements were made out of a desire to emphasize Kiev‘s dependence on the U.S. and the EU. Viktor Militaryov, vice president of the Institute for National Strategy, told RBTH that while ―of course, the Ukrainian armed forces are not officially a NATO structure, in his statement, Putin was implying that they are not acting on their own initiative. In Militaryov‘s view, Putin was essentially saying that NATO and especially the United States ―are using Kiev and its armed forces for geopolitical provocations against Russia.‖ According to Losif Diskin, co-Chairman of the National Strategy Council, Putin‘s statements can be interpreted to mean that the U.S. is trying to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe using the Ukrainian armed forces. intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast‖ on November 1st. On November 18th a major resolution H. Res. 758 was introduced in the House of Representatives. Alexander Golts, a military expert and editor-in-chief of the independent Internet portal The Daily Journal, has a different take on Putin‘s statements. According to Golts, Putin unwittingly presented Russia as a party to the conflict in Ukraine. ―Military actions are under way on Ukrainian territory, not Russian territory. If in the Russian president‘s opinion, the purpose of the military action is to contain Russia, then who is fighting against the voluntary battalions there? , Golts asked Putin: (From Russia beyond The Headlines : Foreign legion‘ Ukraine January 27, 2015 Alexei Timofeichev, RBTH Russian experts react to Putin‘s comments, which NATO calls ―nonsense.) The claim that Putin‘s statements are nonsense shatters when taken in context.
A clip emerging amid the devastation of Mariupol from a Ukrainian news outlet showing a female news reporter approaching what she thinks is a Ukrainian soldier he is dressed in Ukrainian military fatigues and carrying an AK47, she asks him ―what happened here? , The man immediately rushes to cover his face as the still of the clip shows below, speaking in a clearly audible tone he shout‘s ―get out of my face‖, in unmistakable American English. Who then is the Obama administration attempting to deceive? The alternative media were reporting this all along; the exact same pattern repeats itself, in Iraq and Syria, American Special Forces embedded in each and every conflict zone only to be denied ad-infinitum until the next Edward Snowden blows the whistle.
Image: The American (Special Forces or mercenary), dressed as a Ukrainian soldier, hides his face from the camera. Zero Hedge on the 25th of January posted an article which I will quote here : ‘With daily reportage of the invasion‘ of Russian military forces into Ukraine territory (admittedly unconfirmed by NATO), this clip raises many questions about American involvement in the ongoing conflict – most of all, was the US involved in ―staging‖ the Mariupol massacre, and if so it is clear who should be blamed (and isolated).Of course, US troops, or at least mercs, on the ground, should not be a total surprise, since just 2 months ago, we discussed the hacked US documents that revealed the extent of undisclosed US ―lethal aid‖ being given to the Ukraine army. What was apparently left unleaked was the part of the US aid also includes US-speaking soldiers. The only question is whether US taxpayers are paying their wages’ .
Above is a shot of John McCain‘s Twitter feed. McCain posted ―Dear Vlad the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you. John McCain is taunting Putin with this post, yet it is quite telling since McCain has repeatedly , uttered the same mantra time and again. Indeed that mantra is seen in Brzezinski’s: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geo Strategic Imperatives‖. The following is from an article by Tony Cartalucci on his website Land Destroyer: ―The “shift” in logistical terms is meaningless – since any and every available amount of money, weapons, and fighters has already been fed by the US and its allies into Al Qaeda’s ranks since the conflict began – but the shift rhetorically is important. It signals America’s attempt to introduce direct military support for Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front and other assorted terrorist groups on the ground to counter and ultimately defeat Russian, Syrian, and Iranian efforts. This will also leave virtually no capable force on the battlefield to counter ISIS. The US hopes that this, “power move” – the abominable assault with terrorists on a coalition demonstrably attempting to fight Al Qaeda and ISIS in the region – will force Russia to the negotiating table. However, Russia can do nothing of the sort. With the death of General Hamedani so clearly benefiting the United States – the conflict is of a clear existential nature. Failure to stop these terrorists in Syria and they are headed next to Iran, then Caucasus Mountains into Russia – and as far as China is concerned – across Central Asia and into its vast Xinjiang region.
The Newsweek cover above is a great example of the type of social engineering employed by the American media. The cover subject Vladimir Putin Russia‘s current President, is dehumanized becoming the impersonal it‘, The Pariah, the West‘s Public Enemy Number One . With his deathly grey pallor and surrounded by a matte black background, Putin hearkens to mind one of the terminator‘s hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in Terminator II, specifically the blond terminator that morphed into a police officer. The idea here is clearly to influence mass perception of Putin as a dangerous killer who should be feared and loathed.
Figure: The photo above is from FP magazine article entitled Revolution U. The article is revealing on multiple levels and I will quote liberally from the piece, as a means of strengthening the claims made in this essay. First though an article in the Washington Post written by Michael Faulkner in 2004, wherein he stated that the US was ―meddling‖, in the Ukraine. Here are some excerpts from his piece: Washington Post in an op-ed titled, Meddling‘ In Ukraine Democracy is not an American plot, that: Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes. The American agents of influence would prefer different language to describe their activities , democratic assistance, democracy promotion, civil society support, etc. But their work, however labelled, seeks to influence political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and a few other foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation, Internews and several others to provide small grants and technical assistance to Ukrainian civil society. The European individual European countries and the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation.
The Guardian carried a 2004 article titled: US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev, But while the gains of the orange bedecked chestnut revolution are Ukraine‘s the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western mass marketing and branding, that in four countries in four years, has been used to try to save rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes. Funded and organized by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organizations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box. Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
The American corporate hierarchy and their sponsored proxies are listed on the list above. It includes, Otpor top right, Bersh, Project Middle East Democracy, Prachatai and Free Malaysia Today. These are the corporate backers of the, ―Arab Spring‖ and all the ―Color Revolutions‖, mentioned previously. So called revolutions masterminded from boardrooms and mass marketed through their NGO‘s to whomever, they‘ve recruited for their cause. The scenario sounds like something out of Robert Ludlums ,The Lazarus Vendetta, but in this case his book was inspired by our present reality. Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organized a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
That one failed. There will be no Kostunica in Belarus,‖ the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade. But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev. The operation – engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience – is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people‘s elections‖. The exact tactics were repeated during the so called Arab Spring‖ and the Euromaidan‖, in 2013-2014, in Europe. Steve Clemons wrote in The Atlantic that: At an earlier session, Senator Udall said that those who believed that the Arab Spring was an organic revolution from within these countries were wrong — and that the West and NATO in particular had been primary drivers of results in Libya — and that the West had helped animate and move affairs in Egypt. Udall provocatively added Syria to that list as well. The following is the article I promised of course excerpt‘s only the article can be read at http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/02/17/revolution-u-2/. Written by Tina Rosenberg February 17th 2011 for Foreign Policy (FP) magazine.
The botched April 6 protests, the leaders realized in their aftermath, had been an object lesson in the limits of social networking as a tool of democratic revolution. Facebook could bring together tens of thousands of sympathizers online, but it couldn‘t organize them once they logged off. It was a useful communication tool to call people to — well, to what? The April 6 leaders did not know the answer to this question. So they decided to learn from others who did. In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia‖. In the piece above social media was the tool used to mobilize the masses , mainly students and working class people who were internet savvy . The social media‖, aspect is where Wael Ghonim of Google.
Ghonim above was jailed in fact it was claimed that he went missing, during the protest‘s in Egypt when he was released days later he became instantly famous, an easy feat for a Google marketing executive. Ghonim was linked to the April, six movement, the Muslim Brotherhood and some groupings of the working class. The following is the continuation of the FP article: The Serbian capital is home to the Center for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS, an organization run by young Serbs who had cut their teeth in the late 1990s student uprising against Slobodan Milosevic. After ousting him, they embarked on the ambitious project of figuring out how to translate their success to other countries .
They have worked with democracy advocates from more than 50 countries. They have advised groups of young people on how to take on some of the worst governments in the world — and in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria-occupied Lebanon, the Maldives, and now Egypt, those young people won .
The April 6 Youth Movement, along with a similar group called Kefaya, became the most important organizers of the 18-day peaceful uprising that culminated in President Hosni Mubarak‘s departure on Feb. 11. The April 6 Movement and Kifaya are the groups that have led the charge in actually getting protesters organized and onto the streets, a Feb. 3 report from the geopolitical analysis group Stratfor said. The tactics were straight out of CANVAS‘s training curriculum. I got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to face violence from the security forces … and also how to organize to get people on the streets, Adel said of his experience with the Serbs, in an interview with Al Jazeera English on Feb. 9. We were quite amazed they did so much with so little, Srdja Popovic, one of CANVAS‘s leaders, told me. Revolutions are often seen as spontaneous, Ivan Marovic, a former CANVAS trainer, told me in Washington a few years ago. It looks like people just went into the street. But it‘s the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you reach a certain point, where you can organize mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks. CANVAS is hardly the first organization to teach people living under dictatorship the skills they can use to overthrow it; the U.S. government and its allies have funded democracy-promotion organizations around the world since the early years of the Cold War. Living under two dictatorships — Chile under Augusto Pinochet and Nicaragua under the Sandinistas and visiting perhaps a dozen others, I had seen armies of them at work and served as an election monitor myself. But I had never seen anything like CANVAS. There, we have credible evidence from the players themselves, about who, funded, trained and educated them on how to bring about, a staged revolution.
The United States President Barack Obama was recently interviewed by Fareed Zakaria, during the interview he admitted that the US, had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine. Timothey Alexander Guzman told Sputnik that: Obama‘s statement is reiterating something that the world public opinion already knew , the US was involved in the coup of ex-Ukrainian President] Viktor Yanukovych from the start. History shows us that the US has overthrown numerous governments in Latin America, Asia and Africa and replaced them with leaders that ruled with a fascist ideology that proved useful for Washington‘s geopolitical interests. Law Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law Francis Boyle said the following of Obama‘s Ukraine strategy : I think he (Obama), has made it very clear that he is going ,to continue to take a Brzezinski hard-lined approach toward Ukraine and Russia and that there are not going to be any compromises at all, and effectively he expects President Putin to throw in a towel, capitulate, whatever, it does not appear to me there is any ground for negotiations in light of what President Obama at least said publicly,‖ Professor Sobell made a statement that: Mr. President [Obama] should be aware that Yanukovych fled [Ukraine] because he had solid reasons to fear for his life. The hallowed Maidan was not a peaceful democratic regime change, as it was presented in Western media, but a violent putch complete with murderous acts by hired assassins. Sobell made the devastating claim that: unnamed EU officials affirm, that on February 20 snipers shot both demonstrators and police dead, in order to provoke chaos . He went even further stating that: These crimes, he continued, are not being investigated by Kiev‘s democratic — Western values regime or its Western sponsors, as today it is ok to install a Nazi-driven regime, by these means and then demand that Western tax- payers support it.
Images: Above left a promotion announcing the Wales NATO summit of 4-5 September 2014. Bottom a promotion of NATO‘s Iron Sword military exercises –involving the participation of nine member countries of the Atlantic Alliance– were launched in Lithuania in early November.
The H. Res. 758 directly accuses Russia of having invaded Ukraine and it invokes article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which is NATO‘s collective security doctrine. The resolution accuses Russia of military aggression. The resolution accuses Russia of: ―using the supply of energy for political coercion‖. The resolution advises the US President in concert with the US Congress to : ―conduct a review of the force posture, readiness, and responsibilities of the United States Armed Forces and the forces of other members of NATO to determine if the contributions and actions of each is sufficient to meet the obligations of collective self defense under article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and to specify the measures needed to remedy any deficiencies‖ .The language of the resolution places Russia and America on a war footing, which may escalate in all out war, on any number of fronts. The present US-led NATO alliance it‘s mid-east allies and proxies, and Russia its allies, specifically China and Iran and their mid-east Shia proxies all fit the pre-conditions and prerequisites of fulfilling Ezekiel 38. H.Res.758 below is a must-read document and can be viewed in its entirety and even downloaded at:
Above the logo of the Soualiga Youth Foundation. Profiled on this BLOG in the HOME section.
ST PETERS Sint Maarten: Since 2000 the Foundation Soualiga Youth wrote a detailed report which was presented to then Minister of Education Sarah Wescott Williams. In said report the Foundation outlined a comprehensive plan of action pertinent to Economic revitalization of the Caribbean economies, using Agriculture and Eco-Cultural Tourism as an alternative to the present hedonistic people destructive trend in tourism.The plan was never taken seriously and experts worldwide are predicting the imminent collapse of the Tourism sector as a viable economic pillar regionally. This article is a mirror of what the Soualiga Youth presented to the government of Sint Maarten.
Nov 21, 2012 (Menafn – Caribbean News Now – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –There is indeed a continuing conversation in many global quarters pertaining to the type of prescription necessary for the revival of the Caribbean economies. In Washington, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) are lamenting about the evolving middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While they have exercised much care and caution about defining the specific nations where the middle class is emerging, we must not lose sight of the fact that these two powerful agencies have not substantially addressed the growing poverty issues and decrease in quality of life among certain sectors of the region’s population. In addition, there have been no indicators from these two agencies as to how an emerging middle class will contribute to the control of poverty; improve youth employment and improve the quality of life for the disadvantaged in a sustained manner.
To the great disappointment of many other global observers, the Washington and Geneva multilateralists are aggressively pursuing their selfish development agenda through the deployment of financial resources and development of phony collaborative partnerships with their regional counterparts. These agencies and their collaborators are yet to come forward with any viable and achievable suggestions regarding the revitalization of our economies; managing our foreign policy reserves by decreasing imports and most important development strategies for a sustainable path that would alleviate the region’s social and economic ills. Addressing youth unemployment; rural development; access to information technology tools and ensuring there are initiatives that will bring tangible benefits to the disadvantaged are innovations and expectations that should become, key development and policy planks in the region.
As efforts and suggestions are developed for advancing and sustaining the Caribbean economies, there are at least three sectors that require immediate attention and hopefully will result in some improvements. However, it must be noted and recognized that successful and sustainable outcomes will only be derived from a genuine change of attitude, recognition of the need for broad based planning, participation and an acceptance that the global community is changing and Caribbean governments and institutions are obligated to fall in line with these global changes. Agriculture has long been recognized as the central mainstay of Caribbean economies. Unfortunately, this economy has disappeared and there has been no coordinated or demonstrated effort to revive and sustain it. Short term tourist dollars seem to be the priority. Accumulation of foreign currency in any Caribbean nation should not be dependent only upon tourism.
Many of our small farmers have been abandoned as weak kneed regional policy experts associated with various governments have embarked upon a wild and ill fated chase for tourism dollars, which is unlikely to increase. While the chase of tourism dollars might be justified by the weak knee policy experts, evidence clearly indicate that Caribbean economies should not rely only on a tourism sector, given global economic uncertainties in Europe and North America. Tourism should not be embraced as the saviour of Caribbean economies. Agriculture should be the priority.
In reviving and sustaining this important industry, there are several factors that require a radical change in thinking and perception about production and market penetration. The application of new information technology tools, identifying and building new partnerships, creation, and sustenance of a strong national marketing board that will assist agricultural stakeholders in exporting and selling their products.
The days of the Geest Line, Harrison Shipping, Atlantic Lines, the Saguenay and Canada Steamship Lines are remembered by many for transporting our agricultural products in better times. Unfortunately, maintenance and sustainability of these exports are disappearing and very little efforts are being advanced for production and export reliability of these products. Like the tourism industry, they are foreign currency income earners and this is why the rationale and need for the agricultural economy is vital to our future.
The tourism industry is an important sector for the region. While the importance of this industry is recognized and encouraged, like the agricultural industry, it also requires radical changes and understanding. The Caribbean tourism industry is very competitive and exceeds the old antique marketing strategy of white sand beaches, bikini clad women with tantalizing physique and beautiful white teeth.
Potential vacationers are looking at affordability, safety, quick, accessible transportation and potential venues or attractions that jug their interests. These expectations require many changes in the management of this industry. Pricing, target marketing, and promotion are very essential if Caribbean nations are interested in holding their niche.
Tourism income earnings are fine and must always be encouraged. However, consideration must be given to a more intricate and sustainable link with our agricultural industry. Tourist vacationers must be encouraged to consume more local foods and other consumption goods associated with the tourist industry.
The preservation of the local arts and craft industry is of critical importance. This would require effective monitoring and maintenance of existing legislation that addresses trade preference and import of these products. Irrespective of the World Trade Organization (WTO) hype, our local arts and crafts industries should always be protected.
As I examine the plight and future of the region’s disadvantaged, it is crystal clear that unemployment, sexual exploitation, youth delinquency, crime, and lawlessness will continue to confront Caribbean governments. At the same time, many regional individuals have embarked upon further education only to discover after graduation that there are no immediate employment opportunities at home. Therefore, Caribbean governments need to broaden their perception about another potential foreign income source. Given the decline of the tourism industry, the collapse of the agricultural industry and limited export products, the denial must end and our leaders need to get down to work to address local economic conditions and stop blaming global economic conditions.
Jamaica and Barbados maintain fairly good tourism and trade infrastructures that earn them foreign exchange. However, these two CARICOM nations are actively and aggressively engaged in labour export that provides opportunities for their unemployed skilled workers to seek temporary foreign employment in the United States and Canada. While these two nations, like their other regional colleagues, are engaged in the Canadian seasonal farm workers program, they recognize that it is minuscule and there is need for sourcing other potential opportunities.
Many of our regional governments need to take a page from Barbados and Jamaica as labour export generates good foreign income and also contributes to the improvement of the quality of life. Those regional governments with tunnel vision on labour export must understand that they need to go beyond the seasonal farm workers program.
Our governments can begin exploring new labour market opportunities by putting their consular officials to investigate and identify employment opportunities for skilled unemployed workers in their domain. Canada and other western nations have growing temporary employment opportunities that can utilize the skills of our employed. We need to move beyond the farm workers program. Recognition and implementation of the above suggestions require our regional Ministries of Labour to become more innovative and forward looking in addressing labour market opportunities in their domain. They might wish to solicit the assistance of the Trinidad-based International Labour Office (ILO) if they decide to become innovative and creative.
