Walls Crumble

So, Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia have both voted in favor of independence. And naturally both national governments, Iraq and Spain, have rejected these votes. The USA has seen its worst mass shooting in history, perpetrated by an sixty-four year old white guy apparently acting alone. Despite this ISIS claimed credit. There were two suicide bombings in Syria, at a Police Station. Which, frighteningly, is nothing new. The US government has successfully pressured Egypt into seizing a shipment of North Korean provided RPGs (rocket propelled grenade launchers) that were being purchased by businessmen, presumably as part of an illicit under the table deal between Cairo and Pyongyang.

Over the Weekend, Houthi forces in Yemen claimed to have shot down a US drone. A man in Marseille stabbed two women (ISIS claimed responsibility). Soldiers in Cameroon shot dead at least eight protesting Anglophone separatists. And ISIS seized control of the town of Al-Qaryatain in the Homs province. Neo-Nazis held a march in Sweden. Al-Shabaab in Somalia attacked a Military Base outside Mogadishu. Another member of Donald Trump's Administration has resigned, Secretary of health and Human Services Tom Price this time- over a scandal regarding his use of private planes. The persecution of the Muslim Rohingya minority in Burma continues.  The US State Department has pulled out families of employees and nonessential personnel following what media outlets are describing as a string of mysterious apparently sonic based attacks, Havana is cooperating with the US and has invited the FBI to assist. Japan is getting ready for some contentious elections, with two parties merging to better oppose the ruling Party. China continues its Anti-Corruption purge, and critics continue to speculate on the motives behind the purge.

Trends to notice, independence and/or separatist movements are back in the news. In Spain, the police were deployed to scare voters away. In Iraq, the national government blustered, but since the Kurdish Peshmerga pretty much already controls the territory claims by Iraqi Kurdistan that doesn't mean much. In Cameroon, language is key division, with the government failing to protect the rights of English speaking Cameroons. And let us not forget that ISIS is functionally a separatist movement, one that is also attempting to become a Caliphate, but seems now unable to sustain that long term.

Al-Shabaab is not a separatist movement, but Somalia has a functioning unrecognized nation in Somaliland and the rest of the nation is still a profoundly failed state embroiled in civil war. Unity is a problem for Nations worldwide. With approval for the sitting US president are some of the lowest early approval rates ever seen for a US president. China's anti-corruption purges are believed to be politically motived. The Rohingya purges could easily be interpreted as a means of the ruling government to focus discontent towards a persecuted minority rather than the government. Japan is struggling following the saber rattling by North Korea, which may end up unseating Shinzo Abe.

What does all this mean? Larger Political bodies spring from the resources and power to maintain them. Balkanization occurs when governing bodies lack the strength to hold their nations and/or empires together, and lack the resources to supply and support the people of their nation and/or empire. It's not a matter of bread and circuses. It's a matter of bread and truncheon. And what all of this unrest is showing us; is that around the world, the groups in power are losing the ability to provide for the their people and also losing the ability to force their citizens in line.