TOP TREND: MID-YEAR UPDATE
2016 FORECAST: Throughout 2016 and for years to come, millions of refugees will flee war-torn nations looking for safety. Millions of migrants will leave economically depressed countries looking for work.
Trends are born, they grow, mature, reach old age and die. The Great Migration trend, born some five years ago, was ignored by the media and ridiculed by politicians:
THE GREAT MIGRATION
In March 2011, the first wave of the human tsunami washed ashore. Tens of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing North Africa and the Middle East made landfall in the nearest Italian port. By mid-April, the UN reported that more than a half-million people had fled Libya in the preceding two months and that the pace of exodus was picking up.
Without means to cope with the multitude, Italy asked its European Union allies for a helping hand but got the cold shoulder instead. “Italy must live up to its responsibilities,” said Germany’s interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich. “Italy is a large country… they must negotiate with Tunisia.”
Outraged at the callous attitude, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni mused, “I wonder if it makes sense to stay in the European Union… Meglio sola che male accompagnata.”
Or as George Washington used to say, “Better to be alone than in bad company.”
Resolutely oblivious to the buildup to “The 1st Great War of the 21st Century,” politicians and the media proved unaware of the effects of the Great Migration that would be set in motion by the sociopolitical/economic upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa.
As wars worsened and economic conditions deteriorated, millions of displaced persons were set in motion seeking safe haven and gainful employment or both…” (Trends Journal, Spring 2011.)
TREND UPDATE
Either ignorant to the causes and effects of decades-long wars that have killed millions, destroyed entire nations and/or unwilling to acknowledge their role in creating the conditions for human waves flooding into Europe and spreading to North America, political leaders and the public blame the worsening crisis on everyone but those responsible for causing it.
Thus, with wars spreading and many resource-rich nations failing as they sell less of what they produce and get paid less for it, as we had forecast in December, the refugee/migrant crisis now has reached the record-breaking proportions we predicted. And, as economies continue to falter and war drums beat louder, the refugee/migrant crisis will significantly worsen. From South Sudan, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea to Central America… from Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya to Afghanistan, where 1,000 people a day are being forced from their homes daily, according to Amnesty International… a record-breaking 65 million people have been displaced and are on the run, according to a June 20 United Nations report.
Moreover, despite the thousands drowning at sea, nations erecting borders, wretched migrant-camp conditions, and violent clashes between government forces and desperate refugees, neither Europe nor North America have devised plans or implemented strategies to mitigate the crisis or tackle the root cause.
Indeed, one root cause was prophesied by former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi several months before Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, then-Secretary of State and now presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and then-British Prime Minister David Cameron launched the war that has sunk Libya into chaos and a launch pad for migration: “Now listen, you people of NATO,” wrote Gadhafi in a letter obtained by Russian daily Zavtra and published in May 2011, a few months before he was killed. “You’re bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe, and in the way of Al-Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You’re breaking it. You’re idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of migrants from Africa and for supporting Al-Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now.” TJ