By Lasantha Pethiyagoda –

The evolving human history of our planet has many striking similarities to the preceding centuries, now playing out in the full glare of social media streaming right into our living rooms and hand-held mobile devices.

The powerful are prepared to dispense with much insignificant blood in the relentless pursuit of political and economic advantage, often coupled with unbridled greed and barbaric savagery. However, unlike in earlier times, it is now increasingly fashionable to contrive a crisis in order to divert attention from compelling domestic political malaise or litigation involving grievous crimes against humanity.

Strategic diversionary politics to relieve pressure on embattled and besieged world leaders by using corporate media and utterly false narratives of deception and innuendo to mould public opinion that promotes either a political or social agenda has never been starker than at present. For example, in order to mobilize support for a war of choice (however illegal, unjust or unfair) it seems acceptable to wilfully distort and grossly exaggerate reality.

Nations militarily less powerful but ethnically homogenous with the powerful nations have used such distortions to inflame majority emotions, while the powerful have attempted to ignite international condemnation and revulsion against a given minority which may in future seek to assert its will, at least in their own region.

The growing undertone of belligerence in political rhetoric regarding potential adversaries who are militarily insignificant but rich in scarce resources has been evident in the last decade. In spite of traditional military theory that “ground forces” are critical to an invasion, and a given power cannot afford to be involved in several theatres simultaneously, one needs to be aware that massive aerial and naval capabilities can wreak havoc in any part of the world, at a time of choice.

The selected adversaries are invariably extremely patient, often forgiving of egregious crimes against them and always play by the rules imposed by the repugnant bullies who incessantly taunt and goad them. However, the despicable aggressors always cry foul, projecting their own behaviours on their weaker opponents.

All that such an all-powerful and belligerent nation needs is a certain domestic issue to become unmanageable, for escalating existing simmering tensions into full-scale war. Terrorising entire nations and their millions of innocent people has a politely different definition from a small turbaned and bearded people which decides to defy the odds and give some of it back, at great personal sacrifice.

In this scheme of things, what we know as diplomacy and foreign relations are first transformed into a diplomatic assault, which sets the scene for the barbarism to follow. For example, a state can be branded as a pariah or outlaw with the overt assistance of the mainstream media as an accessory. The intent of the diplomatic aggression is not in any way designed to reach a peaceful resolution, rather to antagonise a chosen enemy and put the world on edge.

The modus operandi is akin to cornering an animal living in its habitat, overpowering it and restricting it, putting it into a wholly unfamiliar and oppressive environment like a cage, tempting it with morsels of food if it performs at your command, and then from time to time rattling the cage at random.

The reactions of the animal, now “beast” are portrayed as vicious, and a danger to all if allowed to escape, blares the media. While the animal would have been harmless to us in the bush, for all intents and purposes it now evokes fear and revulsion in the public’s eye.

This provocative stance entails maintaining relentless pressure on a given regime or group, compelling it to make humiliating concessions to the powerful aggressor, thus weakening its leaders’ image domestically, with the threat of increasingly severe reprisals or sanctions from the bullies and its allies.

The public face of this humiliating assault is termed a diplomatic effort. The backstage campaign can be anything from raiding the proposed adversary’s territory and planting seeds of dissent, espionage, sabotage of essential facilities like communications and water. If a public explanation is somehow required due to a “WikiLeakes” operation, it can be anything from thwarting an underwear terror attack on Christmas eve, to impending insurgent infiltration that threatens the security of fissile material in “the wrong hands”.

Such provocation is also cruelly designed to goad the now captive regime to react, which then only provides a justification for further escalation. Meanwhile, the world, via the aggressor’s media accessory sees what appears to be the evil, repugnant and abhorrent side of an otherwise ordinary regime, which had hitherto ruled its own patch, however problematically.

A remarkable aspect of this game is that once a standoff has been ratcheted up to dangerous levels requiring a “remedy”, the United Nations “appeals” to the neighbours to stay calm and not get involved, while preparing to help those who may need humanitarian aid in the crisis ahead.

While atrocities are planned and perpetrated in the name of justice for the long-suffering masses (ie freedom from an evil dictator) or to preserve our way of life from fundamentalist, extremist, fanatic, suicidal maniacs who hate our freedoms, the domestic approval ratings of the beleaguered politician begin to soar once again, amid cheering and much flag-waving.

Woe unto the hapless refugees, economic migrants and holders of “acquired” citizenship in the countries of the bullies and allies! Calls to forget their identity, to “assimilate”, tolerate discrimination as second-class citizens or go back home where they belong, come through rather loudly. Only those ready and pliant nonentities can then hope for any peace.

Within the broader and generationally strategic imperatives of globalisation, the protective power of nation-states is weakened, while corporate control of entire economies is strengthened. Whole societies are forced into the global economic and cultural order.

Those daring to persist in their entrenched cultural practices are branded and painted by the same brush applied to those now- reviled groups. Prejudices are allowed to intensify in order to subjugate any insistence on unique identity. Notions of supremacist ideology are tacitly ignored, while suspicions are allowed to mature so that segregation and marginalising can be condoned when conditions become ripe for it.

The greatest gamblers in recorded history initiated the re-writing of history for the future, during the last decade. Facts fall by the wayside, reality is condemned as illusions replace it in tainted minds. It is a sad indictment that defies conventional logic and reason in this regressive phase of the world as we still know it.