We might wonder what are the chances of a civil war or unrest in the West world. I believe there are strong prospects for it. The problem grasping the risk is that people repress what makes them anxious. Of course we can look at the escalation in medication for anxiety, depression and other mental conditions; we can look at the number of injustices, murders (actually on the decrease) and civil disturbances and take these as a better indicator.
There does however have to be a trigger. There is hard to imagine any trigger in Australia and New Zealand. Rising unemployment in the USA might be a possible trigger. More probably violence will escalate in Europe. We might expect issues in Tunisia to spread to other parts of Africa, and this will probably result in a growing influx of refugees into Europe, and this could be expected to result in a reactionary backlash by nationalists in Europe. Expect an escalation of violence, and a broadening of the crisis.
Still these events are somewhat remote from the concerns of Australians and New Zealanders. I am more inclined to think that Australia and NZ will be more impacted by events in the USA. The USA is the country which has the strongest sense of individualism, and perhaps the worst 'disconnect' in terms of national pride vs social reality. The Tea Party campaign is just the start...political dissension will escalate there. Political concessions will need to be made. Sadly this is not how it usually plays out. Usually governments adopt 'emergency privisions' and plays hard-ball, and this leads to a loss of legitimacy for the government
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
