	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 26-Oct-2013
26-Oct-13 World View -- Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved

Web Log - October, 2013

26-Oct-13 World View -- Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved

Report: Palestinian leader Abbas signs peace deal with Syria's Assad

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved
Report: Palestinian leader Abbas signs peace deal with Syria's Assad
Ties between Hamas and Turkey grow stronger

Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved

Sasha Ruseva, left, the Bulgarian mother of ten children, dancing on Friday (AP) [Correction: This is one of Sasha's daughters.]

Sasha Ruseva, left, the Bulgarian mother of ten children, dancing on Friday (AP) [Correction: This is one of Sasha's daughters.]

For days, European officials have been wondering how to solve a problem like Maria, and they've finally succeeded. Maria is the light-skinned, blond, blue-eyed girl, about 5 years old, living with a Roma Gypsy couple in Greece until last week. That's when authorities decided that the dark-skinned Gypsy couple couldn't possibly be the parents of Maria, and they decided that they must have kidnapped her. The Roma couple were put in jail, and Maria was put in the hands of social workers, while authorities conducted an international search for Maria's real parents. On Friday, a 35 year old Bulgarian woman, Sasha Ruseva, was shown by DNA tests to be Maria's biological mother, also the mother to ten other children. Ruseva says she gave birth to Maria while working in Greece:

"We gave her, we gifted her, without money. I didn't take any money. I didn't have any food to give to the kid. I saw it yesterday and I've been sick. I haven't eaten since last night."

However, Bulgarian officials are assuming that Ruseva did, in fact, take money for Maria, which would be a crime. It's possible that Ruseva went to Greece with the specific purpose of selling her new baby. There are reports that Ruseva and Atanas, her husband, are in jail.

While the story of Maria was unfolding, Irish officials were alerted to another blond, blue-eyed girl living with Roma parents in Ireland. The police grabbed the girl and turned her over to social workers. However, a DNA test revealed that the Roma Gypsy couple WERE the child's parents, after all, and the girl was returned to the parents' home.

These cases have raised concerns among Roma activists who fear that these two cases, and the media's handling of them, will lead to increased racism and racial profiling against Roma Gypsies. According to journalist Niko Ago:

"There are many losing from the development of the story. Not that they care a lot, though. They'll be waiting for the next story, to prove their racist and intolerant theories, wondering 'what has happened to this world where there are blonde Roma?' There are blonde Roma, just as there are dark-skinned amongst the advocates of the Nazi 'Aryan race' theory."

Toronto Star and CNN and BBC

Report: Palestinian leader Abbas signs peace deal with Syria's Assad

Debka, which sometimes gets things wrong, is quoting its intelligence sources as saying that Fatah / Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas has blindsided U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and signed a deal with the psychopathic genocidal president Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The terms of the deal are that Abbas will convince the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria to lay down their arms and stop fighting al-Assad's forces and, in return, al-Assad will order his army to stop killing Palestinians. For Abbas, this deal gives him a political advantage over Hamas, the rules of Gaza, who had previously been al-Assad's allies but broke ranks because al-Assad was massively massacring innocent civilians in Syria, including many Palestinians. For al-Assad, this deal allows his army to concentrate on other rebel groups opposing him.

What I keep watching for in all these stories is the trend line that's leading to the coming sectarian war in the Mideast. At the highest level, this will be a war between Shia Muslims (Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Assad in Syria) versus Sunni Muslims (Saudi Arabia). However, it's not for nothing that the ancient saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is attributed to Arabs. Among the Palestinians, Fatah/PA and Hamas have already been at war in 2008, and it's possible that this deal between Abbas and al-Assad indicates a trend toward Fatah/PA siding with the Shias in the coming war. Then, as I've said many times, I expect Israel to be allied with Iran against the Sunnis, and we might see a peace treaty between Israel and Fatah/PA leading to both of them allied against Hamas and Saudi Arabia. Granted, all of this is speculation, but it's well-informed speculation, and supported by Generational Dynamics trends that I've been writing about for years. Debka

Ties between Hamas and Turkey grow stronger

The other half of the previous story is the trend line in Turkey's Mideast alliances. First, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a strong supporter of Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, and like Hamas, Erdogan is strongly opposed to any peace talks between Fatah/PA and Israel. Second, Erdogan's hostility toward Israel has been growing steadily since the deaths of nine Turkish citizens on May 31, 2010, in a confrontation between Israel's navy and the boat Mavi Marmara in a flotilla headed for Gaza in violation of Israel's Gaza blockade, and he's refused to normalize relations with Israel until Israel's blockade of Gaza is lifted. And third, Turkey is supporting the Sunni rebels fighting against the army of Bashar al-Assad, who used to be Erdogan's close ally prior to the Syrian civil war. On the other hand Hamas, which also used to be al-Assad's close ally, had its headquarters in Damascus Syria, and who used to receive cash infusions from Iran to fight Israel, is now in serious financial trouble, and is discussing with Erdogan the possibility of moving its headquarters from Qatar to Turkey, and getting aid from Turkey.

The role of Qatar brings up another set of trend line issues, in the context of what's happening in Egypt. Hamas was formed in 1988 as an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Qatar generously funded Egypt's government when the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi were in power. When the army deposed Morsi on July 3, the geopolitical balance changed rapidly. Qatar stopped providing aid to Egypt, and the slack was taken up by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. Qatar had also been funding the Muslim Brotherhood faction in Syria fighting al-Assad, but the Syrian opposition factions chose leaders favored by Saudi Arabia. However, Qatar has now started providing support to Fatah/PA, raising problems for Hamas having its headquarters currently in Doha, Qatar.

So if we put all trend lines together, we can expect the coming Mideast war to align Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Hamas versus Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah, with less certainty about Qatar, PA/Fatah and Egypt. We'll have to watch and see how these trend lines evolve, and what will happen when these countries are forced to choose sides. Al Monitor and Israel National News

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Oct-13 World View -- Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (26-Oct-2013) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 26-Oct-2013 26-Oct-13 World View -- Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved

Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved

Report: Palestinian leader Abbas signs peace deal with Syria's Assad

Ties between Hamas and Turkey grow stronger

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 26-Oct-2013
26-Oct-13 World View -- Europe's Roma Gypsies fear racism after Maria mystery solved