It’s dif­fi­cult to re­main cur­rent with the think­ing and state­ments of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, but his most re­cent pro­nounce­ment that he will not in­vade Green­land can­not be tak­en as a giv­en; that po­si­tion can change by an overnight post on Truth So­cial.

Tak­ing him at his word, the ques­tion to ex­plore is what has changed from his orig­i­nal stance of the ab­solute need of the US to have the is­land un­der its full con­trol. The ra­tio­nale giv­en is to pre­vent and or ward off any at­tack on the US from the prox­i­mate north by Rus­sia and Chi­na.

NA­TO mem­bers have made it clear that they will be treaty-bound to re­spond to an at­tack as pro­posed by the US Pres­i­dent; if that hap­pens, it will smash the 75-year-old se­cu­ri­ty ac­cord.

The re­sult will be the cast­ing away of the Eu­ro-Amer­i­can safe­ty net and the end of an era of se­cu­ri­ty. It has been re­port­ed that Moscow has al­ready be­gun cel­e­brat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a de­ci­sive open­ing for Rus­sia to take ad­van­tage of a split in the Eu­ro-Amer­i­ca re­la­tion­ship. Con­scious­ness has been forced on Trump.

The sec­ond pos­si­ble rea­son for Trump’s stat­ed re­ver­sal of his in­ten­tion to take Green­land must be an as­sur­ance which has come from a cou­ple of NA­TO-coun­try lead­ers that the US can have ac­cess to mil­i­tary bases in Green­land and to ex­plore for his well-known quest for min­er­als.

There­fore, if all that has been promised goes to plan, no need to smash a 75-year-old se­cu­ri­ty agree­ment must have been Pres­i­dent Trump’s con­clu­sion, and so the with­draw­al of his threat; a deal is in the mak­ing.

What is cer­tain is that Trump can­not be eas­i­ly ap­peased or trust­ed; his record as Pres­i­dent is sup­port­ive of that con­clu­sion.

But just one ad­di­tion­al point to be made on the Green­land mat­ter. Pres­i­dent Trump has stat­ed his dis­dain for UN cli­mate sci­en­tists and their warn­ings that con­tin­ued un­con­cerned ex­ploita­tion and use of tox­ic raw ma­te­ri­als can quick­en cli­mat­ic dis­as­ter. Let loose in the Arc­tic, he can be a dis­as­trous en­vi­ron­men­tal threat to the ex­is­tence of the world.

Back to the orig­i­nal sub­ject pur­sued in this se­ries, that be­ing the need to end the cen­turies-long mak­ing of peo­ple from out­side of Eu­ro-Amer­i­ca sub­servient and less hu­man than oth­ers. How can the world ex­pe­ri­ence an end to the his­toric and con­tin­u­ing ran­sack­ing by the pow­er­ful and the greedy of the re­sources of those with­out the pow­er to de­fend them­selves?

I take the con­tin­u­ing mass protests of or­di­nary peo­ple against the wil­ful, il­le­gal raid­ing and killing of mass­es of de­fence­less women, chil­dren and un­armed men un­der­tak­en by their own gov­ern­ments as in­dica­tive of the pos­si­bil­i­ty for mean­ing­ful change.

This is not a daz­zled ap­pari­tion dazed and de­feat­ed by our lack of hu­man­i­ty, but rather a very re­al fea­ture which has risen to the sur­face be­cause of the greed and cru­el­ty that have been made ap­par­ent on our tele­vi­sion screens and in­ter­net con­nec­tions of the era. The sight of mil­lions all over the world demon­strat­ing against the vi­o­lence, greed and op­pres­sive po­lit­i­cal cul­tures, left, right and cen­tre, must be an in­di­ca­tion of the de­sire for change by the mass of hu­man­i­ty.

What is par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­en­ing and en­cour­ag­ing about such protests in sev­er­al forms is the na­ture of the protests and the pro­test­ers, and the pres­ence of vi­bran­cy of the youth in the demon­stra­tions.

The read­er should take a look at the de­mo­graph­ics- the young, the mid­dle-aged, and the old of the con­scious awak­en­ing groups, who are in­dig­nant about the bru­tal­i­ty in var­i­ous forms they ex­pe­ri­ence all around them and are in­di­cat­ing that there must be an­oth­er way for­ward if hu­mankind is to sur­vive this par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od of sav­age in­hu­man­i­ty.

In such a de­vel­op­ing en­vi­ron­ment, it’s pos­si­ble for a sep­a­ra­tion of the mass­es from their lead­ers, those who are bent on pur­su­ing the cul­ture of ac­quis­i­tive­ness through un­var­nished and in­hu­man vi­o­lence, the stan­dard which reigns and con­tributes to the many prob­lems faced by the world of the 21st cen­tu­ry.

This is not a daz­zled ap­pari­tion cre­at­ed by our warped hu­man­i­ty (and I don’t ex­clude my­self from the cul­ture of the times) but rather a very re­al fea­ture which has risen to the sur­face be­cause of the greed and the cru­el­ty that have been made ap­par­ent on our tele­vi­sion screens of the era – we have to say thanks for the tech­nol­o­gy which the said man has cre­at­ed won­ders with.

The sight of tens, per­haps hun­dreds of mil­lions all over the world demon­strat­ing against the vi­o­lence and greed of the age, when such de­praved ac­tions are di­rect­ed by the lead­ers who have en­gi­neered the vi­o­lent and ac­quis­i­tive cul­ture of cap­i­tal­ism, so­cial­ism, com­mu­nism, and re­li­gious fa­nati­cism, must give hope to those search­ing for so­lu­tions to the com­pul­sive and di­rect­ed vi­o­lence and greed.

I make this sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the lead­er­ship and those who have been born and nour­ished to adult­hood in that mael­strom cul­ture of ac­qui­si­tion, greed and the easy-to-reach-for the flesh-de­stroy­ing hand guns, the 20,000 pound bombs, the ul­tra-so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons of the age, but are now re­ject­ing that lifestyle.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er— free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and News Di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.