Marginalisation of the majority world
A complex interplay of discrimination, global poverty, inequality and deepening socio-economic divisions, together make for key elements of global insecurity. While overall global wealth has increased, the benefits of this economic growth have not been equally shared. The rich-poor divide is actually growing, with a very heavy concentration of growth in relatively few parts of the world, and poverty getting much worse in many other regions. The ‘majority world’ of Asia, Africa and Latin America feel the strongest effects of marginalisation as a result of global elites, concentrated in North America and Europe, striving to maintain political, cultural, economic and military global dominance.
Although India's Maoists are largely politically motivated (see similar movements in Nepal and the Philippines), the country's Adivasi tribals, driven by grievances with the Indian government over decades-long resource mismanagement and systematic marginalization, are beginning to align with, and support, the Maoist insurgency, contributing to what has been described as India's “single biggest internal security challenge” - as an article from The New Security Beat reports.
From the Center for American Progress:
International Alert, together with the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) and the Regional Centre for Security Studies and the Peacebuilding and Development Institute in Sri Lanka, co-hosted an expert roundtable on the Security Implications of Climate Change in South Asia in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 29th-30th March 2010.
Good news does not sell newspapers. Nor, it seems, does the idea of respect for human dignity. In West Asia, where the majority of people have known little other than outright war or simmering conflict, it should come as little surprise that people have lost their faith in the possibility of real peace. Real peace can be a frightening prospect; it means burying the hatchet and beating swords into the proverbial ploughshares. No easy task when we are all burdened by historical and psychological baggage.