Operation Misery: Month 7, Week 2, Day 4.

No, seriously already.

On Thursday Rihanna will preform the third concert of the third leg of her Diamonds World Tour in Manila - the capital city of the Philippines. As I explained here;  http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/operation-misery-month-6-week-3-day-1.html originally this concert was merely intended to act as a deputy for its neighbour Indonesia in order to test out Asian Islamic attitudes towards the vast array of issues presented by Rihanna's life/tour. It was also intended to act as a deputy for the Philippines neighbour Papua New Guinea (PNG) in order to raise the vast issue of immigration within Australian politics ahead of the Australian General Election.

However since writing that post the political situation in the Philippines has changed rather dramatically. Since the late-1960's a moderately Islamist group known as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has been fighting the Filipino government in order to make the southern Philippine islands (there are roughly 7,500 to choose from) of Mindano, Sulu, Palawan and Sabah an independent Muslim state the MNLF chose to call "The Bangsamoro Nation." The historical basis for the MNLF's struggle appears to be the influx of Catholic Christian immigrants from the northern Filipino and neighbouring islands such as Indonesia in the 1930's. Last Monday (11/9/13) a division of the MNLF decided to drive home their point by staging a military style amphibious landing on the Filipino island of Mindano. After the group armed with light weapons such as mortars and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG's) raised their flag in the city of Zamboango they declared the entire island to be an independent state. Rather predicably this created a situation similar to the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India in which the Filipino military are fighting to clear the MNLF from the districts of the city in which they are holding civilians hostage. Although the fighting has killed fewer then 100 people so far it has caused thousands to flee their homes creating something of a mini internal refugee crisis.

Rihanna's concert will take place on the Filipino island of Luzon which is roughly 1000km (625 miles) north of Zamboango and is not considered part of the Bangsamoro Nation. Therefore there is absolutely no risk of the fighting spreading to where Rihanna will be staying/preforming. However there is an ever so slight risk that the MNLF will use Rihanna's concert as a way to raise publicity for their cause either by attempting to kidnap Rihanna outright or by staging a terrorist bombing in the Filipino capital during Rihanna's visit. Although Rihanna's ex-US Secret Service security team will already have a containment/evacuation plan in place to deal with such a threat this situation clearly places a lot of extra pressure on both Rihanna, her security team and the Filipino government. This creates the obvious question of why on earth this concert it is going ahead?

To find the answer to that question you need to look not to the Filipino government but to Rihanna's tour promoter Live Nation and the local concert promoter which is an organisation I've yet to name and whose leader I've yet to behead.

This spectacle of a national government being forced to bow down to the will of a jumped up local private enterprise harks all the way back to the Cold War. Particularly the US' little war in Vietnam. During this time South-East Asia, much like African was used as a chessboard for the superpowers of the time - the US and the USSR - to play out a game of global dominance. The nations within the Soviet sphere of influence such as Cambodia followed the Communist model of no private enterprise with all aspects of the economy being controlled by the government. By contrast nations within the US sphere such as the Philippines were characterised by weak, often fascist local governments with the real power being held by private businesses and organised crime gangs who relied on the US for their supplies. In fact the MNLF seem a lot like a Soviet hangover from the Cold War.

Since the fall of the USSR things have changed on the global scale with more and more people becoming interested in the Chinese model of nominally capitalist free markets dominated by large State Owned Enterprises (SOE's). This shift has been particularly dramatic within Europe with national government's getting heavily involved in the banking sector in response to the 2008 financial crisis. The change has been at its most noticeable in the UK where the government is now not only the largest player in the banking industry but also used the financial crisis as an excuse to take ownership of a number of TV broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4.

This contrast between the Chinese economic model and the traditional US capitalist model is at the heart of the US' "Pivot towards the Pacific" policy and something that the US is clearly trying to force onto the agenda of the ASEAN Summit that President Obama will attend on October 9th&10th (9&10/10/13). Clearly the US wants to be seen as standing up for free market ideals by supporting both Live Nation and the idiot local promoter's right to go ahead with the Rihanna concert. However due to the immense amount of trouble that this concert is causing for the Filipino government and the governments of neighbouring nations it is quite likely that most people are going to be left wishing that the Filipino government were able to exert more control over the local concert promoter and force them to cancel the concert. As such by insisting that the concert goes ahead Rihanna's CIA handlers are quite clearly acting as cheerleaders for the Chinese model across the entire region.

Finally the MNLF's decision to act at this time promotes discussion about who exactly is running this particular group of Muslim extremists. This discussion has obvious resonance in Syria and across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA) region all the way through to Libya and down across the Sahel belt into places like Mali. Obviously the MNLF have been looking to embarrass the Filipino government since about 1968 so don't really need much encouragement. However there is a possibility that they may have had some help from the Gulf Monarchies in order to put the frighteners on Russia over Sochi. It is much more likely though that any such support has come from the US with the specific purpose of promoting all these discussions.

00:20 on 16/9/13.