Time to take stock. The shot in Sarajevo 100 years ago inspires narratives of 19-year old Gavrilo Princip killing the successor to the throne of an empire and his pregnant wife as the event unleashing mutual mass murder (INYT, FAZ 28-29 June 2014). Not the empire annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 6, 1908 (Art. 25 of the 1878 Berlin Congress of “great powers”). Maybe the inhabitants did not like it? Moral of that stock-taking: watch out for terrorism, not for empires and occupation-colonialism; and protect leaders, not people. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, alternatively translated as Islamic State…
الكاتب: Johan Galtung
Pretoria, South Africa, Keynote Governance is politics, power–political-economic-military-cultural; decisions-carrots-sticks-ideas. Politics is about problems of realizing one goal; about conflicts realizing incompatible goals. Contradiction = danger+opportunity; the art of the impossible. Answer: Good Governance GG = CC Creative Conflict-transformation. This includes diagnosis, who are the parties, their goals and the incompatibilities; prognosis, from frustration to aggression/apathy, from prejudice-discrimination to hatred-violence; therapy, conflict solution-transformation, proposing creative visions of a new reality where the goals are compatible and new conflicts more easily handled. Two examples of creative, good governance from Norway and Europe. The Norwegian Labor Party, in a steeply class-divided state, deeply…
Johan Galtung is a Norwegian professor and author who is widely regarded as the “Father of Academic Peace Research.” His pioneering and continuing efforts have greatly contributed to inspiring the creation of Peace and Conflict Resolution academic programs in universities throughout the world. In an academic career spanning 40 years, Johan Galtung has been a visiting professor at 30 schools on 5 different continents. He has written more than 100 books and over 1000 articles about peace and conflict resolution, ecology, health, global governance, sustainable development and economic reform. In 1959 he stated the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo…
Foreign Policy Studies, University of Malmö, Sweden Thanks for wanting a summary of key points in “Galtung Peace Studies”. I was just honored with a “Lifetime Award” by world sociology, 60+ years; in short, time for summary with an author’s caveat: no substitute for reading books. [1] 1951: Peace studies=peace theory+peace practice; applied science, with an explicit value–peace–with practice-indicative theories and theory-testing practice; like health studies, unlike social sciences. Model: peace to violence as health to illness; Diagnosis-Prognosis-Therapy produced health by weakening pathogens-strengthening sanogens; try the same for peace by weakening bellogens-strengthening paxogens. Mantra: through interdisciplinary, international, interlevel research. [2]…
In Oslo, 200 Years after the 17 May 1814 Independence Constitution And why did that happen? The Treaty of Kiel 14 January 1814 between UK-Sweden of the anti-French Sixth Coalition and Denmark-Norway allied to Napoléon made Copenhagen cede Norway to Sweden. And why did that happen? Because Russia with unspeakable suffering had won the 1812 war with Napoléon–that winner of battles and loser of wars; Waterloo 18 June 1815 was still far away. All described in one of the best books ever written, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869); written, it has been said, as if Life were the author.…
Washington is working hard to reconquer slipping world hegemony; in the Anglo-American tradition assuming that No. 2–this year maybe No. 1 economically–is an enemy, instead of deepening cooperation. In addition to military confrontation, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)-AMPO (Japan-US Security Treaty) against SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) over Crimea-Ukraine, economic exclusion; isolating China like they try to isolate Russia over Ukraine. Together in SCO, with new ties being spun daily in the budding Eurasia and giga gas deals in the making, “isolation” of the most populous and largest countries in the world seems out of touch with reality. Bordering on the…
On the table are some old clippings mainly from that remarkable paper; in my mind the International Herald Tribune, IHT, from 1857 and a part of my reality for about fifty years. Maybe an addiction? Hard to live without. The recent name change to International New York Times was understandable but too specific geographically, not global. The Honolulu papers, well located, are often more global. Why homage? Not for the news coverage; usually the news “fit to print”. The news that do not contradict too openly the world views carried by US and Israeli foreign policies, even if this has…
China Three Gorges University, Yichang, 23 Apr 2014 A great honor to open the 11th university cooperation conference of N.E.W.S–North-East-West-South—founded in 1993 at the Freie Universität, Berlin by S.P. Park. Classical university cooperation across borders has professors teaching in one country students from other countries. Thus, when Copenhagen ruled Denmark-Norway 1397-1814 Norwegians studied at the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479. The University in Oslo came in 1811, but the asymmetry continued; some of it necessary and useful, but not ideal. Missing was equity, “I learn from you, you from me”; missing was empathy, “You learn about me, I about…
Nanjing University Conference A Chinese proverb: better than giving a starving person a fish is teaching her to fish. So, not only solutions but how to solve conflicts: in the East China Sea between China and Japan over Diaoyu-Senkaku and between Korea and Japan over Dockdo-Takeshima; and in the South China Sea between China-Taiwan and Philippines-Vietnam-Malaysia-Brunei over the Nansha-Spratly islands. However, China-Taiwan can here be seen as one party with the same claims, and China has agreed to deal with ASEAN-Association of Southeast Asian Nations collectively, not with only four of the ten member states bilaterally. In short: China vs…
From Osaka, Kyoto Japan could have been a leading world power today. Not a 19th century colonial-imperial-military power, but a peace power like Switzerland, only much bigger. If its political leaders had embraced the peace constitution with Article 9–finally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize–depriving Japan of the right to war with the same enthusiasm of its population. A recent public opinion poll showed 2/3, 63%-64% opposing collective defense and revision of A9. Not that A9–against war, not for peace–is perfect. Betrayed by politicians “interpreting” and used as a comfortable sleeping pillow by the peace movement people, two solid pillars…
Depends, of course, on the criteria. A state has an inside towards its citizens, and an outside toward the state system. Depends on domestic and foreign policy, in other words. That means it can fail in two ways, by not catering to its citizens and by not coming to terms with other states. Actually the two are closely related as often pointed out: a regime (running the state) may compensate for failure at home by victories abroad. And, conversely, compensate for failures abroad by taking good care of its citizens. And, success at home used to mobilize grateful citizens for…
History matters, not only law; like how Crimea and Abkhazia-South Ossetia–basically Russian-Orthodox–became Ukrainian-Georgian. Two Soviet dictators, Khrushchev and Stalin, attached to Ukraine and Georgia, so decided, by dictate. The local people were not asked, nor were Hawaiians when the USA annexed their Kingdom in 1898–by dictate. The first referendum in Crimea was held last Sunday, 16 March 2014: an overwhelming No to Ukraine and Yes to the Russian federation. Khrushchev’s 1954 transfer of Crimea was within the Soviet Union, and under Red Army control. But the Soviet Union collapsed and the Red Army became the Russian army; the conditions were…
For one who has worked much on the theory and practice of change from systems of hierarchy to systems of equity, June 15 1964 will never be forgotten. Those at the bottom of the world system of states, fragmented away from each other by colonial and imperial structures, marginalized, exploited, came together, 77 of them, and formed–not a very revolutionary word–a Group. In 1967 the Group was confirmed by the Charter of Algiers. They used the UNCTAD-United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as their platform. Then the follow-up in 1974: the New International Economic Order-NIEO, and the Charter of…
There is much in a name. Ukraine means borderland. The position of the extreme West–like US neocons–is clear: get all into NATO, encircling, containing, defeating Russia. Some in Ukraine and Georgia share that goal. The less extreme West would focus on EU membership, both being European countries. Some of them, in turn, might focus on loans as there is much money to be made. Thus, Bosnia-Hercegovina had $9 billion debt before the EU take-over as “high authority”; now $107 billion. “Austerity” around the corner. The position of Russia as expressed by Putin and Lavrov: no way. Crimea will revert to…
Islamabad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (28 Feb 2014) Your Excellencies, The basic point is that Pakistan will not get that commodity called “peace” in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia by pursuing the ends and means of Washington and some local elites only. For peace to blossom the goals of other parties also have to be considered; and they are many. The logic of the political games pursued today presupposes some kind of victory or domination of “our side”: neither feasible nor desirable for peace. Hence, the need for some visions for peace politics is Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia for…
Kuala Lumpur Few, if anybody, today argue this so forcefully as Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia’s fourth prime minister, for 22 years. He compares what we do when one person kills another to all we do not do when millions kill millions in aggressive wars. We have clear laws, we apprehend the suspect, weigh the evidence for or against in court, and, if found guilty, the murderer is punished. There may even be a system of compensation for the bereaved. But in wars among states the murderers get medals and honors, and if victorious relish a post-glory exuberance disorder, nourishing a new…
Known as IPRA, founded in 1964 in London–and this author, 34 at the time, is the only surviving founder. IPRA rotates every two years from one peace research center to the other, and is now in very competent Turkish hands. And what is more natural than having the 50th anniversary for the hub of peace studies in that hub of the world, Istanbul, 10-14 August this year!! Hurry up, register!!!IPRA logo1 Today it is hard to believe, but to get IPRA started was as problematic as to launch peace studies in general. The Western establishments did not like “peace”; their…
Contemporary reality, but what is real? Two were killed under Obama’s watch; Osama executed by Obama extra-judicially, in cold blood, the other two by proxies (Chávez: we do not quite know). Two of them were dictators; Osama had no state, Chávez had, but won elections apparently not more rigged than Florida 2004, Ohio 2008. What were the problems, how might they have been solved? A key problem, no doubt, was “Arab socialism”, a basic slogan half a century ago when Nasser’s coup brought the Arab world out of the secular-capitalist Italian-English-French imperialism that had followed the Ottoman empire–in Libya-Iraq-Syria, and…
Washington and Tel Aviv make a mistake: the conflict between Israel and Palestine is only a small part of a complex between USA-Israel on one side against more or less all Arab and Muslim states and against the clear majority of UN member states in the UN General Assembly vote recognizing Palestine as a non-member state. A serious approach to peace includes Israel-Palestine negotiations without USA as “broker”; USA-Israel with Israel’s five Arab border states and the states bordering on them; and negotiations in UN regional and UNGA, in a Uniting for Peace setting. Peace calls on all levels. An…
This is not the way to do it. A major party to the conflicts cannot be at the same time the conference manager; to the point of making the UN Secretary General disinvite a major invited party. Whether this is due to AIPAC-American Israel Public Affairs Committee buying US Senators, or whatever process internal to the USA-Israel system, or it comes out of Secretary Kerry’s genuine conviction, is immaterial. This looks like a court where the prosecutor is also the judge, having decided who the major culprit is and instructed the judge to proceed accordingly from Court I to II,…
Sometimes a look at the basics is needed. They are reproduction of the nature on which we all depend, and reproduction of humans. Formulas like renewability and recycling, to avoid depletion and pollution, and well-being, meeting basic needs for all to avoid suffering and misery, are good guides. With them guaranteed, let us extract, produce, distribute, consume, and enjoy! Sounds rational. But the basics are not guaranteed, not built into the system. From the economy comes many products but also ecocrisis, misery, death, guided not by rationality but by the opposite. How come? One more look at basics: the production…