By Johan Galtung
Galtung here focuses on a human rights case which – like the terrible mass slaughter in Algeria in the 1990s – have attracted little attention in the West. Please circulate the letter to the French prime minister below.
Syria is horrible. Assad should step down immediately, a coalition government should come into being, and a thousand mediators should talk with the many parties, maybe with a federation in view. But Algeria is even worse.Read More »
By Michel Chossudovsky
We publish this post right after China and Russia have vetoed the UN SC Resolution draft. Perhaps the situation in Syria is a bit more complex than you are generally told?
I’d like to bring to the attention of our readers the Observers’ Mission Report of the League of Arab States (AL = Arab League) to Syria.
The report acknowledges the existence of “an armed entity” involved in the killings of civilians and police as well as the conduct of terrorist acts, which in turn have contributed to triggering actions by government forces.Read More »
By Jan Oberg
On Monday the 23rd of January 2012, the EU’s 27 members unanimously decided to stop their oil import from Iran on July 1 this year. That sort of policy is considered benign in comparison with warfare. It won’t be when seen in the long run.
Sanctions usually have the opposite consequences of those “intended”. Secondly, as we know from the Iraq case, they are part and parcel of a build-up to war and will have, in the longer run, devastating, cruel consequences for innocent civilians whose lives are already hard.
How come EU leaders seem not to see the counterproductivity of their decisions? Do they not know that they contribute to a build up to a war that will be much more catastrophic than that on Iraq both for the region, for themselves and for the economy they otherwise try to keep from even deeper crisis?
Virtually everyone speaking on behalf of their country or the EU as a whole point out the risks of escalating the conflict; it may eventually lead to a spiral, one or more counter measures by Iran and a tit-for-tat dynamics that could – could – go out of hand. The next they therefore say, as if to soothe their own fears, is that war must be avoided and that, rather, sanctions and other types of pressures serve only one purpose: to get the Iranians to the negotiation table.
Don’t they know the basics of psychology?
This is pathetic and militates against everything one knows about psychology.Read More »
By David R. Loy
Buddhist Reflections on Occupy Wall Street
In a Buddhist blog about Occupy Wall Street, Michael Stone quotes the philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who spoke to the New York Occupiers at Zuccotti Park on October 9, 2011:
“They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down!”
As Slavoj and Michael emphasize, we are beginning to awaken from that dream. That’s an interesting way to put it, because the Buddha also woke up from a dream: the Buddha means “the awakened one.” What dream did he wake up from? Is it related to the nightmare we are awakening from now?Read More »
By Johan Galtung
Speech given in Oslo on January 27, 2012
Norway’s by any comparison greatest philosopher was born one hundred years ago today, and died close to the age of 97. A world philosopher, a human being with an incredible radiation. Nobody who came close to him remained the same.
What was his basic theme? In one word: nonviolence, but in a broader and deeper sense than most approaching demanding idea.
Arne Næss was very sensitive to verbal violence in debates; his answer was objectivity. He identified physical violence in political struggle; his answer was Gandhian nonviolence, strongly inspired as a student in Paris early 1930s by Indian students strongly convinced that nonviolence was the way. Read More »
By Jonathan Power
Many of us doubt that Iran is on the way to build a nuclear bomb. Trying to find the truth is not easy. It was a bit of a one sided conversation since I don’t know the inner workings of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN body that monitors nuclear developments. But Robert Kelly, a nuclear energy engineer and ex-department director at the IAEA, has brought me up to speed.
According to him the evidence described in a widely quoted report issued in November 2011 by the Director General of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, is sketchy.Read More »
By Stephen Zunes
The Syrian pro-democracy struggle has been both an enormous tragedy and a powerful inspiration. Indeed, as someone who has studied mass nonviolent civil insurrections in dozens of countries in recent decades, I know of no people who have demonstrated such courage and tenacity in the face of such savage repression as have the people of Syria these past 10 months.Read More »
By Richard Falk
Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums. It also tends to be defensively and pragmatically phrased as in the NY Times article by Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull (January 15, 2012) with full disclosure title, “Preventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully.”Read More »
By Daisaku Ikeda
President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
Every year Dr. Ikeda publishes his thoughts on what must be done to secure a better future for us all. He is a true contributor to the TFF pro-peace orientation that emphasizes how important it is to “imagine a better world”.
We are proud to have had this wise, visionary leader of what is probably the world’s largest peace movement, as TFF Associate over many years.
Much more about him here.
The economist Amartya Sen, a renowned advocate of the methods and approaches of human security, has emphasized “the dangers of sudden deprivation.” Such unanticipated threats can take the form of natural disaster and conflict, and can also arise from economic crises and rapid environmental degradation brought about by climate change. It is crucial that we respond vigorously to such threats, which can grievously undermine people’s lives, livelihoods and dignity.Read More »
By Jonathan Power
The talk is talk. Or will it walk? Mitt Romney, the US Republican candidate for the presidency, says that on his watch Iran would not be allowed to build a nuclear weapon but that on his watch President Barack Obama will let it happen.Read More »
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