Category: European Union

Geneva II – The mismanagement of conflicts

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By Johan Galtung

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, with only those agreeing to Court I being in the jury of Court II.

Had Ban Ki-moon been a man honoring UN authority he would have disinvited himself instead, claiming undue pressure. Disinvite a major party and two things are guaranteed: a lost chance to find a solution to what is also a sunni-shia conflict, and a major spoiler of whatever conclusions may be arrived at. There was a promising point: they will first talk with the parties separately to identify their positions–but, leaving out the major carrier of shia, no chance.

This foretold failure–barring a miracle–will probably not last long. The photo-card will be played out at an early stage. It looks ominous; but is an authoritarian regime like Assad’s compatible with its army taking so many potentially incriminating photos that could fall into the hands of a “self-styled defector”? Why make photos anyhow?

Let us say, brutally simplified, that there are seven conflicts, not only one, all directly or indirectly violent, unfolding in Syria.Read More »

The West contracting to “Middle Ages”? Fine!

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By Johan Galtung

Alfaz, Spain

An optimistic prediction held by some; but what does it mean?

Let us define that “middle” as thousand years, 250-1250, from the start of the West Roman Empire declining (completed in 476 – 500), to the rise of the Hanseatic League transalpina as another Europe (completed around 1500 with protestantisms, Luther-Zwingli-Calvin; Anglicans).

Apart from the Crusades, 1095-1291, an early introduction to the “Modern Period”, this was a peaceful time in Europe due to the integrative forces of the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” – not Holy, not Roman, not German they say – and the Vatican – Holy? – hm; Roman? Yes. 217 of the 266 popes Italian, so far; No. 2: 16 French.

The Kings ruled by intermarriages, and the Popes by theocracy, in harmony till the 11th century investiture conflict: who appoints the bishops!? The war on Islam, the Crusades 1095-1291 (Pope Urban II) was also used to unify Church and State; and also against Orthodox Christians after the schism in Christianity in 1054 (Pope Leo IX).

Europe contracting into about 500 smaller entities, duchies etc., self-centered, self-reliant, self-sufficient, living lives centered on Afterlives through salvation. “Middle”, between what and what?Read More »

Reconciliation and agitation in Macedonia: Success or failure of the RECOM initiative?

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By Biljana Vankovska

Biljana Vankovska has decided to resign from the post of public advocate due to the obstacles she has faced as described below.

Strangely enough, it appears that the Republic of Macedonia, once the southernmost and poorest republic of the former Yugoslavia, has always lagged behind the rest, in weal or woe. If one considers the achievements of the states in the region, when success is measured by the degree of their integration into the EU, one gets the impression that, while the rest of them, including Kosovo, are making steps forward, Macedonia is retrogressing.

The violent conflict in 2001 was the last episode in the succession of wars and internal armed conflicts on the territory of the former common state. It was an unusual conflict by Yugoslav standards: in terms of duration, number of casualties and degree of destruction, as well as of the rapidity of the recovery.
When violence broke out in this former ‘oasis of peace’, as Macedonia was called in international circles during the bloodshed in Croatia or the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, some observers were alarmed and feared that an escalation without precedent would involve neighbouring states too (i.e. those that were not part of the SFRY).

Others, who looked at things with a cooler head, soon came to the conclusion that the conflict was the “biggest set-up in these parts since the war in Slovenia”. Be that as it may, its consequences for the people and the society in general are not negligible even today, although they have never been the subject of any serious public debate and concern. Read More »

Beholding 2014

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By Richard Falk
Written on December 31, 2013

2013 was not a happy year in the chronicles of human history, yet there were a few moves in the directions of peace and justice.

What follows are some notes that respond to the mingling of light and shadows that are flickering on the global stage, with a spotlight placed on the main war zone of the 21st century – the Middle East, recalling that Europe had this negative honor for most of the modern era except for the long 19th century, and that the several killing fields of sub-Saharan Africa are located at the periphery of political vision, and thus their reality remains blurred for distant observers. Read More »

Where is the global economy heading?

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By Johan Galtung
Washington-DC

Charles Darwin, in The Voyage of the Beagle, has a passage where he condemns an egalitarian native people on the tip of South America to stay primitive. Development presupposes inequality, having chiefs – human, animals, races – to look up to and learn from; no word wasted on the humans, animals or races at the bottom. And the evolution theory emerging from a mind thus pre-programmed is obvious: competition, struggle for survival, not mutual aid, as the substitute narrative for Genesis 1:20-28, 4th to 6th day–but without God.

However, a man of God, Pope Francis – if anyone is saving Western civilization from itself it is he, not economic growth presidents/PMs – comes out and decries inequality and “trickle-down economics” in particular as a “crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power” (Washington Post, 27 Nov 2013, p. 1). Or, maybe “those wielding intellectual power”, the servants, the economists, rather?

Look at BRICS, 45 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of the Gross World Product, GWP. NO to inequality and trickle-down: Brazil under Lula-Rousseff, Russia with revolution, China lifts the bottom up, South Africa breaks down Apartheid. India has some trickle-down, but social walls are too strong to break. The Social Protection Index of the Asian Development Bank is three times higher in China than in India (Japan is almost three times China–starting distribution already in the 1870s).

But the USA and EU have increasing inequalities. Read More »

The great European refugee crisis

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By Jonathan Power

Europeans really shouldn’t be worrying about the number of refugees trying to gatecrash Europe by travelling in rickety boats across the Mediterranean. The recent tragedies have the effect of inflating in our minds the numbers. In truth the numbers are not overwhelming.

The present almighty flap was triggered when, on October 3rd, 360 refugees died when their boat sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Over the last two decades 20,000 migrants are estimated to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean. That’s only 200 a year. In Italy that’s less people than drown in the whole country. Most come on safer land routes.

In 2011 there were 300,000 applicants for asylum in the EU. Last year it grew, as Syria erupted, to 333,000. If every one of the 28 EU countries did its bit by taking in a few it would only amount to 12,000 each. In fact the bigger countries could easily take double that and the smaller ones could take half.

Sweden has just announced that it is giving asylum to 17,000 Syrians. Moreover, it is issuing them with permanent residency papers straight away which means they can go out and look for a job. That is the way to go.Read More »

BRICS: The real “Global South” today

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By Johan Galtung

Keynote European Center for Peace and Development, Beograd, 12 Oct 2013

Two basic facts stand out in the world economic development, leaving aside military, political, cultural and social development:

* The BRICS – an acronym becoming a social fact–are emerging;

* The USA-EU are declining; not only as markets, also as producers.

Another way of saying this is that the West has been outcompeted, not by the Rest but by – so far – a select part. The world market is not constant but increasing sum, but much demand may be met by domestic production, not by import-export. As part of the story.

The West got the definition of development wrong, still clinging to economic development = economic growth (measured by annual GNP/capita increase). The BRICS understood development differently, adding economic distribution (measured by the ratio in acquisitive power between the top and bottom 20%, and between the CEO and average worker salary; at the macro and micro levels). No growth spells recession-depression, no distribution spells worse: death. For economic, like for geographic, positioning, at least two dimensions are needed. A professor in latitudes, or growth, only, is simply not good enough.

Development becomes increasing growth and increasing equality. Growth alone may lead to flagrant inequality at the expense of those at the bottom and nature–a system we know only too well–distribution alone may lead to the shared misery of some human past. We need both.

The map of the world was also wrong. Read More »

Balkan integration process in a global framework

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By Johan Galtung

Keynote, European Center for Peace and Development, Beograd, 11 Oct 2013

The Balkan integration process within, and the global framework without, are both parts of the story of empires that come, leave deep and bloody faultlines within and without, and then decline and fall.

Thus, the Balkans were doubly divided in the 11th century by the schism between the Catholics and the Orthodox in 1054, following the 395 split between the Western and Eastern Roman empires, Rome vs Constantinople; and the declaration of war on Islam by Pope Urban II on 27 Nov 1095.

The two dividing lines intersect in Sarajevo, the Bosnia and Herzegovina-BiH Ground Zero for Euro-quakes. The Hapsburgs from Northwest annexed BiH in 1908, and a shot followed in 1914. The Ottomans from Southeast defeated the Serbs in 1397 and were defeated in the 1912 Balkan war, leaving Slavic and Albanian Muslims. A little later, 1918, the Hapsburgs also went the way of Roman and Ottoman empires: Decline and Fall; over and out.

The Soviets came, and went the same way in 1991; the US Empire is following – by 30 years? – meeting their fates, not in the Balkans but in Afghanistan where empires are said to come to die. Today the Balkans are run from Brussels; by the deeply troubled European Union with “high” representatives, and by NATO, led by a bankrupt country, right now ridden by government shutdown and the threat of default.

A four factor formula for positive peace indicates four tasks:Read More »

The EU foreign policy: Ten wishes

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By Johan Galtung

Speech given in Brussels to the European External Action Service, Free University, October 8, 2013

The EU is in a crisis mainly of its own making. Some of it is economic and can be solved by strict control on speculation, separating savings and investment banks, by gradual debt forgiveness, by lifting the bottom up, the most miserable communities, by the GIPSI (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland) countries cooperating, by stimulating agricultural cooperatives with direct sales points, etc. But much of it is political; the EU has become invisible on the world scene, incapable of a foreign policy building peace and security, also much too tied to US and Israeli fundamentalisms and too anti-Islamic.

The following are some ideas about steps that can be taken.

The EU glittering success as a peace zone is much needed in zones of war and where war threatens: the Middle East, Central Asia, East Asia. A Middle East Community, of Israel with five Arab neighbors (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt); a Central Asian Community of Afghanistan with eight neighbors (Iran, Pakistan, five former Soviet republics, Ashad Kashmir) with open borders (crucial for the Pashtuns and others); and a North East Asia Community (with two Chinas, the two Koreas, Japan, Mongolia and the Russian Far East (now with Khabarovsk as capital) could all benefit from EU opening its archives, telling how it all happened, sharing a major learning experience for humanity.

A United Regions added to the UN but with no veto powers, of the EU, AU, SAARC, ASEAN and the coming Latin America and the Caribbean, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Middle East, Central Asia, North East Asia could take shape and become a key tool of global governance.

EU and Crisis Management. There are many of them, and there will be more crises given the legacy of colonialism constructing countries, putting together what did not belong together, dividing what did. An example are the four Sykes-Picot colonies: Iraq and Palestine for England, Lebanon and Syria for France, built-in catastrophes, now exploding. The EU will have to recognize the responsibility of some members, and then listen to what all the parties want, trying to arrive at a bridging perspective. Generally speaking, two approaches:

* federation within, with high autonomy for the nations and democracy within each part – but not an all over “one person one vote” which would result in the majority dictatorship of the most numerous nation;

* confederation, community, between, with open borders for nations that belong together to travel freely.

For Syria this would mean both respecting the Sunni majority and the minorities protected by Shia rule, with a two-chamber parliament, territorial for the provinces and non-territorial for the nations, with veto rights in matters concerning their identity. EU should send well trained mediators to the crisis area to understand the parties, and facilitate dialogue between them at the local level, many places.

EU and the use of military force. Should be Chapter 6 peace-keeping, not Chapter 7 “peace enforcement” (a contradiction in terms). Given the strong attachment to their goals of autonomy, a ceasefire with no image of a solution will be used for rest, smuggling of arms and redeployment; the road to ceasefire passes through a vision of a solution, not vice versa. The role of peace-keeping is to prevent violence, not to use it, and with that in mind peace-keepers should have military expertise and weapons for self-defense; some police training for crowd control; nonviolence training; some mediation training to know how to understand and facilitate dialogues; be 50% women more focused on human relations, less on control; and be so numerous that we can talk about a blue carpet, not only blue helmets.

EU-Third World, mostly former colonies: time is overdue for some reconciliation. Just compensation for the genocide and sociocide–killing social structures and cultures–is out of question, but joint understanding is not. Mutually acceptable textbooks about that period would be very useful, building on the German experience rewriting text books for reconciliation.

West-Islam. At the political level Turkey should become member, making Istanbul a hub for positive West-Islam relations. North Cyprus should be recognized; all of Cyprus – unitary state, federation or confederation – should be an EU member. A dialogue of civilizations could aim at combining Western pluralism with Muslim closeness and sharing for mutual benefit. The Western approach to the Catholic-Protestant divide might be useful for Shia-Sunni understanding.

Russia. Historically the many invasions were from West to East with two exceptions: Russia hitting back after Napoleon and Hitler. There is room for reconciliation based on such facts rather than the paranoid use of the image of Russia, like of China, as peril.

China. The main Silk Road was not a track in the desert and the mountains but a major Buddhist-Muslim East Asia-East Africa sea lane for 1000 years, 500-1500; destroyed by the Portuguese and the English in the name of their Kings. Time for reconciliation – including gunboat “diplomacy”, opium export, and colonization of Macao-Hong Kong is overdue. And an EU recognizing Israel partly because of two thousand years old history might also recognize some Chinese ocean rights with a much more recent history–in no way leaving out joint Chinese-ASEAN ownership of some of the islands, and joint Northeast Asian Community in due time of Senkaku-Diaoyu islands, and others, with their EEZs.

Eurasian Partnership. The EU is a peninsula on the Eurasian continent; increasingly connected by excellent railroad links mainly built by the Chinese, coming ever closer together. This is the time to add an Eurasian orientation to a Trans-Atlantic one, today in abeyance, waiting for he USA to recover and stop spying on the world.

All this is feasible: with realism in the brain and idealism in the heart.

Originally published at Trancend Media Service here.

Is Macedonia a state?

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By Biljana Vankovska – Билјана Ванковска

Recently a short statement (from a longer interview) that “Macedonia and Bosnia are post-Yugoslav states that, in fact, are not states because Bosnia is a protectorate of some kind and Macedonia is a type of an ambiguously collapsed state which never united in order to be able to fall apart” echoed as an earthquake with the public.

Even “Vodno” [President’s office] was visibly upset and angered at the statement of one of the most authoritative professors and public intellectuals from the area of former Yugoslavia, Zarko Puhovski. He is one step away of being labeled persona non grata. The very fact that part of the establishment dramatically took to heart a media statement of a professor from a third country, as if said by an influential political factor or a center or power, is a clear indication of the accuracy of the thesis that we are not a true state. By the way, Puhovski had given statements such as: Serbia is “an unfinished state”, Kosovo is “ a caricature of the other independent states in the region”, and that there is more democracy in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China than in EU.

Can you imagine a serious state reacting to a media assessment of an intellectual, regardless of his influence? At the same time, our authorities are deaf to the criticism that comes from the citizens, the domestic intellectuals, and even those that come from EU, OSCE, and the State Department. Read More »