Category: Psychology – war & peace

And yet it moves! – Education for peace in Mexico

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By Johan Galtung & Fernando Montiel


Mexico-DF

The indigenous rising in Chiapas, 1994 changed Mexico in several different ways. On the one hand it placed hidden historical –and yet massive and painful- topics just in the middle of the political debate: racism and indigenous rights among others came out of the closet to be discussed, addressed and -hopefully- solved.

Hard politics entered the scene after the romantic episode of the Zapatista rebellion -characterized by the masked men and women and their tale-writer and political leader- by means of counter insurgency policies, paramilitary groups and propaganda campaigns, among others. And it was exactly then, when more concern and attention and clarity and coverage was needed from the international community, that the eyes of the world started turning to some other crises elsewhere. The massacre of 45 woman and children in Acteal (Dec. 22, 1997) briefly placed Chiapas again in the headlines but after the atrocity silence ruled again.

Those past events in the 90s seeded and nurtured much of the cataclysm that would come later, which in recent past became known as the “war on drugs.” For these reasons it is quite surprising that specialists fail to make the connection between one crisis and the other notwithstanding the common ground. The special forces used now to fight drug dealers/producers were formed because of the 1994 uprising; the militarization –now rampant and nationwide- began with Chiapas; the abandon of the countryside –one of the Zapatista complaints- is fertile soil for drug trafficking and NAFTA –North American Free Trade Agreement- which was enacted the exact same day the rebellion started with three effects:Read More »

A tale of two speeches: Rouhani and Netanyahu at UN General Assembly

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By Farhang Jahanpour*

With the progress of the talks in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers (the so-called P5+1) on 15 and 16 October, there is growing optimism about a lasting solution to Iran’s nuclear program and to the resumption of relations between Iran and the United States after 34 years of estrangement. After an hour-long power-point presentation by the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, which he called “closing unnecessary crisis, and opening new horizons”, Michael Mann, the spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who is leading the talks for the P5+1 group, described the Iranian proposal as “very useful” and said: “For the first time, very detailed technical discussions took place.” (1)

The exact choice of words was also repeated by a senior US official taking part in the talks. After the formal talks between the two sides, there was another US-Iran bilateral meeting between the chief US representative in the talks, Ms. Wendy Sherman, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi who led the Iranian delegation after the Iranian foreign minister’s original presentation. This was the second time after the meeting of Iranian and US foreign ministers in New York that senior officials from the two sides had had a bilateral meeting.Read More »

Israel’s politics of fragmentation

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By Richard Falk

Background

If the politics of deflection exhibit the outward reach of Israel’s grand strategy of territorial expansionism and regional hegemony, the politics of fragmentation serves Israel’s inward moves designed to weaken Palestinian resistance, induce despair, and de facto surrender. In fundamental respects deflection is an unwitting enabler of fragmentation, but it is also its twin or complement.

The British were particularly adept in facilitating their colonial project all over the world by a variety of divide and rule tactics, which almost everywhere haunted anti-colonial movements, frequently producing lethal forms of post-colonial partition as in India, Cyprus, Ireland, Malaya, and of course, Palestine, and deadly ethnic strife elsewhere as in Nigeria, Kenya, Myanmar, Rwanda. Each of these national partitions and post-colonial traumas has produced severe tension and long lasting hostility and struggle, although each takes a distinctive form due to variations from country to country of power, vision, geography, resources, history, geopolitics, leadership.

An additional British colonial practice and legacy was embodied in a series of vicious settler colonial movements that succeeded in effectively eliminating or marginalizing resistance by indigenous populations as in Australia, Canada, the United States, and somewhat less so in New Zealand, and eventually failing politically in South Africa and Namibia, but only after decades of barbarous racism.

In Palestine the key move was the Balfour Declaration, Read More »

Criminalize war!

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By Johan Galtung

Nobody has brought this simple message to the world like the Perdana Global Peace Foundation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As the leader, Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia’s fourth prime minister says:

“Peace for us simply means the absence of war. We must never be deflected from this simple objective”.

So they organize compelling exhibitions and conferences to highlight the atrocities and horrors of war, starting with World War I, often in cooperation with Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta University in Indonesia. A very clear message from the Southeastern part of the world to the Northwestern part: Stop It! All your rules of war add up to its legitimation; wars get ever worse as measured by the percentage of non-combatant, civilian casualties; from about 10 percent in World War I to 90 percent in the Vietnam and other wars at the end of the 20th century. They dare refer to crimes as “unintended consequences”, “collateral damage”.

Take Norway, a “peace nation”, as example; not the USA an Israel with their gods, the idea of being chosen, and exceptionalism. See what Norway does against the spirit of UNSC-United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect civilians, promote cease-fire and mediate a political solution in Libya. And against the UN Charter Article 2 outlawing war.

According to testimony by pilots on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation “Brennpunkt” (In Focus), 25 percent of the bombing was planned with goals selected in advance. Read More »

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 »

The Westgate Mall massacre: Reflections

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By Richard Falk

The carefully planned attack by al-Shabaab on civilians in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall carried the pathology of rage and the logic of fanaticism to unspeakable extremes. Imagine deciding on the life or death of any person, but particularly a child, by whether or not they could name the mother of Mohammed or recite a verse from the Koran.

Islamic fanaticism should be condemned with the moral fervor appropriate to such a violation of the most fundamental norms of respect for innocence and human dignity. To gun down at random whoever happened to be shopping at Westgate Mall on the fateful day of September 21st is to carry political violence beyond a point of no return.

Of course, even fanatics have a certain logic of justification that makes their acts congruent with a warped morality. In this instance, the al-Shabab case rests on a vengeful response to the participation of the Kenyan army units in a multinational military operation of the African Union in neighboring Somalia. This AU operation, reinforced by U.S. drone attacks and special forces, has led to the severe weakening of al-Shabab’s political influence in Somalia, provoking an evident sense of desperation and acute resentment, as well as a tactic of making those that interfere in Somalia’s internal politics bear some adverse spillover effects.

But if such an explanation is expected to excuse the demonic actions at Westgate, in any but equally depraved pockets of alienated consciousness, it is deeply mistaken. Read More »

The violence of Psalm 21

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By Richard Falk

There is some difficulty in reconciling humanistic ethics with biblical scripture that has disturbed me recently. If a religious text nurtures morally unacceptable impulses that are acted upon either consciously or sub-consciously in political domains, how can these adverse influences be repudiated without purporting to claim a hegemonic status for a secular reader?

Even a religiously oriented person such as myself, who rejects deference to whatever is contained in the most holy of books if it conflicts with conscience, is troubled by this tension between what we believe to be right and what can be found in the holiest of books. In the West, where the specific religious roots of political authority are rarely acknowledged directly, the problem persists, especially in claims by the state to deal with its enemies at home and abroad.Read More »

Obama overholder ikke principperne for “retfærdig krig”

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Af Claus Kold

Claus Kold, TFF Associate

Reguleringerne af krigens vold finder man overordnet beskrevet i FN Pagten, Menneskerettighedserklæringerne og mere konkret i den Den Humanitære Folkeret, som består af fire konventioner og tre tillægsprotokoller.

Det er et område, hvor logik, politik og jura flyder sammen om at definere og forstå, hvad der sker på slagmarken. Retssubjektet i krig er ikke mennesker, men stater, der agerer politisk i et vilkårligt horisontalt forhold til andre stater. Stater fortolker omverden og handler på baggrund af forskellige kulturer, religioner, sprog, retstraditioner, økonomier og styreformer. Det kommer der mange misforståelser og konflikter ud af.
Problemet med disse reguleringer er – og det kommer næppe som nogen overraskelse – at de historisk sjældent overholdes. En del af krigens logik er, at hvis en stat er truet på livet, så kæmper den for sin overlevelse med de redskaber og våben, den har. Hvis den og dens ledere nedkæmpes og dør, er der jo alligevel ingen, der kan holde den ansvarlig for begåede grusomheder – ud over Gud, hvis denne da indgår i ligningen.

Der har, så længe krigen har eksisteret, både eksisteret forsøg på at legitimere og at begrænse krigens vold, for spørgsmålene hænger sammen.
Hvad angår legitimeringen af krig blev der især i forbindelse med ridderkorstogene opstillet regler, som skulle opfyldes for at en religiøs (kristen) krig kunne være retfærdig (jus ad bellum).

Just wars bestod af 5 principper, som skulle overholdes, hvis krig skulle være retfærdiggjort. Read More »

Good peace proposals quite often works!

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By Johan Galtung

Kuala Lumpur: Perdana Global Peace Foundation, 25 August 2013: “Global Peace Efforts: What Went Wrong & What Next?”

The TRANSCEND NGO Mediation Network just turned 20, and our experience is clear: a good peace proposal quite often works.

To mention some out of 30 positive experiences: we have had a hand in launching peace studies and peace journalism; improving race relations in Charlottesville, VA; in ending the Cold War through bridge-building between Norway and Poland, the idea of a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe and nonviolence; in improving North-South relations through South-South cooperation and then relinking with North on a basis of equity–this from the early 1960s.

Later on there have been contributions to peace on the Korean peninsula (first unify the nation, then perhaps the countries), the Kurdish issue (a Kurdistan as a confederation of human rights-based autonomies in the four countries), ending the longest war in Latin America, Ecuador/Peru (a two-state condominium up in the Andes with a natural park, later a joint economic zone); in tripartite peace in the Caucasus; in solutions for bullying in schools; in judicial mediation; in the problem of settlers in Zimbabwe; conciliation Germany/Herero, Turkey/Armenians, Denmark/Islam; and so on and so forth, up till now.

Our conspicuous failures include Read More »

Egypt: Polarization and genocide

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By Richard Falk

In these morbid days, there are some home truths that are worth reflecting upon.

What Happened to Tahrir Square?

In retrospect, ‘’the January 25th Revolution’ in Egypt is ‘a revolution’ that never was, which has now been superseded by ‘a counter-revolution’ that was never possible. Why? The dislodging of a Mubarak dynasty in 2011 did not even achieve ‘regime change’ much less initiate a transformative political process. There was no revolution to counter. Even more modest hopes for political reform and humane governance were doomed from the start, or at the latest, when Ahmet Shafik, the overtly fulool candidate of the discredited Mubarak regime polled almost 50% of the vote in the presidential election runoff against Mohamed Morsi in June 2012.

What then was Tahrir Square?

Part project (getting rid of Mubarak and sons), part fantasy (hoping that the carnivalistic unity of the moment would evolve into a process of democratic state-building), part delusional experiment (believing that the established order of Mubarak elites and their secular opponents would be willing to rebuild a more legitimate political and economic order even if it meant that they would be transferring significant power and status to the Muslim Brotherhood).

The 2011 turn to ‘democracy’ in Egypt always contained a partially hidden condition: the Muslim Brotherhood was welcome to participate in an electoral process so long as its support was not so great as to give it a majoritarian mandate. Read More »