Category: Theories and concepts

TFF PressInfo: Crimea – The referendum, the mote and the beam

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden March 16, 2014

Of course it is illegal and of course it will be rigged, that referendum in Crimea today. And of course it is a ploy and comes only in the wake of Russia’s (read Putin’s) unprovoked aggression, used as a pretext to build a new Greater Russia.

That is, if you browse the mainstream Western media the last week and on this Sunday morning.

Referendum means referring an issue back to the people. It is – or should be – an important instrument in democracies. And it’s a much better instrument than war and other violence to settle complex conflicts.

Generally, citizens-decided conflict-resolution is likely to last longer and help healing wounds of the past than any type of solution imposed by outside actors.

In Switzerland citizens go and vote on all kinds of issues on many a Sunday throughout the year. Sweden has used it to decide about nuclear energy, Denmark about EU membership and – in 1920 – to solve the conflicts in Schleswig-Holstein and define the future border between Germany and Denmark. Referendums, binding as well as non-binding, are an accepted instrument in many countries.

Why did the West not use referendums?

The West likes to pride itself of its type of democracy whenever and wherever it can. But it doesn’t use the referendum instrument that often. Read More »

Breaking free: Choosing a better human future

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By Richard Falk

I have long believed that prospects for a hopeful human future depend on radical and visionary feelings, thought, and action. Such an outlook reflects my view that the major challenges of our time cannot be met by thinking within the box, or implementing the realist agenda of doing what it is feasible while disregarding what is necessary and desirable. For instance, with respect to climate change such a conventional approach avoids asking what needs to be done to give future generations positive life prospects, but seeks, at best, to do what seems politically feasible at the moment, that is, far too little.

This means not putting a cap on energy or water use, not limiting carbon emissions or prohibiting fracking, continuing to encourage economic growth, and refusing to question consumerism. In effect, this conventional approach does not meet challenges, but at most seeks to defer and mitigate harmful effects to the extent possible. In effect, it opts for a worse human future, and remains in bondage to the deformities wrought by clearly deficient neoliberal prescriptions for human fulfillment.

Against this background, it was a personal breakthrough to meet Jeff Wilson who is, Read More »

Pakistan – What Now?

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By Johan Galtung


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 tomorrow or the day after, with the hope that they can be useful when you have come to the end of the road with current policies. Nothing of this is easy; and without visions even impossible.

The fairly detailed, non-dogmatic vision appended (below) was my acceptance speech of the 2011 Abdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award by the Pakistan-American Muslim Association.

However, why do present policies so often seem to be non-starters?

The British empire drew three lines with disastrous effects for Pakistan: the Durand line in 1893, a 1,600-mile wound defining the border with Afghanistan, dividing the Pashtun nation – the biggest nation in the world without a state – into two parts; the McMahon line of 1914 defining the border with China in ways unacceptable to the Chinese; and the Mountbatten line of 1947 leading to the catastrophic violence of the partition. These lines have to be negated, liberating Pakistan from that past. Read More »

Criminalizing aggressive war

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By Johan Galtung
Kuala Lumpur, February 24, 2014

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 aggression. And the bereaved are left with their grief and a post trauma stress disorder, nourishing the idea of revenge. Madness, irrationality, a social evil of top rank, to be abolished. As Mahathir says: “Peace for us simply means the absence of war. We must never be deflected from this simple objective”. An important reminder for all who broaden the concepts of violence and peace: remember the essence!

One approach is criminalization. For that clear laws are needed, meaning without loopholes. The UN Charter is an effort (Articles 1.1 and 2.4) prohibiting war and the threat of war among (member) states. Read More »

IPRA – International Peace Research Association – at 50

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By Johan Galtung

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!!!

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 favorite was security, absence of violence against themselves in particular and their elites even more particularly. Security studies became academically institutionalized Western paranoia.

And the peace movement establishments did not like “studies”–what was there to study? Each one knew the one correct answer!Read More »

Saddam, Osama, Gaddafi, Chavez – and Obama

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By Johan Galtung

Contemporary reality, but what is real? Two of the above 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?Read More »

Learning the lesson of Libya

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By Jonathan Power

On Saturday Libya beat Ghana to win the African Nations Football Championship. A return to normalcy? To win a team must have a first class pitch and a non-stressed out team. Does this indicate that Libya, two and a half years after the fall of dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, is getting back on its feet?

Alas, the football win is out of the ordinary in Libyan life, made by a team that has found a way to the top by hard practice and severe self-discipline. The rest of Libya is not like that. Its government is wobbly, self-appointed militias still rule in many parts and the rule of law is ignored as often as it’s obeyed. An increasing number of its people yearn for the peace and order of the dictatorial Gaddafi regime where the economy grew, life was improving and even human rights were being more respected.

Inspired by the Arab Spring in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt, Libyans, so the accepted Western narrative went, rose up in non-violent protests. Gaddafi responded by ordering the protesters to be shot and ordered his troops to fire indiscriminately into residential areas. The protesters turned violent and the civil war began.

In truth, many of the protesters from day one used arms and the government at first responded with only rubber bullets and water cannons. Western television reported that Gaddafi’s forces had used live ammunition, showing a video of this. The BBC the next day, almost alone among news organisations, admitted it had made a reporting mistake. The video had been “uploaded more than a year ago”.

Nonetheless the situation quickly deteriorated and those that chose non-violence were pushed aside. The rebel militias faced the troops head on. The rebels called for the outside world to intervene.Read More »

Imperiled Polities: Egypt and Turkey – Two visions of democracy

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By Richard Falk

The Meaning of a 98.1% Vote

In mid-January there was a vote in Egypt as to whether to approve a constitution drafted by a 50-person committee appointed by the interim government put in place after the military coup carried out on July 3, 2013. The constitution was approved by 98.1% of those who voted, 38.6% of the eligible 53 million Egyptians.

This compares with 63.8% support received by the constitution prepared during the presidency of Mohammed Morsi from the 32.9% of the Egyptian citizenry that participated in the vote. It should be observed that this new constitutional referendum was boycotted by both the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and various of the youth groups that has been at the forefront of the anti-Mubarak upheaval in 2011.

Also the validity of the vote was further discredited because of the atmosphere of intimidation in Egypt well conveyed by the pro-coup slogan: “You are either with me or with the terrorists.” Not only had the MB been criminalized, its assets seized, its leaders jailed, its media outlets shut down, but anyone of any persuasion who seemed opposed to the leadership and style of General el-Sisi was subject to arrest and abuse.

In the background here are questions about the nature of ‘democracy,’ and how to evaluate the views of people caught in the maelstrom of political conflict. On one level, it might seem that a vote of over 90% for absolutely anything is an expression of extraordinary consensus, and as a result el-Sisi’s constitution is far more popular than Morsi’s constitution, and hence more legitimate. Reflecting on this further makes it seem evident, especially when the oppressive context is to taken into account that the one-sided vote should be interpreted in the opposite manner, making Morsi’s vote more trustworthy because it reached plausible results.

Any vote in a modern society that claims 98.1% support should be automatically disregarded because it must have been contrived and coerced.Read More »

TFF PressInfo – Why is everybody ignoring Syria’s people?

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Lund, Sweden – January 23, 2014

Interview by Jan Oberg

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Introduction
Sinbad is in his mid-20s and he took up studies in Europe before his native Syria began falling apart in senseless violence. He used to live in Damascus, his father being an officer in the Syrian Army but retired well before hell broke loose.

Sinbad is one of his country’s many young intellectuals, extremely knowledgeable about international, regional and national politics and also a man who, from a distance, has done what he possibly could to maintain links with his society – which is not just Syria but civil society. Among other things he established a website on which everybody could dialogue freely under one condition: that they advocate political and other civil strategies and tools and no violence or expressions of hatred. It turned out to be very difficult to maintain such a website.

Today he is disillusioned. He did not have the slightest hunch that the Arab Spring would be turning into a violent winter in such a short time. His family has been forced to flee to a far-away village, he himself can not go home.

Sinbad is at least as much disappointed – if not angered – that so many of his fellow citizens have taken to the quick fix idea of violent struggle against the regime and have only managed that way to make everything worse – for all society, that is.

Eager as I am to understand better the civil society dimension of this conflict, I readily grasp the chance to sit down with him in a café in Amsterdam and start out asking him:

Q: Over the last few years Western media have covered basically the violence – both by the al-Assad regime and by the rebels. Do you feel that civil society has been under-covered, so to speak?

Sinbad: Absolutely! Western media has consistently ignored the millions who would not dream of touching a gun and even keep social functions and relations going on a daily basis, including help each other. What the media tell you is far from the whole truth. The silent – big – majority is silent, not given a voice and they are now hiding behind their doors. Read More »

The economy looks bad

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By Johan Galtung

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?Read More »