TFF Associates & Themes Blog

Archive for the ‘Nonviolence’ Category

By Gunnar Westberg

In the antique Greek tragedy the end is often predetermined by the initial conditions. The King may have committed an unforgiveable transgression and the consequences are born by him and his House.

Step follows upon step, each step decided by Fate, and the characters have little choice, given their nature and their perception of the situation. In the end Fate brings destruction upon the King and his House.

Prologue

In 1984 a group from IPPNW Sweden met with the Norwegian general Tönne Huitfeldt, at that time Chief of the Military Staff of Nato. He was a man with great confidence in himself and in the military system.

“General Huitfeldt”, we asked, “when you work with your war scenarios in the Nato Headquarters, with the destruction of the world through a nuclear war looming as a possible outcome, are you not scared?”. “Oh no, never,” he responded. “The Russians are as rational as we are. They will never let it go too far. I am never scared”. Read the rest of this entry »

By Daisaku Ikeda

SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
MAR 5, 2015

As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, I believe that Japan should take this as an opportunity to renew its pledge to build lasting peace and step up its efforts to contribute to stability and development throughout Asia. Strengthening of cooperation to address environmental problems and disaster risk reduction is a particularly urgent priority.

In November last year… continued here >

Jan Oberg

By Jan Oberg

Today is New Year – Norooz – for 300 million people. It is Equinox. It is International Day of Happiness – and it is the 12th Anniversary of the US-led war on Iraq

The nuclear deal and Israel

One must hope that the new year brings a fair deal concerning the nuclear issues between Iran and the members of the UN Security Council + Germany.

If the U.S. will not sign because it insists that the counterproductive and unfair sanctions shall not be lifted completely and as soon as technically possible, the deal should be signed with the other parties. The US must have no monopoly on this.

One must also hope that Israel will not attack Iran – but with the re-election of PM Netanyahu that risk has increased.

He seems to be obsessed about a threat from Iran, a country that has not invaded any other country for more than 250 years, has no nuclear weapons and considers nuclear weapons “haram” – strictly forbidden.

With a 10 times larger population Iran has roughly the same military expenditures as Israel. Read the rest of this entry »

Jan Oberg

By Jan Oberg

Deployment of UN peacekeepers should be agreed with both sides of Ukrainian conflict, says Lavrov — RT Russian politics.

Ukraine has – wisely – suggested that UN Peacekeepers be stationed in Eastern Ukraine. Russia’s foreign minister sounds positive.

That is important and good news – the most constructive for a year.

To get the UN peacekeepers into the conflict zone has been one of TFF’s proposals since the fighting broke out.

In October 1991, TFF was also the first to suggest that the UN be deployed to Croatia. It actually was a few months later thanks to Cyrus Vance, the former U.S. Secretary of State, who in his role as mediator was working on exactly that when he received our report and we then met him a late evening in Belgrade.

Conclusion: Never give up constructive pro-peace proposal-making. One day they do become relevant – when people find out that violence was not such a brilliant idea.

Johan Galtung

By Johan Galtung Kuala Lumpur

…is the title of our conference. There will never be any such thing. “New”, yes; “World”, yes –“Order”, No. Wherever there is life there is contradiction, dialectic, forces and counter-forces. At the very obvious level the question arises – Order, in whose interest, against whom? Sow any new order and the seeds of its undoing are already taking root, sprouts are coming. As the Chinese say, “There are human beings without contradictions; they are called corpses.”

Follow that hint; go to the moon. New moons once a month, and order, the order of death, of non-life. The Old Moon Order.

As part of this Perdana Global Peace Foundation Conference, so well composed by Dr Hitam, President Tun Dr. Mahathir unveiled a giant copy of my book just published, Abolishing War: Criminalizing War, Removing War Causes, Removing War as an Institution (TPU and IIUM Press, 2015) together with a smaller book Clash of Civilizations[i] Read the rest of this entry »

By Jan Oberg

Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden, March 13, 2015

If the parties continue this way, there will be no peace in Ukraine but probably war in Europe. With a little out-of-the-box thinking, we could move in a safer direction.

You’ve heard everybody involved in the Ukraine conflict solemnly declare that there is no military solution.

And what do they all do? Right, they militarise the situation further, use bellicose language, speak bad about each other, take provocative steps, use propaganda and flex their military muscles. It’s thoughtprovokingly thoughtless.

These men – sorry, but the are all men – who are competent in war and other violence run our world. They are conflict and peace illiterates embedded with MIMACs – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complexes – which exist in both Russia, EU, NATO and the U.S.

It’s not about evil – they are probably all good spouses, nice to their children or grandchildren and enjoy literature, painting or music in their few hours of leisure. But the system they operate inside is as evil as it is dangerous for us all, for the world’s future.

Their problem – and thus your and my problem – is that they just don’t have a clue about peace-making. No education, institutions or advisers in civilian conflict-management.

And since they lack that they fall back on the convenient but proven illusion that peace will come if we just force “the other” to back down.

And since there is no lack of (tax payers’) money to fund weapons (only to fund social and cultural development) and these weapons are on the government shelves that’s what they use – instead of their intelligence and empathy. 

Far fetched?

If you think so, take a look at these facts: Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan Power

On Saturday President Barack Obama was at the commemoration ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma March led by Martin Luther King which gave the push for legislation that ensured black people the right to vote. Obama’s speech was breathtaking oratory – surely one of the top three speeches in the American history of the last 150 years.

The fifteen minute speech was delivered without script or teleprompter. It ranged from history to philosophy, from politics to poetry. Every sentence was perfectly structured. The arguments were sharp and delivered with awesome authority and soaring elegance. Obama is the poet of prose.

For those who say the only significant thing about Obama’s presidency is that he is the first black to hold the post I tell them to watch this on YouTube. Obama’s speech should be remembered in 150 years time as much as is Lincoln’s speech of 150 years ago today.

It is quite appalling to see in Congress and the media people with far less brain power carping against him, resisting his legislation or mocking his foreign policy. Sometimes the criticism seems to be racially motivated even if subliminally.

To his credit ex-president George W. Bush (always reasonably good on race issues) joined Obama on the march. But the Republican leaders of Congress did not. And where were the foreign leaders who recently flooded to Paris to protest the murders of the staff of Charlie Hebdo?

Everyone will take away from that speech a sentence or argument that touches them. What struck me most was that it reminded us not to underestimate the politics of change.

Fifty years ago not only could no one have imagined that there would be a black president no one would have expected the rapid social and economic progress of black Americans. Their well-paid middle class has swelled producing CEOs of major companies like McDonalds and American Express. They are found in the top ranks of hospitals, banks, universities, government, diplomacy, the law, the military, film and theatre, not to mention politics.

It is true that too many have been left behind or put behind bars. But if this could be achieved then it is likely that in the next decades the poverty of poor blacks will also be greatly diminished now that Obama has restored the mighty engine of American economic growth, which is motoring at a pace far ahead of its European and Japanese partners.

I was on the Selma march.

It touched my life profoundly. It turned me at a young age into an optimist. I remain so today.

For 40 years I have written columns and books about the Third World and its development. I have watched those who say that bad leadership, a harsh environment and wasted aid could never make a dent in its poverty be proved wrong. The fact is the goal of halving the share of people living in extreme poverty has been met.

According to last week’s Economist, in 1990 36% of the world’s population lived in abject poverty. By 2010 it was down to 18%, and falling. So the number of very poor people has gone down from 1.9 billion to about 1 billion today. The World Bank has declared that its objective is to see the worst kind of poverty completely eliminated by 2030.

I have written about the village of Piloezinhos in the poverty stricken north east of Brazil once every ten years or so over 40 years. I’ve seen it move step by step from misery to successful growth. From no sanitation, no decent road, no health service and no school to where today it is a thriving village with flush toilets, a health centre with a full time doctor, a bustling primary school, a radio station and a good road to town.

Every visit I have made in recent years has refreshed my optimism about Third World development.

Some more statistics: In 1990 30% of the developing world lacked access to clean water. In 2008 the world reached the UN’s goal of halving that proportion to 15%. Today it is around 11%. In the same period maternal, infant and child deaths have plunged by 50%. In 1990 12 million children under five died each year. Today fewer than 7 million do. Global spending on vaccines has tripled since 2000. They are now saving three million children in developing countries annually.

There are new UN goals being formulated with a target date of 2030: to achieve universal access to clean water, to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, to ensure that all girls and boys have access to good quality childhood development and pre-primary education, the ending of child labour and the reduction of the worst of poverty by another 50%.

We optimists can make this happen. In the words of Obama: “Yes, we can!”

Copyright: Jonathan Power

By Jonathan Power
March 3rd, 2015

Is disorder the measure of our times?

Can anyone see an end to the upheavals in The Middle East and what can be done? My answer to the first question is “no” and my second is: “Wind the clock back to the days of the Ottoman Empire when vast stretches of the Middle East lived in relative peace under the benign rule of the sultans”.

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated because of its foolish decision to join the wrong side in World War 1. The French and British then carved up the Middle East to create the present day countries and to serve their interests (later oil).

What could have been done as recently as 12 years ago? Not invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and bring the house tumbling down, ruining nearly everyone’s well-being, breeding the conditions under which sectarian war between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam flourishes and which became fertile ground for Al Qaeda and now their successor, the Islamic State (ISIS).

ISIS covers great swathes of Iraq and Syria and could well undermine the governments of Lebanon, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia. The decision of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to act on willfully distorted intelligence on Iraq’s supposed stock of weapons of mass destruction must be regarded as an unforgiveable crime against humanity.

The US and its Arab partners can’t bomb ISIS into submission any more than the US could the Vietcong. All outsiders can do is to sanction it (but avoiding the mistakes of the sanctions on Iraq when 30,000 children died as a result). It may take 10 years or more to win a favourable result.

The periphery of Europe will continue to be unstable until the big Western powers make a loud public promise not to expand NATO and to allow Ukraine to make Read the rest of this entry »

By Jan Oberg

Jan Oberg

On March 3, 2015, The Telegraph and a few other major news surces broke the quite extraordinary story that the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee – the body that decides who is awarded the Prize – former Norwegian PM Thorbjoern Jagland had been demoted; it’s the first time it has ever happened.

It was during his chairmanship the will of Alfred Nobel was ignored most systematically – e.g. by awarding the world’s allegedly most prestigious prize to President Obama, the EU and Chinese human rights (but pro-war) Liu Xiaobo.

It’s about 7 years ago that a small group of Scandinavian scholars decided to investigate how this prize is managed. The basic research can be found in a book by Norwegian lawyer and author, Fredrik S. Heffermehl, The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted which was the first major result of the group’s work. It documents how this prize is “prestigious” only for those who either a) have never read Alfred Nobe’s will; b) don’t believe it should be interpreted with respect for his motives and goals and c) have very little knowledge about peace and peace research.

Nobel’s formulation in his will is short and clear – the Peace Prize shall go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” He calls such people “champions of peace”. More here.

Thus, the Nobel Peace Prize is not a do-good prize, not a human rights or environmental prize and not a pro-war prize. But it is a reward work for disarmament, anti-militarism and the abolition of warfare and people – be it politicians, scholars, activists – who are pro-peace, champions of peace. The legal challenges that the Nobel Peace Prize Watch has raised over the years can be found here.

The Nobel Peace Prize Watch

Over the years, the criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s work has increased. Seven years ago, I cannot remember that any journalist who interviewed me about the Prize had read the will. Now about 75% of them seem to have before they call.

Fredrik Heffermehl, Oslo, and Tomas Magnusson, Gothenburg, have now established the Lay Down Your Arms Association which was incorporated and registered in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014 with a Scandinavian and an International Advisory Board. The Association’s first project has been to set up the Nobel Peace Prize Watch where you can acquaint yourself with the Prize, its history, background, the criticism over time, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

Richard Falk

February 20, 2015

What the Chapel Hill police in North Carolina initially pitched to the world as ‘a parking dispute’ was the deliberate killing of three young and devout Muslim American students by an ideologically driven ‘new atheist’ killer named Craig Stephen Hicks.

What the The Economist unhesitatingly calls ‘terrorism in Copenhagen’ involved the attempted shooting of a Danish cartoonist who repeatedly mocks the Prophet and Islamic beliefs as well as the lethal shooting of a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue.

A friend understandably poses a serious question on Twitter that might have been dismissed as rhetorical overkill just a few years ago: “Are only Muslims capable of terrorism?”

I find it deeply disturbing that while the Chapel Hill tragedy is given marginal media attention except among groups previously worried about Islamophobia and racism, The Economist considers that important principles of Western liberal democracy are at stake apparently only in the European context.

In the words of Zanny Minton Beddoes, the new editor of the magazine: “Jacob Mchangama, a lawyer and founder of a human-rights think-tank called Justitia, told me it would be a disaster if his country were to grow faint-hearted in its defense of free speech. ‘There can be no truce in the struggle between secular democracy and extremism,’ he says. Above all, politicians should avoid the trap of saying or implying that violence was really the fault of provocateurs, or that religious insult was to be equated with physical injury. Giving in to that sort of relativism would be letting down those followers of Islam who were brave enough to stand up for free speech, and indulging in a sort of “bigotry of low expectations”, said Mr Mchangama, whose paternal forebears were Muslims from the Comoros Islands. A good point.”

I am quite sure that this is not a good point, at least as phrased by Mr. Mchangama.

Of course, governments should take action to protect all who are violently threatened, but to refuse to regard Islamophobic messaging as a species of hate speech while so regarding anti-Semitic slurs or Holocaust denial is to combine two things that are both unacceptable: ignoring the root causes of political extremism and pathological violence; and prohibiting and punishing anti-Semitic utterances as hate speech while treating anti-Islamic or Islamophobic speech as requiring protection from the perspective of ‘freedom of expression.’ Read the rest of this entry »