TFF Associates & Themes Blog

Archive for the ‘Nonviolence’ Category

By Richard Falk

Richard Falk

Prefatory Note
The post below is a modified version, especially the ending, of a piece published online two days ago in AlJazeera English. While appreciating the importance of the European moves to endorse Palestinian statehood, it seeks a more definitive repudiation of the Oslo Approach.
It calls for an end to the U.S. role as exclusive intermediary and the presumed outcome of a peace process being two states without indicating the character of the Palestinian state. So far, the two-state mantra has been cut back to allow Israel to retain at least the unlawful settlement blocs and to insist on arrangements that uphold their security against unforeseen threats, while granting not a word of acknowledgement to Palestinian security concerns.
My own strong belief is that unless the two peoples are treated with full equality in seeking a solution, the result will not be sustainable or just even in the unlikely event that some sort of agreement is reached.

Oslo is dead! Long live Oslo! The UK House of Commons Supports Diplomatic Recognition of Palestine

On October 13 the House of Commons by an overwhelming vote of 274-12 urged the British government to extend diplomatic recognition to Palestine.

At first glance, it would seem a Read the rest of this entry »

By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

Beijing should listen to its own excellent mantra: “One Country, Two Systems”. A part of that other system is democracy. England never practiced that during 150 years of conquest and colonialism – also fearing Hong Kong might vote themselves into independence from UK – but that low standard is no excuse.

And democracy today rides on an expanding agenda, much more than periodic fair and free multi-party national elections which China does not practice, for its own reasons.

China experiments with local democracy and Hong Kong is local. Democracy today moves in favor of direct election of the Chief Executive; in the Hong Kong case governor, in 2017. That means having a choice among candidates with different visions, not a governor appointed, be that by Beijing or by the governing council of Hong Kong. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jan Oberg, TFF

Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden October 7, 2014

Part A – Some principles (yesterday) here

This two-part PressInfo offers a pro-peace perspective on the present war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The proposals are not numbered – there is no linearity, some of it can be done simultaneously.

How to make the bombing and wars irrelevant

Stop the financing of ISIS – sadly it is non-democratic allies of the West – Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, UAE etc – that seem to pay its bills. Joe Biden apologised – for being truthful.

Allegedly, ISIS has an income of US$ 3 million per day from oil resources they now control. Oil fields should have been protected at an early stage. Fire your intelligence service leaders if they did not see this coming.

Instead of starting out with war, declare yourself willing to talk with some representatives of ISIS and other conflict parties. Some of them have been trained by the U.S. so they are obviously possible to talk with. And if not, you take it from there.

Recognise – even apologise – for wrong deeds and mistakes and brutalities you have yourself committed. In the case of Iraq this is particularly relevant because the invasion, occupation and 13 years of world history’s most brutal sanctions have killed about 1 million innocent Iraqis and made 4 millions to flee their homes.

Danish poet and philosopher Piet Hein has said it beautifully: ”The nobel art of losing face may one day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call a disgrace.” Don’t be that weaker mind – because, if so, you will over time become a mirror image of those terrorists you are fighting – a disgrace.

Deploy a robust, impartial, globally composed UN-led force Read the rest of this entry »

By Jan Oberg

Jan Oberg

PressInfo 281 – Part A here.

This two-part article offers a pro-peace perspective on the present war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

First some principles to stimulate another discourse, another way of thinking that is not militarist – and then some concrete proposals – 27 in all for your deliberation, discussion with friends and perhaps to share through your social and other media.

Neither war nor doing nothing

The principle of ”An eye for an eye will one day make the whole world blind” – said Mohandas K. Gandhi who was born on October 2 145 years ago. Since then, human civilisation has not advanced much when it comes to handling conflict.

Let’s recognise that it is a difficult situation – the Middle East is in a mess and the West is deeply co-responsible if you look at the last roughly 100 years – Sykes-Picot, Balfour, coup d’etats, occupations, bombings, bases, oil greed etc.

So, there are no easy solutions.

However, three simple principles will help us all:
A) Be aware of the West’s co-responsibility,
B) Don’t make everything even worse – and
C) Remember that violence begets hate, wish for revenge and more violence – blowbacks.

Unfortunately, A to C is totally ignored by the bombing nations – the US, France, Britain, Belgium and my native Denmark together with some small Arab states which paradoxically have financed ISIS – Al-Qaeda in Iraq – for years.

It is easy to be for war. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan Power

A Western viewpoint (courtesy of Aubrey Bailey): “Some of our friends support our enemies, and some of our enemies are our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies whom we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.

If the people we want to defeat are defeated they might be replaced by people we like even less. And all this was started by us, the West, invading a country to drive out terrorists who weren’t actually there until we went to drive them out”.

Those are the conundrums that President Barack Obama and his Western and Arab allies are facing in trying to defeat ISIS.

Well, if the saying that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” is an Arab one then the West has its: “When you are in a hole stop digging”.

The hole digging has been going on since President Jimmy Carter, persuaded by his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, provided sophisticated armaments to the Mujahidin fighting the invading Soviet army in Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Not surprisingly the arms of the Mujahidin fell into the hands of the resurgent Taliban which protected Al Qaeda. Read the rest of this entry »

Af Jan Øberg

Jan Oberg

Åbn øjnene for muligheder istedet for “Øje for øje”

Princippet om øje for øje vil en dag gøre hele verden blind – som Gandhi, der den 2. oktober fødtes for 145 år siden, så klogt sagde.

Det er imidlertid dét princip den danske regering, et stort flertal i Folketinget og efter sigende 62% af den danske befolkning nu følger når Danmark går i krig for 5. gang på 15 år.

Danmark bomber sammen med de store NATO-lande USA, England og Frankrig og så nogle arabiske småstater. Ud af 193 lande i verden!

Som kritiker af en militaristisk – men ikke aktiv – udenrigspolitik får jeg ofte spørgsmålet hvad Danmark (jeg siger ikke ”vi”) i stedet skulle have gjort.

Svarene forudsætter dels en anden måde at tænke på og en vis uddannelse og dels nogle konkrete ideer, der skulle kunne implementeres.

Her er nogle hurtigt nedfældede svar på de to dimensioner – ingen rangordning, tingene er alle vigtige: Read the rest of this entry »

By Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung

What a good idea, this day! To reflect, take stock, to enjoy peace, to deplore non-peace.21 sep day of peace

And the first reflection is this: peace is the normal condition of humanity, just like health. There is so much plain, simple, decent behavior around, so much mutual aid, a helping hand, companionship, friendship, good neighborhood when bad luck strikes at its worst. And we sense mutuality, unquestioning reciprocity; not always but mostly.

Go to an airport, stay close to where they come out, arrival, and are met by their nearest–watch the embraces, the warmth, the eyes glittering, the smiles, laughter. There we are. Harmony, resonance–with the occasional deep, joint sadness, sorrow; something has struck.

Go to a restaurant, not too stiff, formal–more ordinary eatery. And you see it again, the pleasure, food, drinks, togetherness, the shared pleasure – the jokes, the smiles.

Most of the time – then some incident, issue arises. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

Richard Falk

Before ISIS

The beheading of American and British journalists who were being held hostage by ISIS creates a truly horrifying spectacle, and quite understandably mobilizes the political will to destroy the political actor who so shocks and frightens the Western sensibility, which is far from being free from responsibility for such lurid incidents.

Never in modern times has there been a clearer example of violence begetting violence.

And we need to ask ‘to what end?’ Political leaders in the West are remarkably silent and dishonest about what it is that they wish to achieve in this region beset since 2011 by a quite terrifying outbreak of political extremism, whether from above as in the cases of Syria, Egypt, and Israel or from below as with ISIS and al-Nusra.

It is difficult to recall that at the start of 2011, just three years ago, progressive voices around the world were inspired by the Arab upheavals, especially in Egypt and Tunisia, that burst upon the political scene unexpectedly.

These extraordinary events appeared to repudiate the prevailing patterns of authoritarian, exploitative, and corrupt collaboration between oppressive domestic elites, neoliberal economic forces, and the regional imperial juggernaut that had kept this humanly disastrous reality stable for so long. Yet even during that time of optimism about the Arab future, a closer scrutiny of what was happening disclosed many reasons to be worried. It is helpful to look to this recent past to have some comprehension of the perplexing present.

A Revolutionary Spirit Without Revolutionary Action

The goals of these upheavals were far too ambitious to be realized by such limited challenges directed at the established order. These movements were essentially confined to getting rid of a hated ruler. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan Power

Despite Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Southern Sudan the world is a lot more peaceful than it was at the end of the Cold War and shows no sign of returning to the bad old days when there were some 25 wars going on every year. Now it is down to about a dozen.

The task today is to keep that number going down – a difficult job when the outbreak of conflict in Syria, Libya and Ukraine have turned the graph upwards a few notches for the first time.

Protagonists in political quarrels tend to push the non-violent activists to one side – as they have done in Syria, Libya, Gaza and Ukraine.

This is not a good tactic as these situations have clearly shown. In Syria whole parts of cities have been reduced to rubble. Likewise in Gaza. In Ukraine this is starting to happen.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan argue that the prospects for civil resistance to bring about political change are commonly undersold. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of messages to NATO’s Summit

By Jan Oberg, TFF co-founder

Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden September 5, 2014.

Yugoslavia then and now

TFF’s first report from Yugoslavia from September 1991 carried the title, After Yugoslavia – What? It is now one of 127 reports and articles in the huge research and policy blog – Yugoslavia – What Should Have Been Done?

It contains the equivalent of 2000 book pages authored by Johan Galtung, Jan Oberg and Hakan Wiberg. All articles are published as they were written at the time. For anyone to see whose analyses stood the test of time.

We opened this blog two days ago – on the 23rd year of TFF’s first of some 70 peace missions into the war zones.

While it is important to analyse the world, it is more important to criticise it and most important to search – and re-search – alternatives to it. Thus the title. You are kindly invited to browse.

Such work is not only of historical interest. It carries a message for the future – as does all good research.

While inner factors were certainly dominant, the West – in its misguided attempt at playing peace maker – Read the rest of this entry »