Archive 1986 – 2017

By Stephen Zunes While sitting in a Cairo café just a couple blocks from Tahrir Square recently, I couldn’t help but notice the television in the corner broadcasting the evening news. Traditionally, TV news in Egypt and other Arab countries has consisted of the president (or king) giving a speech, greeting a foreign visitor, visiting a factory, or engaging in some other official function. This evening, however, the news was about a labor strike in Alexandria, relatives of those killed during the February revolution protesting outside the Interior Ministry, and ongoing developments in the pro-democracy struggles in Yemen and Syria.

Speech delivered at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on 1 Dec  2011 Your Excellencies, We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of NAM, the Nonaligned Movement; a great success.  They were not party to the madness of NATO-WTO (Warsaw Treaty Organization) confrontation and arms race, even nuclear. NAM was headed by two country triads, India-Indonesia-Yugoslavia and Finland-Sweden-Austria, and two high quality leader triads, Nehru-Soekarno-Tito and Kekkonen-Palme-Kreisky.  Their in-between roles gave the world some normalcy in the madness.  Much needed for West-Islam today; but that quality leadership is missing.

By Jonathan Power Every so often, but not very often, the tectonic plates in society visibly move. In the last century it was the impact of the Great Recession closely followed by a second massive war in a century that pushed both the victorious and the losers in the direction of a welfare state, albeit the Europeans, Canadians and Japanese moved at a much faster rate than the Americans. If Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is right and the present financial crisis is the worst upheaval since then, perhaps we are on the cusp of a major change in the governance of not just Europe, Canada and Japan but of the semi-isolationist US as well. The occupied streets and squares of some major cities suggest it. Never before in my memory have protestors gained such support from non-demonstrators. The liberals and social democrats have supported them, but so have the...

Every so often, but not very often, the tectonic plates in society visibly move. In the last century it was the impact of the Great Recession closely followed by a second massive war in a century that pushed both the victorious and the losers in the direction of a welfare state, albeit the Europeans, Canadians and Japanese moved at a much faster rate than the Americans. If Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is right and the present financial crisis is the worst upheaval since then, perhaps we are on the cusp of a major change in the governance of not just Europe, Canada and Japan but of the semi-isolationist US as well. The occupied streets and squares of some major cities suggest it. Never before in my memory have protestors gained such support from non-demonstrators. The liberals and social democrats have supported them, but so have the centrists and even some...

I could not begin to count the number of times friends, and adversaries, have give me the following general line of advice: your views on Israel/Palestine would gain a much wider hearing if they showed more sympathy for Israel’s position and concerns, that is, if they were more ‘balanced.’ Especially on this set of issues, I have always found such advice wildly off the mark for two main reasons.

It changes character, like in quantum mechanics, just by watching.  The French revolution did that in the late 1780s-early 1790s.  However, spring is gone, revolt is in, but so far not revolution.  There are layers of rulers and layers of opposition.  Unveiling has started. If seeds from a winter suicide in Tunisia sprouted buds in early spring, then they must have fallen on fertile soil.  Events turn into processes when “stability” is unstable, as huge power and wealth gaps are.  The trick in the US is to make a person believe in individual mobility; “if you don’t make it that is your fault”. Others see it as a relation: by taking power/wealth from us, they became powerful and rich and we remained powerless and poor.  The former is individualist and person-oriented, the latter collectivist and system-oriented.  See it that way and revolts follow, like Tahrir Square, like Wall Street.  Nevertheless,...

The further north one travels in Europe the fewer immigrants there are. This, of course, has something to do with the weather and by the time one gets to Finland the proportion of immigrants in the population is only 3%, far less than France, Germany, Italy or even the damp UK. Finland has the added deterrent of having a near impenetrable language. But Finland is a highly industrialised country. Not just the home of Nokia but of a large number of high tech companies that do business all over the world. The question is how can Finland manage without large scale immigration? Every other industrialised country has argued that it needs them. Ever since the 1950s, when post war economic growth got into its stride, immigrants have been recruited to do the menial jobs that natives increasingly would rather be unemployed than do- to clean the streets, empty the dustbins...

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Time for a strategy for the transformation of conflict worldwide? Globally, in the 21st century, two unprecedented factors are affecting war: violent conflict is being prevented with the skills of fast-growing localised peace building initiatives, and more wars are ending through negotiation rather than military victory. Yet military expenditure has increased 45% over 10 years, and only minute amounts are spent on the prevention of conflict. Does this extraordinary situation call for a global strategy to change the way the world deals with war?

By Gunnar Westberg Gunnar Westberg has made a revisit with a small group of doctors to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK Already on the train from Beijing towards Pyongyang do I feel a different atmosphere from that at my visit in 2005. The custom officials look briefly at our documents, register and seal our mobile phones as in previous years, but pay no attention to our computers, written material and CD:s. The train is overflowing with packages and trunks, at least some of it smuggled. At the first DPRK stop an expensive new car picks up four big bags from the train. All houses are newly painted, maybe for the benefit of the Dear Leader who passed through in his special train two years ago. Mobile phones – yes they are here now!

October 19, 2011 Jonathan Power Africa is a dark continent. Look at it from a satellite at night. Most of it is dark – with only blotches of light in the south, the north and a little bit in the west. For the rest electricity is a rare and precious resource, limited to villages that line a main road or in the small towns. They are infrequent points of light. They don’t light up the sky. From above all we see is darkness. I have just been to a conference in Oslo, “Energy for All- financing access for the poor.” Most of the participants were men in business suits. Not more than 20% were women which was a slap in the face for emancipated Norway where women are 50% of nearly everything- politics, doctors and increasingly business. Nevertheless, the conference was a useful getting together of energy endeavours from very big...

October 5, 2011 Jonathan Power Winston Churchill said that “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. But even if that is true is that a reason for the way the West has treated Russia since the end of the Cold War? A good example at hand is the hand wringing, on occasion verging on apoplexy, that Western commentators have exhibited over Vladimir Putin’s decision to run for president once more. Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea because it plays to Russia’s long practice of autocracy. On the other hand France has five year terms with no term limits. The UK has no term limits and if Tony Blair had had his way and not been undermined by Gordon Brown with whom he made a private understanding not to run for more than two terms (he ran for three) he would probably still be prime minister...