Archive 1986 – 2017

LONDON – The arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London in October, 1998, was a bolt from the blue. It can be said with near certainty that it never had crossed the mind of senior members of the British judiciary who were soon to be landed with untangling the legal intricacies. Indeed, it was such an impossible idea that until almost the very last moment it never occurred to the ex-dictator himself that he could be vulnerable in the very country where his great friend and supporter, Margaret Thatcher, had been prime minister. But when Baltazar Garzón, a senior Spanish magistrate, is on your tail you have to watch out. He has bested Felipe González, the former socialist prime minister, for having been party to the use of a police cell to assassinate leaders of ETA , the violent Basque group. He has also had great success in bringing to quick...

Peace is a dynamic process of nonviolent social interaction that results in security for all members of a society. Peace is not a subject matter taught in many schools. I have often heard it said that the curriculum is too full to add more, but what could be more important than learning about making peace? I think the “full curriculum” is a justification for not wanting to challenge the status quo and teachers are not rewarded for bringing new material into the classroom. I am a proponent of bringing peace into every classroom. Basic questions need to include: How can this problem be solved peacefully? Or, how could this problem have been solved peacefully? Blase Bonpane, who received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2006 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, suggested that when students study wars in history the only meaningful question is: How could this war have been avoided? We need...

I. Metaphor and the Politics of Despair In addressing the General Assembly back in 2003 on the urgent need for UN reform, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, resorted to a frequently quoted metaphorical trope: “Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded.” He explains the rhetoric by saying “[n]ow we must decide whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed upon or whether radical changes are needed.” And further, Annan notes that he had earlier “drew attention to the urgent need for the [Security] Council to regain the confidence of States, and of world public opinion—both by demonstrating its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues, and by becoming more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as the geopolitical...

LONDON – In a speech the other day one of Tanzania’s new breed of remarkable entrepreneurs, Ali Mufuruki, chairman of Infotech Investment Group, made a withering public attack on African defensiveness about its appalling economic record: • “If the excuse is colonialism then compare the experience of Africa with that of Korea, which after decades of the most brutal form of colonial oppression, exploitation and humiliation, plunged into a civil war that killed more than one million of its people and split the country into two parts. Today South Korea is the tenth biggest economy in the world.”    • “India was long colonised by the British. Today Indians are the third biggest investors in the UK.” • “If the excuse is civil war or liberation war then look at Vietnam. Three decades ago it was split in two, its infrastructure completely destroyed and millions killed. Today it is one of the...

“Främjar EU freden?Analys, kritik och alternativ” Svensk resumé av liten skrift på danska och engelska Ofta betecknas Europeiska Unionen som ett fredsprojekt, men vad menar man inom EU egentligen med fred?I denna rapport analyserar den dansk-svenske freds- och konfliktforskaren Jan Øberg EUs politik beträffande försvar, utrikespolitik, konflikthantering och fred. Också den överordnade principen i förslaget till författning för EU analyseras. Oavsett vad som händer med författningsförslaget, är det viktigt att analysera innehållet i detta dokument, som ju är beslutat av samtliga regeringschefer i EU och av EU-parlamentet. Jan Øbergs rapport visar att i författningsförslaget och andra centrala EU-dokument finns en fredsuppfattning som ensidigt lägger huvudvikten på militärt dominerat försvar och säkerhet. Enligt denna uppfattning finns det ’gott våld’, som ska balansera eller utrota ’ont våld’. Däremot spelar konflikthantering och problematisering av våldet som sådant i stort sett ingen roll. Jan Øberg diskuterar två motstående fredsuppfattningar i relation till fyra dimensioner,...

A year or so ago, it was still possible to avoid the worst in Iraq. It made sense for the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, and use its leverage to encourage Iraqi political rivals to seek an accommodation as the alternative to a bloody civil war that might have either lasted indefinitely or produced what would have amounted to an oppressive re-Baathification of the country. It is still likely even now that if the American and British forces leave Iraq over a period of some months one of these two alternatives will shape the future of the country. But with each passing month and regional conflagration the more positive outcome of accommodation becomes less likely, civil war has already become a fact of life in Iraq, and a wider regional conflagration can happen at any time. If this is so, Iraq probably faces a long violent political...

November marked the 50th anniversary of the Suez crisis, when Britain, France and Israel decided to attack Egypt and unseat Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the nationalist Egyptian leader. This was one of those seminal moments in the mid-twentieth century that had momentous geopolitical consequences for the world, and especially for the Middle East. When the West first promised and then reneged on its promise to help the construction of the Aswan Dam, Abdel-Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal to use its revenue to build the dam, as was within his right. As the result of the strategic importance of the canal to Western interests, Britain, France and Israel decided to remove the Egyptian leader and undo the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, as they had done only three years previously when Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq had nationalised Iranian oil and was toppled as the result of a British-CIA coup. In 1875, Isma’il Pasha had...

Interview with Daoud Nassar,Tent of Nations, Bethlehem, Palestine Daoud Nassar is the owner of 100 acres of land nine kilometers southwest of Bethlehem. This land has been in the Nassar family since 1916 – family members used to the live in caves there – and it has been cultivated for olives, grapes and wheat. Nevertheless, in 1991 the Israeli military declared the land to be Israeli state property. The Nassar family was able to challenge Israel in the courts as fortunately they were in possession of all the original land ownership papers dating back to the Ottoman period. In 2001, although the legal case remained unresolved, the local council of Israeli settlements decided to build a road on the eastern side of the Nassar land. Then in 2002 the same council took the decision to build another road on the Nassar property, this time along the western side. It took...

LONDON – Two hours drive due north from here lies the Artic Circle. But in this town of 120, 000 people one not only feels the bitter cold but also the white heat of the technological revolution. Here are the principal research and development offices of Nokia. There are 800 other high tech companies, some overflowing their expertise into neighboring Russia where they see the future “beckoning”, in the words of Pertti Huuskonen, the boss of Technopolis, which is just building a big facility close to St Petersburg airport. There are probably more PhDs per square metre in this compact old paper-milling town than anywhere else on earth. This astonishing intellectual creation can be laid at the feet of the Finnish educational system, considered by all who survey it, including the OECD, as possessing the best school system in the world. Finland is also reckoned to be in the top...

LONDON – Will the Finnish presidency of the European Union end with a bang or a whimper? No one is laying bets here, but much is at stake – the continuation of negotiations on Turkey’s future entry and the future relationship of the EU to Russia, for which the Finns have more historical experience to draw on than anyone else. Both issues are coming to a head in the next few weeks – Russia when President Vladimir Putin has his formal summit with European heads of government in Helsinki on November 24th and the EU summit in mid December when the clock will stop for the Turkish decision. Talking with Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, current president of the European Union, at his pleasant, unguarded, official residence overlooking a wintry lake in central Helsinki, it is apparent that Turkey has to realize that the longer it draws out the compromises that...

Interview with Prof. Dr. Muhammad Machasin, former Director of Graduate Studies at the Islamic State University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on the subject of “civil Islam”. On the occasion of the globethics.net1 conference on “Ethics and Fundamentalism”, held in Huissen, Netherlands, 27-31 August 2006, I spoke to the former director of Graduate Studies at the Islamic State University, Prof. Muhammad Machasin, about his ideas on “civil Islam”. Prof. Machasin is the acting head of consultative leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is also an author and teacher on Islam and fundamentalism. His publications include:1. The Concept of Human Being in Islam, paper presented in the International Conference on Islam and Humanism, IAIN Walisongo Semarang, November 5-8, 2001.2. Faith and Identity, paper presented in “Consultation on Christian-Muslim Dialogue” held by The Lutheran World Federation and Protestant University Duta Wacana, Yogyakarta, April 4-6, 2002.3. Democracy and Shari’a in Islamic Doctrine and...

Interview with Prof. Dr. Muhammad Machasin, former Director of Graduate Studies at the Islamic State University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on the subject of “civil Islam”. On the occasion of the globethics.net1 conference on “Ethics and Fundamentalism”, held in Huissen, Netherlands, 27-31 August 2006, I spoke to the former director of Graduate Studies at the Islamic State University, Prof. Muhammad Machasin, about his ideas on “civil Islam”. Prof. Machasin is the acting head of consultative leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is also an author and teacher on Islam and fundamentalism. His publications include:1. The Concept of Human Being in Islam, paper presented in the International Conference on Islam and Humanism, IAIN Walisongo Semarang, November 5-8, 2001.2. Faith and Identity, paper presented in “Consultation on Christian-Muslim Dialogue” held by The Lutheran World Federation and Protestant University Duta Wacana, Yogyakarta, April 4-6, 2002.3. Democracy and Shari’a in Islamic Doctrine and...