Archive 1986 – 2017

Vi hade precis kört den 900 kilometer långa ökenlandsvägen från Bagdad till Amman och gått ombord på planet från Amman till Sverige via Paris. Eftersom vi under två veckor på vårt faktasökande uppdrag till Bagdad bott i en zon fredad från fria medier, plockade vi ivrigt åt oss Wall Street Journal för den 28 maj. Huvudrubriken var “Militärstrateger för stor invasionsstyrka i Irak”. En styrka på minst 200 000 man skulle behövas för att få bort Saddam, hävdas från USA:s sida. Det är alltså skälet till att de tänker bomba för att ödelägga Irak och framtvinga sin vilja mot det land och det folk som vi just har besökt? Nu när vi varit där, reagerade vi annorlunda än om vi hade läst rubriken hemma i Sverige.Vi träffade en ung kvinna som satt i sin rullstol i Babylon syd om Bagdad. Hon hade precis fått hjälp av FN:s utvecklingsprogram (UNDP) och...

We had just driven the 900 kilometres-long, desert highway from Baghdad to Amman and boarded the plane from Amman to Sweden via Paris. Having lived in a free media free-zone for two weeks during our fact-finding mission to Baghdad, we eagerly grabbed The Wall Street Journal of May 28. The top headline read, Military Strategists Favor Large Iraq Invasion Force. At Least 200,000 Troops Would Be Needed to Oust Saddam, U.S. Suggests. So, they are going to bomb, to destroy, to impose their will on Iraq, the country and the people, that we have just visited? Now that we have been there, our reaction is different than it would have been had we read that headline back home in Sweden. We met a young woman in her wheelchair in Babylon, south of Baghdad. She had just been helped by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Iraqi Ministry of Labour to...

And its Aftermath: Three Discourses USA, the West and the Rest after September 11/October 7, 2001: a Midterm Report (1) 1. Three Discourses: Terrorism, State Terrorism and Retaliation There seem to be three discourses, competing for attention, to come to grips with September 11 (terrorism in New York/Washington, killing about 3,000) and October 7 2001+ (state terrorism in Afghanistan, killing about 5,000) (2), summarized in the Table. The first is the terrorist discourse. Inspired by fundamentalist Islam, the shahadah (“I testify that there is no God but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is his prophet”) and the sword; the flag of Saudi Arabia is a perfect symbol. To bring Allah’s justice to America is one element. Another, articulated by bin Laden, is revenge for humiliation: “What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation has been tasting this humiliation and...

Without a vote of the United States Congress and over the objections of Russia and most US allies, George W. Bush has unilaterally withdrawn the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, rendering it void. His withdrawal from this solemn treaty obligation became effective today, June 13, 2002. Bush’s action is being challenged in US federal court by 32 members of Congress, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). We should be thankful that there are still members of Congress with the courage and belief in democracy to challenge such abuse of presidential power. Since becoming president, Bush has waged a campaign against international law. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is but one of a series of assaults he has made, including pulling out of the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, withdrawal of the US from the treaty creating an International Criminal Court, opposing a Protocol...

LONDON – Why is Washington so worried about Iran building a nuclear bomb, if it is? It never worried that much about India and Pakistan. Indeed in this case it was perhaps rather too insouciant, never contemplating that Al-Qaeda’s friends in Pakistan’s military and intelligence services might attempt to gain control of it. The reason is simple: most if not all the powers-that-be in Washington have long ago convinced themselves that nuclear deterrence is a good thing, cooling war passions rather than aggravating them. And, secondly, they believe that the security of the U.S. would not be affected by a nuclear war between India and Pakistan or even between India and China. Millions would die, of course, but the damage would be localised. Doesn’t the same go for an Iranian nuclear bomb? Moreover, Iran in more than two hundred years has never started a war with anyone and, despite the history...

LONDON – President George Bush has bequeathed the world a great sense of insecurity. Since he delivered his dose of inflated hyperbole at his State of the Union address we are left to wonder if the rest of his presidency is going to be a constant reminder of that state when “every road towards a better society is blocked, sooner or later, by war, threats of war, preparations for war,” as Aldous Huxley warned us it would be 70 years ago. “If you want peace, prepare for war” advised Clausewitz, and today’s inhabitants of the White House, convinced self righteously that the mailed fist will cow the infidel and the wicked, take Clausewitz all too literally, convinced that their bombs will persuade those underneath to bow to superior force. It can happen. Nazi Germany was blitzed into oblivion. Japan was nuclear bombed into capitulation. More recently, Iraq was dissuaded from...

LONDON – Quite some time before Adolph Hitler had decided to exterminate the Jews the British political establishment had sadly concluded, twenty years after the Balfour Declaration of 1917, that they had made a mistake in allowing the Zionist movement to drag them into the enterprise of re-making a Jewish homeland in what for 700 years, until the break up of the Ottoman empire in the wake of Turkey’s defeat in World War 1, had been Muslim territory. One certainly doesn’t have to be anti-Semitic to wonder, in retrospect, whether the founding of Israel on Palestinian soil was such a good idea. The Jews had begun to settle in Palestine in the late nineteenth century at a time when “life proceeded slowly at a pace set by the stride of the camel”, to quote Tom Segev’s marvellous book, “One Palestine, Complete”. But it was only after the British foreign secretary Stanley...

LONDON – If nuclear war does break out between India and Pakistan they will only have themselves to blame. Since the early 1970s they have been walking along the unmarked path that leads to nuclear holocaust and enough people both within and without have told them how to turn back. Even today if President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were as serious as they say they are about avoiding nuclear war they could sit down for two hours and sort the whole thing out. It is not that complicated. The late Mahbub ul Haq, at one time Pakistan’s minister of finance and one of the most creative minds to have come out of a land that has produced more than its fair share of brilliant heads, suggested six years ago the creation of a UN trusteeship to last 10 or 15 years over both Indian-held and Pakistani-held Kashmir....

Som andre EU-lande iagttog Danmark tre minutters stilhed for de uskyldigt dræbte i terror-angrebet på World Trade Center og Pentagon den 11. september sidste år. Der blev også afholdt en mindegudstjeneste i København med repræsentaner for regering, kongehus og for De forenede Stater i Danmark. Ud fra et lignende humanistiskt hensyn mener jeg Danmark og ligesindede lande bør vise de uskyldigt dræbte i Afghanistan den samme ære. Af principielle grunde og fordi der er en indlysende sammanhæng mellem de to begivenheder. Alle religioner understreger at ethvert menneskeliv er helligt. Humanisme bygger blandt andet på den ufravigelige grundværdi at alle og ethvert menneskeliv er lige så værdifuldt som ethvert andet uanset nationalitet, race, hudfarve, køn osv. Der er således ingen tvivl om at et uskyldigt dræbt menneskeliv i Afghanistan har eksakt samme værdi som ethvert af de knapt 3000 uskyldige liv, der blev taget 11. september. Forsigtige beregninger gør gældende at...

Remember the innocent dead in Afghanistan too In many countries around the world, including NATO and the EU, governments and citizens observed three minutes of silence for the innocent victims killed in the terrorist attack upon the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on the 11th of September last year. In Denmark, for instance, a memorial service was also held in Copenhagen with representatives from the government, the Royal family and from The United States. Out of a similar humanitarian consideration, it is my opinion that the same countries should show the innocent victims killed in Afghanistan the same honour. On the grounds of principle and because there is an obvious connection between the two events. All religions maintain that each human life is sacred. Humanism is built, amongst other things, upon the premise that each and every human life is just as valuable as all others, no matter what...

Ett öppet brev till Sveriges och övriga Nordens regeringar Kom också ihåg de oskyldiga som dödats i Afghanistan Liksom andra länder inom EU iakttog Sverige tre minuters tystnad för de oskyldiga dödsoffren i terrorattacken på World Trade Centre och Pentagon den 11 september förra året. Utifrån liknande humanitära överväganden borde, enligt min uppfattning, Sverige och likasinnade länder visa de oskyldiga dödsoffren i Afghanistan samma ärebetygelse. På principiell grund, och därför att det finns ett uppenbart samband mellan de bägge händelserna. Alla religioner understryker att varje människoliv är heligt. Humanism bygger på förutsättningen bland annat att varje människoliv är precis lika värdefullt som varje annat, oavsett nationalitet, ras, hudfärg, kön osv. Det råder därför inget tvivel om att de oskyldiga människoliv som gått förlorade i Afghanistan har exakt samma värde som vart och ett av de nära 3000 oskyldiga liv som togs den 11 september. Enligt noggranna beräkningar har 3500 civila...

THE CONFLICT WORKERS’ MISSION When tense international crises occur, we tend to react due to impulsive feelings and mainstream attitudes. Prejudice, enemy images and ideas of retaliation and revenge may thus form public opinions, and these may again become part of the escalation of violent hostilities. The conflict worker2 however has the possibility of using the methods of conflict resolution in order to stay more balanced, think more deeply and come up with sober arguments and alternatives to the use of violence. As conflict resolution is part of the nonviolent mindset, our perspective is how to promote genuine and sustainable security in this crisis.3 Security is the key word. It links to the most important and global of all Human Rights of the UN charter, namely the right to life. As conflict workers we try to rise above war propaganda, rumours, animosity and shortsighted clinging to military escalation as the only means to obtain...