Conflict – violence and war

Jan Oberg February 6, 2024 Regrettably, the world’s allegedly most prestigious prize has been awarded to many who did not qualify according to the will of Alfred Nobel. I want to direct your attention to the most important book written about the peace deception called the Nobel Peace Prize. In his last meticulously researched book, “The Real Nobel Peace Prize. A Squandered Opportunity to Abolish War,” my friend and TFF Associate Fredrik Heffermehl (1938-2023) showed that only 36 out of 134 awards would qualify according to Nobel’s clearly anti-militarist intentions. Here is how Nobel himself formulated, in his will, that this prize should go “to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses” and that this prize for the “champions of peace” should be awarded “by a committee of...

TFF Associate Since the end of the Cold War and increasingly in recent years, US officials followed as usual by their European allies, have coined a new phrase which they use instead of international law, namely ‘rules-based international order’ (RBO). Leiden Journal of International Law has published an online book (published by Cambridge University Press) that explores the ramifications of this new term. It asks: “What is this creature, the ‘rules-based international order’, that American political leaders have increasingly invoked since the end of the Cold War instead of international law? Is it a harmless synonym for international law, as suggested by European leaders? Or is it something else, a system meant to replace international law which has governed the behaviour of states for over 500 years?” It argues that the RBO is the United States’ alternative to international law, an order that encapsulates international law as interpreted by the...

Action Committee For Call to Conscience About Gaza February 5, 2024 To be updated As mentioned earlier here on The Transnational, the “Emergency London Conference of Global Intellectuals of Conscience Concerning the Genocide in Gaza”, arranged by Turkey’s former PM and former foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and TFF Associate since 1986 was held January 27-28, 2024. It was based on this Declaration created prior to the conference. The conclusions and planned actions from the London conference “Supporters of the Declaration of Conscience and Concerns to stop genocide in Gaza met in London on January 27, 2024. Participants came from more than 25 countries. The emergency conference was responding to the genocidal catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, and the recent interim order of the International Court of Justice. The Conference was convened by former Prime Minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, and Queen Mary...

Photo – Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash Jan Oberg December 30, 2023 ”It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future.”Unknown but wise person’s statement. I do not pretend my predictions below are scientific or based on a sophisticated social science methodology. They are merely intuitive and hypothetical and based on some of my accumulated knowledge and experience about international affairs over more than four decades. You may say they grow out of a Wright Mills-like sociological – and peace research – imagination. I regret I can’t mobilise more optimism at this point in world history. I hope, therefore, that many of these predictions will turn out to be wrong. But keep or archive them. Time will tell. (1) The war on Gaza will continue, probably for months or years, and the worldwide anger directed at Israel will increase exponentially. Israel will be more and more isolated and attacked in...

Published here on the birthday of Mao Zedong (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) Last October, we had two important anniversary messages. One came through loud and clear in the Western media: the anniversary of the triumph of the Chinese Revolution, guided by Mao, restoring China to its own people, violently, on October 1. The other message was considerably more subdued: the anniversary of the birth of Gandhi, the Father of the Indian nation, restoring India to its own people, nonviolently, on October 2. Of course, the West focused on China, its military parades, its display of glittering affluence after decades of growth, true to its fascination with violence and economic growth.  Of course, India is also a BRIC country–Brazil-Russia-India-China–to be taken seriously because of its high growth and “muscle”. But this obsession with military and economic power makes the West lose the essence of the two anniversaries, the...

Jan Oberg December 13, 2023 One of the enigmatic aspects of international politics is that big and militarily superior countries have systematically lost wars in smaller countries – the last 50 years, from Vietnam to Ukraine. ’Losing’ here means military defeat, being forced out, losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people, and facing fiasco when it comes to achieving the presumed noble motives like introducing human rights, democracy, freedom or liberating women. And given the tremendous human costs, particularly in the Middle East, the US’s Global War On Terror since September 11, 2001, is also an intellectual and moral disaster. The United States – the world’s by far largest military spender, interventionist, warrior, occupier, global base-builder with the most militarised foreign policy – is in a class of its own. In losing wars too. It is now rapidly losing legitimacy, relevance and credibility in the eyes...

5a”},”elements”:{“link”:{“color”:{“text”:”#42945a”}}}}} –> CGTN – “The Point” with Liu Xin Go to the video too, and see the very positive comments there. People around the world are most receptive to thoughts on peace when they get a chance to listen to them – which they don’t anymore in the Western mainstream-militarist media. CGTN is one of the largest and most important global media. If you want to learn more and follow CGTN, you can go to the CGTN homepage here and to CGTN on Facebook here – 121 million followers. It was a delight to work with Liu Xin and her wonderful, kind and professional team in the studio in Beijing. Here is a little memory with her, my wife and TFF co-founder, Christina Spannar and myself. Please support TFF’s work for peace through research and public education. We are all-volunteer, people-financed and do not accept money from governments or corporations....

Palestinians search the rubble of destroyed buildings following an Israeli strike, as battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2023.© Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images Jan Oberg October 12, 2023 This is the text of TFF PressInfo 723 sent out earlier today. I suggest that you subscribe to our free about-weekly newsletter here. In civilisational terms, war is a backward, primitive thing; it solves no conflicts and creates no security – only hate, which fuels more war. It’s a system or structural evil – much more than a human evil.   Equally primitive and uncultured is, of course, the type of black-and-white, simplified narrative: there is only one evil party – the Palestinians and Hamas. The war has only one cause, and we need neither history nor conflict analysis to understand anything....

A discussion with Oksana Boyko about violence and war where the focus is on principles, ideas, concepts and ways of thinking. A delightful exchange of views that would be difficult, if not impossible, to have in similar leading media in the NATO/EU countries. For once, actually, the focus is on how to think about peace… October 12, 2023 Published on RT on October 3, 2023

Be a Peace Warrior – The Online Participatory Peace Project in English and German Dr Norbert Stute & Rachael Mellor September 4, 2023 Better World Info is a unique platform for peace, offering important resources and reliable information on the most pressing peace issues.We invite peace activists who enjoy research and content creation to contact us and contribute to this ever-growing, high-quality Peace Directory making a difference. While military budgets are skyrocketing, peacebuilding remains a grossly underfunded sideline. Global military spending increased for the eighth consecutive year in 2022, reaching a staggering $2.2 trillion. More 28 wars and armed conflicts are currently active, deadly, and unrelenting. “The world is over-armed, and peace is under-funded,” said Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General. Advancing peace efforts effectively is a collaborative journey. Our common goals for peace require the active participation and shared support of activists, organisations, journalists, scientists, politicians, and philanthropists. The power...

Peter Ross From invading Afghanistan to dismantling Confederate monuments, George Orwell has been pressed into the service of all sorts of causes. But the real Orwell remains unknown. August 31, 2023 “It was a bright cold day in April,” said Richard Blair, “and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Blair is seventy-three and the son of George Orwell. To witness him stand at a lectern and read the opening line of his father’s great final novel, 1984, is to experience a sense of completion, an equation solved. We were in Senate House, now part of the University of London, for 1984 Live. For the first time in the United Kingdom, the book was to be read aloud publicly from start to finish. It had been estimated that it would take sixty or so readers—well-known journalists, academics, actors, activists—thirteen hours, that Orwellian number, to get from the bright cold day to the gin-scented tears. “All...

A video conversation with Chas Freeman August 10, 2023 Chas Freeman is a legend of US diplomacy – since he served as interpreter for Kissinger and Nixon during their visit to China in 1972. He is also an academic and prolific writer and commentator. An intellectual that offers so much more than anybody serving as an ambassador in today’s NATO countries. You will find his homepage here with much about him and his thoughts. Although a staunch American, he is not the type Western mainstream media would turn to since he has the ‘wrong’ views on several essentially important things. I’ve also come to appreciate Neutrality Studies’ YouTube Channel. Browse it when you are anyhow there, but – first – listen carefully to this conversation that starts out with Henry Kissinger’s visit to China and moves on to very important aspects of Taiwan and beyond. Jan Oberg, Editor