Essays

“Countercyclicity” means that both move through history in cycles, up and down; with one moving up when the other moves down. Christianity started with its founder crucified, like the first pope St Peter; Christians were tortured, killed, expelled from Jewish Palestine. But then indeed up, as religio licita in the Roman Empire in 313, defined in Nicaea in 325 by Emperor Constantine. The Empire split in 395, with a Catholic Church in the West – contracting, monastic after the Western Empire fell in 476 – and an Orthodox Church in the East, till Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453 – Moscow became “the Third Rome”. Islam started with the Prophet’s hizrat, migration from Mecca to Medina as city-state under Mohammed till he died in 632. From then till the end of the umayyad Damascus dynasty in 750, Islam covered the lands from Iberia (not Asturias) as the caliphate of Cordoba in...

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...

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> 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....

Contrary to much conventional thinking that treats ‘anti-Semitism’ as exclusively a form of ethnic hatred, there is a second kind of attitude that is alleged to be ‘anti-Semitism’ because it is critical, often justifiably so, of Zionism and Israel’s policies and practices. This second type of supposed anti-Semitism is a tactic deployed to discredit critics of Israel by insisting that criticism of Israel and hatred of the Jewish people should not be distinguished. These two distinct types of anti-Semitism actually work at cross purposes, and although there may be situations of overlap, it is a dangerous confusion to lump them together. It is rather unusual for even the harshest critics of the behavior of the U.S. Government to be castigated as anti-American except sometimes in the midst of international security crises, but even then such accusations usually reflect the outlook of red neck patriots or extremists who identify with the...

The essay “Galtung’s Structural Violence and the Sierra Leone Civil War c. 1985-1992” by Philip Leech [TMS-Analysis 14 Jul 2014],–of all the commentators the deepest–is a very welcome opportunity to clarify and develop further some of the underlying thinking. By and large his comments, based on Peace by Peaceful Means (PBPM, SAGE, 1996); the concepts have been developed further in A Theory of Peace) are very positive. I focus on the questioning and critical, and not on Sierra Leone, having no direct mediation experience. Leech is familiar with the conflict. Leech says repeatedly something that meets with my full agreement: “No theoretical concept can tell the whole story”. Indeed, how could a string of words match the ever evolving complexity of reality? A sharp edge–by a Marx (means vs modes) or a Toynbee (challenge vs response)–may reveal some deep aspects but never “the whole story” which, in addition, is revised...

Introduction He was a tall man and a great man, a visionary, pacifist, civil resister, educator and philosopher. He took life more seriously than most and he could be playful and fun like a child. His life’s guiding principle was ”Engage in your time!” and while he wrote and talked a lot he also did it. His name was Aage Bertelsen, he was born in Denmark in 1901 and died on August 15, 1980. Bertelsen’s imprint on history is two-fold. First, with his wife Gerda he was a prime mover of one of the groups, the Lyngby Group, which organised the rescue of altogether 7.220 Danish Jews into safety in Sweden in October 1943 during the German occupation of Denmark – more here. The Lyngby Group – Lyngby is north of Copenhagen – got about 1.000 of these in safety by organising their nightly transport onboard small fisher boats over the Sound between Denmark...

Blog despair Richard Falk’s blog “Global Justice in the 21st Century” Once again I feel deeply frustrated by the lack of civility in the flow of comments on this website, especially relating to Israel-Palestine, and the broader relations between Islam and Judaism. And again I feel that those who seem to have chosen as a vocation the validation of Israeli behavior however far it strays from international law and minimal ethical standards are determined to personalize the debate via the submission of defamatory and demonizing comments. There are also disingenuous attempts to engage me in senseless discussion where a cascade of questions will follow upon whatever responses I try to provide to the initial inquiry. I have been down that weary road before, and don’t intend to be so foolish as to attempt once more to explain what is self-evident to those committed to unconditionally justifying whatever Israel chooses to...

… Would be the title in English of a book this author just published in Norwegian, Syv veier til lykke (Oslo: Kolofon 2014); with excellent photos by Aase Marie Faldalen. And, very befitting for a book with that title: the book quickly made it to the Top 10 on a best-seller list, of course as No. 7. There will be translations but have a peek here and now. Why does a peace researcher, concerned with peace theory and practice, write a “how-to” book about happiness, well-being?

/10/janoberg.jpg”> Democracy is a core feature of Western society, normally understood as representative parliament – i.e. in free elections citizens vote for people to represent their interests for a parliament consisting of parties of which some form the government and some the opposition. It’s not always included in the definitions that democracy requires a reasonable level of knowledge and information, freely available. For instance, one often hears that India is the world’s biggest democracy but 26% of the people are still illiterate (287 million people). So the ”world’s largest democracy” also has the world’s largest population who can’t read and write. In comparison, China illiterate citizens make up about 3% and is regularly called a dictatorship. Also, in a society where the persons running for office are – or have to be – extremely wealthy to pay for their campaign and where large corporations make multi-million dollar contributions to certain...

Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land raises one overwhelming question: What is the nature of religious power in our world of the 21st century? Can it have transformative effects’? Media pundits and most liberal voices from the secular realm approve of this effort by Francis to seek peace through the encouragement of reconciliation, while dutifully reminding us that his impact is only ‘ceremonial’ and ‘symbolic’ and will not, and presumably should not, have any political consequences beyond a temporary cleansing of the political atmosphere. The June 6th prospect of Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres praying together in the Vatican as a step toward a peaceful end of the long struggle is, I fear, an ambiguous sideshow. For one thing, Peres as President of Israel is about to leave the office, and in any event, his position exerts no discernible influence on the head of state, Benjamin Netanyahu, or the...

[ This post was previously published online at the website of the Global Transition Initiative, which is dedicated to promoting “Transformative Vision and Praxis.” It responds to an essay on global citizenship written by Professor Robert Paehlke, who cogently advocates the formation of a Global Citizens Movement, including indicating how it might become effective. What seems important about such dialogue is the recognition that given the realities of this historical period, it is increasingly necessary for political thought and action to proceed by reference to human interests as well as being responsive to national, local, ethnic, and religious interests and values. A feature of modernity that is being rightly questioned from many angles is the presumed radical autonomy of human interests, especially the modernist illusion that the co-evolutionary dependence on nature and the environment was being superseded by the marvels of technological innovation. One way back to the future is...

Av Jan Öberg Lund , Sverige – 23 maj 2014 Tiden för rationell politik, om begreppet någonsin funnits, är över . ”Realpolitik” har blivit en blandning av marknadsförda ord, propaganda och ledare som gör uttalanden som gränsar till absurd teater. Tunnare och tunnare länkar till Realiteten. Detta är vad som händer när man förnekar nedgången. Alla imperier går ner. Det amerikanska imperiet är på nedgång. Makrohistoriker (se t.ex. British Arnold Toynbee’s 12–volymarbete 1934-1961) berättar att det finns många skäl till att imperier faller: • militarism med konstant krigföring; • överutvidgning – försöka kontrollera mer än vad du kan hantera; • förlust av legitimitet i andras ögon; • strukturella ekonomiska kriser; • moraliskt förfall; • förlust av intellektuell och teknisk innovation; • andra maktstrukturer ökar i styrka över tid och göra saker på nya, kreativa sätt . Efter 1945 ansågs USA vara starkt på en rad olika maktdimensioner: militär, ekonomi, politik,...