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LONDON – What the peace negotiators of Northern Ireland have taught the world with its plethora of ethnic conflicts- albeit many less than a decade ago- is the power of ambiguity. But can ambiguity live forever? Northern Ireland is working out an answer to that question still, eleven years since the ceasefire of the Irish Republican Army in August, 1994, and seven years since the momentous Good Friday peace agreement. Maybe not, but it appears it can live long enough to change the culture of violence. Spain now confronts the same question with the Basque struggle for independence. As Saturday’s mass march organized by the Association of the Victims of Terrorism in Madrid reminded us passions on both side of the fence run very high. The relatively new socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has broken the long-standing logjam of Spanish politics by announcing that it is prepared to...

Dear participants! This is an important conference. The world’s biggest country, based on one of the world’s oldest civilizations, soon also with the world’s biggest economy, is having a serious look at peace studies. A small step for China, but a major one for us who have been working in this field for soon fifty years. We are most grateful to the hosts, Nanjing University and particularly its Department of History, and Coventry University and particularly its Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, for this important international and interdisciplinary dialogue. I have been given the task of reflecting on the field of peace studies, something I will do with the warning that what you get from me is one person’s perspective. Others will have other perspectives. We can enter this field from many angles, and it is important that we do so. Peace studies, like anything else, is...

LONDON – Deng Xiaoping, the former paramount leader, once promised that China would be a democracy by the year 2035. (See his officially published ‘Collected Works’.) Then 16 years ago came the massacre of the protesting students in Tiananmen Square and the world-wide reputation of Deng, until then regarded as the great reformer of the moribund, Chinese command economy, took a dip downward from which he has never truly recovered despite the onward march of the Chinese economy. The big question remains topical: when will democracy arrive in China? There have been, and are, a significant number of would-be reformers in the higher ranks- from the recently deceased, former party chief, Zhao Ziyang who appeared in Tiananmen Square at the height of the protests to tell the students he had come “too late”, to the current premier, Wen Jiabao, who two years’ ago, in a supposedly secret speech, but one...

LONDON – Space shoots off in all directions, and so it seems does U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, a long time aficionado of the subject. But not for him the dreamy, floating hotels of Richard Branson’s imagination. Rumsfeld’s intentions are on a grander, more intimidating, scale: to ensure that the U.S. militarily dominate not just the terrain of earth, not only the mighty ocean depths and the skies above but also the deep indigo of the weightless world beyond, and in so doing confirm in heavenly spades that no one will ever pull a fast one on the U.S., coming at it from the vast unknown. After 22 years of work and $100 billion spent, and with the Pentagon still admitting that from an earth-based launch pad it cannot reliably destroy the threat of an incoming ballistic missile, it is difficult not to be amazed that the U.S. should...

Boken “WE’RE A PEACEFUL NATION”Krigsretorik efter elfte septemberAv Brigitte MralKrisberedskapsmyndighetens temaserie 2004:05 “Kriget mot terrorismen” har skapat ett nytt politiskt språkbruk. Krig benämns fred, angrepp blir “förebyggande försvar”, ockupation kallas “humanitär intervention”. Brigitte Mral, professor i retorik vid Humanistiska institutionen vid Örebro universitet, påminns när hon hör George Bush och Tony Blair mana till krig om den sortens “double talk” som George Orwell gjorde besk satir av i sin svarta framtidsskildring “1984”. I sin studie av krigsretorik efter den elfte september “We’re a Peaceful Nation” ger hon talrika exempel på hur ett nytt politiskt språkbruk har uppstått. I krislägen är vi i ett land som Sverige misstänksamma mot stora ord. Vi förväntar oss från makthavarna raka och ärliga besked, därför att “ett demokratiskt samhälle har den rationella dialogen som grundpelare”. Så har det knappast varit i USA och Storbritannien under förspelet till krigen i Afghanistan och Irak. Maktetablissemangen har satsat...

From April 21st to 24th Kericho will host an international conference “Globalisation for the Common Good and the Quest for Justice and Peace in Africa”, under the Patronage of the Honourable Dr. A. A. Moody Awori, EBS, MP, The Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs. Many speakers representing, governments, religions, business, academia, civil society, charity, voluntary sector, media and young peoplecame together to address, debate and discuss the issues of globalisation, justice and peace leading to the creation of a more humane world. We admire and salute Africa’s achievements in ending colonialisation, dismantling apartheid, and initiating development, democratisation and social reform. We are also conscious of the enormous contribution Africa has to make to the rest of the world, but we are aware that many people live in poverty and are unable to achieve their full potential. For this situation to be changed ‘Globalisation for the Common Good’ is...

Verden er inne i en omveltende periode. Det er ikke de tradisjonelle marxistiske revolusjonære bevegelser som har stått for opprørene. De siste fem årene har vi sett at massive folkelige bevegelser har styrtet statsledelsen i mange land verden rundt. I nesten alle av disse bevegelsene har studenter spilt en avgjørende rolle. Studenter har i mange deler av verden gått i spissen for å organisere motstand og krevd regimeskifte. Det har gått som en bølge fra land til land og et globalt samarbeid har utviklet seg. Århundrets første statsleder som ble avsatt av fredelige folkemasser var Milosevic i Serbia. Det NATO ikke klarte gjennom tre måneders massivt og illegalt bombardement i april 1999 klarte en million demonstranter i Beograd den femte oktober 2000. Studentbevegelsen Otpor (betyr “Motstand”) hadde i måneder forberedt seg og trenet for å organisere en massiv og fredelig bevegelse for å tvinge bort regimet. Godt støttet av rundt 40...

LONDON – Dag Hammarskjöld, the most revered of past UN’s secretary-generals, once described the institution as a “Santa Maria”, battling its way through inclement weather and unsheltered oceans to a new world, only to find that the people on board blamed the storms on the ship itself. The trouble is that the UN ship belongs to everyone and yet to no one. Nevertheless, if you are a big enough power or a strong enough group, you can throw the ship wildly off course with the flip of a switch. The Soviet Union did this in the 1960’s when Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk in the Assembly, accused the UN of being American controlled, and later demanded that the secretary-generalship be run by a troika. The Third World nations did this when they invited Yasser Arafat to address the Assembly still wearing his gun holster and shortly afterwards...

Boken 1905De glömda revolutionernas årAv Börje IsaksonOrdfront 2005 Det finns årtal i mänsklighetens historia med  särskild laddning, från franska revolutionens 1789, via år som 1848 och 1968 till senast 1989, året för Berlinmurens fall och det kalla krigets slut. Och 1905. Året för den norsk-svenska unionsupplösningen och andra händelser var också en tidpunkt för ett skred i den gamla världsordningen, något som inte minst förebådade världskrigets katastrof 1914 men som också i Sverige innebar långtgående förändringar. Börje Isaksons “1905. De glömda revolutionernas år”, som påpassligt utkommer i dag på syttende maj, den norska nationaldagen, är en läsvärd bok med fokus på detta år. I vårt kollektiva historiska minne är avgörande händelser 1905 nedtonade, antagligen därför att det inte blev krig, vilket just är en anledning till att unionsupplösningen är så värd att minnas. Konflikter förknippade med statsupplösningar och gränsförändringar lösta utan krig hör till undantagen. Den svensk-norska separationen och dess...

LONDON – President George W. Bush was right on the mark when he told the Latvians that they must put the past behind them and look to the future. Fighting yesterday’s battles over again never got anybody anywhere. If I’m now old enough that I no longer blame my parents for all my many faults it is because I know they gave me life, freedom – and a continent that no longer goes to war with itself. Let’s leave it there and get on with the job of spreading economic well-being, democracy and the substitution of military conflict by the artful use of law, arbitration and the growing awareness of common interest. Going back through the ages we see from our present perspective that the reasons wars were fought were not issues that would now engage us. In one age tens of thousands of lives were sacrificed to win succession to...

1. Efter tsunamin Tsunamins vågor drabbade också Indien. Två veckor efter katastrofen står jag på Koromandelkustens strand i Chennai (Madras), Indiens fjärde största stad. De svenska TV-nyheterna missade första dagen sexmiljonerstaden på sina kartor. Här fanns ju inga svenskar. Ett hundratal omkom här, de flesta fiskare. Längre söderut räknades de döda i bortåt tiotusen. Några dagar senare i Karaikal längre söderut, ett svårt drabbat område, ser jag en fiskebåt uppslungad på flodbanken vid en bro, som en bortkastad leksak. En annan båt ligger tilltryckt och kvaddad på botten. I vattenbrynet ligger än en barnsandal, en skolväska, ett par byxor. Den sömniga byn Tranquebarvar under 225 år till 1845 en dansk koloni. På stranden reser sig fortet Dansborg, byggt av danskarna, med koloniala stormaktsdrömmar. På kyrkogården femhundra meter från vattenbrynet, vid det som hette “Kongens gade”, har de danska gravstenarna en fuktrand som visar hur högt vattnet stod katastrofdagen. De kristna...

LONDON – No one should ever doubt Prime Minister Tony Blair’s leadership capabilities. He has the right combination of inner arrogance (friends would say conviction) and outward modesty. In the House of Commons he is rarely bested and in the country at large there is a great appreciation for what eight years of his government have done in keeping the economy on the high road, repairing the run down National Health Service, helping the poor and aged with income supplements and Africa with more aid, improving the working class housing estates and grappling vigorously, if not always productively, with the declining academic prowess of the state school sector. His government has also been a good friend of the arts and of liberalizing the British culture of the stiff upper lip and the social rigidity that accompanies it. In this and a multitude of other ways he has made the British...