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På ettermiddagen nærmet det seg 35 grader i skyggen, men der hvor vi vandret frem var det ikke mye skygge å få. Selv ikke når vi fikk litt grønsakssuppe til en flere timer forsinket lunsj fantes en skyggeplett å oppdrive. Men hva er man ikke villig å lide for å dra sitt strå til stakken når visjonen var en fredfull framtid i Midtøsten? Vi var noe over hundre deltagere fra Europa, USA, Israel og Palestina som med de beste intensjoner foretok en ukes marsj og planla å krysse den grønne linjen uansett hva israelske myndigheter måtte mene om det. Ingen var særlig overrasket da soldater, politifolk og en håndfull agenter i sivile klær var “velkomstkomité” da vi etter flere dager kom til grenselinjen. Vi hadde på forhånd avtalt at det var opp til den enkelte om hun eller han skulle utfordre Israelske myndigheter og passere over til Palestina. De andre...

A few years ago, while giving talks in several Indonesian cities, I was struck by how often questions were raised during the discussion periods relating to the work and ideas of Edward Said. Indeed, anywhere that intellectuals with a progressive or internationist outlook gather on this planet, there is an awareness and appreciation of the indispensable contributions that Said has made to the life of free and independent inquiry, and beyond this, to a whole style and method of thought that takes ideas and culture seriously as crucially linked to structures of oppression and processes of emancipation. Said’s work is also connected with the confusions of a Janus-faced identity of intellectuals that is so characteristic of this era, that of seeming to belong everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. There are at least two forms of connection that emerge from Said’s life and writings. First of all, being uprooted, Said’s embraces the...

LONDON – Is our aim to prevent war or to pre-empt apparent threats? There is an important difference; not just in the semantics. In Bush-speak pre-emption may mean taking military action in order to avoid some presumed catastrophe looming over the political horizon. Preventing war means taking some bold, resolute action, short of war, to try and remove the probable cause of belligerency. Actually the U.S. can and does do both, despite the presumption by critics that it is obsessed with the second to the exclusion of the first. In Liberia, where it has just withdrawn its forces, the U.S., by putting some ships with marines off shore and a mere 200 peacekeepers on the ground, shored up the morale- and expertise- of a West African peace keeping force that so far has done a remarkable job in quieting the country and forestalling a likely new round of internecine strife. The...

PERSPECTIVE – Sunday 28 September 2003Bangkok Post Reforming IslamConservative Muslims have so sidelined moderates and liberals that an Asian-style economic miracle is needed to break their grip on Islamic politics and religion Neither a lackey of the United States nor historically an oppressor of Muslims, Thailand nevertheless finds itself on the frontline of the War on Terror. The arrest in July of al-Qaeda suspect Hambali in Ayutthaya – and reports suggesting that the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network has over 100 recruits here – exposed the indiscriminate violence planned by Islamic extremists. Like football hooligans, Muslim terrorists are said to ruin the match for all the real fans, the mainstream Islamists who claim to be peace-loving democrats. But a recent Economist survey of Islam and the West describes how ostensibly nonviolent Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brothers in Egypt create an “atmosphere of militancy in which the men of violence...

VIENNA – Five years ago there was a headline in the International Herald Tribune, “Austria to Start Returning Artwork Looted by the Nazis”. The article beneath, reporting on a promise made by the Austrian government in a statement to parliament, came exactly 53 years and 7 months after the defeat of the Nazi Reich. But today, 58 years on, the change at best can be said to have been incremental. Much of Austria still buries its head in the sand, convinced to its bone that it was a “victim” of Hitler, not in fact a co-conspirator as the rest of the world knows it was, and most of the art and other looted artifacts and wealth remains unreturned. In 1999 the distinguished Austrian writer, Hubertus Czernin, whose previous work had exposed the unsavory war record of Kurt Waldheim, who had been both UN secretary general and president of Austria, and the...

ISTANBUL – So far Turkey has weathered the storm of the Iraq war. Its prow remains pointed towards Europe but its sails are still open to catch a helpful wind from America which, for all its present estrangement from Europe and its differences with Turkey over the war and its aftermath, has long been a fervent supporter of Turkish membership of the European Union. More than ever before, the Turks, in many ways historically an anchor of the oft turbulent Islamic world, want to be part of Europe. For an intellectual minority this has been a long cherished goal. Now it appears to be becoming a country-wide aspiration. If Turkey were just Istanbul, union with Europe would probably have happened already. Istanbul has been for centuries among the most metropolitan of all cities. It has served as the capital of three empires, the only one to astride two continents, the...

Thesis Advisor: Professor Michael Herzfeld This is a dissertation about the social negotiation of ethnicity and local resistance to the use of armed violence. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork between March 2000 and August 2001 in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, I unfold the social processes related to ethnicity that can both escalate violence and hinder its escalation in multi-ethnic states in the Balkans. More specifically, I ask the following question. Given the social tensions between Macedonians and Albanians, why did an all-out ethnic war not sweep across Macedonia when the conflict between the Macedonian State Army and the Albanian National Liberation Army erupted in February 2001? By comparing the processes of Macedonian and Albanian ethnic identity building in an ethnically heterogeneous neighborhood, I make two arguments. First, I argue that reasons why civil wars in multi-ethnic societies are constrained lie with the schematics of minority social structures and in...

Kanske var vapenvilan under juldagarna 1914 en av 1900-talets potentiellt viktigaste händelser skriver den amerikanske historikern Stanley Weintraub. Sören Sommelius har läst en infallsrik och tänkvärd bok om en soldaternas vapenvila som hotade de krigförande högkvarterens planer. BokenSTILLA NATT. När vapnen tystnade julen 1914Av: Stanley Weintraub[Marker][Marker]Översättning Margareta EklöfUtkommer i dag (tisdag 2.9) Julen 1914 var förstavärldskriget några månader gammalt. De stridande parterna hade grävt ner sig i Västfrontens oändliga skyttegravar, från Engelska kanalen till schweiziska gränsen. Sedan augusti hade kriget krävt hundratusentals döda, sårade och saknade. Förhållandena i skyttegravarna var vedervärdiga. Här slaktades under ett drygt fyra år långt blodbad en generation unga män till ingen som helst nytta. På sina håll var det mindre än hundra meter mellan de tyska soldaterna å ena sidan och de brittiska och franska å den andra. Krigets första jul inträffade något mycket märkligt, en soldaternas vapenvila, genomförd av meniga i skyttegravarna i direkt...

ISTANBUL – No country prevaricates so much unless it has something to hide. The more the Iranians dodge and weave the clearer it becomes that an important faction in its divided ruling class wants to keep open the option to build a nuclear weapon. Yet at the same time it is also apparent that another powerful faction regards this as a mistaken policy that will set back all the enormous effort that has gone into mending fences with both Europe and America. It takes no great effort to understand that Iran has reasons for wanting nuclear weapons. Not least because Israel has them. It is not so much that Iran believes it could engage in nuclear brinkmanship to force Israel out of Palestine. Nor does it believe it could use its own nuclear armory to neutralize Israel’s and then seek to engage it with conventional forces. All these would be too...

Published in the Journal of Future StudiesVol 8, No 1, August 2003, pp. 107-110 Few people have the opportunity to make daily decisions at the international level concerning war and peace. But most of us are intimately familiar with another environment prone to conflict: road traffic. Comparing today’s prevailing national security policies with the measures we have taken to reduce collisions on the road can help us devise more sensible strategies to maintain international security in the future than the outdated military concepts that are still applied today. Until about 1880, there were essentially no traffic laws. Carriages passed each other on the left or right, as pedestrians still do today on a sidewalk, and whoever was more aggressive crossed an intersection first. But with the invention of motor vehicles, collisions became more frequent and more dangerous, sometimes fatal, and something had to be done. The solution adopted was to...

We are gathered this evening at a moment of great sadness, especially for those of us blessed by friendship with Edward Said. This sense of loss is both wide and deep. Edward touched many, many lives, including all those people throughout the world who knew him through words, written and spoken. His warmth and interest in the life of every person with whom he came into contact with was legendary. Edward never gave anyone the sense that they were “ordinary.” He conveyed to everyone he encountered, however routinely, of their importance to him. These last years of Edward’s life were both a tragic ordeal for him and those close to him, and a glorious chapter in an extraordinary life. It was glorious, despite the pain and suffering, because Edward’s courage and perseverance were so inspirational for his family, friends, colleagues, and activist collaborators. During this period Edward never lost his...

September 20, 2003 – 6 months after the US started the war on Iraq “I want to share with you three recent poems written with the second anniversary of 9/11 and our frightening leadership in mind.”David SEPTEMBER 11TH Each rising of the sun begins a day of awe, destinedTo bring shock to those who can be shocked. This day began in sunlit beauty and, like other days,Soon fell beneath deathís demon shadow. The darkness crossed Manhattan and the globe,The crashing planes, tall towers bursting into flame. The hurtling steel into solid steel endlessly playedOn the nightly news until imprinted on our brains People lurching from the burning towers, plungingLike shot geese to the startled earth beneath. The shock was painted on faces on the news,That such sudden death could be visited on us. But such death is not extraordinary in our world of grief,Born anew each brief and scarlet sunlit...