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Everyone driving must turn around at the bus and cab station. Dharamsala is actually car-free, peaceful, chaotic and characterised by an astounding pioneering spirit. The street scene is dominated by monks in wine-red clothes and a remarkably great number of beggars with leprousy. On this dangerous, Himalayan slope, fantastic architectural constructions, often hotels, are being built. But they are said to collapse quicker than they have been built, when heavy rains or glacier-melt water come down in torrents. Everything is beautiful around here, except the trees. It is forbidden to cut down their very trunk, but everywhere people have climbed up and chopped off all their limbs. After all, they need firewood. Power cuts happen on a daily basis and, of course, electricity is rationed – except when the governor of the federal state of Himachal Pradesh, to which Dharamsala belongs, descends on his subjects for an official visit. At...

Travelling is living, as H. C. Andersen has said. Travelling in India is like living another kind of life. Actually, the only way to do it successfully is to leave Swedish life at home and not think anymore about it. India is infinitely large, mysterious, wonderful and disgusting. It is poor and rich; it is sublime, meditative and infernally noisy. It has a dazzling beauty but it is about to die because of the pollution. It is nice and friendly; yet I haven’t seen any other place in the world where there are so many tiresome, nagging, obtrusive and indeed insolent people, according to the Swedish norms that is. It is perfectly impossible to make sweeping general statements about India, other than that it makes generalizations impossible. Travelling in India is experiencing a constant interplay of love and hate. And of positive surprises about life. A challenge, to say the...

Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India Reproduced from The Wisdom Fund Link to this article Gandhi’s major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time. “But”, Gandhi asserted, “My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and...

LONDON – The age of Euro-pessimism is dead. From January 1st on every child in the countries of European Union, bar those in Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, will hold in their hands the first coins of their future – a Europe without borders, barriers and, most important, wars. Of course, it can all be undone, but not in a moment. The common currency binds in a most extraordinary way the destiny of the peoples of this peninsular protruding from the landmass of Asia. If culturally it is a potage of languages, peoples and traditions (and long may it be so!), politically it is no longer a moveable feast of sovereign states whose borders are battered and changed by continuous argument and warfare. I’ve spent my Christmas in a small out of the way Spanish village where I once briefly lived whilst writing a book. Over coffee the headmaster of the...

LONDON – “Without more aid there is a greater danger of terrorism, I am convinced of that”, said Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission the other day. “It may not be a casual effect at the moment, and I cannot tell you whether the outburst from the South will be next year or in two years’ time, but I know we are building a tragedy for tomorrow.” Top marks for a useful bit of alarmism. But the truth is that aid over the years has encouraged the very factors of development that produce the abrupt dislocations in societies that lead to malevolent behaviour, often violent, and make a percentage of young people a particularly easy prey to demagogues who wish to turn that violence outwards. Despite fifty or more years of the Third World foreign aid industry the rich countries have still not got their priorities right. Despite...

The Bush administration came into office with the clear intention to strengthen US military dominance, including its nuclear dominance, and it has been true to this major policy goal. While the Bush administration views nuclear weapons as central to US security, it has a larger vision of US military dominance as a principal means for serving US national security interests. The administration has shown scant concern for US treaty obligations, particularly in the area of arms control. Most prominently, the administration has disavowed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, arguing it is no longer relevant in a post-Cold War environment. The US Nuclear Posture Review The clearest statement of US nuclear policy can be found in the administration‚s Nuclear Posture Review Report, a classified document mandated by Congress, which was leaked to the press in March 2002. This report lays out a “New Triad,”composed of offensive strike systems (nuclear and non-nuclear),...

LONDON – Perhaps one can see an end to the war in Afghanistan, even to Osama bin Laden himself, but can anyone see an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? America has shown that with its awesome armoury that defeat is swift for anyone who publicly dare step into the ring for a round or two, which the Taliban, by giving refuge to bin Laden, decided to do. (Of course, it is another matter if Qaida now bunkers down in secret cells all over the place.) But who is going to deliver the decisive blow with Palestine/Israel? This is a war of attrition that could knock on and drag on until not much is left standing. On the Palestinian side the outcome certainly could be a degree of material destruction that could make much of the country rubble; on the Israeli side it is more likely to make it simply unliveable....

An unconventional, deeply personal account of how the author came to study humiliation, write a second doctoral thesis and live as a global citizen. To reach the maturity that permits us to give up the idea of revenge and work to reconciliate and forgive is about the most important thing we can study. And do. This is innovative and free research in the essential spirit of TFF. We congratulate our dear colleague as doctor of psychology! The horrific events on the 11th September 2001 in the United States shook the world. News programmes around the world have incessantly covered the events and their aftermath ever since. The name Osama bin Laden has dominated the news, ways of retaliation or reactions are being discussed. This paper is not a classical empirical paper. It is a paper that attempts to convey conclusions drawn from four years of social psychological research, combined with...

Hver gang en ny krig dukker opp på nyhetsplass blir vi som arbeider med fred oppringt og bedt om en kommentar. Den aktuelle konflikten har da pågått i lang tid uten noen interesse fra hverken media eller omverden. Når volden dukker opp så kommer spørsmålene, interessen, ønskemålene om å forstå og ikke minst kravene på løsninger. For oss er det umulig å kommentere en pågående krig uten å se på historien bak. Ingen konflikt oppstår i et vakum, der er alltid en kompleks årsakssammenheng som ligger til grunn for konflikter og spesielt bruk av ekstrem vold. Mye kunne vært anderledes om aktørene hadde agert klokt på et tidligere tidspunkt. Den voldshandlingene som vi så på TV-skjermene 11 september var en motreaksjon for århundrer av vold utført av den vestlige kulturs forkjempere og USA spesielt. Og det kommer mer. Så lenge vesten ikke avslutter sin imperialistiske, voldelige, krenkende og rasistiske politikk...

Die heimtückischen, perfiden und brutalen Terrormassenmorde in New York am 11. September 2001 erklären Entsetzen, Empörung, Erbitterung, Wut, Trauer und Schmerz. Sie rechtfertigen in einer rechtsstaatlichen Gesellschaft keineswegs den Ruf nach Lynchjustiz („dead or alive”, Bush). Eigennützige Ressourcenverschwendung, rücksichtslose Umweltüberbelastung, weltweite Militärmachtprojektion und eigensinnige Vertragsverhandlungspolitik der USA erklären die Wahrnehmung der Amerikaner als arrogant, überheblich und anmaßend. Sie beleuchten gespenstisch eine Seite des Globalisierungsdilemmas und des &endash; allseits bekannten – – Konfliktes zwischen den „Welten” unserer Welt, zwischen Nord und Süd, reich und arm. Sie rechtfertigen die Lösung dieses Konfliktes keineswegs in der Geiselnahme beliebiger Fluggäste und ihrer Einschmelzung in zivile Explosionsmaschinen. Terror ist irrsinnigste Gewalt – – in keiner Weise Politik. Krieg ist mehr als Terror, ist „äußerste” Gewalt (Clausewitz), umso weniger Politik. Tausendfacher Tötungsterror erklärt das Verlangen Überlebender nach Vergeltung. Er rechtfertigt sie nicht, weder in Gegenterror und noch viel weniger in Krieg. In überkommenen Metaphern neu gefasst:...

As a consequence of the September 11th terrorist attacks, our country appears united as never before. President Bush has had approval ratings above 90 percent and it is reported that initial support for bombing Afghanistan also was above 90 percent. Congress was nearly unified in giving the President the authority to use force. Only Congresswoman Barbara Lee withheld her vote from this resolution. In doing so, she recalled the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in which Congress authorized the Vietnam War, and quoted Senator Wayne Morse, one of two Senators who voted against the resolution. “I believe,” said Morse, “that history will record that we have made a grave mistake in subverting and circumventing the Constitution of the United States. I believe that with the next century, future generations will look with dismay and great disappointment upon a Congress which is now about to make such a historic mistake.” Congresswoman Lee stated:...

Att resa är att leva, sa H. C. Andersen. Att resa i Indien är att leva ett annorlunda liv. Man kan faktisk bara lyckas med Indien genom att lämna sitt svenska liv bakom sig. Indien är oändligt, gåtfullt, underbart och vidrigt. Det är fattigt och rikt, det är sublimt, meditativt och infernaliskt bullrigt, det har skönhet men håller på att dö av förorening. Det är vänligt och samtidigt känner jag ingen plats under solen där folk kan vara så jobbiga, tjatiga, närgångna, ja rentav oförskämda – enligt svensk norm, alltså. Om Indien går det inte att göra en enda generalisering – utom att varje generalisering är omöjlig. Att resa i Indien innebär att leva i ständig växling mellan hat och kärlek. Och i livsbejakande förvåning över existensen. En utmaning, to say the least! Indien är en och många civilisationer i egen regi, en världsdel som förmodligen skulle överleva alldeles förträffligt...