Media and conflict

For the last time, I am stating my views on the West’s genocide accusation and why I refuse to let the US/NATO/EU Cold War policy set the agenda and discourse about China in general and Xinjiang in particular. Jan Oberg November 19, 2024 PART I Part II A daring prediction I shall be surprised if, in about 10-15 years, Xinjiang – the North-Western province of China, its largest province three times larger than France – has not become a world-leading cultural and economic hub in humanity’s multipolar/nodal future world. It exhibits a tremendous cultural variety that seems to be moving towards unity in an amazing diversity. It has a vast natural resource potential. It interacts with eight very important neighbouring countries. It’s the crossroads of past, present and future. Xinjiang is the sine qua non of the new Silk Roads, also called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves...

Why it is essential to travel and see for yourself and then build networks and promote dialogues in the world’s likely most serious conflict. PART II PART I I recommend you read Part I before reading this second part. A dynamic melting pot You may ask where Xinjiang’s immense cultural diversity comes from. While I have not studied its history, I have learned that it has always been one big meeting place, dating back to the first Silk Roads, where people travelled, traded, explored, and migrated. Crisscrossing also borders with eight neighbours so that over time, it became a melting pot. There is a lot of diversity; each national group or ethnicity seems to have preserved vital elements of its own culture, language, aesthetics, way of living, dancing, etc. and also become part of the unity called Xinjiang and China. A woman I met told me that each nationality’s way of dancing could be...

Liberal democracies remain shamefully complicit with Israel, despite its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people Students of world politics have long understood that when it comes to the strategic interests of leading states, international law is marginalised unless it is useful in waging a propaganda war against adversaries.  Indeed, the United Nations was designed in ways that recognised this feature of international political life. Otherwise, giving the winners of World War II a right of veto would make no sense.  Such an exemption from international law was also evident at the war crimes trials held in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, at which only the crimes of the losers were scrutinised for legal accountability, and obvious crimes of the victors – such as the indiscriminate bombing of Dresden and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – were not prosecuted.  To this day, for understandable reasons, many...

Jan Oberg April 8, 2024 This 7-minute video was shot by The China Academy in January 2024, posted on Wave Media on YouTube and then picked up by Taiwan’s CTi News and the Chinese Global Times magazine. This means a very large audience. Here is the link to see the many comments it created. I’m simply trying, in the shortest possible manner, to summarise what is happening these years from a macrohistorical perspective. If you think this way of thinking is interesting, why not reward TFF for bringing you fresh, different perspectives and always with a touch of a better future and a more peaceful world? It’s fast, simple and safe. Just hit this Big Red Button

Liberate yourself from NATO’s anti-intellectual and militarist fearmongering today! Why the omnipresent, massive, and uniform propagation of Russia as a threat against NATO is humbug. How a credible professional quality threat analysis is made instead. Why deciding military expenditures as a percentage of GDP is exemplary nonsense. Why NATO cannot be called ‘defensive’ and 17 reasons why Russia is not a threat to NATO or to neutral states. Jan Oberg March 19, 2024 NATO soon turns 75 – amid its deepest crisis ever, no matter what they say. During all these years, we have heard repeatedly that the ” Russians” – the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and today’s Russia – are coming! But while the Soviets/Russians have invaded other countries, they’ve never invaded a NATO or a neutral country in Europe. And when the First Cold War ended a good 30 years ago, and archives were opened, allegedly no plans were...

A video conversation about those three connected themes was published in December 2023 on various Chinese Channels and on two YouTube channels, Wave Media and Thinkers Forum, where you may also see the viewers’ comments. In the first two months, they were seen by around 100,000 people and stimulated 1200 positive, even moving, comments. These days, such an interest in peace – and in Western historical wrongdoings – is unusual and can be found almost exclusively outside the Western world. It was recorded and produced in November 2023 by The China Academy, a media syndicating organisation in Shanghai. Please also consult the TFF report Yugoslavia – What Should Have Been Done? It contains all texts – the equivalent of 2000+ A4 pages – by Johan Galtung, Håkan Wiberg and Jan Oberg and published as written back then and not changed or editor ex-post, so everyone can see where they were...

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash Western media’s reporting of the war in Gaza makes little pretence of impartiality. In French newsrooms and radio studios, unconditional support for Israel is the norm and part of a wider lurch to the right. Serge Halimi & Pierre RimbertLe Monde Diplomatique February 28, 2024 “A period of media frenzy has revealed, and accelerated, a political shift: in the weeks since the Hamas massacres on 7 October, France’s government and mainstream media have managed a double feat. They have expelled from the ‘republican arc’ (the spectrum of the politically acceptable) the leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI) and simultaneously admitted the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) to the fold. The RN, founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen as the Front National, was once deemed unworthy of being in government by the ruling classes, who frequently called for a united front against it; now suddenly rehabilitated...

, I had the great pleasure of being Ania K’s guest on her YouTube Channel. Here is a link to it – and I want you to use the link to access it on YouTube and not here. The amusing thing is that it’s been viewed by 11,000 people in a few days, and less than a week later, there are 160 comments, 99,99 % positive about the whole thing. I note a frequent comment from Ania’s viewers: Where have you been hiding, Jan? How come I did not hear about him before and that sort of “we never heard about him…” comments. This is striking after having been the co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation since 1986 – and quite active in doing research, on-the-ground conflict mitigation work and having written thousands of articles, book chapters and comments. But I’ve heard it before and here are some reasons: One,...

Interview on CGTN’s “First Voice.” CGTN is China’s main global TV network. At present, CGTN Digital has over 150 million followers across the globe. Instead of embedding the video here, we offer the direct link so you can see the comments that it elicited and also comment yourself if you like. And when there, browse CGTN as an absolutely leading global news outlet. And then… Please support TFF, which continues to deliver truthful, pro-peace public education based on decades of research. So press that red button for peace!

Photo The New York Times John Mearsheimer analyses the South African “application” to the International Court of Justice, ICJ, and explains why he now thinks it is genocide. John Mearsheimer January 5, 2024 Professor John Mearsheimer is one of the world’s leading analytical minds, lately and particularly on both the NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Please see his words in this article about South Africa’s application to the ICJ: – “For the record, I believed Israel was guilty of serious war crimes–but not genocide—during the first two months of the war, even though there was growing evidence of what Bartov has called “genocidal intent” on the part of Israeli leaders.⁵ But it became clear to me after the 24-30 November 2023 truce ended and Israel went back on the offensive, that Israeli leaders were in fact seeking to physically destroy a substantial portion of Gaza’s Palestinian population.”...

A Conversation With Miko Peled Miko Peled is one of the most outspoken advocates of justice for Palestinians – but born and raised to a distinguished Zionist family. He is also a TFF Associate. In this conversation, you’ll learn about his background and path to a clearer understanding of his own society and why he has such strong views about the end of Zionism and the end of the talk about a two-state solution. The conversation took place in September, i.e. before Hamas’ horrifying attack on Israel on October 7 and the relentless attempts at genocide by the Israeli government that followed. More about Miko Peled on his homepage here.

David Hearst October 26, 2023 TFF Associate professor Farhang Jahanpour in Oxford writes: “Anyone who wants to learn the truth about what is going on in Gaza and Israel should watch this short video which not only deals with the carnage in Gaza but also puts forward a solution to the conflict. David Hearst is not an “anti-Semite”. As he says in this video, half of his family were killed in the Holocaust. He is as an eminent author and journalist dealing with the Middle East with an honourable record of fairness and impartiality. He is the Editor in Chief of Middle East Eye. We must listen to him. The continuation of this long conflict will only cause more death and misery for Arabs and Israelis and more conflict in the Middle East and beyond.”