Nonviolence

TFF Associate, Professor Chaiwat Satha-Anand has died at 69: Professor of nonviolence who opened path to peace in Thailand Noblest and kindest among – and for – humanity. TFF Associate since 1991 and a dear friend of Christina and me since before that, a great scholar of nonviolence, a mediator and a Muslim in the 94% Buddhist Thailand. We worked together for decades in IPRA, the International Peace Research Association, as teachers in Italy at IUPIP and throughout the decades at TFF, where we have published many of Chaiwat’s deeply insightful peace research analyses. His death is a great loss to true peace research, but his legacy will remain with all of us in this academic field. Years ago, Chaiwat invited me to a conference in Bangkok, but not only that. He told me that he thought I worked too hard and needed to relax a bit, so, consequently, he...

July 4, 2024 “Each of us has had our own experience of the cascading failures of process, leadership, and decision-making that have characterized this Administration’s intransigent response to this continuing calamity. Taken together, these paint a picture of an overlapping and systemic set of problems in this Administration’s policy approach, and a series of warnings that have gone unheeded…” Read the entire – extraordinarily important – statement here. It is a significant example of civil disobedience and personal ethics. It all began with Josh Paul when he resigned from the State Department last year. See also the video below. This is the way to go. May thousands upon thousands feel inspired and resign, too – and not only in the U.S. but in all Western countries that facilitate and support the genocide in Gaza and the barbaric policies in the Middle East.

The India that goes to the polls this month is a markedly less democratic one: Narendra Modi has hollowed out institutions and targeted opponents, all the while sowing inter-ethnic tensions. Christophe Jaffrelot April 16, 2024 In 2001, I walked for 7 weeks in the footsteps of Gandhi, his most important places including parts of the Salt March. Already back then, the ruthless emergence of Hindutva and the growing animosity toward Gandhi was easy to sense. One man I struck up a conversation with on a longer bus drive told me that it was high time that Gandhi was murdered. Today, statutes of his murderer are put up, and Gandhi is being marginalised. That is no wonder in Modi’s India – although, of course, Modi has Gandhi in his office and likes to be seen as a Gandhian. Regrettably, TFF seldom published anything about India. But what seems to be a...

Suzie Halewood April 15, 2024 “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime”Ernest Hemingway, 1946 This tax year, the so-called Ministry of Defence will be given £69BN of taxpayers’ money, to effectively subsidise the arms industry and fund more wars of aggression while offering little or nothing in the way of defence. A further £116BN of taxpayers’ money will go to the banks, interest on money that never existed for wars that are not only unnecessary and illegal, but which neither benefit the UK taxpayer, nor those who have lost life and limb in any one of the smorgasbord of conflicts the UK has instigated since WWII. Originally published on Off-Guardian on April 12, 2024 War was outlawed in 1928 by the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War. Known as Kellogg-Briand Pact, the treaty was signed by sixty-three nations, including Britain &...

Dedication To all the brave people who refuse to participate in war, in Ukraine, Russia and everywhere else. “War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, and to strive for the removal of all causes of war”The pacifist declaration of War Resisters’ International. Back cover text “How can you be a pacifist in times like these?” THE SCEPTIC asks, the Russian invasion of Ukraine fresh in mind. Majken Jul Sørensen’s first response is to counter with the opposite question: “How can you not be a pacifist in times like these? With all that we know about the consequences of modern warfare, why are all the alternatives to war not on the table?”  In “Pacifism Today”, Majken illustrates with numerous examples her understanding of pacifism and her commitment to nonviolent action and unarmed resistance to war. In this personal reflection on why...

“Mops And More” © Jan Oberg 2023 Jan Oberg October 20, 2023 I assume that most readers here know me as a peace and conflict researcher and as co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF. However, since 2009, I’ve also worked as an art photographer, done projects, and arranged almost 30 exhibitions in my studio here in Lund, Sweden. See more on Oberg PhotoGraphics. I grew up with contemporary art; it’s always been an essential, joyful interest of mine. And in 2002-2003, I found out that I could reach people not only with texts but also with images. Back then, I went on fact-finding in Iraq and interviewed some 160 people at all levels and also took photos with an early digital low-resolution camera – of people, cafées, nature, streets, children, cultural places, museums and… life in general, nothing special. It was merely snapshots...

J. Natasha Gooneratne* August 10, 2023 This article explores the discourse of the Ukraine crisis from the perspective of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), recalling some of the movement’s focal pillars that find their roots in the cultural and historical makeup of its member states. It looks at recent efforts of NAM members within the context of peace talks and bilateral relations and further presents a reflection on why NAM members are better equipped to create progressive conditions within that space. Lastly, it explores why such efforts are often misconstrued by Western governments and media. A few weeks ago, 7 African leaders (heads of state of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Comoros and Egypt, alongside top officials from the Republic of Congo and Uganda) travelled to Russia and Ukraine, in what can thus far be described as the largest collective push toward brokering even a semblance of peace talks in over 16...

A major peace publishing event across cultures: The cover story of the esteemed “China Investment” Magazine’s July 2023 edition Jan Oberg July 23, 2023 Can you imagine a leading economics, finance and investment magazine in the Western world publishing a 30 A4-page (10 000 words) article about the future peace and security world order – a thinkpiece consisting merely of concepts, theories, visions and philosophical aspects of the theme? I can’t. They would not see it as meaningful to include perspectives on peace, nonviolence, security and related matters. But they’d probably gladly publish articles about military corporations, profits and the like. But in China, they see the value of such holistic thinking between interrelated dimensions of society – and of the world – as it really is. Economics is not only about economic things; it takes place in a framework that influences it – past, present and future. In contrast,...

Jan Oberg March 21, 2023 Letter from a soul-sister stranger for peace One autumn day in 2022, a mail winged into TFF’s inbox from a woman in the United States. Here first some excerpts; the first sentence reveals a sense of being in a larger world. ” I hope you’re feeling all right, even though it’s difficult to feel that way now. I’d like to send you this letter that I’m sending to as many people that I can think of. Given the urgency of the international situation I figure it’s no time to be shy. Here it is! Hardly a soul responds to me, but I was hoping maybe you would. Peace will never arrive if people are not able to listen to the other side’s perspective. Peace will never arrive if people on one side of conflict tell half-truths and lies to paint the other side as only...

Image from searchwizards This rather long text was written on the invitation of the distinguished “China Investment” magazine, which is sponsored by China’s National Development and Reform Commission. In spite of its name, it has consistently asked me to write on subjects that are not often connected with economics in general and investment issues in particular. I find that – much broader – approach to economics very interesting, and I am very pleased to cooperate with such broad-minded people. Here is the original version – a cover story – in both English and Chinese Introduction – The enigma of good things Like many other positive things in this world, there is little research available on what trust is and how it works. Human beings study war and other violence much more than nonviolence and peace; evil more than goodness; aggression more than forgiveness and reconciliation. It is quite strange because...

An account of the situation and of the worst and best-case scenarios for Iran’s future Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) Various Iranian and foreign news agencies have reported that Iran’s Prosecutor General has announced the shutting down of the. Guidance Patrol (often referred to in the West as the morality police). In response to a question about the dismantling of the Guidance Patrol, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said: “The Guidance Patrol has nothing to do with the Judiciary. It was dismantled by the same organisation [presumably the Revolution Guards and the law-enforcement forces] that had established it.” In another meeting held in Qom on the recent protests, he said: “The Majlis [the Parliament] and Supreme Islamic Revolution Council are studying and working on the issue of hijab, and the outcome of those decisions will be announced in 15 days. Such decisions should be based on wisdom.” He added: “After...

[bswise / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] See the deeply moving photos from Motel Lorraine on Gordon Belray’s page. By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon October 22, 2021 The anniversary of his assassination – April 4, 1968 – always brings a flood of tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., and this year will surely be no exception. But those tributes — including from countless organizations calling themselves progressive — are routinely evasive about the anti-militarist ideals that King passionately expressed during the final year of his life. You could call it evasion by omission. Originally published at Scheerpost on April 4, 2021 The standard liberal canon waxes fondly nostalgic about King’s “I have a dream” speech in 1963 and his efforts against racial segregation. But in memory lane, the Dr. King who lived his last year is persona non grata. The pattern is positively Orwellian. King explicitly condemned what he called “the madness of militarism.” And...