Nonviolence

First published February 7th, 2005 In the literature the most used term for such conflicts is «war». War has been defined in various ways but most of the definitions have in common the description of war as an armed conflict with a certain number of deaths. Disagreements are more around the number and how to count the deaths than the much more interesting and important part of the definitions, namely the almost universal view that war is a form of conflict. I will argue below that war is NOT a conflict and that this misinterpretation has had serious consequences for the field. Most research on large-scale conflicts is focused on armed ones. Wars have been studied from a large number of perspectives since the first works in this field were published. This tradition, from pioneers such as Richardson and Wright, has dominated the majority of this particular field of research...

the unarmed demonstrators certainly demoralised the local Soviet soldiers and the satraps in the Czech administration. They also succeeded in bringing the economy almost to a halt but they did not undermine the hard men in Moscow who simply piled on the pressure until the resistance cracked. But we should be sanguine about the chances of the saffron protestors. They don’t have an invincible force to overcome – or at least one of the muscle of the Soviet Union or China. Differences of opinion have already appeared among the military leaders. Moreover, external pressure has been piling up for years and has succeeded in isolating Myanmar in many important ways. The recent decision of Washington to go for the leaders’ private foreign bank accounts was long overdue. Not least, the Burmese protestors have the non-violent traditions of Buddhism to draw upon. This may be scorned by the generals, indeed by...

Mr Chairperson, Foreign Ministers, Excellencies, Panelists! Gandhi was fighting the UK Empire, meaning UK invasion and occupation.  One invasion, Viceroy Richard Wellesley in 1798 against the Sultan of Mysore, was also clearly anti-Muslim. The same year Napoleon’s mission civilisatrice invaded Egypt to make himself Sultan el-kebir, Great Ruler, but were thrown out in 1801. The English came in 1807 and Egypt was a colony till 1922. Gandhi fought an evil empire as seen by how they reacted to the Sepoy mutiny 150 years ago or to the 1919 Amritsar massacre. Churchill not only referred to him as a semi-naked fakir, but sincerely hoped he would fast himself to death. But in 1947 it was all over: first went India, then the rest of the empire, mainly due to Gandhi’s nonviolence. Today they are both, India and England, blossoming, India with a brilliant linguistic federalism and phenomenal economic growth, England heading the same way but still...

March 22, 2007 Johan Galtung The Satyagraha Centenary: New Delhi, 29-30 January 2007 Today 59 years ago a bullet put an end to the physical life of that genius grown out of Indian soil. A spiritual earthquake shook us all. And far away from Birla Gardens, in Norway, a 17 year old boy, almost ignorant of Gandhi, was weeping, something he rarely did. The boy was me, and that was my spiritual birth. I became a Gandhi scholar, a peace researcher and peace worker, and the comments on our session’s topics is a mini-payback. Gandhi gave us that invaluable gift, satyagraha, to cling to satya. For Gandhi satya was an essence bridging the concepts of God, Love and Truth, uniting the spiritual, the emotional and the cognitive–not putting them in separate compartments as we do in the West, banning the first two from research and science. How can this guide...

Vicky Rossi: Having just spent a wonderful 2 weeks in India with you and an enlightened group of internationals on the Gandhi Legacy Tour (1), I was wondering when you first decided to lead such a trip and what your primary motivation was. Arun Gandhi: I have been involved with people from Europe and other parts of the world for quite some time now and I have always felt that people need to know each other better. We tend to live in our own isolated worlds without knowing much about one another. This means we form all kinds of stereotypes and misunderstandings, which lead to conflicts in the world. I have always thought that if we can somehow bring people together and let them get to know each other, then we will be able to break down the barriers that exist and build bridges instead. For a long time I...

By Håkan Wiberg and Jan ObergSeptember 22, 2006 The 192nd member has recently been admitted to the United Nations. Montenegro with its 600,000 inhabitants recently had a referendum, where 86.6 per cent of those enfranchised voted. Out of these, 55.5 per cent voted for independence, and 44.5 against. Another way of presenting the same data is that 48.1 per cent voted for, 38.5 against and 13.4 not at all. There are reasons to dig deeper into what happened. What is the internal and external background to this event? Does it increase or decrease the stability of the region? Could this decision cause trouble at some point in the future? Could it have an impact on the question of independence for Kosovo? Indeed, is the Montenegrin drive for independence mainly a result of external at the time, anti-Milosevic pressures by the West and, thus, an unintended result of short-sighted policies years...

First published in Gandhi Marg 2006, vol.28, no.3, pp.269-283. Gandhi and the Gandhian vision of nonviolence have had many critics. Some criticised the very idea of civil disobedience and nonviolent struggle, especially in a democracy – after all what if everyone did it, where would it leave us? Chaos would reign and society as we know it would collapse. We have the rule of law to make sure that there is fairness in society and we have democracy so that we can change the way our society works without taking to the streets and without potentially forcing the views of a vocal minority onto a silent majority. Almost any text on civil disobedience will give numerous convincing counter-arguments: acceptance of the penalty means that the system is upheld, individual conscience (not preference) takes precedence over unjust laws, democracy generally means only a choice between two parties, both of which may have the...

Om Martin Luther King, Jr. hade levt idag hade han firat sin 78:e födelsedag. Om han hade sett rubriken för vår marsch: Fackeltåg för ett kärleksfullt samhälle” tror jag att han hade lett stort och velat stå längst fram i tåget. Han talade nämligen ofta om byggandet av The beloved community. Det kärleksfulla samhället är nog den närmaste översättningen till svenska. När han tog emot Nobels fredspris 1964 sa han: ”En världsvid gemenskap som lyfter medborgerlig omsorg bortom stam, ras, klass och nation är i verkligheten ett rop på en allomfattande och villkorslös kärlek för alla människor.” Jag har funderat på det här med kärlek. Trots att vi ofta pratar om kärleken och alla har en bild av den, är det svårt att sätta fingret på vad kärlek egentligen innebär. Jag har en bild av kärlek som jag skulle vilja dela med er. Det är kärlek i form av en lök....

25. februar, 2007 Jørgen Johansen Arbeiderpartiets forsvarsminister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen vil innføre kvinnelig verneplikt. Det er mangel på soldater og hun bruker argument om likestilling for å få støtte til prosjektet. Dette er enda et forslag om likestilling på menns prinsipper. Å la også menn få velge selv om de skal stille på sesjon eller ikke ville være å likestille menn med kvinner. Og det er selvsagt helt andre årsaker enn likestilling til kvinner nå skal brukes til kanonføde. En gang i tiden var arbeiderbevegelsen en ledende kraft i det internasjonale antimilitaristiske arbeidet. Med første mai paroler som ” Tenk om det ble krig – og ingen kom” og ”Ikke en mann, ikke et øre til militarismen” planla de generalstreik mot krigen. Internasjonal solidaritet og samhold skulle gjøre at når generaler og monarker kaller til krig så skulle ingen stille opp. Det brukne gevær ble symbolet for kampen. Men når den...

Tal i Umeå Statskyrka, 16 december 2006 – 4 januari 2007 Inför detta tal har jag funderat på vad som gör mig optimistisk inför framtiden och det som gör mig mer pessimistisk. Jag har också funderat på vilka steg jag tror vi måste ta för att få fred och en värld utan våld. Låt mig börja med det som gör mig optimisk. Detta utgörs normalt av de fantastiska människor jag har förmånen att träffa i mitt jobb. Denna höst har jag lärt känna Birgul Özbaris. Hon är en ung turkisk journalist. I Turkiet har hon skrivit flera artiklar om vapenvägran där hon har varit kritisk mot sitt land på grund av de hårda straff som man får om man vägrar göra militärtjänst. På grund av dessa artiklar har hon och hennes familj krakaserrats av myndigheterna och hon har flera rättsfall mot sig där hon riskerar att få över 20 år...

6. oktober 2008 Av och om den norske jurist Fredrik Heffermehlog hans sensationelle bog About Fredrik Heffermehl’s sensational analysis ofthe misuse of the most prestigeous peace prize ever Lige inden dette års fredspris offentliggøres publicerer den norske jurist, Fredrik Heffermehl, en sensationel analyse af forholdet mellem Nobels testamente og de valg den norske Nobelkommité faktik har gjort. Der er ringe sammenhæng, mener han, og påpeger at fredens forkæmpere for længe siden er blevet berøvet den mest prestigefyldte pris på området. The intention behind Nobel´s Peace Prize has sunk into oblivion, the Norwegian parliamentarians he entrusted with the award of the prize have taken it over and made it their peace prize. Since the end of WWII in 1946 well over half of the peace prizes have failed to respect elementary principles on the interpretation of wills. This is asserted by Fredrik S. Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer, in a new book, Nobel´s...

LONDON – The non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are pushing at an open door. Even the Pentagon has begun to look at their value in situations of conflict and political impasse. In the news today is the essentially non-violent struggle of the opposition in Zimbabwe to push aside the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe. Despite all the provocations of the police and the army the opposition (unlike in Kenya) has turned the other cheek and in doing so won over almost 100% of the foreign opinion that counts. Exiled Iranian opposition activists are studying and training in the techniques of non-violent conflict, emulating the success of the recent movements for change in the Ukraine and Serbia. One shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events. The twentieth century is rightly described as the bloodiest century of mankind. But it was also the most creative in terms of...