Jan Oberg February 4, 2021 At a time when the intellectual level of much politics has decreased dangerously, it may be useful to remember politicians who earlier on were leaders, visionaries, intellectually alert and able to communicate their message in ways that caught the attention of wide audiences. The Transnational has many student visitors, and […]
Richard Falk February 3, 2021 This article is a repost from TFF’s homepage, January 20, 2015 By chance I was reading César Vallejo’s poem, “Black Stone on a White Stone,” in a translation by Geoffrey Brock, and was struck by the opening stanza: I’ll die in Paris in the pouring rain a day I have […]
By Jan Oberg January 13, 2021 Welcome to my worldmoires – a word I have invented for the occasion. It means writing about my life in the perspective of global affairs and trends that have influenced my work and myself since I was born in the middle of the preceding century. And the occasion? I’m approaching the […]
Photo credit: Poster art courtesy paceebene.org John Dear January 20, 2021 It was early 1968. Since the previous spring Martin Luther King, Jr. had been pursuing a course that for many was unthinkable. He had deliberately connected the dots between the movement for civil rights and the struggle to end the war in Vietnam, and had paid the price. He was roundly criticized by the Johnson administration and the media, as well as […]
December 29, 2020 Stephanie Van Hook “A burning passion coupled with absolute detachment is the key to all success.” – Gandhi (Harijan, 9-29-1946, p. 336) When Gandhi uses the term “detachment” he does not mean a passive disinterest or cold indifference; he is pointing to an active state of conscious awareness of the unity of life. We […]
Richard Falk December 29, 2020 Unlike most of my interviews, this one is not directly about current political concerns. It rather explores ‘peace’ in its manifold identity. The interview was conducted by Miguel Mendoça a couple of months ago for a book project consisting of such interviews from a variety of persons whose life and […]
Jan Oberg December 29, 2020 Look at and listen in to three spheres of contemporary Western society – politics, research and media: The word” peace” and related words, such as the UN Charter norm of “making peace by peaceful means”, nonviolence, negotiations – have disappeared. And with the words, the discourse and with the discourse, […]
By Bhikhu Parekh November 5, 2020 If he were alive today, how might Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest apostle of non-violence, challenge Osama Bin Laden’s worldview? Bhikhu Parekh is Vice-President of The Gandhi Foundation, a professor of political philosophy, a Labour peer, and the author of three books on Gandhi. This article first appeared in Prospect Magazine in April […]
Johan Galtung 2010 © Jan Oberg Johan Galtung October 23, 2020 On the occasion of Galtung’s 90th birthday tomorrow on UN Day, we bring you a conversation he had ten years ago with Riz Khan at Aljazeera about his life. Johan and co-founder Jan Oberg have been friends and collaborated since 1974 and he’s been […]
By Johan Galtung – TFF Associate October 23, 2020 This paper was written in 2015. Republished here on the occasion of Galtung’s 90th birthday, October 24, 2020. It was originally published at TMS, Transcend Media Service 1. Definitions and Hypotheses: An Overview Definition: An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, […]