Reconciliation

The West leaves, a multi-polar world comes Jan Øberg Part 1/3

Af Claus Kold Fra Månen kan man ikke se Danmark, lige meget hvor godt man kigger. Det kan man ikke, fordi Danmark er en kulturlig konstruktion, som er inde i danskernes hoveder, og som derfor ikke kan ses. Man kan heller ikke se Rusland, USA eller Indien. Disse stater er nemlig også kun inde i hovederne på de mennesker, der tilfældigvis er født og opvokset i det, de har valgt at kalde fx Israel. Danmark er m.a.o. en tilfældighed. Det kunne lige så godt ikke eksistere, eller ligge et andet sted eller danskerne kunne tale et andet sprog, som de godt nok ville kalde dansk, men som ikke lød dansk – for os, de rigtige danskere. Stater og statssystemer har ikke altid eksisteret, og op gennem tiden har de, der eksisterede, haft meget forskellige form. De har været religiøse, familieeje, enemandsvælder, étpartistater – i dag er det dominerende ideal territorialt...

Jeju Peace Forum, Kwangju National University, Seoul; South Korea Like the Israel-Palestine conflict, the world has gotten tired of it, “what, the two Koreas still unable to sort it out”? Also, like Israel-Palestine, the USA is in it; making the situation complicated. Never has the situation been so tense after the end of the war in Korea more than 60 years ago. Not only because of the nuclear bomb with missiles in North Korea, and the hawkish pro-nuke reaction in South Korea and Japan, but because of no moves forward to solve the underlying conflict. And where is that conflict? Not between North and South Korea, but between North Korea and USA that after 140+ years of victorious warfare had to accept armistice, not victory, in Korea. Conflict means incompatible goals. Travel to Pyongyang and find that their goals are peace treaty, normalization of relations, and a nuclear free Korean...

Introduction By Jan Oberg President Barack Obama visits Hiroshima on May 27; it’s the first time since the U.S. used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that a sitting U.S. president visits Hiroshima It is known that he will not apologize for the crime that killed and crippled about a quarter of a million innocent people. Disturbingly, the White House has also announced that he will “not have the time” to meet any victims, the Hibakusha. According to Time he shakes off the ethical dimension of this unique mass killing by stating that “it is important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions”(!) His commitment to peace and a nuclear weapons-free world has been an utter failure, according to TFF Associate Jonathan Power. And it seems that Obama will not use this unique opportunity to show any moral leadership or...

Antwerpen & Alfaz We are dealing with mass migration, basically into EU, and European nationalisms, many in favor of exits from the EU. Why this mass migration, maybe to the point of Völkerwanderung, mainly into EU – but then what kind of EU? – and why the European nationalisms now found one way or the other in many member states? The forecast for migration from Africa into Italy in 2016 is about 100,000; 28,000 already arrived in the first quarter, with 1,000 drowning in the Mediterranean (INYT, 6 May 2016). Big numbers. They knew the risks they were taking, so the push away from Africa and the pull towards Italy, and beyond, must have been considerable. Better think in terms of 50 million migrants over 50 years, from regions considered uninhabitable to inhabitable regions. There seem to be five major causes underlying this basic world asymmetry: Slavery, four centuries, depriving...

By Jonathan Power We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb. Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it. An hour later he gave a speech as head of the Independent Commission on Disarmament of which I was a member. “My fear”, he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow on a wall.” President Charles de Gaulle of France once observed, “After a nuclear war the two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.” What if, contrary to the received wisdom, it was shown that nuclear weapons played no role in the surrender of Japan at the end...

Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire, co-founder of The Peace People and TFF Associate, says from Rome: “I believe we are at an important and hopeful turning point in human history – from violence to nonviolence and from war to peace” Laity and religious meeting in Rome appeal to Pope Francis to share with the world an encyclical on nonviolence and just peace and for the church to no longer use or teach ‘Just War theory’ It was a joy for me to join eighty people from around the world meeting in Rome 11-12th April, 2016, to contribute to the important discussion ‘Nonviolence and Just Peace Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence’. Members of the three day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Catholic Peace Movement Organization, Pax Christi, strongly called on Pope Francis ‘to share with the world an...

When the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the Irish Military, Government Members, and many Irish people gathered in Dublin, on Easter Sunday 27th March, 2016 to remember the Easter Rising of l9l6, some of his challenging words were addressed to the young generation. He encouraged them ‘to imagine and to dream‘ and he said ‘we wish them well as they make music and continue to dream’. The Leaders of l9l6 had political hopes and dreams. President Higgins said ‘For the leaders of l9l6, their political hopes and aspirations for what a free Irish Republic might be, were linked to a rich Irish culture which they cherished and promoted. Within that vision, their ancient Irish language and culture, informed by our history and migration, was central to everything for which they hoped and fought.’ I believe the men of l9l6 had a democratic right to their dreams of Irish self-determination...

By Elías Abraham Foscolo Aesthetics – being shaped by the senses – means art. And vice versa. Beauty is the main factor to recognize as the aesthetical component within an artistic experience. Whichever may be the artistic environment experienced – music, dance, theatre, film, poetry – the concept of the aesthetics is associated to the subjective capacity of experiencing the outside world and the way that impacts inside the person. Indeed, it is an experimental process aiming to resonate with the beauty of the universe – word beauty here as metaphoric approach of peace; hence a type of beauty which aesthetically aims to be eternal, pure and human. Following this idea, an aesthetic experience of beauty is related to identifying an inner peace and such a process is an authentic artistic desire to be touched by the act of love. Actually that is what empowers and makes the person aware...

Upon receiving the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builder Prize Atlanta Dear President, dear Dean of Morehouse College, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply honored by the prize from a college in Georgia, in the US South, that has been and is a beacon in the struggle from dominion to dignity in race relations. The civil rights movement is an American Revolution, like the feminist movement it inspired–aiming at parity and dignity for all. To refuse sharing the spoils of exploiting Reds and Blacks and poor Whites with London was far from a revolution. This college shaped Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I had the honor of meeting him twice here in Atlanta in 1960–working on desegregation without violence in Charlottesville, VA–and in 1964 in Oslo when he received the Nobel Peace Prize. This College made him use Gandhi’s clinging to truth through nonviolent struggle, satyagraha, lifting 20 million Blacks into dignity. There...

The Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez in Jerusalem. The only other media carrying the story is Russia Today and Vigilant Citizen and MintPress News also carries the story and offers a wider background What is this about?A new coalition? So the usual Western media filter, meaning it must be interesting. And it is a quite sensational story: Saudi Arabia and Israel are up to a nuclear mischief against a country that has just been prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons by means of a huge legally binding document, UN Security Council endorsement and extremely tight monitoring mechanism. What’s it about? It’s about Israel’s defence minister Moshe Ya’alon saying in public at the recent Munich conference that Arab states are “not willing to sit quietly with Iran on the brink of a nuclear bomb”. He thinks that Iran was liable to break the agreement as their economic situation improves with the lifting of international...