TFF Blog

Jan Oberg December 7, 2021 Imagine that the Nobel Prize in Literature is given to a book publisher or papermaker and the official motivation is that publishers or papermakers are preconditions for the writer writing and being read. Roughly, this is how the Nobel Peace Committee, reasons – unreasonably. Here’s how it legitimates that its 2021 prize goes to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov way outside the letter and spirit of Alfred Nobel’s will: “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time. This year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize is therefore firmly anchored in the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will.” See? – “without papermakers and publishers, it will be difficult to successfully write good literature and be read…” I believe my readers easily grasp just how far-fetched...

I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t do a speaking event related to war and peace without being asked numerous reasonable and not so reasonable questions about 9/11 (each accompanied by a stack of DVDs and flyers presented to you as a revelation from on high). There was a long period when you could count on the inevitable question about “peak oil.” Originally published at Worldbeyondwar.org I’ve been around enough to know that you can’t talk to peace-oriented people without a question about creating a Department of Peace, or to non-peace-oriented people without a question about good humanitarian wars against irrational foreigners who can’t be reasoned with, or to any group at all in the United States and some other countries without “What about Hitler?,” or to any self-selected audience at a peace-related event without the question about why the other people in the room are disproportionately old, white,...

Jan Oberg December 1, 2021 This article is based on observations sent to me by an academic friend living in Italy who wants to be anonymous, given the views it expresses in this situation. The reason we publish it here with a few comments, videos and links is that it is obviously a very serious situation in and of itself but also an example of how democracy can quickly be undermined and how nonviolent demonstrations are squeezed out, framed as neo-Fascists and de-legitimated – as is the entire peace discourse in Western democracies (if we can still call them that). It’s an illustration of how far democratic governments seem ready to go in the direction of authoritarianism in the name of protecting their citizens – without giving those same citizens a chance to express themselves as part of the decision-making process. There is a huge risk that the fear of...

Translation of the Introduction to the New Edition of Arnold Toynbee’s Civilisation on Trial, translated into Persian by Farhang Jahanpour Farhang Jahanpour October 28, 2021 More than 45 years have passed since the publication of my translation of “Civilisation on Trial” by Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) – read the entire book in English here. When that translation was first published by Isfahan University Press in 1976 it was warmly received, and in a short time, more than half of the copies of the first printing had been sold. Unfortunately, a short time after its publication, with the start of the growing political tensions and clashes that led to the Islamic Revolution, the book was caught up in the revolutionary maelstrom. Since then, the book has never been republished. However, more than 45 years later, in view of the importance of the book and its relevance regarding some of the latest political...

Jan Oberg October 27, 2021 I’m 70 now and all my life, I’ve heard that the Russians would one day make a surprise attack and, within 48 hours, occupy the Eifel Tower. Fait accompli! We in the West were weak – perhaps not right now but we would be within the next 5 years if we did not invest much more in ”defence”. Well, these damn Russians haven’t come yet – another reason we shouldn’t trust them, I assume! The latest variation on that bizarre and irrational theme is that Swedish military spokespersons maintain that Sweden has to plan for an isolated Russian attack on the island of Gotland – and that China aims to conquer Taiwan and Biden telling the world that the US is committed to defend Taiwan. This is a slightly revised version of an editorial for the Transcend Media Service, October 25, 2021 The time when...

Jan Oberg October 21, 2021 This article is based on observations sent to me by an academic friend of mine who wants to be anonymous, given the views it expresses in this situation. The reason we publish it here with a few comments and links is that it is obviously a very serious situation in and of itself but also an example of how democracy can quickly be undermined and how nonviolent demonstrations are squeezed out, framed as neo-Fascists and de-legitimated – as is the entire peace discourse in Western democracies (if we can still call them that). Please note that we update this page and, by October 23, have added a lot of videos at the end of it. And more have been added on November 15. Press Release GREEN PASS – Cunial, Barillari: Request for asylum at the Swedish Embassy (Rome), Italians are political refugees Rome, 16 October...

A Critical Analysis Of A Report By The Newlines Institute And The Raoul Wallenberg Center On March 8, 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington published a report, The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. It states that ”This report is the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China. It was undertaken by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in response to emerging accounts of serious and systematic atrocities in Xinjiang province, particularly directed against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority, to ascertain whether the People’s Republic of China is in breach of the Genocide Convention under international law.” The Report – hereafter The Report – has been produced with the contributions of, and upon...

We at TFF are proud to present one of our most amazing Associates who – in so many different ways – has worked for peace over 67 years. His knowledge is encyclopaedic and covers so many fields that it is hard to grasp. Even at the age of 88 and with various health problems and failing eyesight, he writes every day, most of the day – in the belief that we are all responsible for doing all that we can and that it is only through knowledge, humanity and vision we can survive in the long-term perspective as one humanity. The book you can download below runs over 500+ pages – and it’s just one of John’s many. It contains much more than the story of Avery’s work for peace: articles, essays, comments and whole books on various aspects of global affairs. Better scroll and browse and be inspired than...

Listen to this on Spotify 13 september, 2021 Contribution to GTI Forum(Great Transition Initiative) Can Human Solidarity Globalize? To envision a better world of tomorrow calls for great courage because the dominant paradigm reads There Is No Alternative. Or, to quote the Borg from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series, “Resistance is futile!” It is how the imagination of another now (to refer to Yanis Varoufakis’s book) is kept imprisoned. The aim is to silence and discourage all thoughtful, rebellious, and critical minds (and groups). Critique is tolerated if it is not too radical (i.e., does not go deep to the root causes of the present inequalities and suffering) and if it comes mostly from the Western (“more civilized”) part of the world. Originally published at The Great Transition Initiative We, the people from the Global South, however, have much to say about the past, present, and future of this world. And most of...

Listen to this article Richard Falk September 14, 2021 Modified responses on Aug. 23rd to questions posed by Zahra Mirzafarjouyan, Mehr News Agency, and originally published on Falk’s homepage. • 1 Why could the Taliban capture Kabul and gain power so rapidly without considerable resistance from people and the army? The U.S. led NATO Afghan intervention and occupation was flawed in mission from its outset in 2001, and indeed in the period before the attack and large-scale, ambitious regime-changing, state-building occupation. In the post-colonial world, the military superiority of Western intervening powers has proved unable to shape the political outcomes of a prolonged struggle for the control of non-Western sovereign spaces, especially if the society is beset by unresolved tribal and ethnic conflicts, as well as by warlordism and drug cartels. In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, this line of observation proved to be once again validated, despite trillions of dollars spent...

September 11, 2021 Can be read together with this article which contains all the documentation When people ask me what I think of “9/11” my answer has always been: “I have not done any research on it myself but to me the official explanation leaves too many questions unanswered, such as: 1 • Why was the discussion only about who did it and how did they do it but never about why did someone do this? If you look at the fact that the objects of the attacks were the centers of the US/world’s financial, military and political power – and not just a train station or some infrastructure – you’d have a diagnostic indicator. 2 • Why did no US Airforce plane take off from St. Andrews Air Base? The standing mission of it is to keep the air space over Washington clean and shoot down anything that should...

1. The World After the Corona. 2. How Militarism Fuels Climate Change.3. The Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC).4. China, the Belt & Road Initiative And the West. 5. The Balkans and the Purpose of NATO.6. Nuclearism, the Threat of Nuclear Weapons and What To Do. Fortunately, they are also open to anyone anywhere in the world. More about this unique, topical series on this link where you must also register to participate in the global discussion. The idea is that you watch the lecture below first and then participate in the discussion about it. You register on the above link. If you read this after the six Zoominars have taken place – just watch the lectures and discussion below. Under each video lecture below, find the discussion that took place with hundreds of people worldwide on Zoom and over 300 on Facebook Live. About the weapons in and of themselves, the existential...