TFF global posts 2021

TFF Associate and friend over decades, Richard Falk, last year turned 90. Read more about him here – and use the search engine to find lots of his writings. The latest we’ve published is on championing lost causes... Eric Walberg March 10, 2021 Writing this memoir has been as much about discovering my story, that is, myself as it is about telling it. That’s Falk’s version of Socrates’ ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’ Or should I say, Forrest Gump’s? Falk’s life reads like a storybook, starting with meeting Supreme Court judges with his father at age 9 in 1939, making friends with Claudette Colbert, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Liz Taylor (long story) at age 15, befriending and befoeing many of the dramatis personae of the Cold War throughout his long and productive life, finally landing on the shores of democratic socialism as the US charges towards the (literal) finish line. Falk came...

© Jan Oberg – How much longer shall the Iranian people suffer? And shall they also be bombed? NEW – Listen to this article here Jan Oberg March 1, 2021 The West-Iran conflict is extremely a-symmetric. It’s the West that has, historically, sought to influence, change, threaten, demanded obedience from, punished (with sanctions and more), liquidated high-level politicians and scholars, shot down a civilian plane, demonised and excluded Iran. Not to speak of giving Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons and the green light for his war on Iran in 1980. Iran has not done similar harm to the West. Originally published by Transcend Media Service, TMS The conflict’s roots go back to 1953 when the US’s CIA and the UK’s MI6 orchestrated a coup d’etat, or regime-change, in Tehran and deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Shah and made Iran the most militarized country...

NEW Jan Oberg March 1, 2021 On February 23, I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement about the JCPOA and European leaders. I did that together with political commentator Shabbir Razvi in London. Just click on this link and you’ll be able to watch it. It is on a video platform called Urmedium. It is Iranian because Google-owned YouTube some time ago decided to prevent PressTV – a sort of BBC of Iran – from showing its program and interviews there. Nothing should surprise us anymore…

TFF is very proud to have published numerous articles and videos by one of the world’s most knowledgeable scholars on the Middle East in general and Iran in particular, Dr Farhang Jahanpour, Oxford, since he became an Associate in 2006 (and later Board member). It’s been such a delightful co-operation and a great contribution to TFF and our engagement with Iran since 2012. Fortunately, this incredibly prolific writer continues to publish with us here on The Transnational, but we believe that you will also like to know that he has recently set up his own homepage with many more articles – a treasure on Persian culture, history, literature and – well, much more. Since it seems to have been a Western media-political pastime to only publish negative, demonising stuff about Iran and omitting its amazing culture dating back to 7000 BC, it is so important that there is a homepage...

Fredrik Heffermehl 18. februar, 2021 TFF er stolt over at være den institution i verden, som flest Nobelpris-nominerede (7) er knyttet til: Scilla Ellworthy, Richard Falk, Johan Galtung, David Krieger, Evelin Lindner, Jan Oberg og David Swanson. Den norske Nobelkomite har mottatt nær 400 nominasjoner for 2021. Å velge den beste er selvsagt en krevende oppgave. Men den ville bli mye enklere om det kunne bli slutt på den uryddige blandingen av juss og politikk som i alle år har preget den norske forvaltningen av prisen. Som forklart i min nyeste bok Medaljens Bakside er oppgaven å drive fredspolitikk med den retning og ramme som Nobel beskrev i sitt testament.Det første og viktigste grepet – som også ville gjøre avgjørelsen mye enklere – er å tolke testamentet, stille det selvsagt nødvendige og grunnleggende spørsmålet: Hva ville Nobel med den “prisen for fredsforkjempere” som han beskrev i sitt testamente i 1895?...

The 1987 Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech  Peace appeals to the hearts; studies to the brain. Both are needed, indeed indispensable. But equally indispensable is a valid link between brain and heart. The history of peace studies is, of course, a collective story, and it did not start in the 1950s – it is as old as humankind, as is the history of war studies, the study of war with warlike means. Originally published at Transcend I guess the same applies to what today is called security studies, or the study of peace with warlike means, balance of power, balance of terror, deterrence through credible retaliation etc. Needless to say, that is not what peace studies are about. Peace studies are about peace with peaceful means, and I think it is generally accepted today that this has to be done in a holistic manner and with a global perspective, or...

Reflecting important global development, it is also a piece of the academic history of peace, conflict and future research Jan Oberg February 3, 2021 Here is a completely new edition of TFF Associates’ blog 2011-2017. In this blog, you’ll find almost everything posted over these 6 years by TFF Associates, our group of experts on international issues who are committed to the UN Charter’s norm, Article 1, that peace shall be established by peaceful means. There are 1360 posts here. Together with the articles posted on the old 1997-2011 homepage, you’ll find an estimated 7000 accessible articles (yes, some links are broken). During those 6 years, several very important international events took place and trends became clear. Just to mention some catchwords: Ukraine/New Cold War, Syria, the war on terror, Libya, North Korea, The Trump administration, China and the new Silk Roads, 2015 European refugee crisis, changing world order –...

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 a memory of already. I’ll die in Paris – I won’t try to run – a Thursday perhaps, in Autumn, like today. Without being literal, I was reminded that I could appraise my death while alive, and not leave a final reckoning to some solemn memorial event in which speakers are challenged to find humorous anecdotes to lighten the occasion, otherwise uttering honorific platitudes quite unrelated to the experiential core of my being. I had been thinking quite a bit recently about ‘lost causes.’ Recently I gave a lecture at Columbia University on this theme,...

and onwards. The change comes as a result of certain social media trends and events that we do not want to be part of (see arguments below). We increasingly find Facebook, Twitter and Google a) politicising, b) part of a superficial culture bordering on the meaningless and c) an obstacle to genuine public education, freedom of speech and the global communication we have always cherished. Therefore, in the future:You will still see posts on Facebook and Twitter linking to our articles but only as window displays. We shall no longer participate in discussions there, only on our homepage, The Transnational, and under the articles. We reclaim the essentially important free global public debate outside – and independent of – the near-monopoly that Facebook and Twitter cynically created and claim copyright to. It’s only natural that the debates occur at the creator’s platform and remain there for people to see in the future. During 2021, we speed up...

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 50th anniversary of my work as a peace, conflict and future researcher.  The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, that my wife Christina and I have established turned 35 on January 1, 2021.  I hope you will find something of interest and follow the creation of the book – of which only the first small fraction is hereby launched. Now explore…

Albert Györgi’s sculpture, “Emptiness,” at Lake Geneva TFF Associate In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. —José Narosky War is hell, and today more than ever. Although high-tech weapons make it a videogame for some, those same weapons make it unbelievably destructive for everyone else. Whatever valor was once associated with hand-to-hand combat has long since disappeared due to gunpowder, and the massive slaughters of the twentieth century have made it increasingly difficult to romanticize the death and misery war causes. Nonetheless it continues and we have learned, if not to accept it, to take it for granted. Obviously, not everyone loathes it. The U.S. economy would collapse without the obscene amount spent on the military-industrial complex, now well over $600 billion a year according to some calculations. It’s hard to rationalize such a sum without a war once in a while. That’s why the end of the Cold War...

“It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke.” Søren Kierkegaard’s quote is the first thought that comes to mind while thinking of the developments on the global scene and simultaneously trying to figure out the place where the Macedonian part of the puzzle fits the best. Or maybe this thought is more appropriate to describe the current dilemma the majority is facing: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Let’s start with the alleged fascist attempt of coup d’état and/or terrorist...