TFF global posts 2024

It has great potentials and needs global citizens’ – your – support. Amid global conflicts escalating, why has the United Nations, tasked with maintaining peace, seemingly failed to fulfill its role? Why is a ceasefire agreement in Gaza proving elusive, and why does a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine remain distant? Professor Jan Oberg delves into the underlying reasons why achieving world peace is such a challenging endeavour. This video was produced by The China Academy in Shanghai, more about it here. You may also see it on YouTube and read the interesting comments on it.

Street music in Urumqi @ Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Oberg November 4, 2024 This video was produced by the China Academy in Shanghai and uploaded by Global Times. The original version and comments under it are here. Please also check TFF’s analysis of the accusations made by US/Western media and think tanks concerning Xinjiang here.

“No Extermination without Representation,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024 Farhang Jahanpour TFF Associate & former Board member November 3, 2024 On November 5, the American people go to the polls in one of the most consequential elections for the United States and the world. Normally, outsiders should not interfere in other countries’ elections, although the United States has a habit of interfering in other countries’ elections, often overtly and sometimes with the use of coups, plots, subversion, etc. However, as the Americans chanted “no taxation without representation” when they were fighting for their independence and tried to shake off the yoke of a foreign power over their lives, it is now appropriate for the people of the world to say “no extermination without representation.” If the rest of the world cannot have representation in US elections, at least we are entitled to express a view about it, especially when it...

“War Collage – La Paix Quand?” © Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Øberg October 31, 2024 Throughout modern world history, great powers, empires and civilisations have succeeded each other. No one has stayed on top indefinitely – there is a birth, the new thing grows creatively and materially until it reaches a peak and perhaps begins to relax, and then sooner or later it goes downhill – in relation to new powers that emerge – only to lose the leadership role completely and become one among many in a new world order. This is the natural law of global society – of humanity – and it is quite inexorable. The downturn can have many (combinations) of causes, here are some of the classic ones in macro-history: weakening innovation and economic growth; over-militarisation and lost wars; wanting to rule the whole world but lacking the necessary leadership capacity; declining legitimacy in the...

Citizens dancing on a Friday afternoon at the Grand Bazaar Square in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China – Photo Jan Oberg 2024 This is just a brief reflection on my second visit to China. Still tired from the long journey, I’m slowly adjusting to our time zone and trying to focus on the tasks waiting for me. But a flood of impressions keeps swirling in my mind, making it impossible to rest—especially after realizing how much Western propaganda had shaped my expectations. I thought I was heading to a brutal and backward corner of China, only to find myself utterly enchanted by what I encountered. What intrigued me the most was the fact that I was about to visit what is often portrayed as China’s “most notorious” region. This is the province at the centre of ongoing accusations against China—claims of massive human rights abuses and even genocide, particularly targeting the Uyghur...

Swanson is the founding director of World Beyond War and a TFF Associate. Fredrik Heffermehl (1938-2023) established the prize, which Lay Down Your Arms awards. This is the public announcement about the November 10, 2024, ceremony in Oslo. You are hereby cordially invited! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMSThe Real Nobel Peace Prize for 2024IS AWARDED THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF “WORLD BEYOND WAR”David Swanson WHO WILL RECEIVE THE PRIZE IN A PUBLIC CEREMONY ATLITTERATURHUSET IN OSLO, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2024.Participating Jannik Bonnevie (poetry), Xiangtian Liu (grand piano), Marie Flognfeldt Jones (song), Jakob Rekdal Jones (guitar). After lunch, David Swanson will introduce a roundtable on “How can we stop today’s militarization?” with among others Glenn Diesen, Ingeborg Breines, Jan Oberg, Thore Vestby, Mariell Leraand, Ola Friholt, Tomas Magnusson and Ola TunanderFree entry The Real Nobel Peace Prize is established by Fredrik Heffermehl (see below). Art work “Gaza” by Mai-Bente Bonnevie More about David...

Making sense of China by snapshot is impossible without watching the film Gordon Dumoulin October 17, 2024 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Peter PeverelliEnemy or Mirror Image? ‘Scholars once thought secularisation is an irreversible trend in the age of modernity,’ a note by Chinese sociologist Zhao Dingxin (赵鼎新), Professor in Sociology at Zheijiang University (Hangzhou) and the University of Chicago when explaining the Daoist perspective that history does not progress toward some teleological terminus that can “lay claim to universal or eternal truths … because the significance and function of any causal forces invariably change with different contexts.” The Daoist perspective stands in stark contrast with the essay “The End of History” written by American political scientist Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama in 1989. Fukuyama mentioned that the triumph of the...

Claus KoldPhD, co-founder of TurningPoints and TFF Associate October 15, 2024 Even if you are not familiar with the philosophical logic of Aristotle, you probably would agree with him that ‘up’ cannot mean ‘down’, that ‘left’ cannot mean ‘right’, and that ‘white’ cannot mean ‘black’. This means also that ‘war’ cannot mean ‘peace’. In 2000, I carried out a field study of the Danish Armed Forces in Kosovo, Mitrovica, being part of the UN KFOR operation based on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1244. So, this was a Peace Operation. I started my field observations already during the battalions’ preparation, and so I was also present during their final exercise before deployment. The major who started the exercise started it with these words: “So, now the war has started!” This was the end of 2000, and so, it was after the NATO bombing campaign had ended. There was no fighting...

Congratulations are in order for Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. The Nobel Peace Prize has for the first time in at least six years gone to a group of people who work to reduce warmaking, people who in fact seek to abolish nuclear weapons. Nihon Hidankyo has relentlessly done the work of educating the world, thanklessly, for many years. This prize should be celebrated far and wide. Congratulations are also in order to the Nobel Committee for somehow maintaining the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize despite how the committee has mistreated it time and time again and for — this time — getting it right. May this mark a new principled commitment! This article was first published on WorldBeyondWar.org And congratulations may also be deserved by the Nobel Peace Prize Watch, which has worked for many years to influence the Nobel Committee to...

Richard FalkPrinceton professor emeritus and TFF Associate since 1986. October 7, 2024 Israel has long been renowned for its ability to shape public discourse pertaining to its behaviour toward the Palestinians, particularly in the West. Its greatest triumph is undoubtedly the manner in which it managed the media treatment of its response to October 7 (2023) in North America and Europe. Israel’s response was depicted as purely a matter of defensive security against Palestinian terrorists who staged an unprovoked and barbaric surprise attack by Hamas. This public distortion of the event gave the Western governments the political space needed to justify their closed eyes military, diplomatic, and intelligence support of Israel while genocide unfolded daily in Gaza. This article is drawn from two articles published on October 7, 2024, on the author’s blog. This political manipulation of this incident in the long struggle between Israel and Palestine has several different...

Political scientist specialised in peace and conflict research. Professor and Head of the Global Changes Center at the Faculty of Philosophy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia – and TFF Associate Here I am, back from China—or more precisely, back from another planet, another dimension of space and time. For days, and even now as I write these words, I remind myself not to fall under the influence of those first powerful impressions from my initial encounter with such a magnificent country. China is too vast and too complex to grasp or understand through reading or just one visit. Even during my stay, impressions were rushing in so fast that I thought I was gathering material for many columns. Now, knowing that my next column coincides with the October 7th—the beginning of the bloody drama that turned into a genocide, which the sacred watches with eyes wide shut—I...

Sustainable peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of development, justice and harmony The three authors were published today by China Watch & China Daily’s English edition. It will also be published in Chinese and thereby reach a very large audience. The article also represents the first cooperative effort between Guangdong Institute for International Strategies and TFF. Li Xing who is a Yunshan leading scholar and a distinguished professor at Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, and professor of international relations at Aalborg University, Denmark. Jan Oberg is a former professor and co-founder and director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden. Li Qing is professor and executive president at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. Now head over to China Daily > >