TFF own world

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 a TFF Associate since 1985 when TFF was set up. Antonio Rosa, his friend and director of Transcend Media Service (TMS) summarizes: “Johan in a nutshell – wrote more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated into other languages and Transcend and Transform was translated into 25 languages. He has published more than 1500 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service.” More about Galtung academic life here. You’ll find hundreds of articles by Galtung on our old homepages here and...

Fredrik Heffermehl, born on November 11, 1938, in Norway is Vice President of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and was president of the Norwegian Peace Alliance, as well as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau. Heffermehl holds law degrees from the University of Oslo (1964), from New York University (1970), and the College of Public Administration in Oslo (1976). He has worked as a judge and attorney and in consumer protection. Since 1982, he is a writer, lecturer, and peace organizer. He ran the association of Journalists for Peace, the Norwegian chapter of IALANA, and for years the Oslo secretariat for the International Peace Bureau. Heffermehl edited a groundbreaking book Peace is Possible, 31 prominent peacemakers explaining successful work for peace in a concrete and non-academic way. This book was translated into 18 languages. Since 2007 he has worked to secure that the Nobel Prize...

TFF 35th Anniversary on September 12, 2020 And why are we there and still alive and kicking? Because TFF is like a gourmet restaurant and not like research institutes and think tanks that emulate fast-food chains. TFF doesn’t count success in media attention, followers, fame, or funds. We chase quality results, productivity and constant innovation within our mission. Finding our job the most meaningful on earth, we chase radical alternative thinking – and do research and public education on what we believe in – brain, heart and soul: • Make peace by peaceful means! • All kinds of violence must be reduced for humanity to survive! • Sooner rather than later warfare must be abolished as a legitimate social institution! • Learn to solve unavoidable conflicts with knowledge, intelligence, practical skills and empathy. • A true global human and common security is possible and so is global governance in partnership...

… and for artists to contribute to it … Have you often seen conflicts – big or small – escalate out of control? What do you do when it happens? Do you know how to intervene and de-escalate it again? Do you want more peace in your everyday life? A more peaceful world? Of course, you do! So let’s create something that works with children and adults together. Imagine Creatively is my homepage. It’s a storytelling-for-peace platform. I’m an academic with an MA in peace studies; I have taught courses and written several books before, and I have two children. I’m into both theory and practise. I know what works. You can trust me! It will be another bedtime story for children and a waking up story for parents and adults. I imagine it creatively as a constructive follow-on to the world-renown “Butter Battle Book” of the much endeared Dr...

By Richard Falk, TFF Associate March 16, 2020 Prefatory Note This post is something new for me, an autobiographical fragment written at the request of an online listserv as a suggestive model for academics at the start of their careers as diplomatic historians. I publish it here on my blog. It was found unsuitable for publication by the group that made the initial solicitation for unspecified reasons. Maybe because my work and career were not relevant to the scholarly life of a diplomatic historian, maybe because I seemed too flaky professionally to serve as a heuristic model, maybe because what I wrote risked an angry reaction from those who have weaponized anti-Semitism as (mis)defined by the IHRA definition, maybe because…a hundred other good reasons, including what was most plausible, least paranoid, that I was in a different lane when it came to a scholarly career, making my condensed narrative a...

The main building of Lund University, situated next to the Lund Cathedral in the centre of town And why I lived happily ever after Albeit small, this is a piece of Nordic academic history that deserves to be shared. It’s an early example of the destruction of Nordic peace and conflict research and education that followed By Jan Oberg February 10, 2020 Last November 2019, it was 30 years since I left Lund University as associate professor and head of the Lund University Peace Research Institute, LUPRI, from 1983-1989. I did so, and have been a freelancer ever since because the Faculty of Social Sciences that year had decided to close down all inter or multi-disciplinary research and teaching, units and departments at the university – that is, peace and conflict research, women studies, human rights studies, environmental studies and human ecology studies. In my view, this was a disastrous...

This is the digitalized version of a TFF Statement published by TFF’s Board almost 31 years ago. Could that be of any interest today? First, it reflects the situation and the issues discussed at the time as well as the hopes for a better future – now sadly lost. Secondly, it is one example of how peace researchers were thinking and made constructive political recommendations, available for anyone to take inspiration from – which virtually no one in power did. So, it’s a piece of international political as well as intellectual history. Third, it is an indicator of what the West could – and should – have done to have been in a much better situation than it is today. Admittedly, this is a contra-factual argument, but it can be defended on intellectual grounds although not empirically proven. Fourth, the authors pointed out a series of longterm priorities which match...

I would like to announce the publication of a book describing the lives of some of the people who have contributed importantly to economic thought. Their lives can help us today, as the world faces a crisis that has profound economic dimensions. Here is the table of content of this large book: The book can be freely downloaded as PDF here. The climate crisis Appendix A outlines the present climate emergency, made vivid by the October 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the words of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, “According to the IPCC, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%…” Although the worst consequences of out-of-control catastrophic climate change lie...

March 26, 2010, and July 3, 2019 Why Johan Galtung (born 1930) decided to devote his life to waging peace through research and action. Galtung who is one of the world’s most prolific and innovative social scientists – for instance, the author of more than 160 books and a global lecturer, mediator and professor – has been a TFF Associate since 1986 and has been published hundreds of times at TFF’s old and present site. He is also one of my two mentors in peace research – the other being Håkan Wiberg – says TFF director and co-founder, Jan Oberg.

TFF’s changing publishing policy – Why we reduce social media presence and what we’ll do instead For more than a decade, I’ve been enthusiastic about social media as a new, potentially more people-powered phenomenon that could serve change for the common good of humankind. Not so today. Sadly, social media have come to resemble fast-food chain restaurants – no taste, no joy, no quality, unhealthy, unsophisticated and boringly predictive. Homepages and blogs, on the contrary, still hold a potential resembling gourmet restaurants with lots of joys, health, innovation and sophistication as well as delicious surprises (and good wines instead of Coca Cola). TFF – the peace and future research foundation I am co-founder and director of – still reach thousands of people every day on social media but what does that mean? Too many have cared far too much about quantities of friends, followers, likes and shares – and far...

By Ina Curic February 8, 2019 The story teller who also just became TFF board member for a second time has set up her video channel on YouTube, of course called Imagine Creatively. She did that while working in Zambia – as you will see in the videos. So play for peace, use the love glasses and create happiness making children smile across borders and differences. Isn’t that peace? Now explore the first spontaneous videos on the Imagine Creatively channel! Ina Curic And read more about Ina here.

This small Chinese fund, soon a foundation, has been established as a result of mutual thinking by the founders. We believe that there is a common ground between all cultures and it is important to build on that instead of on the differences. Out of the four founders, it is Ms Liu Jian from Beijing and Thore Vestby from Oslo who are running this philanthropic undertaking. Over the last two years, they have carried out a series of small projects helping young people from China to meet their counterparts in the West. And vice versa. “We believe that before they are “destroyed” by the adult world, structure and life, they can develop friendship, knowledge and inspiration across national and cultural borders”, says Ms Liu. “We believe that some of them will come into situations later in their professional lives were this early established atmosphere of understanding can be beneficial for...