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Johan and Irene Galtung On August 6, Hiroshima Day, 2024, I published a long, very well-documented article by Irene Galtung, the daughter of peace research professor Johan Galtung, about the tragic circumstances surrounding his last months alive and the human rights violations they both had to endure. What is left of that publication now is only my foreword below. As the editor and publisher of The Transnational, I have decided under threat to delete it, and I owe our readers to explain how I came to that decision. The reason is that her mother and Johan’s wife, Fumiko Nishimura Galtung, her two half-brothers, Andreas Galtung and Harald Eide Galtung and her brother Fredrik Galtung, had turned to lawyer Jon Wessel-Aas at the Glitterlind Law Firm in Oslo, asking him to demand that it be deleted in its entirety. The reason behind that demand and warning was that they considered that...

Jan Oberg January 15, 2025 Five years ago, Trump wanted to buy Greenland, got Danish PM Mette Fredriksen’s response that it was ‘absurd’ and then cancelled his visit and scolded her to the point where all the trousers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were shaking. Shortly afterwards – as a plaster on his wounds? – negotiations about American bases in Denmark began. The US now has 3 bases in Denmark, access to 12 base areas in Norway, 17 bases in Sweden and 15 in Finland – all under US jurisdiction. And now the sight is on Canada and Greenland – “we need it for economic, national security’ as Trump stated and did not rule out the use of military means and economic sanctions to get it. Everything is related to everything else. That is, if you want to see it. Finland and Sweden rushed down the NATO mouse hole...

War takes no brain. Everyone can start a fight. Humanity needs civilised conflict resolution now. We’re making intelligent peace through new thinking on this online public education community. In 2025, we’ll serve many more subscribers with new initiatives and build a peace-intelligent community on Substack. And we’ll continue to serve you here on The Transnational. Of course! Now, read about it on TFF Substack Subscribe! Join! Share!

) My friend and solidarity colleague, Biljana Vankovska, has been dismissed as director of the Center of the Global Changes Center where she is a full Professor at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, in a chilling encroachment on academic freedom. The Center was conceived and brought to life by Biljana a year and a half ago and had already built a reputation for academic excellence mainly on the basis of a stimulating conference devoted to “the emerging cooperative multipolar system” and due to her ability to attract world-class scholars to join the Center’s Board and take part in this inaugural event. As the eloquent explanatory essay below indicates, this action by an educational administrator in her university was based on trumped-up charges. Biljana’s explanation that this punitive action in response to a development that undoubtedly enhanced the academic reputation of this Macedonian rings true—namely, that the government...

Talk at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, September 2010 Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen It is a great honor to be on a panel with the Director of CPC-CC Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, the Editor-in-chief of China Daily, the Dean of the National Office of Chinese Language, the Deputy Commander of the People’s Liberation Army.  I express my gratitude to the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the American Friends Service Committee for having brought me to this tenth visit to China since 1973, and to Beijing Foreign Studies University for inviting me to this Forum on Public Diplomacy and China’s International Image. I define public diplomacy as diplomacy for the people and by the people. The purpose is neither public relations nor propaganda, but to bring the peoples of the world together by making them understandable to each other.  Like languages have their own logic,...

Eastern Aleppo. al-Nusra occupation. Photo © Jan Oberg 2016 TFF is also your go-to source for understanding the Syria catastrophe in the making from now on. Jan Oberg December 9, 2024 Introduction: The colonialist mentality Few things should surprise us anymore regarding the un-principled nature of the contemporary Western world. One day it sees a genocide and keeps supporting its ongoing barbarism. The next day – actually December 8 in the early morning – it fully supports terrorism, which, allegedly, it has been fighting since September 11, 2001. NATO countries such as the US and Turkey are the main supporters of the terrorist movements that have now occupied the cultured country, Syria, home to 25 million extremely mixed people. As far as I have looked into it, no Western leader has pointed out that taking over an entire country and sending its leadership fleeing is a violation of international law;...

The collective cynicism is ugly. The innocent Syrian people are now doomed. The author hopes that his predictions shall soon be proven wrong… Jan Oberg December 8, 2024 This article was published at 02:36, about 4 hours before the HTS terrorists occupied Damascus. • Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen reports tonight, December 8, 2024, that Russia, Iran, Turkey call for immediate end to hostilities in Syria. My cynical interpretation of this – beyond pathetic – “call” is the following: Turkey knew and did/does all it can – again – to destroy Syria. Russia and Iran were surprised or act surprised; they can do nothing given their own malaise. Or their “intelligence” services failed miserably? Their common statement is devoid of constructive steps in this uniquely urgent situation. It does not even mention the Syrian government or its President. They “call for” terrorists who are approaching the outskirts of Damascus and have declared long...

A report from the Valdai Discussion Club event in November 2024 Biljana Vankovska Professor and director of the Global Changes Centre in Skopje, Macedonia and TFF Board member November 25, 2024 The intelligence services have probably noted this meticulously, but let me publicly share my experience of attending, for the first time, the annual conference of the renowned Valdai Discussion Club in Russia. For 20 years now, it has convened near Sochi, nestled among the stunning mountain peaks of the Russian Caucasus. Personally, this year stands out for many reasons. My first visits to China, and now to Russia, are undoubtedly among the most significant. Due to the format of the conference, I can’t describe Russia to you in the same way I recounted my experience in China. Over four days, around 130 participants (professors, analysts, strategists, diplomats, former generals, journalists—mostly from foreign countries, with fewer from Russia) representing over...

Peter Peverelli November 22, 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. Gordon DumoulinEchoes Of Volatile And Delusive Memory: Challenging Historical Interpretations Introduction ”Should the West see China as a threat or as an opportunity, a friend or an enemy? Are we heading for a third world war? Does the seemingly inexorable rise of China spell the doom of many values in which we have long believed? Might some form of communism prevail after all? Are China’s motives sinister? Is it trying to subvert us? Is it plotting mischief? Given the very bad press China has been getting in Western media, one might certainly think so. But the word ‘sinister’ has an interesting derivation. Its original meaning has nothing to do with wily orientalism. It means simply left-handed. Most of us...

For the last time, I am stating my views on the West’s genocide accusation and why I refuse to let the US/NATO/EU Cold War policy set the agenda and discourse about China in general and Xinjiang in particular. Jan Oberg November 19, 2024 PART I Part II A daring prediction I shall be surprised if, in about 10-15 years, Xinjiang – the North-Western province of China, its largest province three times larger than France – has not become a world-leading cultural and economic hub in humanity’s multipolar/nodal future world. It exhibits a tremendous cultural variety that seems to be moving towards unity in an amazing diversity. It has a vast natural resource potential. It interacts with eight very important neighbouring countries. It’s the crossroads of past, present and future. Xinjiang is the sine qua non of the new Silk Roads, also called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves...

Why it is essential to travel and see for yourself and then build networks and promote dialogues in the world’s likely most serious conflict. PART II PART I I recommend you read Part I before reading this second part. A dynamic melting pot You may ask where Xinjiang’s immense cultural diversity comes from. While I have not studied its history, I have learned that it has always been one big meeting place, dating back to the first Silk Roads, where people travelled, traded, explored, and migrated. Crisscrossing also borders with eight neighbours so that over time, it became a melting pot. There is a lot of diversity; each national group or ethnicity seems to have preserved vital elements of its own culture, language, aesthetics, way of living, dancing, etc. and also become part of the unity called Xinjiang and China. A woman I met told me that each nationality’s way of dancing could be...

November 16, 2024 I. Introduction The initiative for the “Nordic Delegation to China, September 7-15, 2024” was taken from the Norwegian side. Journalist and former editor Arild Vollan wanted to investigate claims in the media about an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in the autonomous region of Xinjiang in western China. Vollan selected an independent, cross-disciplinary and cross-political delegation group consisting of people who have worked with China and who wanted to get personal impressions of the conditions described in the previous section. The delegation consisted of: • Remi Strand, lawyer. • Thore Vestby, a former member of parliament (H) and former mayor of Frogn. • Arild Vollan (head of delegation), journalist and former editor. • Jan Øberg, PhD sociology, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Lund, Sweden. (1) The delegation itself developed the project’s mandate. Following an excursion to Xinjiang province, the delegation’s...