Violence-prevention

Negotiations were supposed to start in Geneva today, January 25. The media is full of analyses of why it won’t happen and how virtually everybody disagrees with everybody else about who should be there and who should not. That’s all surface, however. Objectively speaking is it of course hugely difficult. No one would envy chief UN envoy, Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura. That said, a totally different perspective may be helpful: It has to do with a simple distinction that few still in the international community are able to make – that between the conflict and the violence in the conflict zone. Almost all conflicts can be mitigated or solved – but the more violence infused into the conflict (and the longer it lasts), the more difficult it will be to find a solution – because on top of the original conflict you build anger, sorrow, wish for revenge, traumas...

By Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney Prefatory Note What follows here is An Open Letter to the American People: Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age. It was jointly written by Richard Falk in collaboration with David Krieger and Robert Laney. The three of us have been long connected with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NAPF. The NAPF focuses its effort on the menace posed by nuclear weaponry and the urgency of seeking nuclear disarmament. The nuclear agreement with Iran and the North Korean nuclear test explosion are reminders of the gravity of the issue, and should serve as warnings against the persistence of complacency, which seems to be the prevailing political mood judging from the policy debates that have taken place during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. This complacency is encouraged by the media that seems to have forgotten about nuclear dangers since the end...

Baher Kamal, in – And All of a Sudden Syria! writes: “The “big five” /the UN veto powers/ have just agreed /Res 2254 of 18-12-2015/– time to end the Syrian five – year long human tragedy – they waited until 300,000 innocent civilians were killed–4,5 million humans lost as refugees and homeless at home, hundreds of field testing of state-of-the-art drones made, and daily US, British, French and Russian bombing carried out”. But no Chinese bombing. One term in the resolution, road map, already spells failure. There is another reason: missing issues. But something can be done. Roads twist, turn and may be far from straight. Traveling a road is a linear, one step or mile-stone after another, process, by the map. The West loves linearity; as causal chains (“falling dominoes”) from a root cause; as deductive chains from axioms; as ranks from high to low. However, is that not...

By Jonathan Power The year’s first major atrocity – Saudi Arabia’s execution by beheading on Sunday of 47 people, including an important Shia ayotallah who led Shia protests against discrimination by the Sunni majority but never committed an act of violence. Even the Islamic State doesn’t behead 47 in one day. Although beheading is swift it strikes most of us as being grotesque as well as medieval. The Saudis are aware of their image in the outside world but nevertheless persist, as if they want to tell the rest of the world: “Back off. Our Wahhabi (ultra puritanical) morality is our morality. We are a belief system unto ourselves.” They exported the political convictions that have evolved out of Wahhabism to Afghanistan (with money for guns along with the theology), first to fight the Russians, then to arm the Taliban and later to allow them to “ignore” that the Taliban...

By Farhang Jahanpour While Christians celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25th, the Persians celebrate one of their oldest and most festive celebrations on Dec. 21st, the eve of winter solstice, the longest night and the shortest day of the year. In Iran this night is called “Shab-e Yalda”, the night of the birth or nativity of the sun, or Mithra the Sun-god. According to Orthodox Christians, the Armenians and the Eastern churches, Jesus Christ was born on January 6, and the celebration of his birthday on December 25th, may in fact be born out of the Persian Mithraic influence. In ancient Persian mythology, Mitra (Mithra, Mehr), the God of love, friendship, and light, or the sun-god, was miraculously born from a rock by a river or stream on this longest night of the year. In his fifth volume of the collected works, Symbols of Transformation, Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist,...

Prefatory Note This post consists of my written text for a public presentation on the theme of “Edward Said’s Humanism and the Rejection of the State Department’s Definition of Anti-Semitism” at a conference at Fresno State University, Nov. 6, 2015 bearing the title “Universities at the Crossroads: The Assault on Academic Freedom,” which was the last event of the “Edward Said Lecture Series” organized by Professor Vida Samiian of the Department of Linguistics at FSU. My talk as given departed considerably from this text. In these remarks, I will present the following analysis: (1) The most ardent Zionist forces have longed tried to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with hatred of Jews, the traditional understanding of anti-Semitism, but this effort has intensified recently, and even has been endorsed by the US Government and is currently under consideration by the University of California and elsewhere; (2) Examine the definition of...

The process has now gone full circle, from Sykes-Picot Agreement negotiated from 1915 to 16 May 1916, about control of the Ottoman Empire, when beaten, to England now joining France in bombing Syria. “Violence In and By Paris” two weeks ago was wrong about England wanting to stay out: the House of Commons on 02 Dec 2015 voted 397 to 223 for bombing; 56 Labor MPs for, only 7 Conservative MPs against. Russia played a minor role in Sykes-Picot as now also in bombing maybe mainly the opposition to Assad. As Robert Savio points out, “They all fight to the last Syrian.” The likelihood of an atrocious Paris 13 November type violence in London went up many points. And Russia had a civilian plane bombed. The USA is as addicted to bombing as a hammer to a nail, not only to use allies and train locals. James A. Lucas, “The...

Prefatory Note The article below is based on an opinion piece published by Middle East Eye on December 1, 2015 under the title “A Different Response to ISIS after Paris.” My modified text places its focus on the originality of megaterrorism and its distinctive challenges, suggesting that the choice of response needs to be extended beyond the iron cage of militarism and vengeance. Also, it is essential for analysts and leaders to envision the response to the response as well as being preoccupied with how best to hit back. Increasingly, American politicians treat the challenge as if playing poker whereas the realities of the situation call for a chess players’ natural disposition to think ahead as many moves as possible. Finally, given the religious and civilizational dimensions of current versions of megaterrorism, it is vital to guard against various manifestations of Islamophobia. What separates megaterrorism from other more customary forms...

För Fredsrörelsen på Orust Ordförande och TFF Associate Till Försvarsdepartementet 103 33 Stockholm Re: Yttrande om promemorian om Samförståndsavtal med Nato om värdlandsstöd. DS 2015:39 PM om värdlandsavtal Fredsrörelsens organisationer har sent omsider fått ta del av denna promemoria. I hast vill nu Fredsrörelsen på Orust avge detta yttrande. Det förtjänar att påpekas att den samlade fredsrörelsen i Sverige har genom en mer än hundraårig tradition av intresserad efterforskning och fördjupning i frågor om konflikter och konfliktlösning uppnått en fördjupad kunskap, oftast förmedlad av kända fredsforskare som Johan Galtung, Håkan Wiberg, Jan Öberg och av dem som vid svenska universitet inbjudits till talrika seminarier, alltså internationella profiler som nämnde Galtung, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, och böcker av Daisaku Ikeda, Howard Zinn och andra. En överväldigande bevisning finns om att militära medel inte förmår lösa konflikter. Konfliktlösning och bestående fred måste eftersträvas och förverkligas med fredliga medel, avspänning, samarbete m m...

Lund, December 10, 2015 On the day of the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at Oslo City Hall To whom it may concern, including the media We know – and Alfred Nobel knew – how devastating war and arms races are, and how little security we get for all the money we spend on military forces. The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law. Every day more and more of us see, from the Middle East warfare, from the refugee crisis, and many other chilling reminders, the mandatory urgency of a change in world politics. Alfred Nobel decided to give one fifth of his fortune for a prize to promote disarmament and resolution of all conflicts through negotiations and legal means,...

Short answer: No. The Paris event triggered war journalism; no peace journalism was observed. To doubt that anti-IS violence will work is not peace journalism, only war journalism with question marks. Peace journalism was conceived in the 1960s as a reaction to foreign news negativism, and focus on actors and elite people/countries. Not as advocacy of peace, but as journalism about peace; like war journalism is not advocacy of war, but indispensable journalism about war, reporting what happens, and who is winning. It can be done well or not, and often becomes propaganda for one side, in national more than local and global media (with Anglo-American accent, however). Thus, peace journalism was never a substitute for war journalism. The idea was to have both, complementing each other.

French president Hollande has declared war – war on terror, George W. Bush style. Like September 11, 2001 wasn’t a war, Paris November 13 wasn’t a war. It was a criminal act. The war on terror has been an exceptionally stupid war. In the years before 9/11 about 400 people died worldwide by terrorist attack. The Global Terror Index informs us that 32.600 died in 2014 – 80 times more! And, still, the only answer everywhere is: More war on terror. The only – intelligent – exception is Italy whose PM has announced that Italy is going to counter terrorism by investing billions of Euros in culture, art and creativity – showing the world what civilisation is. Politicians and the mainstream media seemingly try to make us believe – as if we were uneducated – that we in the West are the main victims and innocent victims at that. We...