April 2005

The culture wars are still on — and heating up on the family front. Yet even now, progressives are more comfortable talking about what’s right or wrong in “public” life — the widening gap between rich and poor, the immorality of an unnecessary war, policies ignoring global warming. But family relations directly influence what people consider normal and moral in all relations — public as well as private. Progressives cannot let reactionary fundamentalists continue to dominate public discussion of “private” life and “family” values. We cannot build a healthy democracy on a foundation of authoritarianism and intolerance. Family relations affect how people think and act. They affect how people vote and govern, and whether the policies they support are just and genuinely democratic or violent and oppressive. Slogans like “traditional values” often mask a family “morality” suited to undemocratic, rigidly male-dominated, chronically violent cultures. They market a “traditional family” where...

Features collected by TFF • Updated regularly, April 28, 2005 News out of Africa are mostly bad news – AIDS, poverty, humanitarian catastrophes, war. Burundi today is a story about a hard struggle for peace and reasons for hope. It is about rebels laying down their weapons and demobilisation and a new post-war defence force. It is about elections, power sharing, and a truth and reconciliation committee. And it is about an absolutely essential UN mission – and a world community that still does not reward those who move to peace enough. The story about the struggle for peace in Burundi has hardly been written and certainly not reached beyond the tiny circle of specialists. Of course, there are not only good news. But hugely complex and risky, the peace process is still a story of hope. It deserves to be told worldwide. If Burundi got more media attention, it...

– “Click on the above link and see what fascinating path Gudrun has created in her life. With remarkable creativity, energy and devotion she has now spearheaded a new mass movement in Sweden, Feminist Initiative – FI – that has, in less than four weeks, put the feminist issues on the Sweden’s political and media agenda in an entirely new way and put the skids under all other parties from right to left. It’s 13 years since Gudrun joined TFF as adviser and she serves today as a board member who helps us – with other strong women Associates – to integrate the feminist perspective with our work for peace. Gudrun sees TFF as another platform for global impact – her own as well as that of Feminist Initiative. We are very happy to have such a visionary fiery spirit and like-minded sister on board,” says TFF director Jan Oberg....

LONDON – Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi, supposedly the world’s largest slum, home to 800,000 souls, is known for its “flying toilets”. With no sewerage system the inhabitants defecate into plastic bags, which are then thrown onto nearby wasteland. How can it be, after billions of dollars of aid to Kenya, hundreds of reports on upgrading squatters’ settlements and the headquartering in Nairobi of the UN agency, Habitat, charged with urban improvement, that no one has built Kibera a sewerage system? Most of the people I approached refused to accompany me to Kibera, known as a den of dirt and iniquity. Habitat didn’t respond to my e-mails. Finally a young man, a teacher of the Koran, agreed to show me the inside track. And so I made my first visit for 25 years. It was always bad. Now despite the signs outside a couple of shops advertising “second hand...

Where democracy, safety and justice begin   PressInfo # 221  April 28, 2005 By Riane Eisler, TFF Associate*   The culture wars are still on — and heating up on the family front. Yet even now, progressives are more comfortable talking about what’s right or wrong in “public” life — the widening gap between rich and poor, the immorality of an unnecessary war, policies ignoring global warming. But family relations directly influence what people consider normal and moral in all relations — public as well as private. Progressives cannot let reactionary fundamentalists continue to dominate public discussion of “private” life and “family” values. We cannot build a healthy democracy on a foundation of authoritarianism and intolerance. Family relations affect how people think and act. They affect how people vote and govern, and whether the policies they support are just and genuinely democratic or violent and oppressive. Slogans like “traditional values”...

Development aid aims to raise the living standards of the poorest. Parties at war are sure to obtain what could be called war aid – i.e. weapons, ammunition, and training – from governments and arms dealers. Post-war countries may receive peacekeepers, reconstruction and humanitarian aid. What is missing is peace aid. Peace aid increases the chances that the other types of aid will bring normalization. What is peace aid? Peace aid focuses on the human dimensions of violence, the hatred, the wounded souls. It empowers local civil society to monitor a peace process and train people in reconciliation and non-violent conflict-resolution – i.e. future violence prevention. It supports the development of new schoolbooks, a fair and healing account of history and, above all, a culture of peace. Peace aid does exist in today’s NGO community, but it is the weakest link of all and governments generally don’t appreciate its vital importance. It’s about learning how...

The Burundians want justice and peace. A study done by Observatoire de l’Action Gouvernementale (OAG ) shows that 83% of the population want a TRC to be created, 82% want a special tribunal for crimes against humanity. Burundi has demobilised the majority of its fighters and former child soldiers are being cared for. Refugees have returned home. Leaders in exile return, former rebels form parties. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been decided. These and other step towards peace are huge – given the history and situation of the country (2). But, alas, the peace process itself costs money and requires many types of independent expertise.   Why does the international community let Burundi down? People walking the road to peace should be rewarded. But where in this world shall Burundi’s government and NGOs find the human assistance and the peace aid to meet all the Arusha goals in time?...

We want to share with you the happy news that Jan Oberg, TFF co-founder and director has been awarded the “2005 Small Peace Prize” of the Swedish Peace Council. The Prize is instituted as “complimentary to the ‘big’ Nobel Peace Prize.” The Council is an umbrella organisation for the following members: Artists for Peace, the Iraqi Democratic Association, Association of Christian Humanism and Social Perspective, Women for Peace, Psychologists Against Nuclear Weapons, the Swedish Peace Committee, Swedish Women’s Left Association, and the Society of Friends (Quakers) plus 5 other associated NGOs. The Prize – which comes with 25.000 Swedish kronor – rewards an individual’s “courage and idealism in promoting reconciliation among groups in conflicts outside Sweden.” In its motivation, the Council emphasises the energy and creativity by which TFF’s international work is carried out; its integrated approach to research and activism based on about 100 highly competent people, all voluntarily...

LONDON – Tanzania has re-invented itself twice – the first time in 1964 after a bloody revolution had overthrown the Omani-descended Sultan who ruled the neighboring spice island of Zanzibar. Tanganyika, as it was then, persuaded the successful African-led rebels to join their island with the mainland, and Tanzania came into being. This union remains precarious because of latent Zanzibari nationalism after too many years of misrule. The second time was when Julius Nyerere, the founding father of independence, stepped down in 1985 and two successive presidents over the last twenty years have ushered in free market reforms, fundamentally altering the direction of a once moribund socialist economy. But the legacy of the Zanzibari revolution of 1964 and of Nyerere still hang over the country. Nyerere, who died four years ago, had been a teacher and he became what was in fact Tanzania’s headmaster. He was incorruptible, unpretentious but totally...

2005 is the tenth anniversary of the International Crisis Group, ICG. ” The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, multinational organisation, with over 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.” – it states on its homepage.* It works with about 50 conflicts. In a media release of April 13, 2005, Crisis Group describes itself – with limited humility – as “widely regarded as the world’s leading independent, non-government source of information, analysis and advice to governments and international organisations on conflict issues.” By whom, one might humbly ask, by what circles? It is true that mainstream media often describe the ICG as prestigious or well-respected. People who are not too familiar with politics and conflicts may go for the names and public relations of an organisation, and in those terms, ICG is certain world-leading, in spite of the...

LONDON – I used to jog down the back roads of Jinja, the old cotton center laid bare by 15 years of murderous civil war. There was a dirt-covered sign pointing to a rutted road: “To the source of the Nile.” I would cut through the long grass and the sweet smell of jacaranda and frangipani, past the long abandoned Mango Café, and arrive at a sharp cleft in the hill. There, nestling below, the headwaters of the Nile burst into view. No wonder, I would think, that Winston Churchill called Uganda “the pearl of Africa, a fairy tale land”. But in mind’s eye I could see the future and now it has arrived. Two hotels have grabbed the spot. And there is a plan, well advanced, to build a dam to provide electricity for Uganda’s rushing economic development. The country’s untamed beauty, preserved by misrule and war, is being...

By whom, one might humbly ask, by what circles? It is true that mainstream media often describe the ICG as prestigious or well-respected. People who are not too familiar with politics and conflicts may go for the names and public relations of an organisation, and in those terms, ICG is certain world-leading, in spite of the fact that virtually all the top names are “have-beens”. However, professionals in conflict-analysis, -resolution and peacemaking may find reasons to question the image ICG promotes of itself. In what follows, the focus is on general status and connections as well as on intellectual/research pertaining to a couple of conflicts – thus not excluding that Crisis Group may do better work elsewhere.   Non-governmental? Independent? A visit to Crisis Group’s website reveals that 40% of its funds come from governments: Agence Intergouvernementale de la francophonie, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Holland, Finland, France,...