October 2020

On the 7th UN Day – two days ago – the 50th UN member, Honduras, ratified the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty – or the Treaty On the Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It’s a milestone in the global struggle to make nuclear weapons a parenthesis in human history. We have much to thank millions of peace workers for as well as, of course, ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) – winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2017. It’s well-known to most that Iran has been harassed for years – you may say for not having nuclear weapons and for having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and votes in favour of adopting the TPNW; Israel which is a nuclear country has not signed any relevant treaty and obstructs the ongoing work of Middle Eastern UN members to secure that the region of the Middle East will become a nuclear-free zone....

2020 marks the 75th Anniversary of the world’s most important and visionary organisation, the United Nations. Everything TFF has done during its 35 years of existence has been based on one mission – namely, to promote the UN Charter’s Article 1 which states that peace shall be brought about by peaceful means. That is a typical Gandhian inspiration – “the means are the goals in-the-making” – as he said. You cannot use destructive means to achieve constructive goals. Regrettably, one hears many – thoughtless – voices accusing “the UN” of being too expensive, too bureaucratic, too ineffective, too corrupt, too this and that. Why must this be seen as an indicator of intellectual poverty? First, as stated by its first Secretary-General, Norwegian Trygve Lie – the UN shall never become stronger or better than its member states want to it to be. And, sadly, they are more nationalist than globalist....

Den norske arkitekt og fredsforkæmper, Susanne Urban har forfattet en righoldig bog, som netop er udkommet for at markere at en af verdens absolut ledende samfundsforskere, Johan Galtung, fylder 90 den 24. oktober 2020. Han er matematiker, sociolog, freds- og fremtidsforsker med en utrolig produktion af foredrag, artikler, gæsteprofessorater og hederdoktorater bag sig – f.eks. medvirket i 170 bøger heraf som eneforfatter af 96. Her mere om ham på Norsk Biografisk Leksikon. Bogen er det 7. skrift fra Hardangerakademiet for fred, utvikling og miljø. Den er på 115 sider og har tre hovedkapitler – de som udtrykkes i undertitlen – og den er fyldt med forklarende tekster, figurer, tegninger og fotografier – så man drives videre i denne forskers univers på en utroligt levende måde. Susanne Amira Maria Urban er kosmopolit, bosat i Norge siden 1977 – belønnet som “innvandrere med suksess i Norge.” Hun er arkitekt, byplanlægger og samfundsdebattør...

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 here and on The Transnational that you are on, just use...

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This paper was written in 2015. Republished here on the occasion of Galtung’s 90th birthday, October 24, 2020. It was originally published at TMS, Transcend Media Service 1.  Definitions and Hypotheses: An Overview Definition: An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery: Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. (1) In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence. (2) The Center is the continental USA and the Periphery much of the world.  Like any system it has a life-cycle reminiscent of an organism, with...

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the question of how oligarchs maintain their grasp on an excessive share of wealth and power when, as Shelley pointed out, the have-nots are many, while the power-holders are few. Please click to access “Ye Are Many They Are Few” The Peterloo Massacre Rise, like lions after slumberIn unvanquishable number!Shake your chains to earth like dewWhich in sleep had fallen on you:Ye are many, they are few! Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his poem “The Masque of Anarchy”, from which the above quotation is taken, in response to the Peterloo Massacre, which took place at St. Peter’s field in Manchester on the 16th of August 1819. Cavalry soldiers of the government charged a crowd of 60,000 citizens who were peacefully assembled to ask for better representation in Parliament. They were suffering from unemployment...

Louis Kriesberg October 21, 2020 Louis Kriesberg This post also appears on the  Beyond Intractability website.  The blog is the Constructive Conflict Initiative / COVID-19 Blog and Lou’s essay is here.   We Americans are beset by many awful circumstances in our country and in the world. As analysts and sometimes as activists we examine such developments, analyzing why they are bad and how they have happened. So many bad things are occurring every day, it is hard to fight against any one of them, as new ones distract us. Below, I sketch out an approach to taking actions that have a good chance to be effective and satisfying in overcoming objectionable circumstances. First, we should select three or four matters that we believe should be bettered. We can each choose those matters that particularly concern us. The matters may or may not be connected and they will vary in...

20. oktober 2020 Det er nok så tænkeligt at du aldrig har hørt om Arne Nielsen Hansen – men han er en uhyre interessant og mangfoldig nordjyde på 81 år. Du kan læse mere om ham hér. Jeg vil gerne fortælle dig at Arne er en af Danmarks mest betydende mediepersonligheder – igennem flere år end de fleste – en fremstående humanist og landets eneste freds- og global-journalist (læg mærke til kombinationen). Og så sidder han på en lokal-radio – den i Frederikshavn. Han er primus motor bag den righoldige side, Flygtninge og Fred, hvor han producerer alt materiale selv. Og det handler om et bredt spektrum – udover flygtninge og fred også demokrati, klima, miljø og menneskerettigheder. Og han har gjor det i over 20 år. Sådan hér ser manden med de levende, nysgerrige øjne ud. Han er et meget beskedent menneske og ville sikkert helst have sig frabedt...

“Den norske forvaltningen av Nobels fredsvisjon er et totalhavari” sier Fredrik S. Heffermehl. I sin nye bok “Medaljens bakside. Nobels fredspris – hundre års ubrukte muligheter” tar han et kraftig oppgjør med hvordan Nobelkomiteen har forvaltet arven etter Alfred Nobel. Mere om bogen på the Nobel Peace Prize Watch hvor du også kan bestille den. Omtale og anmeldelser Journalisten Bistandsaktuelt Fagpressenytt And Heffermehl’s criticism of the 2020 Peace Prize to the World Food Program as he expresses it on the French public radio RFI

Introduction Below is a long interview from Konrad Stachnio with Richard Falk – TFF Associate – on a wide-ranging set of questions, which stretched by knowledge past its breaking point, especially in assessing where the technological innovations on the horizons will lead us.It is one of 17 conversations published by Clarity Press under the title, Civilization in Overdrive: Conversations at the Edge of the Human Future.Preface by Stachnio after interview.The book is recommended strongly.It can be ordered here Originally published on Richard Falks blog on September 12, 2020 Civilization in Overdrive, edited by Konrad Stachnio “If a digital Fukuyama tells the world that ‘the end of history’ has been reached, he should be scorned this time around.” KONRAD STACHNIO: Do you know what is the role of the so-called Black Budget in building the power of the USA as a global security state? RICHARD FALK: It is not possible for someone without access...