Meanwhile, Around the World
EDITORIAL, 29 May 2017
#483 | Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
A lot is happening. As in “Trump’s First Hundred Days of War Crimes” (CouterPunch 19 May 2017), breaking international law as if it did not exist, killing in Yemen-Pakistan-Somalia with drones-bombing-assaults in spite of neither being involved in armed conflict nor attacked by any one of them. Hence, no right to self-defense. Pure aggression.
Or Trump’s speech to Muslim leaders in Riyadh (Robert Fisk, The Independent 21 May 2017), Sunni (good)-Shia (evil), blaming Iran for terrorism–oblivious of the Islamic State being mainly Sunni and Iraq, presumably USA-protected, mainly Shia. Babble from the Trump bubble.
The Saudis relish. Two rotten states–one killing its own people, one killing all over; one rich, one poor–made deals. The rich one bought what the poor one has in excess, “beautiful” (Trump) arms, and invested in the poor’s infrastructure; the poor one being up for sale.
Western philosophy. Hobbes (Leviathan 1651) argued to “unite the multitude in one and the same person”, the sovereign King. “Hitler fulfilled Hobbes’ ideal” (Library of Social Science, May 1 2017): “You are flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. You are all one, belonging to me”. Extreme, yes, but as Western as violence.
War = genocide. “Like sheep to slaughter” (the above source on April 25) compares German soldiers WWI “on their way to the Western front” to Jews WWII “on their way to the death camps”. German soldiers mobilized suffered 65% casualties, Russian 76, French 73, Austrian 90. Why? For the sake of something above human lives: to lay down their lives for the nation, the state. Pathological. Idiotic.
Western civilization. “Cortez in Mexico” (Spaniaposten), used the enemies of the Aztecs to fight one empire to establish their own. Next to Cortez’ palace in Cuernavaca was “the first church in America next to a brothel where native women were kept as sex slaves so that the soldiers could be forgiven right after their visits”. Practical.
Manchester. 22 killed, terrorism; innocent, young. Terrible. The last three decades USA-UK may have killed one million in Iraq, among them very innocent babies. Does UK think that this can happen without some violence in return? Of course they are not that stupid and play verbal games as if violence started in Manchester. Trump called the terrorists “evil losers”. Evil, like USA-UK, yes. Losers? Let’s see.
Norway. With no comparison, the major terrorist event took place in Norway, 77 killed on one day by Breivik–inspired by the Oklahoma bombing and the UNA Bomber–many of them youths down to 14-year-old. Norway has done a lot to keep it off records. Breivik sees himself as a Christian crusader. He is not referred to as religious extremist-terrorist but as a psychiatric case. In spite of being in IT contact with his kind of people all over, as a “lone wolf” (Spaniaposten 14-04-17).
Tokyo. PM Abe drafts a new A9–which proscribes warfare and arms for Japan; not pacifist, but to punish Japan–to accommodate the alliance with USA: with a National Defense Force “in cooperation with the international community for the purpose of maintaining peace and security”. “International community”, the new name for USA?
North Korea. Bruce Cummings (The Nation 10 Apr 2017) on North Korea”: “15,000 underground facilities of a national security nature, the fourth largest army in the world, 10,000 artillery pieces north of Seoul, mobile missiles that can hit all American military bases in the region (there are hundreds), and nuclear weapons”. Moreover, not North Korea but the Bush administration broke the 1994-2000 agreements Clinton had worked out to freeze NK plutonium production, buy all of its medium-and long-range missiles, and with Gen. Jo Myong-Rok /more important than Kim son and grandson/ not to bear “hostile intent”.
The basic demands of Pyongyang can easily be met: a peace treaty, normalization of diplomatic relations to Seoul and USA, a nuclear-free, UN-inspected Korean peninsula. An afternoon job for peace, USA?
Deir Yassin. 9 April is the trauma day for Norway, the Nazi German invasion in 1940. And for Palestine, the prophetic, emblematic Jewish terrorist massacre of Deir Yassin, one of “over 500 villages and towns /that/ were depopulated–to transform a multi-cultural multi-religious Palestine into the ‘Jewish state of Israel'”. (Mazin Qumsieyh, Deir Yassin to Egypt 10 April 2017). Never forget.
EU. Naples cartoon “Looks like Europe will leave Great Britain”. Precisely. Once French-German, EU became increasingly Anglo-American, now French-German again. Continental Europe, with UK in Anglo-America. This may liberate EU from anti-Russia paranoia and NATO, and extend Europe from Brest to Brest, and beyond, to Vladivostok. Historical.
Incidentally, the Anglo and Anglo-American idea of defining the leading power “on the continent” as enemy applies to China–but there is much money to be made. It applies to EU, hence either control or try to destroy it. It applies to Russia, hence control and exploit, the Yeltsin period, or isolate, polarize, threaten. Maybe strike.
China. OBOR, One Belt, One Road. China, with Russia, fills the gap in East-West transportation-communication-cooperation due to West’s obsession with North-South–so far with at least five rail/road links. Chinese bilateral win-win deals with all others? They must insist on multilateralism, neither Chinese, nor Western; something new.
Africa. D+C Development and Cooperation 3 Apr 2017 has two articles: “Sliding towards genocide” about Reverend Peter Tibi’s peace mediation in South Sudan–may he succeed!; and “Uganda had benefitted from peace journalism“, “more than merely reporting events, putting them in context by engaging communities”. Good luck!
USA: “How to Revive the Peace Movement” (The Nation 16 Mar 2017). No, not as anti-war movement only, but for negative peace by solving conflicts and conciling traumas, and for positive peace through equity and empathy. Enhancing the basics: Human Needs. And Nature’s Needs.
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Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. Prof. Galtung has published more than 1500 articles and book chapters, over 470 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and more than 170 books on peace and related issues, of which more than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years – 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press. More information about Prof. Galtung and all of his publications can be found at transcend.org/galtung.
Tags: Geopolitics, Headlines, MATW, Terrorism, Trump, War
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 29 May 2017.
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“Two rotten states”
OK then. Back into the trenches. Lets pile hatred up and throw it at each other.
Pablo
Well at least Galtung has stopped pretending that he doesn’t hate the US. :-D
Poor paranoid USA has to be loved by all despite its behavior. People complain about Assange not liking the USA. Who would, except those bribed or under the control of the “exceptional country”?
@rosemerry
You don’t have to like the US, but if we descent into hatred what is the purpose of that?
Will it make for a better world if Mr Galtung scream that the US is “rotten” and I that (say) North Korea and Cuba are “rotten”?
Sheer idiocy IMHO.
Lets walk back a minute and take a deep breath.
Why not consider the mere statehood and state power as “rotten”? As an individual I see no problem with that view. It may be that the state is a necessary evil, but lets assume that all states (and nations) and other similar constructs are nothing more than that. In that case it is a sign of healthy scepticism and humanity to counter the concepts of state and nation.
China is rotten. North Korea is rotten. US is rotten. Cuba is rotten. Venezuela is rotten. Russia is rotten. Costa Rica is rotten. Australia is rotten.
The list goes on..
Hello Dr. Galtung. Today the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, even though the United States has one of the highest levels of carbon emissions overall and per capita. I was wondering how this plays into your prediction that the US Empire will fall by 2020.
Reply from Prof. Johan Galtung:
An empire is a strong center-periphery grip on the world. Trump’s policies are isolating the USA, less grip in favor of his “America First”. He has lost his grip on Catholic EU members long ago, but still has some on UK, Norway and Denmark, like USA evangelicals. I am not suggesting this is religious, but these are strong families of countries, nations, states. Opting out of Paris gives him less possibility to negotiate within Paris, a framework more than an agreement.
Hence, less empire.
Best regards,
Johan Galtung
With all the resources in USA, UK-Europe (similar yet dissimilar), great things could be achieved if one tried to achieve great things. No, not a bigger ’empire’, subjugation of Africa and Asia, but peaceful relations, truly peaceful relations, with common understanding and benefits.
Instead, ‘we’ are stuck with ancient thinking and ideas. Palestine/Israel could be solved, uniting the whole region. Make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons free zone, a good start. North Korea, as mentioned above by Galtung. Great things could be achieved. The ideas are there, and pretty straightforward. Not easy, but often quite obvious.
If negotiating without insulting is too difficult, start with something simpler, and lets move on from there: stop dropping bombs on anything that moves. And stop uttering threats every 3rd time your heart beats.
People want decent lives elsewhere too. Stop this idiocy of “they hate our values”. No. No, they don’t. They hate our policies. They hate our bombs and our wars. And economic strangulation. The lack of jobs. Want to reduce migration and the threat of terrorist attacks? Start with something so simple a 3 year old could understand it. Stop dropping bombs, and try to create jobs. No, not by making bombs. That doesn’t work. May as well wet your pants to keep warm.
Manchester and London? Times have changed. Now there are consequences for wars beyond just a bad headline here and there. Blowback. Every leading politician knew this was a likely consequence when going to war, so don’t stand there and lie to us.