Reminiscing: Johan Galtung and I
JOHAN GALTUNG MEMORIAL, 31 Mar 2025
Antonio C. S. Rosa, Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
17 Feb 2025 – Slices of Reality, One Year after His Passing
Please visit: Memorial Site to Johan Galtung by Jan Oberg-TFF
Johan (R) and Antonio (L) in Vienna, 2007
A Human Being Greater than Life
I met my friend and mentor Johan Galtung when I was an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu in 1986. He had a personal way of dealing with his students: at the end of each semester Johan would host a small reception in his house. That was a door for he and I to become closer. I hardly knew that I was getting a lifelong best friend, well-wisher, employer, above all a mentor.
At that time, I was dealing with a life-threatening addiction and Johan proved to be magnanimous, human and kind in reacting to the greatest problem I faced in this lifetime. He was not religious, but was fond of Buddhist doctrines and teachings. This perspective kept him around trying to do what he could to assist and offer me a helping hand. I know first-hand of his superior character, his humanity and empathy; I bear witness to it and this has been the strongest link in our relationship. I have been in recovery, clean and sober, for 28 years now and can avail clearly, with a deep sense of gratitude, the value of his participation in my life—from 1986 to 2024.
TRANSCEND delegation at Siem Reap, Angkor-Vat in Cambodia, 2009.jpg
It was with this sort of attitude that Johan approached the fields of peace and conflict studies at all levels, worldwide: personal, familiar, school (bullying), workplace, religious, national, civilizational as presented in his book, 50 Years, 25 Intellectual Landscapes Explored.
I remember once, at a beach in Alicante, Spain where he lived at the time, he turned to me and said that all those passersby enjoying the early afternoon sun with their families and pets would remind him of Louis Armstrong’s hit song, What a Wonderful World, that went like this:
“I see friends shaking hands
saying how do you do
they’re really saying, I love you.”
Such was the mental environment of the man who left the tools for the world to save itself from itself. For human beings to become truly civilized and not merely deceiving themselves and wishful thinking about that.
Alicante beachfront
When I left Honolulu for Lisbon in 1994, we lost contact. Then, in 2004, I casually googled Johan Galtung and found his phone and address in France. I called, his wife Fumiko answered the phone, and we reconnected–for good. Shortly thereafter I was translating one of his books to Portuguese: Transcend and Transform. And after that, another one: Reporting Conflict-An Introduction to Peace Journalism.
In 2004 I moved to Torino, Italy to be a full time Johan’s assistant, working from a borrowed space at the Centro Studi Sereno Regis. The rest is history, as they say. I traveled the world under his auspice and in 2008 Johan envisioned, and we implemented, the pioneer TRANSCEND Media Service-Solutions Oriented Peace Journalism of which I have the privilege to be the editor to this day. It has been almost half a century of an spiritually uplifting journey that forever changed my life and my destiny. No drama intended in this factual account of my reality with Johan Galtung.
Centro Studi Sereno Regis – Antonio 2007
I once asked him two questions—among countless others—which I would like to share:
Antonio: What is your definition of an intellectual?
Johan: An intellectual is someone who transforms impressions into expressions.*********
Antonio: What is your definition of intelligence? (Johan’s IQ ranked him as genius.)
Johan: Intelligence is the ability of multitask.
Johan wrote some four or five books simultaneously, as I witnessed in his house in France, with piles of papers carefully organized in a seemingly disorganized fashion. The couple, Johan and Fumiko, had houses in Spain, France, USA, Norway and Japan, plus a trailer. They took care of all personally, never having a housemaid and taking pride on it. Fumi was a superb cook who ‘invented’ vegetarian dishes especially for (grateful) me.
He wrote an autobiography in Norwegian in 2006, with no translations: Johan without Land – On the Road to Peace through the World. In the epilogue, “war” is mentioned as a dying phenomenon. The other variants are: “guerrillas” as civilians against military, “state terrorism” as military against civilians (for example the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima and more recently the Israeli genocide in Gaza), and “terrorism” as civilian attacks on civilians. Also, “state terror” as new terrorist-based strategies, especially after 11 Sep 2001.
Celebrating Johan’s 87th birthday in Porto, Portugal, 2017
Johan’s birthday cake in Porto 2017
Johan was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in spite of being nominated practically every year since the 1950s. The reason: he was always very critical of Norwegian policies both domestic and foreign. The Nobel Peace committee in Oslo have been always composed of persons who disapproved or outright disliked him. He was a celebrity in Norway recognized on the streets but also hated by some others.
Unfairly accused of antisemitism, he was forced out of the World Peace Academy in Basel, Switzerland and of the European Peace University in Stadtschlaining, Austria (both of which had been cofounded by him).
Another phrase that made him (in)famous in 2009:
“I love the US republic and I hate the US empire.”
Fumi had to insist that he buy new shirts because he was anything but vain and superficial. Simple, humble, arrogant at times, demanding at other times, Johan was a prototype of the homo sapiens, a label mistakenly applied to humans as a whole. In my view, we are divided in 190 warring tribes, technological savages who would better fit the label homo barbaricus. Johan visited all of these tribes to give them civilizing lectures, insights, teachings.
After Mikhail Gorbachev implemented his Perestroika and dissolved the Soviet Empire, sources from inside the Kremlin informed Johan, in Moscow, that his papers and writings were used as reference material by showing him annotations and notes in their margins.
Prof. Johan Galtung receives Doctor Honoris Causa from the Complutense University of Madrid, 27 Jan 2017
Johan was not a founder of religion but his legacy will someday show that his approaches to conflict and peace studies will have the same impact on humanity that religions seek to have. Concentrating on the positives, points of agreement, acknowledging contradictions/differences and bent on searching for solutions with which all parts could live, he focused on cultures and structures as hosts to violence–as the smoke; conflict being the fire that must be put out in order to eliminate the former.
Johan’s MO was loyalty, intellectual integrity, personal honesty. He lived practically for the world. To conclude, another intimate moment we shared:
One day, we were working together in his house in France and during a break, we went to pick up berries in the garden. As we did it, he disclosed that at the University of Hawaii he felt helpless in trying to help me with the addiction problem, but waited, filled with compassion, for an opportunity to act. He quoted Buddhism as a major source of inspiration for him. Finally, that opportunity manifested. I was OK, he was OK.
I had the privilege of coming across a Spiritual Master from India and a Material Master from Norway. They changed the quality of my earthly life for the better by pointing out to me positive new directions. I still endeavor to live up to their high standards of excellence as a human being.
**********************
Johan in 2023
The Peace-Conflict Intellectual/Scholar—Changer of History
Johan Vincent Galtung, Ph.D. dr hc mult, a professor and researcher on peace studies, was born in Oslo, Norway on the same day that the UN would come to existence 15 years later. He was a mathematician–his first Ph.D.–, sociologist, political scientist and the founder of the academic disciplines of Peace and Conflict Studies. He founded the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (1959), the world’s first academic research center focused on peace studies, as well as the influential Journal of Peace Research (1964). He has helped found dozens of other peace centers around the world since.
He has served as a professor for peace studies at universities all over the world, including Columbia (New York), Oslo, Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Sichuan, Ritsumeikan (Japan), Princeton, Hawai’i, Tromsoe, Bern, Alicante (Spain), Islamic University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, plus many others on all continents. He has taught thousands of individuals inspiring them to work for the promotion of peace, mediation and the satisfaction of basic human needs.
He mediated in over 150 conflicts between states, nations, religions, civilizations, communities and persons since 1957. His contributions to peace theory and practice include conceptualization of peace-building, conflict mediation/transformation, reconciliation, nonviolence, theory of structural violence, theorizing about negative vs. positive peace, peace education and peace journalism. Prof. Galtung’s unique imprint on the study of conflict and peace stems from a combination of systematic scientific inquiry and a Gandhian ethics of peaceful means and harmony. His/our TRANSCEND motto: Peace by Peaceful Means.
Johan Galtung, wife Fumiko, Antonio Rosa (back), and faculty members at University of Coimbra, Portugal, 2012
“I have never been an advocate of world-saving narratives. The point about my work is to identify the neuralgic, specific contradiction in a specific place in space and at a specific moment in time and dissolve the contradiction with conflict transformation in order to prevent an escalation of whatever social contradiction one is dealing with into violence, whether direct or structural. To ask me whether I want to save the world is to have understood nothing about how conflict transformation works in practice. It’s like suggesting that a brain surgeon would want to extract a patient’s entire brain instead of working on the specific complication identified and localized in a specific region of the cerebral cortex. No, that is no way to proceed. One identifies concrete underlying contradictions in the social system at hand, then one identifies the causes, its drivers, and strives to undo the harm and hurt that could result from it by nonviolent means. I am not concerned with saving the world – I am concerned with finding solutions to specific conflicts before they become violent.” — Johan Galtung
Galtung was jailed in Norway for six months at age 24 as a conscientious objector to serving in the military–after having done 12 months of civilian service, the same time as those doing military service. He agreed to serve an extra 6 months if he could work for peace, but that was refused. In jail he wrote his first book, Gandhi’s Political Ethics, together with his mentor, Arne Næss.
This event would trigger a lifetime work: Over 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages. His book, Transcend and Transform, was translated to 25 languages. He has published more than 1700 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service. More information about Prof. Galtung and all of his publications can be found at transcend.org/galtung
Johan Galtung Park ‘por la Paz’ in Alfaz del Pi, Benidorm, Spain
The Galtung/TRANSCEND Conflict Diagram
TRANSCEND Method
He founded in 1993 TRANSCEND International, a global nonprofit network for Peace, Development, Environment with over 500 members in more than 70 countries around the world. In 2000, the TRANSCEND Peace University was launched, the world’s first online Peace Studies University. As a testimony to his legacy, peace studies are now taught and researched at universities across the globe and contribute to peacemaking efforts in conflicts around the world. In 2008, he founded the TRANSCEND University Press.
Galtung’s Peace Formula
Johan Galtung has conducted a great deal of research in many fields and made original contributions not only to peace studies but also, among others, human rights, basic needs, development strategies, a world economy that sustains life, macro-history, theory of civilizations, federalism, globalization, theory of discourse, social pathologies, deep culture, peace and religions, social science methodology, sociology, ecology, future studies.
As a recipient of over a dozen honorary doctorates and professorships and many other distinctions, including a Right Livelihood Award (also known as Alternative Nobel Peace Prize), Johan Galtung remained committed all his life to the study and promotion of peace.
The Right Livelihood Award ceremony 1987. Johan Galtung is 3rd from right.
Video with Marilyn Langlois, et al. [Rumble]:
Conversation with Antonio Rosa (Johan Galtung in Memoriam)
________________________________________________
Johan Galtung (24 Oct 1930 – 17 Feb 2024), a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, was the founder of TRANSCEND International, TRANSCEND Media Service, and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times and was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative NPP. Galtung has mediated in over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press. His book, Transcend and Transform, was translated to 25 languages. He has published more than 1700 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service. More information about Prof. Galtung and all of his publications can be found at transcend.org/galtung
Antonio C. S. Rosa (at the right of Johan Galtung in this photo), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008) under Galtung’s inspiration and guidance. He is Johan’s assistant, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s 2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice. He completed the required coursework for a Ph.D. in Political Science-Peace Studies (1994), has a Masters in Political Science-International Relations (1990), and a B.A. in Communication (1988) from the University of Hawai’i. Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe-India since 1994. Books: Peace Journalism: 80 Galtung Editorials on War and Peace (editor) – Cobertura de Conflitos: Jornalismo para a Paz (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese) – Transcender e Transformar: Uma Introdução ao Trabalho de Conflitos (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese). TMS articles by Rosa HERE.
Tags: Antonio C. S. Rosa, Biography, History, Johan Galtung, Obituary, Peace Studies, TRANSCEND Media Service, TRANSCEND Network
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 31 Mar 2025.
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JOHAN GALTUNG MEMORIAL:
I wish to share my own views cited below in my article: A Condolence Message on the Passing of Prof. Johan Galtung with the views and experiences of Antonio C. S. Rosa, Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service (in his support) who expressed in his writings on Reminiscing: Johan Galtung and I – JOHAN GALTUNG MEMORIAL, published in TRANSCEND Media Service on 31 Mar 2025:
A Condolence Message on the Passing of Prof. Johan Galtung
JOHAN GALTUNG MEMORIAL, 26 Feb 2024
Dr. Surya Nath Prasad – TRANSCEND Media Service
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2024/02/a-condolence-message-on-the-passing-of-prof-johan-galtung/