New Peace Ideas and the Johan Galtung International Peace Prize

JOHAN GALTUNG MEMORIAL, 28 Apr 2025

Syed Sikander Mehdi | Revista de Cultura de Paz - TRANSCEND Media Service

Prof. Johan Galtung receives Doctor Honoris Causa from the Complutense University of Madrid, 27 Jan 2017

Abstract

31 Dec 2024 – Excepting the Nobel Peace Prize, most of the international peace prizes are little known; some are not even regularly awarded; and a number of these, including the Nobel Peace Prize, shows little appreciation for the role of peace educators and researchers in promoting peace and building peace in different parts of the world. The denial of Noble Peace Prize to peace academics like Richard Falk, Elise Boulding and Johan Galtung and several others is a reflection of its bias against peace thinkers, peace educators and peace researchers. Such a show of disrespect to the weavers of peace ideas, peace seeders, peace planters, and fosterers of peace movements negatively impacts the creation, flow and flourishing of new peace ideas.

Emphasizing the need to build a fearless peace perspective on Gaza and on other conflicting issues, the present paper highlights the importance of new peace ideas in these dangerous times. In addition, it calls for an energetic role of the peace visionaries, peace educators and peace researchers in dealing with the challenges arising especially after the genocide in Gaza. In this context, it suggests the creation of a new peace prize, as prestigious as the Nobel Peace Prize, but more impactful. It further suggests that this prize should be named Johan Galtung International Peace Prize to memorialize Galtung’s contribution as a brilliant peace thinker and prolific peace scholar and to keep the succeed- ing generations informed about the grave injustice done to him by the Nobel Peace Prize, which denied this award to one of the most deserving candidates. This paper, which includes a brief appraisal of a few, indeed very few, international peace prizes currently being awarded, attempts to explore the prospects for the institution of a new international peace prize and seeks answer to questions like why should such a prize be called the Johan Galtung International Peace Prize, how can such a prize be instituted and how can this prize induce the peace educators and peace researchers to come out with new peace ideas in these tormenting times.

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Paper on Galtung Peace Prize

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Educated at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and Australian National University, Canberra, Professor Syed Sikander Mehdi is a leading peace educator from Pakistan. Besides teaching at the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi for over 30 years, he taught courses on peace at the University of Jaume, Castellon, Spain, University of Innsbruck, Austria and University of Dhaka.  He also worked as visiting research fellow at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Henry Stimson Centre, Washington D.C., and Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. Email: sikander.mehdi@gmail.com
Selected Publications in 2024:
1) ‘ Foreword : Peter van den Dungen’s World of Peace Museums’ in Peter van den Dungen, Peace Museums : Selected Essays,  Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, PP. V-XXIII; 2) ;  ‘Pakistan: Food Insecurity in a National Security State’, Ramesh Chandra Das, ed.,  Growth, Poverty and Developmental Aspects of Agriculture, Leeds: Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 177-190  https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83608-076-320241012; 3)  ‘Handcuffed Economy and Governance and Development Discourse in Pakistan’ in Ramesh Chandra Das. ed., Good Governance and Economic Development: Perspectives from Global North and Global South. Leeds:  Routledge, PP. 102-121. Link: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003530657-9/development-freedom-pakistan-handcuffed-economy-syed-sikander-mehdi?context=ubx&refId=4680d032-3751-4ee3-97d8-cc2cdd1e9ed9; 4) ‘ Introducing Museums for Peace Studies in Higher Education’, (in chinese), China Journal of Peace Studies, University of Nanjing; and 5) ‘ New Peace Ideas and Johan Galtung International Peace Prize’ in Revista de Cutura de Paz, Volume 8, PP. 380 – 399.

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