Johan Galtung - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johan Galtung - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johan Galtung

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johan Galtung
Born	24 October 1930 Oslo, Norway
Fields	Sociology, peace and conflict studies,Mathematics
Institutions	Columbia University,University of Oslo, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Alma mater	University of Oslo
Known for	Principal founder of peace and conflict studies
Notable awards	Right Livelihood Award(1987)

Johan Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist, mathematician, and the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies.^[1]

He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 1959 and served as its first director until 1970. He also established the Journal of Peace Research in 1964. In 1969 he was appointed to the world's firstchair in peace and conflict studies, at theUniversity of Oslo. He resigned his Oslo professorship in 1977 and has since held professorships at several other universities; from 1993 to 2000 he taught as Distinguished Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Hawaii, and he is currently based in Kuala Lumpur, where he is the first Tun MahathirProfessor of Global Peace at the International Islamic University Malaysia.^[2]

Galtung is known for contributions to sociologyin the 1950s, political science in the 1960s,economics and history in the 1970s,macrohistory, anthropology, and theology in the 1980s. He has developed several influential theories, such as the distinction between positive and negative peace,structural violence, theories on conflict andconflict resolution, the concept ofpeacebuilding,^[3] the structural theory ofimperialism, and the theory of the United States as simultaneously a republic and anempire.^[4] He has often been critical ofwestern countries in their attitude to theGlobal South. Galtung has been a major intellectual figure of the New Left since the 1950s.^[5] He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1987 and has received many other prizes and accolades.

Contents

 [hide] 

• 1Biography
• 2Mediation for peace
• 3Major ideas
  • 3.1The US as a republic and empire
  • 3.2Predictions
• 4Criticism
• 5Selected works
• 6Selected awards and recognitions
• 7References
• 8Sources
• 9External links

Biography

Galtung speaking at theMonterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City.

Galtung was born in Oslo. He earned the cand. real.(PhD)^[6] degree in mathematics at the University of Oslo in 1956, and a year later completed the mag. art.(PhD)^[6] degree in sociology at the same university.^[4]Galtung received the first of nine honorary doctoratesin 1975.^[7]

Galtung's father and paternal grandfather were bothphysicians. The Galtung name has its origins inHordaland, where his paternal grandfather was born. Nevertheless, his mother, Helga Holmboe, was born in central Norway, in Trøndelag, while his father was born in Østfold, in the south. Galtung has been married twice, and has two children by his first wife Ingrid Eide, Harald Galtung and Andreas Galtung, and two by his second wife Fumiko Nishimura, Irene Galtung and Fredrik Galtung.^[8]

Upon receiving his mag.art. degree, Galtung moved to Columbia University, in New York City, where he taught for five semesters as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology.^[9] In 1959, Galtung returned to Oslo, where he founded thePeace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He served as the institute's director until 1969, and saw the institute develop from a department within the Norwegian Institute of Social Research into an independent research institute with enabling funds from theNorwegian Ministry of Education.^[10]

In 1964, Galtung led PRIO to establish the first academic journal devoted to Peace Studies: the Journal of Peace Research.^[10] In the same year, he assisted in the founding of the International Peace Research Association.^[11] In 1969 he left PRIO for a position as professor of peace and conflict research at the University of Oslo, a position he held until 1978.^[10]

He then served as the director general of the International University Centre inDubrovnik, also serving as the president of the World Future Studies Federation.^[12] He has also held visiting positions at other universities, including Santiago, Chile, theUnited Nations University in Geneva, and at Columbia, Princeton and the University of Hawaii.^[13] He has served at so many universities that he has "probably taught more students on more campuses around the world than any other contemporary sociologist".^[12] Galtung is currently teaching courses in the Human ScienceDepartment at Saybrook University.^[14]

In December 2010, Galtung gave a lecture entitled "Breaking the Cycle of Violent Conflict" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.

Galtung is a prolific researcher, having made contributions to many fields in sociology. He has published more than 1000 articles and over 100 books.^[15] Economist and fellow peace researcher Kenneth Boulding has said of Galtung that his "output is so large and so varied that it is hard to believe that it comes from a human".^[16] He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.^[17]

In 2014 he was appointed as the first Tun Mahathir Professor of Global Peace at theInternational Islamic University Malaysia. The chair is supported by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation and is named for its founder and chairman, Malaysia's fourth prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The aim of the chair is to "create greater awareness, promotion and advocacy of global peace including the protection of human rights and criminalization of war."^[18]

Mediation for peace

Galtung experienced World War II in German-occupied Norway, and as a 12-year-old saw his father arrested by the Nazis. By 1951 he was already a committed peace mediator, and elected to do 18 months of social service in place of his obligatory military service. After 12 months, Galtung insisted that the remainder of his social service be spent in activities relevant to peace, to which the Norwegian authorities responded by sending him to prison, where he served six months.^[9]

Because Galtung's academic research is clearly intended to promote peace, in 1957, after mediating in Charlottesville, his sociological work shifted toward more concrete and constructive peace mediation. In 1993, he co-founded TRANSCEND: A Peace Development Environment Network,^[19][20] an organization for conflict transformation by peaceful means. There are four traditional but unsatisfactory ways in which conflicts between two parties are handled:

1. A wins, B loses;
2. B wins, A loses;
3. the solution is postponed because neither A nor B feels ready to end the conflict;
4. a confused compromise is reached, which neither A nor B are happy with.

Galtung tries to break with these four unsatisfactory ways of handling a conflict by finding a "fifth way", where both A and B feel that they win. The method also insists that basic human needs – such as survival, physical well-being, liberty, and identity – be respected.^[21]

Major ideas

Galtung first conceptualized peacebuilding by calling for systems that would create sustainable peace. The peacebuilding structures needed to address the root causes of conflict and support local capacity for peace management and conflict resolution.^[22]

Galtung has held several significant positions in international research councils and has been an advisor to several international organisations. Since 2004 he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Committee for a Democratic UN.

He has also written many empirical and theoretical articles, dealing most frequently with issues of peace and conflict research. His work is distinguished by his unique perspective as well as the importance he attributes to innovation andinterdisciplinarity.

He is one of the authors of an influential account of news values which are the factors which determine what coverage is given to what stories in the news. Galtung also originated the concept of Peace Journalism, which is increasingly influential incommunications and media studies.

Galtung is strongly associated with the following concepts:

• Structural violence - widely defined as the systematic ways in which a regime prevents individuals from achieving their full potential. Institutionalized racism and sexism are examples of this.
• Negative vs. Positive Peace - introduced the concept that peace may be more than just the absence of overt violent conflict (negative peace), and will likely include a range of relationships up to a state where nations (or any groupings in conflict) might have collaborative and supportive relationships (positive peace). These terms were, however, previously used and defined by both Jane Addamsand Martin Luther King.

He has also distinguished himself in public debates concerning, among other things, less-developed countries, defence issues, and the Norwegian EU debate. In 1987 he was given the Right Livelihood Award. He developed the TRANSCEND Method described above. Economist and fellow peace researcher Kenneth Boulding has said of Galtung that his "output is so large and so varied that it is hard to believe that it comes from a human".^[16]

The US as a republic and empire

For Johan Galtung, the US is simultaneously a republic and an empire, a distinction he believes is highly relevant. The US is on one hand loved for its republican qualities, and on the other loathed by its enemies abroad for its perceived military aggressions. Its republican qualities include its work ethic and dynamism, productivity and creativity, the idea of freedom, or liberty, and a pioneering spirit. On the other hand, its military and political manipulation are censured for their aggressiveness, arrogance, violence, hypocrisy and self-righteousness, as well as the US public ignorance of other cultures and extreme materialism.^[23]

In 1973, Galtung criticised the "structural fascism" of the US and other Western countries that make war to secure materials and markets, stating: "Such an economic system is called capitalism, and when it's spread in this way to other countries it's called imperialism", and has praised Fidel Castro for "break[ing] free of imperialism's iron grip". Galtung has stated that the US is a "killer country" guilty of "neo-fascist state terrorism" and compared the US to Nazi Germany for bombing Kosovo during the1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.^[24][25]

According to Galtung, the US empire causes "unbearable suffering and resentment" because the "exploiters/ killers/ dominators/ alienators, and those who support the US Empire because of perceived benefits" are engaging in "unequal, non-sustainable, exchange patterns". In an article published in 2004, Galtung predicted that the US empire will "decline and fall" by 2020. He expanded on this hypothesis in his 2009 book titled The Fall of the US Empire - and Then What? Successors, Regionalization or Globalization? US Fascism or US Blossoming?.^[26][27]

However, the decline of the US empire did not imply a decline of the US republic, and the "relief from the burden of Empire control and maintenance...could lead to a blossoming of the US Republic". Elaborating on the radio and television programDemocracy Now, he stated that he loved the American republic and hated theAmerican empire. He added that many Americans had thanked him for this statement on his lecture tours, because it helped them resolve the conflict between their love for their country and their displeasure with its foreign policy.^[28]

Predictions

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Galtung has made several predictions of when theUSA will no longer be a superpower, a stance that has attracted some controversy. In an article published in 2004, he lists 14 'contradictions' that would cause the 'decline and fall' of the US empire.^[27] After the beginning of the Iraq War, he revised his prediction of the "downfall of the US-Empire", seeing it as more imminent.^[29] He claims the US will go through a phase as a fascist dictatorship on its path down, and that the Patriot Act is a symptom of this. He claims the election of George W. Bushcost the US empire five years – although he admits that this estimate was set a bit arbitrarily. He now sets the date for the end of the American Empire at 2020, but not the American Republic. Like Great Britain, Russia and France, he says the American Republic will be better off without the Empire.

Galtung has made predictions which have failed to materialize. For example, City Journal claims that in 1953, Galtung predicted that the Soviet Union's economy would soon overtake the West.^[30]

Criticism

Criticism by Bruce Bawer and Barbara Kay

During the course of his career, some of Galtung statements and views have drawn criticism, most notably his criticism of western countries during and after the Cold Warand what his critics perceived as a positive attitude to the Soviet Union, Cuba andCommunist China. A 2007 article by Bruce Bawer published in City Journal magazine and a subsequent article in February 2009 by Barbara Kay in the National Postcriticised some of Galtung's statements. Both authors criticized Galtung's opinion that while Communist China was "repressive in a certain liberal sense", Mao Zedong was "endlessly liberating when seen from many other perspectives that liberal theory has never understood" because China showed that "the whole theory about what an 'open society' is must be rewritten, probably also the theory of 'democracy'—and it will take a long time before the West will be willing to view China as a master teacher in such subjects." The authors also criticized Galtung's opposition to Hungarian resistance against the Soviet invasion in 1956 and his description in 1974 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov as "persecuted elite personages".^[24][25]

Statements on Israeli influence on U.S. politics

Israeli newspaper Haaretz accused Galtung in May 2012 of antisemitism for: (1) suggesting the possibility of a link between the 2011 Norway attacks and Israel's intelligence agency Mossad; (2) maintaining that "six Jewish companies" largely control the US media; (3) identifying what he contends are ironic similarities between the banking firm Goldman Sachs and the conspiratorial antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and (4) theorizing that although not justified, antisemitism in post–World War I Germany was a predictable consequence of German Jews holding influential positions.^[31] As a result of such statements, in May 2012 TRANSCEND International, an organisation co-founded by Galtung, released a statement attempting to clarify his opinions.^[32] On August 8, 2012, the World Peace Academy in Basel, Switzerland announced it was suspending Galtung from its organization, citing what it posited were his "reckless and offensive statements to questions that are specifically sensitive for Jews."^[33] Galtung himself has vehemently repudiated the above attacks as "smearing and libel" in a published statement^[34]and a public lecture at the end of the year 2012.^[35]

Selected works

Galtung has published more than a thousand articles and over a hundred books.^[15][36]

• Statistisk hypotesepröving (Statistical hypothesis testing, 1953)
• Gandhis politiske etikk (Gandhi's political ethics, 1955, with philosopher Arne Næss)
• Theory and Methods of Social Research (1967)
• Members of Two Worlds (1971)
• Fred, vold og imperialisme (Peace, violence and imperialism, 1974)
• Peace: Research – Education – Action (1975)
• Europe in the Making (1989)
• Global Glasnost: Toward a New World Information and Communication Order?(1992, with Richard C. Vincent)
• Peace By Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization(1996)
• Johan uten land. På fredsveien gjennom verden (Johan without land. On the Peace Path Through the World, 2000, autobiography for which he won the Brage Prize)
• 50 Years: 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives (2008)
• Democracy – Peace – Development (2008, with Paul D. Scott)
• 50 Years: 25 Intellectual Landscapes Explored (2008)
• Globalizing God: Religion, Spirituality and Peace (2008, with Graeme MacQueen)^[37]

Selected awards and recognitions

• Dr honoris causa, University of Tampere, 1975, peace studies
• Dr honoris causa, University of Cluj, 1976, future studies
• Dr honoris causa, Uppsala University, 1987, social sciences
• Dr honoris causa, Soka University, Tokyo, 1990, peace/buddhism
• Dr honoris causa, University of Osnabrück, 1995, peace studies
• Dr honoris causa, University of Torino, 1998, sociology of law
• Dr honoris causa, FernUniversität Hagen, 2000, philosophy
• Dr honoris causa, University of Alicante, 2002, sociology
• Dr honoris causa, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2006, law
• Honorary Professor, University of Alicante, Alicante, 1981
• Honorary Professor, Free University of Berlin, 1984–1993
• Honorary Professor, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 1986
• Honorary Professor, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, 1993
• Distinguished Professor of Peace Studies, University of Hawaii, 1993-
• John Perkins University Distinguished Visiting Professor, 2005-
• Right Livelihood Award, 1987
• First recipient of the Humanist Prize of the Norwegian Humanist Association, 1988
• Jamnalal Bajaj International Award for Promoting Gandhian Values, 1993^[38]
• Brage Prize, 2000
• First Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award, 2001
• Honorary Prize of the Norwegian Sociological Association, 2001
• Premio Hidalgo, Madrid, 2005
• Augsburg Golden Book of Peace, 2006
• Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
• Honorary member of the Green Party, 2009
• Erik Bye Memorial Prize, 2011

References

1. John D. Brewer, Peace processes: a sociological approach, p. 7, Polity Press, 2010
2. http://www.iais.org.my/e/index.php/events-sp-1744003054/past-events/517-public-lecture-seeking-peace-from-resolving-conflict-between-buddhists-and-muslims-in-myanmar-and-sri-lanka-by-prof-dr-johan-galtung.html
3. "Peacebuilding and The United Nations - United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office". Un.org. 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2013-11-18.
4. "Johan Galtung", Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
5. Egil Børre Johnsen, Trond Berg Eriksen, Norsk litteraturhistorie 1920–1995, p. 293,Universitetsforlaget, 1998, ISBN 9788200127529
6. "CV_Galtung". Coe.int. Retrieved 2013-11-18.
7. "Global University Network News". Retrieved 16 November 2014.
8. Genealogical data for Johan Galtung
9. Life of Johan Galtung (in Danish)
10. PRIO biography for Johan Galtung
11. History of the IPRA
12. (E. Boulding 1982: 323)
13. Dagens Nyheter 2003-01-15.
14. Saybrook.edu
15. TRANSCEND biography on Johan Galtung
16. (K. Boulding 1977: 75)
17. "Gruppe 7: Samfunnsfag (herunder sosiologi, statsvitenskap og økonomi)" (in Norwegian).Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 26 October 2009.
18. TUN MAHATHIR PERDANA GLOBAL PEACE FOUNDATION (PGPF) CHAIR FOR GLOBAL PEACE, International Islamic University Malaysia
19. Transcend.org
20. "Interview - Johan Galtung". Retrieved 16 November 2014.
21. [1]
22. PEACEBUILDING & THE UNITED NATIONS Peacebuilding Support Office, United Nations
23. Article by Dr Zeki Ergas "Out of Sync with the world: Some Thoughts on the Coming Decline and Fall of the American Empire".
24. The Peace Racket by Bruce Bawer, City Journal, Summer 2007.
25. Barbarians within the gate by Barbara Kay, National Post, February 18, 2009.
26. Prof. J. Galtung: 'US empire will fall by 2020' on YouTube Russia Today.
27. On the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empireby Johan Galtung, Transnational Foundation and Peace and Research (TFF), January 28, 2004.
28. Galtung on Democracy Now, 2010
29. Amerikas imperium går under innen 2020 Adressa September 23, 2004.
30. Bawer, Bruce. 2007. "The Peace Racket". City Journal. Summer 2007..
31. Aderet, Ofer (30 April 2012). "Pioneer of global peace studies hints at link between Norway massacre and Mossad". Haaretz. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
32. "TRANSCEND International's Statement Concerning the Label of anti-Semitism Against Johan Galtung". TRANSCEND International. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
33. Weinthal, Benjamin (August 9, 2012). "Swiss group suspends 'anti-Semitic' Norway scholar". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on August 11, 2012. RetrievedAugust 11, 2012.
34. "STELLUNGNAHME/035: Professor Galtung zu den Vorwürfen des Antisemitismus (Johan Galtung)". Schattenblick. 14 December 2012. Retrieved 2016-01-12.
35. "Grenzach-Wyhlen: Zwei Vorträge mit Johan Galtung | SÜDKURIER Online". SÜDKURIER Online. Retrieved 2016-01-12.
36. "Pioneer of Global Peace Studies Turns Out to be an Antisemite". Retrieved 16 November2014.
37. "Johan Galtung's Publications 1948-2010" (PDF). Retrieved 8 September 2012.
38. "Jamnalal Bajaj Awards Archive". Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation.

Sources

• Bawer, Bruce. 2007. "The Peace Racket". City Journal. Summer 2007. Link.
• Boulding, Elise. 1982. "Review: Social Science—For What?: Festschrift for Johan Galtung." Contemporary Sociology. 11(3):323-324. JSTOR Stable URL
• Boulding, Kenneth E. 1977. "Twelve Friendly Quarrels with Johan Galtung."Journal of Peace Research. 14(1):75-86. JSTOR Stable URL

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related toJohan Galtung.

• TRANSCEND: A Peace Development Environment Network
• Galtung-Institute for Peace Theory and Peace Practice
• Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
• Biography on Right Livelihood Award
• Lecture transcript and video of Galtung's speech at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego, December 2010

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johan_Galtung&oldid=716783974"

TRANSCEND Peace Uni Advanced Conflict Transformation

TRANSCEND Peace University

Advanced Conflict Transformation



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This course will be offered in the following terms.

1st term 2016 (March 14th - June 11th) → click here to enroll ←

Course instructor: Prof. Dr. Johan Galtung

This course is based on the book "A Theory of Conflict" by Prof. Galtung, TRANSCEND University Press, 2010 which will be freely available to participants. It is also assumed that the course participants know some of the pertinent freely available material on transcend.org/galtung.

Further, the elementary book by the same author, Transcend & Transform, London-Boulder CO: Pluto, Paradigm 2003, should be read.

Topics:

Concepts, definitions

Simple actor conflicts

Complex actor conflicts

Structural conflicts

Conflict across spaces

Conclusion

Assignments during the course will be: four individual essays, and four collective essays; all with responses from the course director. All essays and all responses will be communicated to all participants for collective learning.

Goal: to acquire a creative, constructive and concrete idea of conflict and its transformation, through the book and complex, real life, exercises. At the same time to have the conflict of one's own choice discussed with the participants and the course director.

Overview:

The course, which spans 6 weekends, covering a total of 12 weeks, will give an insight into the method of conflict transformation (including conflict theory, conflict analysis & peace theory). In order to develop a more multilateral approach to interactive learning, the course, directed by Prof. Johan Galtung, is organized into modules with the contribution of other experts through six Skype sessions, involving when possible, also parties to the conflicts.Interaction is an integral part of the online course. Participants are expected to work together through a chat room provided as facility by TPU and the Galtung –Institut online platform, and are expected to deliver 6 collective essays (of maximum 10 pages, Font: Times new Roman size 10), on the six cases listed below:

ISLAM AND THE WEST: from violence to cooperation ?

AFRICA: searching for futures beyond decolonization?

The AMERICAS: A declaration of Independence and more North – South cooperation

The ASIAS: Japan, China, Korea: toward an East Asian community?

The EUROPES: GIPSI (Greece-Italy- Portugal-Spain-Ireland) vs. Germany-EU. The decline of Europe?

The MIDDLE EAST and WEST ASIA: "IS" - Turkey-Israel/Palestine-Iran-Afghanistan: Paths towards Nonviolent Diplomatic Solutions?

General rule:

Study course material will be made available on Tuesdays in order to be discussed and developed during the next Skype session. At the end of that, participants will get a collective assignment on which they will work together for the following week. Written collective essays are expected on Tuesdays (eleven days later), whilst responses and comments by Prof. Galtung are issued within 72 hours. Everything distributed to all participants for collective learning. Due to the nature of the course, deadlines must be respected. No waiting for late-comers.

Please notice: the Skype sessions will last 1 (one) hour (with some flexibility) and will be organized according to the time zone of participants and course instructors. They are meant as a Question/Answers session based on the reading material. Studying it is essential!

Study Material:

The course is based on Johan Galtung's books:

50 Years 100 Peace and  Conflict Perspectives, Transcend University Press

FREELY AVAILABLE TO PARTICIPANTS

The Fall of the US Empire and then What, Transcend University Press

available for half price (check our price list here): 10 € instead of 20 € including postage

KOREA: The Twisting Roads to Unification, Transcend University Press

available for half price (check our price list here) : 5 € instead of 10 € including postage

Participants will also receive additional reading-material, assignments and comments from the other experts involved during the 12 weeks of the course.

Objectives:

By the end of the course participants should:

recognize socio-dynamic contradictions and assess the importance of their dialectics for the diagnosis, prognosis and therapy of conflict formations. At the core of this solution oriented course on conflict transformation, concepts of violence, peace and equity will be studied at the meso (between and within groups), macro (between and within States and Nations) and mega level (between and within Civilizations).

be able to use these concepts to evaluate the capacity of the various approaches of peace-building, peace-keeping and peace-making to solve conflicts nonviolently.

own methods and heuristic tools which will allow them to improve their professional competencies in the field and enhance their skill-sets as conflict transformation specialists.

The course provides the necessary toolkit for analyzing conflicts and investigating pathways to solutions,  through the lens of nonviolence, empathy and creativity.

TRANSCEND Peace University Just War / Just Peace

TRANSCEND Peace University



Just War / Just Peace



Click to share this course: facebook | twitter | email.



This course will be offered in the following terms.



1st term 2016 (March 14th - June 11th) → click here to enroll ←



Course instructor: Prof. Paul D. Scott



Iraq, Syria, Libya, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Sierra Leone, the Congo – these markers of extraordinary violence begs the question of how the international community has reacted and more importantly should respond to genocides, ethnic cleansings, politicides, and mass killings. This is a core issue in not only international law but also in the behavior of individual states and global institutions.



This course will explore the process of how not only what Responsibility to Protect is but how it has been operationalized.



The course will rely on on-line readings. Each topic will seek to ask and partially answer fundamental questions about the nature, scope, and operation of RtoP. Each discussion should take two weeks.



Week 1: Just War : Setting and debating thresholds.

Listen and critique President Obama's Nobel Prize Speech.

Week 2: Defining Jus ad bellum and jus in ello

Reading: http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/5kzjjd.htm

Week 3: International Law and the Protection of Civilians.

Readings: UN Charter, Chapters II, VI, and VII.

http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions/index.jsp

Week 4: The Failure of Institutions: Rwanda and its consequences

Reading: "Bystanders to Genocide."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/304571/

If possible see the documentary “Shake Hands with the Devil.

Week 5: RtoP

Core documents: http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/publications

Week 6: Libya, Syria, the Congo?

Did Libya meet the criteria for RtoP?

Why not Syria? The Congo?

TRANSCEND Peace University

TRANSCEND Peace University

Introduction to Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

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This course will be offered in the following terms.

1st term 2016 (March 14th - June 11th) → click here to enroll ←

Course instructor: Antonino Drago

The course presents a grassroots viewpoint on international interventions in crisis areas. Then develops according to three political assumptions; the need to ban nuclear weapons, the need to empower the UN as the present best opportunity for a socially empowering world government, and non-violence as the most valuable motivation inside the participants to the Peace movement.

The course makes use of the first chapters of the book by L. Schirch: Civilian Peacekeeping, Life and Peace, 2005 (online) about the immediate response of grassroots peacekeeping, as well the experiences accumulated  in past decades. Then, it presents by means of the first two a theoretical examination of the historical change that mankind has to perform in view of a new notion of collective defence (peace as a paradigm shift). The present military paradigm is characterised in the details also of a structural kind, according to Galtung’s theory of a conflict as an A-B-C. To the crucial question whether there exists an alternative it is answered positively by paying attention to suggestions by the alternatives offered by the Western progressive movement and in the sciences too; accordingly, an alternative model of conflict resolution is illustrated; it turns out to be the Gandhian non-violent one. This structural theory of non-violent conflict resolution allows a detailed presentation of multiple aspects of the conflict to be considered by a Peacekeeping operation. This one is examined according to the two different models of conflict resolution which, being mutually incommensurable, stress the problem of a mutual translatability between the respective actors.

Then a peacekeeping operation is illustrated according to the three actors of the international political arena that are primarily involved in such operations. A State carries out peacekeeping operations according to the old paradigm that suggests that only military actions are capable of solving conflicts. Instead UN proposal of An Agenda for Peace is to perform three kinds of intervention, i.e. peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, all including civilians. The strict constraints and great potentialities of UN interventions are illustrated. NGO peacekeeping is presented in its main aspects, its several actualisations, its potentialities and successes. The remaining chapters of Schirch’s book are intermixed in order to complete the presentation of the last subject. A case-study, i.e. Palestine/Israel, is presented.

In order to offer a long-term strategy of NGO-interventions, the previous theory of conflict resolution is enlarged to a theory of non-violent politics, relying on the notion of a co-existence of four models of development, which both concur and conflict in specific aspects. By means of this basic notion, the political consciousness of the present world situation as well as the various components and strategies of the Peace movement is obtained. Eventually, the statistical study on all the revolutions in the 20th Century is shortly reported; among them the non-violent ones resulted to be both very frequent and highly successful.

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Dear applicant to the TRANSCEND Peace University, Welcome! We hope you will enjoy your course or courses and learn a great deal, also from the opportunity to stay in dialogue with fellow participants from around the world. On this page you can enroll to TPU in four easy steps. 1. Select your courses To find more information about the instructors and courses, click on their names or title. Instructor Course Title 1st term 2016 (March 14th - June 11th) (12 weeks) Antonino Drago Introduction to Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Dr. Bishnu Pathak Civil-Military Relations Security Studies: Theory of Human Security Dr. Claude R. Shema Interventions in the Aftermath of Civil Wars Yotam Ben Meir Dr. Gal Harmat (Ph.D) Gender and Peace Dr. Jørgen Johansen Nonviolence Nonviolent Movements Prof. Dr. Alberto L`Abate Methods of Analysis and Research for Peace Prof. Dr. H.B. Danesh Education for Peace Peace-based Leadership Prof. Dr. Johan Galtung Advanced Conflict Transformation Prof. Dr. Kees Van der Veer Conflicts at the Micro Level Prof. Paul D. Scott Democracy and Development Just War / Just Peace Social and Political Transformation in the digital age Rais Neza Boneza Peace by African Peaceful Means Synøve Faldalen SABONA - Searching for Good Solutions - Learning Solving Conflicts Vithal Rajan Economic-Development-Conflict:The Indian Experience 2. Read the following information regarding fees and choose how you want to pay Tuition Fees   12 week courses 6 week courses   OECD non-OECD OECD non-OECD One course: 800 € 400 € 400 € 200 € Two courses incl. reduction: 1600 € 1400 € 800 € 700 € 800 € 700 400 € 350 € (plus 90 € fee for books and shipping) The fees per course amount to €800 for participants fromOECD-countries and €400 for participants from non-OECD countries for the 12-week courses in spring and fall, and €400 for participants from OECD-countries and €200 for participants from non-OECD countries for the 6-week summer courses. If you enroll in two or more courses you will get a reduction. Please refer to the table on the right for all fees. Payment

TRANSCEND MEDIA SERVICE » (1) WHAT IS PEACE JOURNALISM?

TRANSCEND MEDIA SERVICE » (1) WHAT IS PEACE JOURNALISM?

(1) WHAT IS PEACE JOURNALISM?

A) by Jake Lynch

Peace journalism is when editors and reporters make choices – about what to report, and how to report it – that create opportunities for society at large to consider and to value non-violent responses to conflict.

If readers and audiences are furnished with such opportunities, but still decide they prefer war to peace, there is nothing more journalism can do about it, while remaining journalism. On the other hand, there is no matching commitment to ensuring a fair hearing for violent responses, if only because they seldom struggle for a place on the news agenda.

How come? To report is to choose. ‘We just report the facts’, journalists say, but ‘the facts’ is a category of practically infinite size. Even in these days of media profusion, that category has to be shrunk to fit into the news. The journalist is a ‘gatekeeper’, allowing some aspects of reality through, to emerge, blinking, into the public eye; and keeping the rest in the dark.

Neither is this a random process. The bits left out are always, or usually, the same bits, or the same sorts of bits. News generally prefers official sources to anyone from the ‘grassroots’; event to process; and a two-sided battle for supremacy as the basic conflict model.

These preferences, or biases, hardened into industry conventions as journalism began to be sold as a mass-produced commodity in consumer societies, and faced pressure to present itself as all-things-to-all-people, capable of being marketed to potential readers, listeners and viewers of all political views and none.

Quoting officials – a category topped by the political leader of one’s own country – is a choice and a preference, but one with a built-in alibi. It was not our ‘fault’ that this person became head of government: s/he just ‘is’. ‘Indexing’, or the familiar journalistic habit of restricting the extent of debate to differences between government and official opposition – ‘elite discord’ – has the same effect, of camouflaging choices as facts.

What about event and process? News that dwells on, say, the details of death and destruction wrought by a bomb, avoids controversy. The device has, indisputably, gone off. There are well-attested casualty figures, from trustworthy sources such as hospitals and the police. What is automatically more controversial is to probe why the bombers did it, what was the process leading up to it, what were their grievances and motivations.

As to dualism, well, when I was a reporter at the BBC, we all realised that a successful career could be based on the following formula: ‘on the one hand… on the other hand… in the end, only time will tell’. To have ‘balance’, to ‘hear both sides’, is a reliable way to insulate oneself against complaints of one-sidedness, or bias.

War Journalism and Its Antidote

There are deep-seated reasons, then, why these are the dominant conventions in journalism, but, taken together, they mean that its framing of public debates over conflict issues is generally on the side of violent responses. It merits the description, ‘war journalism’.

How come? Take the dualism first. If you start to think about a conflict as a tug-of-war between two great adversaries, then any change in their relationship – any movement – can only take place along a single axis. Just as, in tug-of-war, one side gaining a metre means the other side losing a metre, so any new development, in a conflict thus conceived, immediately begs to be assessed in a zero-sum game. Anything that is not, unequivocally, winning, risks being reported as losing. It brings a readymade incentive to step up efforts for victory, or escalate. People involved in conflict ‘talk tough’ – and often ‘act tough’ – as they play to a gallery the media have created.

Remove acts of political violence from context and you leave only further violence as a possible response. This is why there is so little news about peace initiatives – if no underlying causes are visible, there is nothing to ‘fix’. Only in this form of reporting does it make any sense to view ‘terrorism’, for example, as something on which it is possible or sensible to wage ‘war’.

And if you wait, to report on either underlying causes or peace initiatives, until it suits political leaders to discuss or engage with them, you might wait a long time. Stirrings of peace almost invariably begin at lower levels. There is, furthermore, a lever in the hands of governments that no one else has – the ‘legitimate’ use of military force. For all these reasons, the primacy of official sources, coupled with the enduring national orientation of most media, is bound to skew the representation of conflicts in favour of a pronounced receptiveness to the advocacy of violence.

Hence, peace journalism, as a remedial strategy and an attempt to supplement the news conventions to give peace a chance.

Peace Journalism:

• Explores the backgrounds and contexts of conflict formation, presenting causes and options on every side (not just ‘both sides’);
• Gives voice to the views of all rival parties, from all levels;
• Offers creative ideas for conflict resolution, development, peacemaking and peacekeeping;
• Exposes lies, cover-up attempts and culprits on all sides, and reveals excesses committed by, and suffering inflicted on, peoples of all parties;
• Pays attention to peace stories and post-war developments.

Reality and Representation

Peace journalism is more realistic, in the sense of fidelity to a reality that already exists, independently of our knowledge or representation of it. To report violence without background or context is to misrepresent it, since any conflict is, at root, a relationship, of parties setting and pursuing incompatible goals. To omit any discussion of them is a distortion.

At the same time, it acknowledges that there is no one correct version of this reality that everyone will agree upon. We understand the world around us by taking messages and images – including those served up by the news – and slotting them into codes we develop through our lives and carry in our heads. Meaning is not created solely at the point of production, or encoding; no act of representation is complete until it has been received, or decoded. Decoding is something we often do automatically, since so much of what we read, hear and see is familiar. This is what propaganda relies on – establish Saddam Hussein as a ‘bad man’, or ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as a ‘threat’, and it forms a prism, through which all the reality, both subsequent and previous, tends to be viewed.

Journalism is often easy prey for such efforts because it does not generally encourage us to reflect on the choices it is making, for reasons discussed above. The famous US ‘anchor-man’, Walter Cronkite, signed off CBS Evening News every night with the catchphrase, “that’s the way it is”. How it came to be that way would be an interesting conversation, but it is not one in which news is generally keen to engage.

Communications students will recognise the last few paragraphs as a potted version of reception theory. In writing this introduction, I’ve resisted academic sources, because, yes folks, the clichés are true, media scholars often do dress in black (which we won’t hold against them) and chew polysyllables for breakfast (which we might). However it’s worth quoting one famous aphorism coined by a clever and original researcher, Gaye Tuchman: “the acceptance of representational conventions as facticity makes reality vulnerable to manipulation”.

So peace journalism is in favour of truth, as any must be. Of course reporters should report, as truthfully as they can, the facts they encounter; only ask, as well, how they have come to meet these particular facts, and how the facts have come to meet them. If it’s always the same facts, or the same sorts of facts, adopt a policy of seeking out important stories, and important bits of stories, which would otherwise slip out of the news, and devise ways to put them back in. And try to let the rest of us in on the process. Peace journalism is that which abounds in cues and clues to prompt and equip us to ‘negotiate’ our own readings, to open up multiple meanings, to inspect propaganda and other self-serving representations on the outside.

Can journalists actually do this, and do they? Latterly, researchers have set out to gauge the amount of peace journalism that is going on. There is probably no one piece of reporting that exhibits all five of the characteristics listed above, whilst also avoiding demonizing language, labeling and so forth. But distinctions do exist, and they have been measured. Reporting in The Philippines, especially by the country’s main newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, is interesting in providing an effective counter to attempts by the country’s government to import the ‘war on terrorism’ ideology and apply it to a long-running insurgency. The paper I used to work for, theIndependent of London, does a lot of peace journalism.

Then of course there are proliferating independent media, now building, through web-based platforms, on traditions long nurtured by alternative newspapers and community radio stations. There is some peace journalism, so there could be more.

________________

Jake Lynch is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. Before that, he spent nearly twenty years in journalism, including spells as a newsreader and presenter for BBC World television, a Political Correspondent for Sky News and the Sydney Correspondent for the Independent newspaper. He reported on conflicts in the Middle East, South East Asia and South East Europe, as well as countless political and diplomatic meetings and developments in the UK and Europe.

He is the co-author, with Annabel McGoldrick, of Peace Journalism (Hawthorn Press, 2005), and his new book, Debates in Peace Journalism, has just been published by Sydney University Press and TUP – TRANSCEND University Press.

He also co-authored with Johan Galtung and Annabel McGoldrick ‘Reporting Conflict-An Introduction to Peace Journalism.’

In Spanish, ‘Reporteando Conflictos-Una Introducción al Periodismo de Paz‘ (Ariete, TRANSCEND México, Respuestas para la Paz, 2006). Translated by Fernando Montiel T.

In Portuguese, ‘Cobertura de Conflitos-Uma Introdução ao Jornalismo para a Paz’ (TRANSCEND University Press México, 2010). Translated by Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa.

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B) by Dietrich Fischer

Johan Galtung is often asked to define peace journalism. In the most concise way, he says, it is to ask two questions (in addition to the usual questions like how many bombs were dropped, how many buildings destroyed, who is winning, etc.):

“What is the conflict about, and what could be the solutions?”

If George W. Bush were asked, “What is the conflict with Iraq about?”, he would probably reply, “It is a struggle between good and evil.” “Would you like to expand on that?” “No.” “What is the solution?” “To crush evil!” “Would you like to expand on that?” “No.” If he were asked this twenty times, and quoted each time, he could not get away with it forever. Bush is being under-quoted.

In the 18th century, we had “disease journalists” who reported in detail how epidemics were spreading and how people suffered, but little was known about cures and little reported. Today we have “health journalists” who write about current research on new cures for diseases, and healthy lifestyles that help prevent disease.

The time has come for “peace journalists” to write not only about war, but also about its causes, prevention, and ways to restore peace. They need not invent solutions to conflicts themselves–in the same way as health journalists need not invent cures for diseases themselves; they ask specialists.

Similarly, peace journalists can ask various peace organizations and mediators about their ideas for preventing or ending a violent conflict, and report about it. Health pages in newspapers are very popular, and it can be anticipated that the same will be true for reporting about peace proposals, once they become available.

People thirst for peace. All we ask is “Give peace a page.”

__________________

Dietrich Fischer (1941-2015) from Münsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations.