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– TPU –

– THIRD TERM 2013– (September 21st - December 13th)

ADVANCED CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION -

six concrete cases

Content

(A) Advanced Conflict Transfromation- six concrete cases – .................................................................. 2

(A) The schedule: ................................................................................................................................... 2

(B) MODULE I: ....................................................................................................................................... 3

(C) MODULE II: . .................................................................................................................................... 5

(D) MODULE III: ..................................................................................................................................... 7

(E) MODULE IV: .................................................................................................................................... 9

(F) MODULE V: .....................................................................................................................................11

(G) MODULE VI: ...................................................................................................................................12

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(A) Advanced conflict transformation (ACT)- six concrete cases:

Dear participants, welcome to the Transcend Peace University (TPU)!

“ACT - six concrete cases” at its core, is an avant-garde approach to the digital crossover-courses we have come to

know in seemingly thousands of variations available online. You are the first generation of participants experiencing

this innovation, a rather special course, combining the traditional communication between students and their

instructor(s) via email, an online-community program, Skype conferences and chat room services. This combination

constitutes our electronic "classroom and campus environment”. Our instructors use a variety of resources including

textbooks, study guides, internet sites, and personally designed materials as supplements for their courses.

Each module will be attended by prof. Galtung and other experts in the field -as co-directors of the module-that you

will ''meet'' through Skype according to the schedule you can see below. The course is based on the book "50 Years,

100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives" by Prof. Galtung, (TRANSCEND University Press, 2010) freely available to

participants , in electronic version. Shortly thereafter, you will be shipped the hard copy of the book.

Please note that additional study material will be made available for each module. As ACT participants you will also get the hard copy of the book together with one more free book of your choice, as included in the course fee

ACT – The Schedule:

Module 6 Weekends – 6 Modules – Third term 2012

1 28-30 September 2012: West vs. Islam: From Violence to Cooperation

Skype conference: 29th October, h. 12:00 Central European Time (CET)

Assignments issued on Monday: 01.oct.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later: 11.oct.2012

2 12-14 October 2012: Africa searching for Futures

Skype conference: 13th

October, h. 12:00 CET

Assignments issued on Monday:15.oct.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later: 25.oct.2012

3 26-28 October 2012: G.I.P.S.I: Greece-Italy-Portugal-Spain-Ireland - The Decline of the West?

Skype conference: 27th October, h. 12:00 CET

Assignments issued on Monday:29.oct.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later: 08.nov.2012

4 09-11 November 2012: The Americas: A declaration of Independence and Cooperation

Skype conference: 10th November, h. 12.00 CET

Assignments issued on Monday:12.nov.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later: 22.nov.2012

5 23-25 November 2012: SABONA - Conflict and Peace in Daily Life

Skype conference: 24th November, h. 12:00 CET

Assignments issued on Monday: 26.nov.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later: 06.dec.2012

6 07-09 December 2012: Middle East: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kurds, Iran, ‘’elements’’ of Syria,

Israel-Palestine and the Arab awakening

Skype conference (1): 08th

December, h. 12:00 CET(J. Galtung & T. Arai)

Skype conference (2): 09th December, h. 12:00 CET (J. Galtung & J. Johansen)

Assignments issued on Monday 10.dec.2012

Responses due on Thursday ten days later:20.dec.2012

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(B) Module I:

- Title: Islam and the West, from Violence to Cooperation

- Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Abbas Aroua

Johan Galtung Abbas Aroua

Study material:

Hogra/Hagra: Symptoms of a social disease by Prof. Abbas Aroua

Non Violence is the Response to Hate Cartoons by Prof. Abbas Aroua

Islam and the West: some differences by Prof. J. Galtung First part of the book A theory of Conflict by Prof. J. Galtung

Peace as summum bonum by Prof. J.Galtung

The Muslim Diaspora In Europe And The Usa by Prof. J.Galtung

The Arab Spring And The Image Of Islam by Prof. J.Galtung

(The complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and responses

from the course instructors)

THE ARAB SPRING AND THE IMAGE OF ISLAM Johan Galtung, 11 June 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service Brussels, Advanced Studies Research Center: The multi-season Arab Spring is the third anti-imperialist Arab revolt in less than a century: against the Ottoman empire, the Western Italian-French-English empire, and now the US-Israel empire. The empires hit back. The Ottomans were weak, but England-France-Israel even invaded Egypt 29 October 1956--in the shadow of the Hungarian revolt against the Soviet empire that crumbled 23-25 years later. And now it is the turn of USA-Israel to try to maintain an illegitimate structure. So much for the background. In the foreground is class, pitting the powerless at the bottom against the powerful at the top. Wealth flows upward accelerated by corruption; military, police and secret police forces protect the top against revolts; decision-making is by dictatorships; all of this that used to be justified by the fight against communism is now hitched on to fight against Islamism. Needless to say, we can have corrupt, brutal dictatorships in Arab countries without any imperial backing. Like in former colonies --Libya-Palestine-Iraq-Lebanon-Syria--where borders were drawn regardless of inner and outer fault-lines, trusting that by sheer force they could contain such "indigenous, tribal" conflicts. Their successors followed in their tracks, with dictatorship and force. But less so for Egypt and Tunisia: they were old, established countries. But imperialism, as opposed to naked force, works through local elites that can do whatever they want to their people as long as they serve the imperial interests. The Ottoman was run from Istanbul, the Western empire was partly based on monarchs that were deposed. The US-Israel empire is based on more ordinary corruptible, brutal dictators.

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The revolts have a surface of fight for democracy, under that a fight against the powers sustaining the dictators, and under that the empire hits back, at unemployed youth and others in search of dignity. Tunisia was, maybe, a let go; but Egypt is not with much at stake like Camp David money flow of money into military elite coffers. In Libya Western and US imperialism hit back, together. In Syria all three empires are hitting back, together. In Bahrain the job was left to Saudi Arabia. And so on. But in the far end empires will crumble, and people will prevail. We turn to the question: what is the impact of the Arab revolts on the discourse in Europe about Islam, both the political and the religious aspects? Like the media discourse on Muslims in Europe? So far the media impact seems to be more in terms of geopolitics. Within a relatively narrow band of reflection their main concern has been what does this mean to us, meaning to US, Israel, the West. Few words are lost on millions striving nonviolently for dignity against serious odds, and the financial support to Tunisia and Egypt after the revolts had ousted dictators was a pittance relative to what is spent on Libya and others to preserve the geostrategic status quo. Every day brings new speculations on political Islam, much of it focused on the Muslim Brotherhood; ignoring that a leading person was executed by Nasser. The fights is for democracy and for an Islam, an ummah, not under a veil of Western secularism. Islam wants a place in the sun. But there is a second discourse tune, less audible: not only revolt, but nonviolent. That rises three questions: is nonviolence islamic? Does it work, for the powerless against the powerful? And, will Muslims in Europe one day do the same to us? In France they are not only manageable poor Muslims from former French colonies; and the nonviolence of non-cooperation and civil disobedience moves mountains. Look at the discourse by the EU anti-terror coordinator Gilles de Kerchove; faced with Mohamed Merah, French, with Algerian background, who killed 7 in 8 days, among them 3 children 4-7 years old. He is a "lonely wolf", maybe 400 of them in Europe, trained by Al Qa'ida. He has three approaches: criminalize people who have attended islamist training camps (as is done in Germany and Austria); register all who fly in and out of Europe; and then preventive measures like social policies, measures to prevent radicalization of those captured, and surveillance of islamist web-sites. Rather obvious and justified; but no reflection of the Arab spring. Better would have been more EU pressure on USA-Israel to dismantle the third Empire, but present EU diplomacy is probably the maximum they are willing and able to do. And yet so much that can be done. There is a discourse beyond negative nonviolence, the positive nonviolence of Gandhi's "convert, not coerce", applicable to anybody when conflicts turn violent. There is a discourse beyond the tolerance practiced in Europe as long as the faith is not made too public--hijab-niqab-bourka--or prayer in public space. That discourse beyond is dialogue, based on respect, curiosity and mutual learning. Like learning from the sharia that it may be a good idea not to lend more than 30% of your capital. Or from Turkey how democracy and the ummah can go together; a key Arab spring model. West has much to offer, like democracy, human rights, tolerance, but short on ability to learn from others. 500 years colonialism, and yet that ignorance X arrogance. Not strange there is a Latin American summer right now building their own institutions like China and Russia Soon CELAC and SCO will be as known as OAS and NATO. True, there is an African winter, but the African spring cannot possibly be far away. And there are some early Asian springs here and there. Europe has a right to limit is immigration. But once there, as citizens, there is only one way: that of rule of law, human rights and democracy. And democracy is more than elections: no discrimination, tolerance, transparency, dialogue of civilizations, based on respect and a minimum of knowledge, engaging in mutual learning. The alternative? A continued decline and fall of the West.

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(C) Module II:

Title: Africa searching for futures

Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Naakow Grant-Hayford

Johan Galtung Naakow Grant-Hayford

Study material:

Studying Africa a guide to the sources (Edited by Marianne Andersson and Åsa Lund Moberg Literature surveys by Tore Linné Eriksen)

A vision for Sudan by Johan Galtung

(The complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and responses from the course instructors)

A VISION FOR SUDAN Johan Galtung, 25 May 2008 - TRANSCEND Media Service The Sudan Conference, 25/05/08 Dear friends in peace, Peace Be Upon You, Sala'am Aleikum! My task at the end of this very impressive conference with 150 participants here in Hermansburg on the Lüneburger Heide is to fly above the nitty-gritty of failing implementations of the many peace agreements, report the visions, and indicate possible solutions that have been tried successfully elsewhere. In no way do I say "do this, do that". But I do report what comes to my eyes at four levels: world politics, relations to neighbors, the Sudan construction and the local level, particularly Darfur, the home of the fur. Some years ago the focus was on the South. Let me also start with a well known African proverb: "When elephants fight, the grass suffers, and, when elephants make love, the grass suffers even more." You have two elephants let loose, the USA and China, both oil drunk. You have their drug. Some Sudan violence is a proxy war. Your neighbors tend toward one elephant or the other; so do parts and parties in Sudan. We are in Cold War II since USA-NATO-Japan started encircling Russia-China-India and some more, leading to SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. You risk becoming a battle-field. You may also risk that one day they agree on quotas for your oil, and impose them upon you. Their egoism has no space for the effects on you, yet they are afraid of an all-out war. Let me make three points in addition to letting you, the grass, grow high, and very strong, and maybe even pointed. First, you are protected by human rights: the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stipulates that proceeds from the natural resources of a country should accrue to its people; neither to foreigners, nor to elites only. As you might expect, the USA did not ratify that one. Second, you might consider doing major processing yourself and pocket the value-added rather than exporting crude only. And you would of course quote your prices in a hard currency. Third, oil is fading out as a major key to global warming. There are such alternatives as wind and solar energy, and you have plenty of both. Oil may become your doom, not a blessing.

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Flying a little lower I see Sudan with its many neighbors defined by colonial borders, not by your own African nations. The border between Anglophones and Francophones is one. Some encroach on you, some court one elephant or the other. You might consider establishing a confederation, a community of all of you, with as open borders as possible, and much cooperation. Look beyond today's frictions, some of them elephant-generated. And watch that EU elephant herd, now getting its acts together. One level lower Sudan fills the horizon: one state and many nations, by religion, language, shared history and attachment to geography. An Arab-Islamic nation claiming to own it all is as unacceptable as Western colonialism. It generates resistance and secessionism. In the world there are about 200 states, 2,000 nations, and 20 nation-states in the world, the rest are multi-national. But there are three alternatives to unitarianism and secessionism: devolution, federation, confederation. There are about 25 federations in the world, housing 40% of humanity; Switzerland, India and Malaysia being very inspiring. The general formula for the about 25 functions of modern states: four are handled by the Center; joint foreign, security, finance and infra-structure. And the rest is handled by the Parts--like the 7 Sudan regions--particularly such sensitive topics as religion, language, history and the geographical attachments. Separate, equal and united. Neither unitarian, nor secessionist. Look at Switzerland: four languages, two Christianities and none imposed on the other. Federalism makes democracy possible as no national majority can impose itself. Nor can sharia be imposed. But watch out: customary, common law also carries a cultural code. "You have your code and we have ours" is fine. But even better is to combine, like when the Archbishop of Canterbury opened for some application of sharia. Courageous. Federalism does not have to be symmetric. Thus, the South may demand extra autonomies; and justice is not served by shoes of size 40 for all. A Constitutional Court may mediate disputes. I then come closer to the people in this giant land, and to the worst of all problems: 90% on less than $1 a day. A golden rule: First priority to the basic needs of the most needy. And four basic needs can easily be identified: survival served by orderly political processes and training in nonviolence, freedom served by democracy, identity served by federalism, and wellness served by food, housing, clothing, medical services, education through an economy with people not only elite, priorities. Best done by lifting the people up rather than threatening elites. The land issue is at the roots of the Darfur International- Criminal-Court level violence (as you might expect, the USA did not ratify that one). A distinction between public ownership and private, adequate, "usership" may be useful. The right to food is a basic right. To own land and not use it properly is anti-human, like letting fuel for cars outcompete food for humans. There is too much suffering in the Sudan today, too much violence as monuments over conflicts in search of solutions. But reconciliation without solution is pacification, lollypops that fool nobody. Solutions of these four conflict areas, with reconciliation, is peace. Peace with us all. Sala'am Aleikum.

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(D) Module III

Title: G.I.P.S.I: Greece-Italy-Portugal-Spain-Ireland - The Decline of the West?

Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Alberto Andrès, Antonio C.S. Rosa, Erika Degortes

Johan Galtung Antonio C.S. Rosa Erika Degortes

Study material:

Autopsy of Spain by Stefanie Claudia Müller.

The European Finance Crisis: Germany/Gipsi by Johan Galtung

The European Finance Crisis: Portugal by Antonio C.S. Rosa

The European Finance Crisis: Italy, Greece by Erika Degortes

(The full complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and

responses from the course instructors)

THE EUROPEAN FINANCE CRISIS: GERMANY/GIPSI Johan Galtung, 29 Oct 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service A crisis so massive--like the health network in Greece collapsing and 50% Spanish youth unemployed--begs for big causes. Some unknown planet with great gravitation pull, some super-radioactive element not yet identified? Probably, there may be more causes lining up, but for the time being we have to do with what we have. Here are Four Big. [1] The West outcompeted. For some time now we have had the USA (and the empire in particular), and the West in general declining (in relative and increasingly in absolute terms) and the Rest, China in particular, emerging--BRICS being a formula spanning four continents. We have also seen states (except the biggest) declining, with local communities and nations emerging from below, and regionalization and globalization, particularly of finance economy, from above. What happens in Europe is within that general context. Less pie expansion, more problems sharing. The policy of closing the North to industrial and agricultural export from the South (not China) boomerangs. [2] Four of the five G(reece)-I(Italy)-P(Portugal)-S(Spain)-I(Ireland) were the poor EC/EU countries being funded (not Italy). They received considerable grants for infra-structure; cash was flowing, and like so much development assistance produced waste, corruption, top-heaviness and craving for more. The general story of development assistance creating dependency and massive debt bondage of municipalities on provinces, provinces on states, and corporation and "sovereign" states on regions; in this case on the EC/EU. [3] Very cheap enormous credits available for housing. This private funding fitted into that context, and the rapidly increasing small script interest rates were easily disregarded. The credit could be put into the largest expense of most households: the house, and was made available to builders and dwellers with well known consequences. [4] On top: speculation-betting on bundles of toxic credit swaps. We might see [3] as a desperate remedy by the West (EU+USA) for [1], [4] as a desperate remedy for [3], and [2] as habit-forming, now used as remedy for [3] and [4] by extending more credit. Debt bondage pits Germany against G-I-P in a deadly embrace, particularly lethal when the Nazi-German past is invoked (often very unjustly) by Greece. The I-P-S fascist past blunts this approach. Ireland is on its own. The prognosis is dim: debt bondage is no cure for itself, nor is more dependency for itself; nor more disease. A partial cure for debt bondage is debt forgiveness--as practiced even by World

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Bank-IMF for many in the "Third World"--and increasingly by Germany in EU if for no other reason because there is no money to pay anyhow. Conditions will be softened, speculators will bet, cancellations are on the horizon. But a much better therapy for dependency is self-reliance, re-starting the economy from the bottom up, not from top-down. Four Big: [1] Unemployed youth reviving the countryside with agri- aqua-culture, tying up with aging lonely farmers, forgetting "employment"--a part of capitalism with labor-sellers and companies as labor-buyers--opting for cooperatives and self-employment, producing healthy food for own survival and direct sales from producers to consumers; [2] Local municipal banks for local saving for local investment in that community, bankers not extending credit beyond 50% of their capital, participating in the cooperatives and self-employment; adding time banking, exchanging hours of services, and local currencies. [3] Cooperatives and communities cooperating, lifting each other up by their own bootstraps, specializing, in circles crossing GIPSI borders--G-I-P-S being neighbors, so do not forget lonely Ireland; [4] GIPSI countries cooperating, systematically trading and exchanging with each other, copying South-South trade in the North! Much quicker than trickling down top-down only, recreating EU, with a culture of solidarity and sharing, not bondage and begging. So much for the general picture. A US journalist, Michael Lewis, has written a brilliant book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (New York-London: Norton, 2011). His chapters cover USA, Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and the USA again; what he is looking for is the deep structure-culture underlying the madness. His method is interviews with key actors and deep knowledge of the societies; get it, read it, learn. Queen Elizabeth with clothes on revealed the LSE economists without with her question why they had not predicted what happened; it took them much time to answer, confessing that they had not understood that the whole system was at stake. Precisely, and "whole system" means more than narrow economism. Some points: Thus, Lewis digs up the Icelandic penchant for risk-taking in deep ocean fishing, capital and lives at stake, potential profit huge. Very hard work though, speculation in a nice office is indeed more comfortable and in addition meets the deep structure-culture bill. He points out how US pension money was invested in ever more risky assets: in 1980 23% in the stock market, in 2008 fully 60%. The Germans held on to their own: they lost the beloved German marks, but the leaders promised that they would never bail out others. The material on Greek extravagances, doctoring information and right out cheating is so abundant that the reader wonders how EU can defend Greek membership, let alone bail-out efforts. No working national land registry made speculation on land easy, and so on. And Lewis brings in the gender factor in risk-taking, quoting the Barber-Odean 2001 study "Boys will be boys: Gender, Overconfidence and Common Stock Investment", MIT Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, based on the trading activity in over 35,000 households. Men had a false faith in their own financial judgments trading less sensibly than women, single men being worst. More financial power to married women! Much, not all, is Wall Street. Much to learn. Are we ready?

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(E) Module IV:

Title: The Americas, a declaration of Indipendence and cooperation

Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Fernando T. Montiel

Johan Galtung Fernando T. Montiel

Study material:

Einstenian space time, by Johan Galtung

Latin America Peace Movements, by Fernando T. Montiel

Mexico- Usa, Drugs-Arms- Money, by Johan Galtung and Fernando T. Montiel After the Us Empire a World of Regions, by Johan Galtung

Mexico, te quiero! by Johan Galtung

Colombia Revisited Ultra-stability! by Johan Galtung

Drug Legalization in Latin America could it be an answer Gene Bolton - Council on Hemispheric Affairs Role Reversal Latin America Taunts Us on Debt, Brian Winter – Reuters

The Brasilia Consensus a Model for Latin America, Estrella Gutiérrez - Inter Press Service-IPS

The Threat–Again–of Left-Wing Latin American Democracy Peter Hart - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting-FAIR

U.S Militarization in Latin America Condemn, Pravda -

Why latin America Calls on Philosopher Santiago Zabala - Al Jazeera UNASUR, A Latina America Success Story Olivia Kroth, Pravda

A Day Of Peace: For The Americas, by Johan Galtung

(The complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and responses from the course instructors)

A DAY OF PEACE: FOR THE AMERICAS Johan Galtung, 24 Sep 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service Puebla, México, Universidad de las Americas, 21 September 2012: Today is the 2012 day of peace as resolved by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 55/282 in 2001, following resolution 56/37 in 1981). A day of cease-fire and nonviolence, but open to all peace themes. And that brings us straight to the key problem in the theory and practice of peace: are we thinking of the negative peace of cease-fire and no (not non-) violence, or are we thinking of the positive peace of cooperation for mutual and equal benefit, empathy for emotional harmony, reconciliation of past traumas and resolution capacity for endless agenda of future conflicts? Using non-violence? Or are we thinking of persuading, or forcing, those with serious grievances to lay down their arms and reintegrate peacefully in civilian life. Or trying to understand and do something deeper, about the grievances? Both-and is not an answer to be ruled out, like both growth and distribution as goals of that other big UN word, development. But, a big BUT: not one first and then the other. That tends to work out as cease-fire first and then nothing or as growth first and then nothing, presumably waiting for time to ripen. And that time has a tendency not to com for two simple reasons: for those high up the violence is the problem, not the grievances, they are "their" problems; and growth is what they feed on, not distribution, that is "their" problem. These are existential, not philosophical problems for countries like México and Colómbia, with huge violent activity within a syndrome with narco-traffic as a part. The traditional approach is to use the ultima ratio of the state—

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police, military and para-military--to fight, kill, uproot the violence. And, if that does not work, try to negotiate a cease-fire. But the underlying causes have a tendency to reproduce the violence, with democracies pushing that problem onto the next administration and dictatorships becoming even more brutal. We do ourselves a huge disfavor if we accept only the task of negative peace, curing symptoms, not the disease. Ice against fever. Let us look at five concrete America cases for both negative and positive peace: Malvinas-Falklands, Cuba, drugs-arms flows, flagrant inequality, US intervention/micro-management of Latin America and the Caribbean. Mantra: no lasting negative peace without positive peace, Malvinas-Falklands exploded in 1982 as war by the South on North, something new at the time, won by the UK. "Peace"? Not at all, no solution of the underlying conflict. There is an obvious solution, the formula used another place where the West had traveled too far and settled: Hong Kong-Macao. Use some midnight for one flag don, one flag up, one garrison out, one in, and the rest remains the same. The sovereignty so obviously belongs to Argentina and to Latin America and the Caribbean, more collective these days of self-affirmation, for historical as well as geographical reasons. But, respect the people. Cuba is short on multi-party elections, but so have most Latin a American countries been--today Honduras and Paraguay labor under USA-supported coups--without being excluded from the OAS. Make Cuba a member right away, also honoring the first country to challenge the giant in the North, with a leader surviving 10 US presidents, most of them highly forgettable. Have some sense of history, please. How about the people-drugs in return for arms-money syndrome? Complex, but there are two handles: the narco-traffic has to be reduced from both ends, both the supply and the demand, by both doing their best, certifying each other, or even better, jointly, for their efforts. And, reduce the magnitude of the problem by legalizing marijuana, such a minor problem relative to health enemy No, 1 in the USA: tobacco, and alcohol, both legal. The latter was once prohibited with disastrous consequences, violence, gangsterism, mafias. They disappeared with legalization; alcoholism not, nor did it increase. Underlying all of this, not the only factor but a major one, is, of course, flagrant inequality, injustice, exploitation. The key approach is to lift the bottom, the most needy in the most miserable communities, with micro-credits to small companies producing basic necessities--above all food, water, health and education--for and by the most needy; employing them to lift themselves up without threatening the rich. The key impediment is not technical. This is all feasible within, say 5-10 year, but the fear of those high up that "they will treat us the way we treated them". This fear has to be addressed and alleviated. They want equal opportunity, dignity. Feasible, like using student volunteers for alphabetization, like training barefoot nurses for the most frequent diseases, combined with helicopters to adequate hospitals, using herbs and generic drugs. Then, the inter-Americas dimensions, the 100 or so US military interventions and the present emergence on the horizon of los estados unidos de América Latína y el Caríbe. As natural as the independence of the colonies on the Atlantic seaboard from 1775, with a famous Declaration in 1776, and a US constitution in 1787. How would a mature USA react? "Welcome, brothers in the South! We know what this is about, and will not repeat the stupidity of London, fighting 35 years to prevent our independence. We are no George III. But how can we meet, in equity and harmony, solving our traumas and conflicts?" A mature Latin American answer: turn the OAS into a dialogue forum! We cannot accept vetoes from the North against an almost united South, but are ready for dialogue, on Malvinas, Cuba, drugs-arms, misery; problems we will approach in our way, with open minds. And one more step: how about a MEXUSCAN, a North America of three countries, revising NAFTA for equality, having Mexico as a bridge? With open borders, no fences, flows both ways of people and legitimate goods and services. Positive peace for the Americas in our life time.

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(F) Module V:

Title: SABONA: Conflict and Peace in daily life

Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Synøve Faldalen

Johan Galtung Synøve Faldalen

Study material: Sabona-Daily Life Conflicts: A Peace & Conflict Perspective from the book "50 Years, 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives" by

Johan Galtung, TRANSCEND University Press, 2010 pp. 254-255

SABONA: Searching for Good Solutions - Learning Solving Conflicts, Aase Marie and Synøve Faldalen, Vigdis R. Faldalen and Lars Thyholdt, TRANSCEND University Press, 2011

SABONA: From Kindergarten to Geopolitics, by Johan Galtung (The complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and responses from the course instructors)

SABONA: From Kindergarten to Geopolitics Johan Galtung, 17 Sep 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service Kongsvinger is a small town in Eastern Norway, close to Sweden, with a small dedicated group working in kindergartens, elementary and more advanced schools to convey conflict and social skills to children from one to twelve years old. Recently they presented their experiences for a very grateful audience of children, teachers and parents. Enters a teddy-bear, a key ‘person’. Child 1 grabs the bear and beats Child 2 shouting, "He is mine!" The teacher reports: "Of course I could scold, saying beating is not allowed. But that is not good enough." So I said, "He is neither his nor yours, but the kindergarten's. You wanted to hug him? OK, but no beating. You could have asked". Next time that would be the chosen means for the "bear in my arms" goal. Another child had left some cute stuffed animals on the bathroom counter. Then the bell rang. They all left, except that child, standing by the door, crying deeply and loudly. The teacher reports: "Of course I could have said that ‘big children like you don’t cry’ but that wouldn’t have been good enough". So I simply asked, "Tell me, what is the matter?" "The animals are lonely, nobody cares for them!" was the reply. Small stories for most people; big for the children. Again and again teachers train them. Children do something negative, unacceptable, irritating. Ask why, what do you want, your goal? And then you may question the goal, modify it. And suggest a better means. To hug the bear is a totally acceptable goal, but asking for it is a far better means than beating. To care for the lonely animals is not only acceptable but beautiful, but words are a better means of communicating than tears. But which words? The teacher has to suggest them, complete sentences, repeat. Social skills are also verbal skills, and children are not born with them. Purpose? To question the goals: are they acceptable? To question the means: could there be better means? After some time the new skills stick. Simply scolding leaves them without alternatives. Elisabeth, a teacher in the kindergarten, made a study of child conflicts and found that they were essentially of six types: * A child wants to have a toy alone; * A child takes a toy from others; * A child does not wait for his/her turn, sneaking in the line; * A child wants to decide alone what and how they all shall play; * Disagreement about what and how they shall play. * A child is excluded from playing. These are conflicts: at least two clashing goals are involved, beyond the acceptability of goals and adequacy of means. Solutions?

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(G) Module VI:

Title: Middle East because of the complexity of the topic the module is divided in:

1. Afghanistan ,Pakistan, Kurds, Iran and ‘’Elements’’ of Syria (Johan Galtung and Tatsushi Arai)

2. Israel-Palestine and the Arab awakening (Johan Galtung and Jorgen Johansen)

Course Instructors: Johan Galtung & Tatsushi Arai and Jorgen Johansen

Johan Galtung Tatsushi Arai Jorgen Johansen

Study material:

From Johan Galtung:

Good News From The Holy Land

The Middle East

Winning wars vs. solving underlying conflicts: the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq

Ghandi and the Struggle Against Imperialism: five points

A European model for the Middle East

State Terrorism/Terrorism, Usa/Iraq, Israel/Palestine Right Now

Turkey-Cyprus -Kurds -Armenia –Syria From Tatsushi Arai:

Afghanistan and Pakistan- Chapter on external power, Khan 2011

Ending the Us War in Afghanistan, Wildman and Bennis 2012

Taliban militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Rashid 2009 From Jorgen Johansen:

Beyond the Hegemonic Story of Nonviolent Resistance in Egypt-Sean Chabot

Egypt's Ongoing Revolution-From Dictatorship to Democracy, Rizk-Meyer

Strategic Nonviolent Action in the Arab World- History and Prospects- Stephen Zunes

The Arab Spring and Palestine...so far

(The complete study material is freely available ONLY to participants. Same goes for participants’s collective assignments and responses

from the course instructors)

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Good News from the Holy Land Johan Galtung, 28 Dec 2009 - TRANSCEND Media Service There was midnight mass in the little village church. The news–or olds–from the Holy Land were recited by the young priest: For us is today a Savior born, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The amens filled the church. Next morning an AlJazeera panel about the Holy Land: "West Bank settlers are dominated by a messianic-eschatolgical minority", "no separation between church and state", "time for a two-states solution is running out", "maybe a Middle East Community, a BeNeLux, something like that", "Netanyahu is only a right wing opportunist". "the death of Zionism" – - From whom the Holy Land news? Avraham Burg, once speaker of Knesset, and president of the World Zionist Organization. "Since 1967 Israel has been running a colonial empire", "the Israeli army is a colonial police", said another. And then: "Algeria resettled a million settlers; Israel will soon have half a million. But where is the Israeli de Gaulle?, and a de Klerk, seeing the handwriting and acting accordingly", "some settlers could remain on the West Bank in exchange for, on a one to one basis, Palestinians returning to Israel", "even Olmert said in an interview that military victories will not give us peace, only land for Palestine". (1) Thus spoke the panel. Meanwhile, an English court had issued an arrest order for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni–programmed to visit the UK privately, hence without diplomatic immunity–the moment she set her foot on English soil, accused of war crimes in connection with the attack on Gaza a year ago. The parallel to a similar order in 1998 against Augusto Pinochet is clearly obvious, even if his crimes were minor compared to Israel. She canceled the visit, and the order was withdrawn. But Article 146 of the protocols of the Geneva Convention makes it a clear duty of states to apprehend war criminals regardless of nationality and where the crime was committed. Meanwhile, the European Union declares Jerusalem as capital not only for Israel, but also for Palestine. Meanwhile, the Jewish American opposition to US Israel policy, and to AIPAC, grows, the J street conferences in Washington being an example. The very Israel-leaning Obama had at least some kind of verbal duel with Netanyahu about the ever increasing settlement, "natural growth" being a formula, no doubt the next one is already prepared by some think tank. The Israeli responses are typical of a regime in decline and impending fall: rage, hysteria, character assassination of Goldstone, the author of the five hundred pages best report Israel could ever hope for; wild attacks on the UK and talks of boycott if they do not change their legislation. They are gambling on US support forever, and have powerful forces to count on, including Obama. So far. But, they let the white apartheid go. They let the Marcos dictatorship go. They are letting the Chiang Kai Shek pretensions go. One day they will decide to let the zionist Israel grip on the Middle East go. When the culture is no longer guiding human action, we talk of anomie: the grip is loosening. When the structure is no longer guiding human action we may talk about atomie: the tissue is unraveling. And when there is a disconnect between culture and structure, we may call about absurdity. Like UK colonialism exposed to the moral challenge of a Gandhi. Like "socialist" Europe exposed to the moral challenge of the dissidents. Like the Holy Israel exposed to reality. Time is approaching for the TRANSCEND August 2001 perspective: ISRAEL/PALESTINE-MIDDLE EAST: A PEACE & CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE (2) For Israel and Palestine there is no security at the end of this road of violence; only increased violence and insecurity. Israel is now in the most dangerous period of its history: increasingly militarist, fighting unwinnable wars, increasingly isolated and with ever more enemies, exposed to violence, non-violence and boycott from within and without, with the USA sooner or later making support conditional on concessions. The basic change in South Africa, from inside and outside, comes to mind: ** Israel’s moral capital is rapidly depreciating, is probably negative in most countries, slowly also changing in the USA; ** Israel suffers from a de facto military coup, offering the electorate a choice of generals with limited agendas; ** Israeli violence and intransigence mobilize resistance and struggle in the Arab and Muslims worlds, if not in the sense of inter-state warfare then in the postmodern sense of terrorism against Israeli state-terrorism. Highly motivated volunteers willing to enter this struggle are in unlimited supply;

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** Sooner or later this will include the 18% Israeli Arabs; ** Sooner or later this may lead to massive nonviolent struggle, like 100,000 Arab women in black marching on Israel; ** Economic boycott of Israeli may come, like for South Africa initiated by NGOs and followed by local authorities and, like South Africa, maybe more important morally than economically; ** Again like for South Africa, US policy may change: -economically Israel is becoming a liability, given trade-oil problems with Arab countries no longer willing to see the USA as a third party; with imminent boycotts and pressure to disinvest; -militarily Israel may commit the USA to a highly ambiguous war, and bases are available elsewhere (Turkey, Kosova, Macedonia); -politically Israel is a liability in the UN, the EU, and NATO allies, may not legitimize violent intervention. USA may prefer a reasonable agreement to supporting a loser (the Shah, Marcos). Could this peace package be more attractive to reasonable people if the context changes in the way foreseen here? [1] Palestine is recognized as a state following UNSC Res. 242, 338; with 4 June 1967 borders with small land exchanges; [2] The capital of Palestine is in East Jerusalem; [3] A Middle East Community with Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria as full members, with water, arms, trade regimes based on multilateral consensus; and an Organization for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East with a broader base; [4] The Community is supported by the EU, Nordic Community and ASEAN financially and for institution-building expertise; [5] Egypt and Jordan lease additional land to Palestine; [6] Israel and Palestine become federations with 2 Israeli cantons in Palestine and 2 Palestinian cantons in Israel; [7] The two neighbor capitals become a city confederation, also host to major regional, UN and ecumenical institutions; [8] The right of return also to Israel is accepted in principle, numbers to be negotiated within the canton formula; [9] Israel and Palestine have joint and equitable economic ventures, joint peace education and joint border patrolling; [10] Massive stationing of UN monitoring forces. [11] Sooner or later a Truth and Reconciliation process. Mediating a peace package should not be a country, or a group of countries; but a respected person or group of such persons. (018) NOTES: (1) Olmert wording from New York Review of Books, TMS 05-01-09: We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from all of the [occupied] territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage [of territory elsewhere]-without this there will be no peace. Including Jerusalem, with, I’d imagine, special arrangements made for the Temple Mount and the holy/historical sites.) (2) 50 Years: 100 Peace & Conflict Perspectives, chapter 16d, TRANSCEND University Press, 2008, see www.transcend.org/tup.