Articles by Prof. Johan Galtung
We found 66 results.
Some Ideas on China and World Harmony
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jun 2025
With the regionalization of the world where even the biggest states will find their place, an East Asian Community of the two Chinas, the two Koreas and the three Japans (Ryu Kyu Islands, Okinawa and an Ainu region) is inevitable. The European Community-Union got started around steel and coal…
→ read full articleRule of Law vs. Rule of Mediation
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jun 2025
A fresh wind of a culture of mediation is blowing all over Latin America, more than in any other continent. All over there are huge conferences, workshops and training in family mediation, between neighbors, communal mediation, in work relations; less so at the inter-nation and inter-state levels.
→ read full articleNorway: Decline and Fall
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 May 2025
The Norway I was born into 80 years ago and grew up in the 20 years that followed is hopefully still there, sedimented in the archeology of recent history. But there is an overlayer of something alien, distinctly not Norwegian…
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Galtung: 60 Years of Global Peace Studies (Part 1)
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2025
An oldie from the founder of Conflict & Peace Studies
→ read full articleGlobalizing God: Religion and Peace in the Social Sciences
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2025
God has to globalize and should have done so before the stock exchange. Hard readings lead to intolerance or grudging tolerance. Badly needed: respect and curiosity; dialogue and mutual learning. There is so much wisdom! Select! Eclect!
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Civilian Peace Service
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2025
Nonviolent Peaceforce – There is a basic problem: now coming from the West, there is always the danger that they could become the continuation of aggressive Western governmental politics by nongovernmental means. How can this be avoided?
→ read full articlePeace, Peace Education and the UN
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2025
How about peace education in all of that? Training in handling complexity is basic, and the first tool to go is the world map using four colors to highlight the dying state system. An illusion, the real world is much more complex.
→ read full articleWhy That Much Violence These Days?
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Apr 2025
We find it all over, as massive killings in connection with US and/or its allies [NATO] attacks on Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine, Israeli genocide of Palestinians, Sudan, Myanmar…–22 ongoing armed conflicts in 2025. There will probably be much more because of Trump’s tariffs economic war against the world [“They’re Kissing My Ass”] and threats of annexation of the Panama Canal and Greenland. [Updated by the TMS editor.]
→ read full articleThink Cosmically, Act Globally, Eat Locally…
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Apr 2025
A unifying story calls for something above all individual humans, something out there, and in here; like life itself, human life, humanity as such, the net of human relations, the god(s) of our faiths. It cannot be I-me-my-mine, that is egocentrism.
→ read full articleTwo Empires Falling – But How?
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2025
The significance of the Rosenstrasse nonviolence in the heart of Berlin in the middle of the war is neglected, just like Obama neglected the role of nonviolence in ending both colonialism and the cold war in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, probably the most belligerent ever given.
→ read full articleOn the Unavoidable, Ongoing Decline–and Fall–of the US Empire
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Mar 2025
Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a configuration articulated by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the US Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. Direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence.
→ read full articleEmerging Powers – and Retiring Powers
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2025
In the name of justice and symmetry any focus on what is emerging invites a focus on the opposite: “demerging”, vanishing, retiring powers. There is not that much space at the top, in the limelight.
→ read full articlePerfide Albion
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2025
The focus is on the United Kingdom, or England, or simply Albion, known for its perfidy–Lord Palmerston’s famous “No permanent friends, no permanent enemies; permanent interests.”
→ read full articleIslamism, Christianism, Judeaism
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2025
US empire christianism is fighting not only for the economic-political-military-cultural empire, but also for God’s rule on earth via USA, a country under God, invoking His support. And at the root of it all is Cana’an, Zion, Israel; one land for all the chosen ones, bent on defending itself by all means, nuclear included.
→ read full articleCivilization as a Way of Life
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2025
Six civilizations define 15 walls, religiously-philosophically and economically-politically, as development models. The major clash being the West against the Rest. Colonialism, imperialism. The solution: winning, dominating. There are other ways: compromise, transcendence, new civilizations.
→ read full article1421 – 1434
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2025
In 1421 the Chinese traveled to the Americas. They came, saw, did not conquer, many stayed. Unlike the West no empire, no sucking tentacles. Also unlike the West they learnt, and preserved much of it. The center of the world now moves toward China.
→ read full articleThe Three Nuclear Issues
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2024
The three issues are disarmament-proliferation, the military use, and the theological use of nuclear arms. All rather untractable.
→ read full articleFamily-School-Work Bullying
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2024
The three pillars of our societies, the Family delivering children reasonably socialized to School, which in turn delivers students reasonably educated to Work, which in turn delivers people to the garbage heap for useless citizens called Retirement, are fraught with violence.
→ read full articleYin/Yang: China
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2024
Talk at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, Sep 2010. Others have much to learn, as China from others, for mutual and equal benefit–the essence of positive peace.
→ read full articleIn Praise of Nonalignment
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2024
This Editorial was originally published on 22 Mar 2010 – #105. We are reposting for its significance as USA/NATO hint of a nuclear war–State terrorism par excellence.
→ read full articleGlobal Warming: 12 Approaches
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2024
There is much talk about global warming, and rightly so. But we need concrete ideas about moving from talk to action, possibly with two concerns lurking in the back of the mind:
→ read full articlePeace and Security: Women and Men
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2024
My approach to this topic is based on 50 years experience with how women and men relate to peace and security issues in formal and informal politics, in mediation and mediation training, in peace-keeping and peace-building operations, and in meetings.
→ read full articleCriminalize War!
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2024
Wars get ever worse as measured by the percentage of non-combatant, civilian casualties; from about 10 percent in WWI to 90 percent in recent wars. They dare refer to crimes as “unintended consequences”, “collateral damage.” Using states to kill makes the killers outlaws. Criminals. Stop it.
→ read full articleOn Truth
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2024
What happens when the US empire not only declines but falls, will we follow? Will the world poor rise against us? Who am I, with whom am I, on the right side, the wrong? How has my mother-in-law programmed her daughter for it all? A super-complex world.
→ read full articleIslam and the West
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2024
We have been there before, many times. For the West, encroaching on Islamic lands was part of the massive exercise known as colonialism.
→ read full articleMore Creativity, Please!
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2024
Latin America’s institutions can tomorrow become those of East Asia, both inspiring and being inspired by the African Union and above all by the mother of unions, the European one, lost in the gap between its desire to be emulated and its fear of irritating the North Americans.
→ read full articleThe Cold War as a Metaphor
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2024
The Cold War is worth remembering. There is much to learn about conflict and meta-conflict. For West vs. Islam.
→ read full articleThe Power-Shift to the Global South
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2024
The Global South is coming, with or–hopefully without–a vengeance. Look at the basic facts in the power distribution.
→ read full articleConflict Transcendence as Driving Force in History
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2024
The mediation theory of TRANSCEND opens for five possibilities for simple conflicts and much more for more complex conflicts; but they are hidden in history. To transcend is to go beyond, into a new reality accommodating opposed theses, also such as the goals of actors.
→ read full articleAbout Truth
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2024
The idea of Truth is as relevant for the arts as for the sciences. Truth is an attribute of a symbolic articulation when held up against reality: does it reflect, agree with what we consider “reality”?
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Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2024
TRANSCEND Method: To prevent violence and develop the creative potential of a conflict, there has to be transformation. At the root of the method is the understanding of conflict as incompatible goals, meaning as a problem to be solved; not as incompatible parties.
→ read full articleFreedom of Expression vs. Freedom from Humiliation
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Aug 2024
Of course we can indicate our doubts without humiliating. And of course we can be respectful without submitting. But do so in the spirit of dialogue, not in that continuation of war by verbal means known as a debate. And explore the answers together.
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Rethinking Conflict: The Cultural Approach
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2024
Conflict is a complex human phenomenon and should by no means be confused with violence. Although conflicts may lead to violence, they are totally different conceptually. At the root of a conflict there is always an incompatibility, a contradiction, between goals.
→ read full articleSpying for the USA–And for Peace
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2024
To expose war crimes parading as “secrets” is a service for peace. Ellsberg got the alternative Nobel Peace Prize. So will Assange.
→ read full articleAfter the US Empire: A World of Regions?
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Aug 2024
The successor system to the US empire will be neither a hegemony run by one big actor like China or the EU, nor globalization run by the TNCs, but a world of regions. A global common currency may come but the regions will dominate as the state system is fading.
→ read full articleAbout Truth
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jul 2024
The idea of Truth is as relevant for the arts/humanities as for the sciences. Truth is an attribute of a symbolic articulation–a thesis, a text, a painting-sculpture, a piece of music–when held up against reality: does it reflect, agree with what we consider “reality”?
→ read full articleReligions: There Is Gentle Wisdom in Them All
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jul 2024
Religion can be hard, and soft and gentle. Any religion is a tissue with hard and soft strands, where the fundamentalists are playing on the hard. Religare sounds fine. But how?
→ read full article60+ Years Later: Human Rights as a Discourse
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jun 2024
How do Human Rights stand up as a discourse? Incorporated in the French constitution of 1789 and reformulated as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is a major human achievement, close to a world constitution. It is not international law, but the Covenants of 16 Dec 1966 — civil-political, economic-social-cultural — are.
→ read full articleGaza Redux
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jun 2024
Beyond the immense human tragedy unfolding in the Gaza atrocities, a question takes shape: have the Israeli leaders, politicians and military alike, totally lost their senses? A sledgehammer for a toothache? Déjà vu.
→ read full articleMy Vision for Sudan
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jun 2024
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.
→ read full articleStill Thinking Conflict
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 May 2024
Hans Küng gives a number of examples of misguided policies by the present US and Israeli administrations. Not difficult to agree. But something even more basic than a new ethos also has to happen, like coming to terms with conflicts where the USA is involved. And exactly with the term conflict, how to think about conflict, let alone solving it.
→ read full articleJesus, Judas and Che Guevara
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2024
There is an exercise called Western Civilization, and a dramatic narrative at the center of that exercise with two persons in the key roles, Jesus and Judas. Easter times, now, are here to remind us of the drama.
→ read full articleAfter the US Empire: A World of Regions?
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Apr 2024
Nonviolence, sophistication, world, and domestic traffic rules as opposed to endless interventionism for whatever purpose. May the current Asian blend of age-old wisdom and youthful energy inspire a world filled with pessimism and fear.
→ read full articleThe World beyond Global Disorder
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2024
The strength of this forum is its civilization focus; let us use it for analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots.
→ read full articleSome Perspectives on Veterans of Current Wars
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2024
These are not clear-cut good wars of Good against Evil. The goals of USA-West, beyond suppressing “insurrection”, include revenge, paranoia, economic interests, getting bases for future wars far from “good”. The goals of an enemy defined by US-West as Evil, are often badly understood or not at all.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Sociocide, Genocide, Ecocide in Gaza
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2023
Sociocide is the killing of a society’s capacity to survive, to reproduce itself, a crime against humanity. The USA and Israel were born the same way, as God’s chosen people with promised lands, using sociocide and genocide (the USA). With no policy change they may also decline and fall the same way. Even soon.
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The Doctrine of ‘Just War’
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2023
Let it be clear that the present author is against war, there being no “but”. War as an institution is an abomination, like slavery and colonialism. The key word is institution, legitimized by social norms and mores. A doctrine of just war is designed to offer a legitimization by seeing the evil of war as something that can be outweighed by possible positive outcomes.
→ read full articleSpirituality and Peace
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2023
28 Aug 2023 – Our world is clearly missing much in its efforts to achieve peace. It is expressed by the word “spirituality”, as overused as the word “peace” precisely because both embody so many of our dreams. Tell me your spirituality, and I will tell how much peace there is in you.
→ read full articlePeace Studies: Inspiration, Objectives, Achievement
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2023
Peace appeals to the heart; studies to the brain. Both are needed, indeed indispensable. But equally indispensable is a valid link between brain and heart. And that, in a nutshell, is what peace studies and peace practice are all about.
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Galtung on Militarism
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2022
Solve the Underlying Conflict
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On the Ongoing Decline and Fall of the US Empire
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2022
Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence.
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(Norsk-Norwegian) Israels forbrytelser mot Palestina
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2022
Samfunnsdrap er villet lemlestelse – drap av et samfunn ved å eliminere forutsetningene for et levende, levende, dynamisk samfunn.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Sociocide, Genocide, Ecocide in Palestine
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2022
Sociocide is the killing of a society’s capacity to survive, to reproduce itself, should become equally prominent a crime against humanity. The USA and Israel were born the same way, as God’s chosen people with promised lands, using sociocide and genocide. With no policy change they may also decline and fall the same way. Even soon.
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Jesus, Judas and Che Guevara
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Oct 2021
Che Guevara, of the Bolivia diaries and the brilliant movie based on them, was assassinated by the CIA on 9 Oct 1967. In an interview in the early 60s he conveyed to this author his disappointment that his respected Fidel privileged Soviet support against a US attack, and the Soviets wanted raw sugar in return for their industrial goods.
→ read full articleThe Fall of the U.S. Empire–And Then What?
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Sep 2021
An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system in macro-space and macro-time with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery: economically, exploiters/exploited as inequity; militarily, killers/victims as enforcement; politically, dominators/dominated as repression; culturally, alienators/alienated as conditioning. Empires have different profiles.
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“Tell me how you behave in any given conflict; I will tell you how much peace culture you have.”
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Aug 2021
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. He was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Galtung has mediated in over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press. His book, Transcend and Transform, was translated to 25 languages. He has published more than 1700 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service. More information about Prof. Galtung and all of his publications can be found at transcend.org/galtung.
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(Italiano) Israele-Palestina: come appare la pace
Prof. Johan Galtung | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Aug 2021
Ma il peacebuilding non è sufficiente; abbiamo bisogno pure del peacemaking – una soluzione politica – e il peacekeeping. E qui entra in ballo l’EU: non solo come mediatrice, ma come modello, che sistema brillantemente una Germania che si era resa molo difficile da digerire dai paesi circostanti. Ieri. Come Israele, oggi.
→ read full articleIsrael-Palestine: What Peace Looks Like
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jul 2021
But peacebuilding is not sufficient; we need also peacemaking–a political solution–and peacekeeping. And here the EU enters: not only as a mediator, but as model, brilliantly accommodating a Germany that had made itself very difficult to digest by surrounding countries. Yesterday. Like Israel. Today.
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“Tell me how you behave in conflict. I will tell you how much peace culture you have.”
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 May 2021
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. He was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Galtung has mediated in over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author…
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“To me, peace is something we create and often in new ways, not to be frozen into a handbook of law–although the law could also be useful as one guide among many.”
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. He was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Galtung has mediated in over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press. His book, Transcend and Transform, was translated to 25 languages. He has published more than 1,700 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service.
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A Structural Theory of Imperialism
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
This theory takes as its point of departure two of the most glaring facts about this world: the tremendous inequality, within and between nations, in almost all aspects of human living conditions, including the power to decide over those living conditions; AND the resistance of this inequality to change. The world consists of Center and Periphery nations; and each nation, in turn, has its centers and periphery.
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The Habit of Passion
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
From the TMS editor: Johan Galtung, my mentor, friend, well-wisher, guide, a great inspirer, just turned 90 years old; he is semi-retired now. I present a text he wrote some time ago and I found in my archives; practical wisdom, optimism, proaction, higher thinking. With my deepest respect and gratitude to Johan for our friendship of 35-years–of uninterrupted learning from my part. — Antonio C. S. Rosa
→ read full articleOn the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
[Paper written in 2015] -> Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence.
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In Memoriam: Dietrich ‘Dieter’ Fischer (22 Sep 1941 – 18 Oct 2015)
Prof. Johan Galtung | Founder – TRANSCEND Network of Peace Practitioners,
28 Oct 2019
My dear friend, co-founder of TRANSCEND, let us celebrate your life while deploring that you are no longer among us, in deep gratitude for all you did to inspire and help–and for peace in general.
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Is Peaceful Research Possible? On the Methodology of Peace Research
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jul 2019
The problem to be explored in this paper can be stated very briefly as follows: is peace research necessarily a peaceful activity? More precisely, is there a meaningful distinction between violent and nonviolent methodologies in peace research? And if there is such a distinction, we are immediately led onto more questions: could it be that some methodologies very frequently employed in fact are highly violent?; what would alternative, nonviolent methodologies be like? – and the final, in a sense most fundamental question: does peace research have to be pursued with nonviolent, peaceful methodologies?
→ read full articleJesus, Judas and Che Guevara
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2009
There is an exercise called Western Civilization, and a dramatic narrative at the center of that exercise with two persons in the key roles, Jesus and Judas. Easter times, now, are here to remind us of the drama. The outer events, delivered through the millennia, by Mark in the 70s, Matthew in the 80s, then […]
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