Yes, go beyond, transcend!–that is our message, New Year or not.<\/p>\n
Take the US school shootings.\u00a0 The National Rifle Association\u2019s vice president on TV: “the only person who can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun”.\u00a0 That statement struck many cords.<\/p>\n
There is the deep US culture of Dualism–two kinds of people–and Manicheism–one bad, one good.\u00a0 There is Armageddon in the class room, the teacher or resident police pulling out the gun–bigger, better, more accurate–for the final battle, for the final and only<\/i> solution.\u00a0 The NRA is riding on this DMA (Dualism\/Manicheism\/Armageddon) ground swell from below, and so are millions of others.\u00a0 It is concrete, feasible, and could start January 2013.<\/p>\n
There is confirmation from above: this is US foreign policy.\u00a0 The only way to stop a bad country with arms is a good country with arms; the only way to stop evil terrorism from below is good state terrorism from above.\u00a0 Balance of power, countless bases, search and destroy.<\/p>\n
We agree about the critical focus: school shootings–the USA committing suicide!–must not happen<\/i>.\u00a0 But what do we know<\/i> empirically to be constructive, creative?\u00a0 The answer is wrapped in ambiguity.<\/p>\n
Of course deterrence<\/i> sometimes works.\u00a0 So does incapacitation<\/i> by violent means, including killing, obliteration.\u00a0 Or at least it may look so; at least for some time.\u00a0 Particularly for the untrained eye.<\/p>\n
The trained eye sees other things going on. \u00a0Deterrence is a stage; then the arms race<\/i> sets in, within and between countries.\u00a0 The NRA escalates by arming the schools, to the considerable profits of the gun manufacturers and shops with NRA as publicity front.\u00a0 And the bad persons?\u00a0 The step from hand guns to assault rifles has already been taken.\u00a0 Next step: putting schools on fire?\u00a0 Bombs?\u00a0 9\/11?\u00a0 Ominous.<\/p>\n
The trained eye also sees killing as a stage; then revenge<\/i> sets in.\u00a0 The mass murderers committing these atrocities may not know each other; but the shared interests may lead to joint revenge.\u00a0 Ominous.<\/p>\n
The NRA’s concrete gun proposal may be very destructive in practice.\u00a0 But the statement opens for two constructive ideas:<\/p>\n
A “war on arms” means US domestic disarmament.\u00a0 One “war” has been quite successful: the war on smoking, even if still a major cause of death.\u00a0 Enlightened self-interest was involved.\u00a0 Engrave “Arms are dangerous to your and your family’s health”, ban publicity of any kind, and as a first step ban the NRA from interfering with the US political process. Quit smoking, quit arms<\/i>.\u00a0 Launch a culture where having arms, and making a living on arms, is as immoral as slavery, human trafficking.<\/p>\n
So much for capability<\/i>, access to arms in USA and in Germany, in Finland (some school shootings) and Norway (Breivik), using hunting licenses and online shopping.\u00a0 How about the intent<\/i> of bad persons?<\/p>\n
The sad long list of school tragedies in the US from a beginning\u00a0 in 1764 to 8 in the 1970s, 18 in the 1980s, 16 in the 1990s, 21 in the 2000s–the 2010s on the way–indicates three factors: some minority background, some conflict with the school, some mental disorder.\u00a0 Many Americans would meet those criteria.\u00a0 But they point beyond negative peace through balance of power and disarmament to a positive peace with constructive protection through mutuality and equality.<\/p>\n
To start with the obvious: The NRA, like many, blames TV-video games violence.\u00a0 No doubt both normalize violence in general and shooting in particular.\u00a0 So do news over-reporting violence, domestic or global.\u00a0 And news glorifying US military interventions–fiascos or not–take the step from normalization to legitimation.\u00a0 “If my country can do it so can I” went through the head of a Timothy McVeigh, possibly also an Anders Breivik; but neither the USA nor Norway want any focus on that.<\/p>\n
However, this approach is still only within negative peace.\u00a0 Limit TV-videogame-news violence to reduce violence: good, but not good enough. We need constructive approaches beyond reducing the destructive elements.<\/p>\n
Here is the wish for 2013, for the decade, the century: fill TV and video-games with the true-to-life dramas of conflict resolution and trauma reconciliation without violence!<\/p>\n
Authors, where are you<\/i>?–lost in the aristotelian drama=tragedy+comedy?\u00a0 Show how we humans usually muddle through–in the family, at school, at work–and could do better inspired by visions and skills!<\/p>\n
Journalists, where are you<\/i>?–lost in the idea that only bad news are news, that peace is normal, not worthy of reporting, including the struggle for peace?<\/p>\n
Art and TV fare so incredibly badly that even small steps forward could make a big difference.\u00a0 There is optimism in that!\u00a0 The SABONA Project<\/a> in elementary schools and kindergartens in Norway show that so much can be gained by training the kids in conflict handling–not only teaching “good manners”.\u00a0 It is almost unbelievable, but TV channels that pick up anything to portray “reality” fail on this one.\u00a0 There is Dr Phil on US TV, fine, but limited to inter-personal conflicts.<\/p>\n There is some state logic at work: states are addicted to violent options and the idea of “necessary wars”; solving underlying conflicts to the benefit of all would undermine that doctrine.<\/p>\n There is some capital logic at work: bad news sell.\u00a0 Maybe, but good news might sell even better among women, the young, the old.<\/p>\n Imagine good conflict resolution stories becoming the talking point of nations: how about trying it on what we saw last week on TV?\u00a0 Or asking a prime minister how he will handle the underlying conflicts?<\/p>\n Including school conflicts, the key focus.\u00a0 Super-competitive schools produce winners, losers, hatred, violence, bullying. Shootings are bullying US style<\/i>.\u00a0 Make schools cooperative, let students compete with themselves to improve.\u00a0 Make everybody a winner.\u00a0 Not fail-proof: Finland[i]<\/a> also uses that constructive, concrete and<\/i> creative approach.\u00a0 Students might even become interested in the content, not only in their grades.\u00a0 And even small steps may pay off quickly.<\/p>\n NOTE:<\/b><\/p>\n The same actually applies to economics, as argued in much detail in my book Peace Economics, TRANSCEND University Press, 2012<\/a><\/i>, now available.<\/p>\n __________________________<\/p>\n Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgment and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yes, go beyond, transcend!–that is our message, New Year or not. Take the US school shootings. The National Rifle Association\u2019s vice president on TV: “The only person who can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun”. That statement struck many cords. This is US foreign policy. The only way to stop a bad country with arms is a good country with arms; the only way to stop evil terrorism from below is good state terrorism from above. Balance of power, countless bases, search and destroy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-coops-cooperation-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}