The Cold War is worth remembering.\u00a0 There is much to learn about conflict and meta-conflict.\u00a0 For West vs. Islam.<\/p>\n
That self-inflicted threat to humanity lasted officially 40 years 1949-89. But it started with the Bolshevik revolution October 1917, and ended with the combined collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union. 1917-1991.\u00a0 Almost a century.<\/p>\n
I remember during the Cold War on countless occasions asking what it was about.\u00a0 The answer from the war movements West and East, armed to the brim with nukes, was “the threat of an attack from the Soviet authoritarian-totalitarian regime\/from the US-NATO fascist-imperialist regime”.\u00a0 And from the peace movement in the West: “the threat of an all-out nuclear war putting humanity at risk”.\u00a0 And from the dissident movement in the East: “Stalinist repression forever”.<\/p>\n
If violence and the threat thereof are symptoms of deep unresolved conflict, then the dissidents came closest to a diagnosis of the conflict.\u00a0 The others were stuck in the meta-conflict, the manifestations, the metastases: nuclear war and the threat to security, of the West, of the East, of humanity. And no doubt the nuclear arms race and the displaced warm war in East Asia, etc., offered good reason for deep concern.<\/p>\n
But what was the conflict about?\u00a0 Deep and manifold:<\/p>\n
Culturally:\u00a0<\/strong> Two competing Western worldviews, let us call them liberalism and Marxism; both claiming universal validity and with profound implications at all levels. Politically:<\/strong> Evolutionary change by the democratically expressed will of the majority vs. revolutionary change by the proletariat taking over the State.<\/p>\n Militarily:\u00a0<\/strong> Interventions all over to enact these programs or prevent the other side from enacting them–like in Eastern Europe and Latin America, with terrible wars in East Asia, and a horrible arms race with devastating, and absurd, consequences.<\/p>\n Could this multiple conflict be solved or transformed?\u00a0 Let us explore the implications, many of which were tried but heavily resisted, particularly by the West: NATO and the USA.<\/p>\n Culturally:<\/strong> more space for mutually exploring strengths and weaknesses of the worldviews.\u00a0 At that time–more secular than today with heavily Judeo-Christian USA, Russia back to orthodox Christianity, and Islam growing everywhere–these worldviews were religious substitutes not to be challenged.\u00a0 They both have strong and weak points, opening for both-and, neither-nor, compromises and above all mutual learning.\u00a0 But that did not happen, like today between the West and Islam; they dialogue for inside knowledge, not for mutual learning.<\/p>\n Economicall<\/strong>y both extremes have devastating consequences, abject misery for one, repression and command for the other.\u00a0\u00a0 There are compromises known theoretically and in practice: social democracy, negotiating mixed economies with private and public sectors.\u00a0 There was talk of convergence toward a less exploitative private and less repressive public sector.\u00a0 The hard cores in both camps did not budge, but debate there was, like today in the USA.\u00a0 The social democracies in Europe did not step forward, however.\u00a0 Some were in NATO, some neutral-nonaligned leaning to the West, also afraid of offending USA.<\/p>\n Politically<\/strong>, democracy and human rights prevailed, as they should.\u00a0 But they fail at a basic point now as then: there is abject suffering, but the victims are unable to muster a democratic majority.\u00a0 If they are repressed there is space today for humanitarian intervention.\u00a0 But if exploited to the point of starving, dying from curable diseases?\u00a0 Unresolved, then as now, but basic to the conflict.\u00a0 How can democracies learn to speed up change in emergencies, without violence?<\/p>\n \u00a0Militarily <\/strong>the Red Army occupied Eastern Europe, backing badly needed basic change, but with the usual Marxist mistakes: controlling small farmers’ land; small businesses; and religion with aspiritual “scientific atheism”– creating majorities against.\u00a0 Eastern Europe-Cuba could have learnt from the social democracies.\u00a0 And West Germany, like Austria, could have bought unification with neutrality, as offered by the Soviet Union, not yielding to US pressure.<\/p>\n In 1972 a social democracy, Finland, put conflict ahead of meta-conflict in a Helsinki process leading to the 1975 Final Act: borders after the war against Nazism remain (they still do); socialist countries will open to investment and mixed economies; a process toward human rights in the East in general and the Soviet Union in particular will be started. They did not sit in judgment over liberalism and Marxism.<\/p>\n With this the Cold War was actually over if it had not been for the US stepping up the arms race, deploying cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe; prolonging the Cold War for at least ten years.\u00a0 They may do so again.<\/p>\n Morale:<\/strong> address the conflict itself; beware of spoilers who prefer meta-conflict to solutions.\u00a0 How about West-Islam?<\/p>\n Culturally:<\/strong> step up dialogues but move them from mutual curiosity to mutual learning.\u00a0 They both harbor truths.<\/p>\n Economically:<\/strong> Islamic economies handle the crisis better than Western economies tied to USA financially. Much to learn.<\/p>\n Politically:<\/strong> democracies and human rights offer formulas compatible with a non-secular Islam.\u00a0 Much to learn. Finland, where are you when we need you?\u00a0 Answer: your spirit is in Turkey.\u00a0 In a badly needed Istanbul process, not sitting in judgment over the West vs. Islam as religions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cold War is worth remembering.\u00a0 There is much to learn about conflict and meta-conflict.\u00a0 For West vs. Islam. That self-inflicted threat to humanity lasted officially 40 years 1949-89. But it started with the Bolshevik revolution October 1917, and ended with the combined collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union. 1917-1991.\u00a0 Almost a century. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2815","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=2815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nEconomically: <\/strong>Capital-Market vs. State-Planning economies.<\/p>\n
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\nMilitarily: <\/strong>conflict solution instead of mutual killing. Iraq and Afghanistan self-determination province by province. And a massive reconciliation for the crimes of the past.<\/p>\n