Brussels – European External Action Service, Free University<\/i><\/p>\n
The EU is in a crisis mainly of its own making. Some of it is economic and can be solved by strict control on speculation, separating savings and investment banks, by gradual debt forgiveness, by lifting the bottom up, the most miserable communities, by the GIPSI (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland) countries cooperating, by stimulating agricultural cooperatives with direct sales points, etc.\u00a0 But much of it is political; the EU has become invisible on the world scene, incapable of a foreign policy building peace and security, also much too tied to US and Israeli fundamentalisms and too anti-Islamic.<\/p>\n
The following are some ideas about steps that can be taken.<\/p>\n
The EU glittering success as a peace zone<\/i> is much needed in zones of war and where war threatens: the Middle East, Central Asia, East Asia.\u00a0 A Middle East Community<\/i>, of Israel with five Arab neighbors (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt); a Central Asian Community <\/i>of Afghanistan with eight neighbors (Iran, Pakistan, five former Soviet republics, Ashad Kashmir) with open borders (crucial for the Pashtuns and others); and a North East Asia Community<\/i> (with two Chinas, the two Koreas, Japan, Mongolia and the Russian Far East (now with Khabarovsk as capital) could all benefit from EU opening its archives, telling how it all happened, sharing a major learning experience for humanity.<\/p>\n
A United Regions<\/i> added to the UN but with no veto powers, of the EU, AU, SAARC, ASEAN and the coming Latin America and the Caribbean, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Middle East, Central Asia, North East Asia could take shape and become a key tool of global governance.<\/p>\n
EU and Crisis Management<\/i>.\u00a0 There are many of them, and there will be more given the legacy of colonialism constructing countries, putting together what did not belong together, dividing what did. An example are the four Sykes-Picot colonies: Iraq and Palestine for England, Lebanon and Syria for France, built-in catastrophes, now exploding.\u00a0 The EU will have to recognize the responsibility of some members, and then listen to what all the parties want, trying to arrive at a bridging perspective.\u00a0 Generally speaking, two approaches:<\/p>\n
* federation<\/i> within, with high autonomy for the nations and democracy within each part–but not an all over “one person one vote” which would result in the majority dictatorship of the most numerous nation;<\/p>\n
* confederation, community<\/i>, between, with open borders for nations that belong together to travel freely.<\/p>\n
For Syria<\/i> this would men both respecting the Sunni majority and the minorities protected by Shia rule, with a two-chamber parliament, territorial for the provinces and non-territorial for the nations, with veto rights in matters concerning their identity.\u00a0 EU should send well trained mediators to the crisis area to understand the parties, and facilitate dialogue between them at the local level, many places.<\/p>\n
EU and the use of military force<\/i>.\u00a0 Should be Chapter 6 peace-keeping, not Chapter 7 “peace enforcement” (a contradiction in terms). Given the strong attachment to their goals of autonomy, a ceasefire with no image of a solution will be used for rest, smuggling of arms and redeployment; the road to ceasefire passes through a vision of a solution, not vice versa.\u00a0 The role of peace-keeping is to prevent violence, not to use it, and with that in mind peace-keepers should have military expertise and weapons for self-defense; some police training for crowd control; nonviolence training; some mediation training to know how to understand and facilitate dialogues; be 50% women more focused on human relations, less on control; and be so numerous that we can talk about a blue carpet, not only blue caps.<\/p>\n
EU-Third World<\/i>, mostly former colonies: time is overdue for some reconciliation.\u00a0 Just compensation for the genocide and sociocide–killing social structures and cultures–is out of question, but joint understanding is not. Mutually acceptable textbooks about that period would be very useful, building on the German experience rewriting text books for reconciliation.<\/p>\n
West-Islam<\/i>. At the political level Turkey should become member, making Istanbul a hub for positive West-Islam relations.\u00a0 North Cyprus should be recognized; all of Cyprus–unitary state, federation or confederation–should be a EU member.\u00a0 A dialogue of civilizations could aim at combining Western pluralism with Muslim closeness and sharing for mutual benefit.\u00a0 The Western approach to the Catholic-Protestant divide might be useful for Shia-Sunni understanding.<\/p>\n
Russia<\/i>.\u00a0 Historically the many invasions were from West to East with two exceptions: Russia hitting back after Napoleon and Hitler.\u00a0 There is room for reconciliation based on such facts rather than the paranoid use of the image of Russia, like of China, as peril.<\/p>\n
China<\/i>. The main Silk Road was not a track in the desert and the mountains but a major Buddhist-Muslim East Asia-East Africa sea lane for 1000 years, 500-1500; destroyed by the Portuguese and the English in the name of their Kings.\u00a0 Time for reconciliation–including gunboat “diplomacy”, opium export, and colonization of Macao-Hong Kong is overdue.\u00a0 And an EU recognizing Israel partly because of two thousand years old history might also recognize some Chinese ocean rights with a much more recent history–in no way leaving out joint Chinese-ASEAN ownership of some of the islands, and joint Northeast Asian Community in due time of Senkaku-Diaoyu islands, and others, with their EEZs.<\/p>\n
Eurasian Partnership<\/i>.\u00a0 The EU is a peninsula on the Eurasian continent; increasingly connected by excellent railroad links mainly built by the Chinese, coming ever closer together.\u00a0 This is the time to add an Eurasian orientation to a Trans-Atlantic one, today in abeyance, waiting for he USA to recover and stop spying on the world.<\/p>\n
All feasible: with realism in the brain and idealism in the heart.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brussels – European External Action Service, Free University – The EU is in a crisis mainly of its own making. The following are some ideas about steps that can be taken.<\/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-34782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34782","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=34782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}