PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL
Improving Democracy
Johan Galtung – 18 Jan 2016 - TRANSCEND Media Service
People can through nonviolent struggle create and reconquer democratic decision-making. Strengthen the local level. Reflect ethnic differences. Boycott bought deputies. More referenda. More decisions through dialogue-consensus, to be continued in coalitions. More decentralization. More diversity. And much more creativity.
A Note from the TMS Editor
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
Last week I had some computer/Internet as well as health issues. Therefore, the selection of pieces for this issue of the TMS Weekly Digest is shorter than you are used to. Next week I shall make up for it. Writers who submitted their pieces will be published next week as well.
OTHER COMMENTARIES
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
Encyclopedia of Evil Claims, Claimants, Counter-claims, and Sigils
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Considerable significance is currently attached, at the highest level of authority, to the determining role of evil with respect to ongoing global crises and those recently past. As declared by Hannah Arendt in 1945: The problem of evil will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe (Essays in Understanding, 1994, p. 134).
Bishnu Pathak’s Nine Freedoms Doctrine to Truth, Justice and Dignity
Meena Pathak, Bimip Pathak and Bimish Pathak - TRANSCEND Media Service
Transnational Professor Bishnu Pathak is the creator of the Peace-Conflict Lifecycle, the architect of Human Security Studies, the founder of the Principles of Process Documentation (End-to-End-Lifecycle) of any development project and the pioneer of Process Documentation for Interfaith Peacebuilding Cycle.
Publication of My Collected Essays
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service
“I know John Avery as a scholar and an advocate of peace. If the Old Testament command of an eye for an eye is followed, the whole world will be blind. A far better path for humanity, as John shows in the Essays, is to apply the tools of reason, science and morality to eliminate the underlying causes of war and poverty.” — Hon. Matt Robson
Remembering Hawaii’s Queen Lili’uokalani and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
James Albertini – TRANSCEND Media Service
January 17th marks the date of the illegal overthrow of Hawaii’s Queen Lili’uokalani and the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 by U.S. business interests with the assistance of U.S. Marines. January 18th marks the holiday named for Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. who was a champion for civil rights, justice, peace and the power of nonviolent action, assassinated in 1968.
ACTIVISM
A New Era of Global Protest Begins
Rajesh Makwana, Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service
14 Jan 2016 – Research by Dr. David Bailey provides empirical evidence that we have entered a prolonged period of dissent characterised by an escalation in the magnitude and diversity of public protest. The catalyst was the financial crisis of 2008, which continues to have a detrimental impact for the vast majority of citizens – even while the combined wealth of the richest 1% continues to soar.
AFRICA
Africa’s Success Story
John Feffer – Foreign Policy In Focus
Diamond-rich Botswana avoided the dreaded resource curse and established a prosperous, stable democracy. But political turmoil has begun to roil the traditionally placid society.
ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Surveillance and Surveys in Kabul
Kathy Kelly, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service
Billions of dollars have been invested in a variety of blimps which various vendors such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Aeros have shipped to Afghanistan. All of this surveillance purportedly helps establish “patterns of life” and bring security to people living here …tax money to the insatiable appetite of the “defense” corporations and their illusions of omniscient security.
The Lady and the Generals
Soe Lin Aung & Stephen Campbell – Jacobin Magazine
Aung San Suu Kyi’s electoral victory could bring political reform to Myanmar. Economic justice is another story.
EUROPE
‘Regrettable’ Is As Far As UK Criticism of Saudi Arabia Is Allowed to Go
Robert Fisk – The Independent
It was instructive, also, to hear Kawczynski refer to executions as “certain domestic actions”, as if slicing heads off human beings was something to be kept within the family – which is true, in a sense, since the Saudi authorities allow their executioners to train their sons in the craft of head-slicing, just as we Brits used to allow our hangmen to bring their sons into the gallows trade.
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
Yemen: Five Medical Staff Dead in Third Bombing of Doctors Without Borders Facilities
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
MSF officials remained uncertain whether the explosion was caused by an airstrike or by a missile fired from ground forces. The identity of the attackers also remains contested, with reports from the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency asserting that the attack was launched by the Saudi coalition forces and US media reports maintaining that the origins of the strike are still not known.
PALESTINE / ISRAEL
Welcome to Israel’s Version of Apartheid
Jonathan Cook - CounterPunch
Moments before an Aegean Airlines flight was due to take off from Greece, three Israeli passengers demanded that two fellow passengers, from Israel’s Palestinian minority, be removed from the plane. Like a parable illustrating Europe’s bottomless indulgence of Israel, Aegean staff caved in to the pressure and persuaded the two Palestinian men to disembark.
SYRIA IN DEPTH
Once Auctioned, What to Do with the ‘Stock’ of Syrian Refugees?
Baher Kamal – Human Wrongs Watch
13 Jan 2016 – Few months ago, an unprecedented “humanitarian auction” was opened in Brussels at the European Commission, shortly after watching the image of the three-year old Syrian child that the sea threw up on the Turkish shores. The “auction” was about deciding upon the number of Syrian refugees to be hosted by each EU country.
MEDIA
Why Sean Penn’s El Chapo Meeting Was an ‘Epic Insult’ to Imperiled Mexican Journalists
Peter Holley – The Washington Post
For many Mexican journalists, the problem with the American actor’s controversial first-person account of meeting with the notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán–published Saturday [9 Jan] by Rolling Stone and submitted for Guzmán’s approval before it was made public–is evidence of the inherent conflict between journalism and entertainment.
REVIEWS
The Struggle for Merdeka in West Papua
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
In Jason MacLeod’s new book, Merdeka and the Morning Star: Civil Resistance in West Papua, the failure to develop a comprehensive strategy of any kind, violent or nonviolent, to liberate West Papua is overwhelmingly evident. And MacLeod does an excellent job of identifying why this has happened as he provides us with an overview of the history and geopolitical circumstances of the occupation of West Papua as well as a history of the resistance, both violent and nonviolent, to this occupation.
On Ghada Ageel’s Edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
Ghada Ageel’s expertly edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Harder Experiences’ has just been published by the University of Albert Press. It is an important contribution to Palestinian studies with an especially welcome linking of activism, scholarly analysis, and experiential narrative, each a vital perspective represented by excellent chapter writers.
Should Criminalizing War Start by Pretending It’s Legal?
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service
6 Jan 2015 – There’s a terrific new book on abolishing war called ‘Abolishing War: Criminalizing War, Removing War Causes, Removing War as Institution.’ Johan Galtung, who was recently on my radio show, is brilliant as always, drawing on vast knowledge and wisdom.
ANIMAL RIGHTS / VEGETARIANISM
Ringling Circus Elephants to Retire in May
Tamara Lush, Associated Press – Reader Supported News
12 January 16 – The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is ending its elephant acts a year and a half early, and will retire all of its touring elephants in May. The move comes amid increasing scrutiny of circus elephant acts with local governments passing “anti-circus” and “anti-elephant” ordinances in response to concerns over animal cruelty.
HISTORY
This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
Jan 18-24 QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are,
Anything your heart desires will come to you.
If your heart is in your dream,
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star as dreamers do.”
BIOGRAPHIES
Robert M. Hutchins (17 Jan 1899 – 17 May 1977): Building on Earlier Foundations
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
Much of our current work for a more just and peaceful world builds on the thinking and efforts of earlier foundations. An important foundation is the leading role of Robert M. Hutchins, long-time President of the University of Chicago.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ (Music Video of the Week)
Amira Willighagen & André Rieu, Talented Young Musicians - TRANSCEND Media Service
11-year-old Amira Willighagen performs ‘O mio babbino caro’ with André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra at a concert in Maastricht, The Netherlands. 10 thousand standing ovation…
JOKE OF THE WEEK
New Year’s Resolution
Bizarro Comics – TRANSCEND Media Service
Good question…
“Capitalism and State sovereignty are goners. Bankism rules the world in all respects now.” “Militaries are the ultimate manifestation of direct, structural and cultural violence—a cancer that must be extirpated from humanity.” — Antonio C. S. Rosa, M.A.
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