Stop Threatening, Start Talking

We are currently witnessing the worst features of the state system: trading insults and threats, sanctions, readiness to use extreme violence, forward deployment of U.S. troops in Israel as hostages to guarantee U.S. involvement in a possible war, disregard for common people and the effects of warfare in the Middle East and the world.

What to do about Syria?

We all feel desperate watching the horrible killings, the suffering of the bereaved and the whole population. But what can be done?

ALGERIA IS EVEN WORSE THAN SYRIA

The killing of nonviolent demonstrators and civilian bystanders is escalating in Syria. Assad should resign immediately, a coalition government should be formed, and hundreds of mediators should hold dialogues with the many parties, to try and form a federation.

WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS IN DAVOS?

The self-appointed "World Economic Forum" will meet again in Davos, Switzerland, 25-29 January 2012. We can expect a new load of gratuitous advice to emanate from the meeting. Yet its invited participants were utterly unable to comprehend the September 2008 manifestation of the world economic crisis when they met three years ago. So, what are they going to talk about now?

THE THIRD ARAB REVOLT

The Arab spring is the third Arab revolt in less than a century.

SEVEN STEPS TO OVERCOME THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

There has been a growing wave of protests against the casino capitalism that brought us a series of economic crises and a growing gap between rich and poor, within and between countries. Inspired by the Arab spring, mass protests erupted in Israel, then the "Occupy Wall Street" movement began and is now spreading throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea- so far only as protests without proposals.

OCTOBER 7, 2001: TEN YEARS WAR ON TERROR, TEN LOST YEARS FOR PEACE

On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, allegedly in retaliation for the terrorist attack of September 11 on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. This was the start of the "war on terror". The atrocious violence of 9/11 was totally unjustified, and the USA received much sympathy as a victim. Instead of uniting against the US government for its errors, people united against the attackers. But with its violent response, the USA has forfeited the world's initial good will. Both terrorism and state terrorism have demonstrated that violence is counterproductive and backfires.

WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR LIBYA?

According to NATO, the final chapter of Gaddafi's Libya is being written now. The scenario is very similar to the final chapter for Yugoslavia -Milosevic- for Afghanistan -Mullah Omar- Iraq -Saddam Hussein- and for the "War on Terror" -bin Laden: eliminate The Bad Guy. In the future chapters of this neo-crusade, orthodox Christians will also be targeted, just as they were in the crusades from 1095-1291.

THE ISLAMIC WORLD: STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY

Before Islam, Arabia lived for centuries under various forms of "asabiya", variously defined as Arabism, tribalism, or clanism, which led to many long wars. But in 610, Prophet Muhammad, at the age of 40, received the first verses of Al-Quran, challenging the traditional social and political order. Asabiya yielded to brotherhood-sisterhood in a community of values, the Umma, from Umm, mother. Arabs engaged with enthusiasm in this new social order based on the Islamic religion which held that "there is no difference between an Arab and a non-Arab, or between a white and a black, except in degree of piety". Distinctions based on race, ethnic group, colour, gender, etc., disappeared in favour of unity, freedom, justice, and above all rahma (true love).

NORWAY: WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

22 July 2011 will be engraved in Norwegian history like 9 April 1940, the German invasion. Words pale before this enormity. The center of Oslo, where the ministries are located, resembles a war-zone more than during the Second World War, when it was hit by some bombs from the resistance and from England. Even worse was the massacre at the Labor Party youth camp on Ut"ya Island near Oslo with 68 killed and many seriously wounded.

NORWAY: WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

22 July 2011 will be engraved in Norwegian history like 9 April 1940, the German invasion. Words pale before this enormity. The center of Oslo, where the ministries are located, resembles a war-zone more than during the Second World War, when it was hit by some bombs from the resistance and from England. Even worse was the massacre at the Labor Party youth camp on Ut"ya Island near Oslo with 68 killed and many seriously wounded.

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE NONVIOLENCE

It is remarkable that two of the greatest evils of the 20th century -colonialism and the Cold War- were both overcome with nonviolence: Gandhi's nonviolent campaign against British colonialism which led to India's and Pakistan's Independence in 1947, paving the way for other countries' independence, and the nonviolent demonstrations, especially in Gdansk and Leipzig, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War.

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT AMERICA

Whenever I praise something, my Japanese wife Fumiko asks, "And what is bad about it?" When I criticise something, she says, "Tell me something good about it." This is the Daoist "yin-yang" principle: in everything bright, there is also something dark, and vice versa, ad infinitum.

OBAMA AND OSAMA: VIOLENT OPPONENTS

There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden planned the attacks of September 11, 2001, just as there was no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the pretext used for the 2003 US attack on Iraq. Osama applauded 9/11, but that falls under freedom of speech.

THE LIBYA WAR WAS LONG PLANNED

The attack on Libya was long in the works. Since 1969, when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, then 28, seized power in a military coup, overthrowing King Idris and forcing the American military out of Libya, the US has been planning to overthrow him.