Keynote Address EU Commission: FROM EARLY WARNING TO EARLY ACTION:

DEVELOPING THE EUs RESPONSE CRISIS AND LONGER TERM THREATS. Palais Charlemagne, EU Commission, Brussels, 12 November 2007 By Professor Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung, dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies;
Founder, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network

 

Madam Commissioner for External Relations, Mr President, Mr Ambassador, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends;

J'aimerai d'abord exprimer ma reconnaissance pour l'invitation, en nom de TRANSCEND--ne ONG pour la mediation et la reconciliation--de partager avec vous, dans cette reunion tellement bien pensée, quelques experiences - peut-etre utiles.

Allons-y! - en anglais.

We live in a context of two major and related processes.

 

First, regionalization, based on high speed transportation and communication, but coming up against cultural borders. Four exist--the EU, the AU, the SAARC and the ASEAN--four to come:

 

- Estados Unidos de America Latina y el Caribe, ALC;

- a Russian Union, RU, with autonomy for all non-Russians;

- an East Asian Community like the SCO, with 50% of humanity;

- an Islamic Community, OIC, the ummah from Morocco to Mindanao.

Second, the rapid decline and fall of the US Empire, which, if handled well, may be a blessing for the US Republic as it was for the 11 EU member colonial countries liberated from empires.

 

So, where is the Early Warning?  It has three components:

 

[1] Direct Violence: beyond throwing a first stone: capability and intention proven by a general tendency to participate in wars, among other reasons to create hierarchies, hegemonies;

 

[2] Structural violence: a position higher up or lower down in a hierarchy of exploitation-repression-alienation, to preserve the hierarchy or to destroy it; and

 

[3] Cultural violence: the cultural justification of [1] or [2].

A War Participation Index, based on the number of wars a state has participated in divided by the number of years of existence of the state, seems to confirm this.  The top 4:

 

[1]  United States of America  .3040

[2]  Israel  (1947-1985)       .1842

[3]  Ottoman Empire and Turkey .1552

[4]  England and Great Britain .1277

(your personal favorites are probably close follow-ups).

 

What do these four have in common?  Structural violence, both in the sense of settler colonialism within and of world and regional empire-building without.  And cultural violence based on hard readings of abrahamitic religions, hard Protestantism for the USA and the UK, hard (not Sufi!) Islam for the Ottoman Empire, and hard zionism (not Buber!) for Israel.  In all three we find Dualism with Manichean overtones, seeing oneself as good and opponents as evil, and Armageddon as the final arbiter; the DMA syndrome.  Add to that the idea of Chosen by the Eternal, a sense of past and future Glory and the significance of past Trauma suffered on the road; the CGT syndrome.  Both syndromes are important building blocs for deep violence.  Of course, dialectically they also inspire the same syndromes in the other side.  Today we witness that spiraling cultural escalation.

 

Two of these empires are gone, with Turkey as a late bloomer. For the other two the early warning prediction is obvious: go, went, gone.  So is the early action consequence: contain the USA and Israel. Unrealistic?  Well, some do; and most of today's violence takes place in these contexts.

 

Hierarchies produce intractable conflicts. Peace assumes a high level of equity, an "equiarchy"; and the road to peace is paved with the acceptance of the Other(s) as an equal partner in negotiation and dialogue.  But if one or more of them are informed by a highly inequitable deep structure sustained by a deep culture peace by peaceful means becomes more difficult.

 

A corner stone in the EU approach is to promote cultures of human rights and structures of democracy.  These are excellent, bene per se.  But the assumption that in their wake follows peace is based on a logical fallacy with serious consequences.

 

Violence in general, and war in particular, is a relation between two or more states.  So is peace. But democracy/human rights may be properties of none, one or more of them, and may be very good for inner peace.  Make democracy a relation, like in a regional, or even global, UN, parliament, based on free and fair elections, and we are in inter-state, inter-nation peace business.  But that democracy does not steer major parties to crisis and violence today.  Maybe the day after tomorrow?

 

So, where is the Early Action?  Our crisis/threat response?           In working on another relation between the parties: an unresolved conflict.  This is the fire, violence is the smoke. Conflict is as human as body, mind and spirit.  "Conflict prevention" is meaningless; "violence prevention" certainly not. There is no "post-conflict"; but hopefully a "post violence". Get out of the Anglo-american view of conflict as clash of persons, groups or parties, and into conflict as clash of goals.

 

Seeing conflict as a clash of goals makes it a problem to be solved, by creating a reality where legitimate goals can be accommodated and become compatible.  Seeing conflict as a clash of parties the implication is usually to see one or more of them as parties to be controlled.  Often violently. Concepts matter.

 

TRANSCEND uses one-on-one dialogues with all parties. Mediation means mapping conflicts, parties-goals-clashes, testing goals for legitimacy, bridging legitimate goals. That calls for empathy, nonviolence and creativity.  And conciliation means acknowledging past wrongs, elaborating how and why, then defining a future together.  You enact in the present, you image with the parties a vision of a compelling future, and you are sensitive to traumas and glories of the past.  You are creative.

 

More easily said than done.  So let us explore five cases of mediation and five of conciliation, based on own experiences in the process (see www.transcend-nordic.org and our UN manuals for Transcend and Sabona approaches).  Maybe every second time.

 

What does peace in the Middle East look like, between Israel and its neighbors?  Much like the European Community imaged by two French statesmen we honor for their creativity: Nazi Germany has been so atrocious that it had to be member of the family.  Few saw it that way; moreover, the family did not exist except as wartime alliance.  They painted a compelling future on the wall, a community of six, invoking the future to overcome the past and even the present.  It stuck, an astounding success; inviting us all here and now to continue the good work.

 

A Middle East Community of six--Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine (fully recognized), Egypt and an Israel--willing to contract to something like 4 June 1967 in exchange for security through peace--the opposite is a non-starter.  Others may join, Turkey, Cyprus; maybe in an Eastern Mediterranean Community. Israel may develop very tight EU relations and Arab countries will join the Organization of the Islamic Community.  And yet there could be a MEC with open borders, rights and obligations.

 

Neither one, nor two but six states, with the six states Treaty of Rome European Community as a model, not only a mediator.  Open the archives, invite the countries concerned to share the process with its tensions at the same time as NGOs are all over stimulating dialogues.  Work both from the bottom and the top, with dialogues all over.  Western Europe managed to digest Germany.  Western Asia and Eastern Mediterranean can manage the same with a more reasonable, more modest Israel.

 

But right now we live under the shadows of a major US- Iran nuclear war - how do we solve that one?   Not a border problem but a conflict rooted in the past.  Acknowledgment by the USA and the UK of the wrongs done by CIA and MI6 in 1953, deposing a legitimate prime minister, initiating 25 years of dictatorship might trigger Sura 8:61 in the Qur'an: when your enemy inclines toward peace you shall do the same. Iran did so in both 2001 and 2003 but there was no response. Nonetheless, in this direction peace is located, and the nuclear issue would dissolve.

 

And the joint future?  Imagine the world's biggest oil consumer and potentially biggest oil producer joining to elaborate large scale non-fossil fuels projects together! - maybe financed by little Norway's big oil fund rather than using a fifth of it to finance the Iraq war?  Unrealistic?  Just to the contrary; lack of realism is with the so-called realists.  The world would rejoice.  But it would take moral courage.  And it might take some history/textbook revisionism, and maybe on both sides; building on the masters, the Germans, some ten years after the conflict resolution built into the Treaty of Rome.

 

How about Iraq?  Build on past successes.  The EC was an internal inter-state success.  So was German textbook revision creating good relations to the 25 invaded countries by today's map and the 3 nations exposed to genocide, Jews, Cinta-Roma and Russians.  And so was the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.  Make a Conference for Security and Cooperation in West Asia, financed by the EU! Kurdistan would also be on the agenda, as a confederation of four autonomies, without drawing new borders?  And with artificial, 1916, Iraq between federation and confederation, under UNSC-OIC protection?

 

I have here Western aggressions against Muslim countries, names, years, particularly traumatic events.  Like France attacking Egypt, and England Mysore, in 1798, like Italy bombing oases in Libya in 1911, and Spain--Franco--Xauen in 1925.  The perpetrator suffers from amnesia; the victim never forgets.  Motives?  Resources no doubt, with well rewarded autocracies to guarantee delivery.  But also continuing the Crusades to subvert and convert Islam. Italy and Spain, please take note. Maybe some serious signs of acknowledgment well before 2011 and 2025--not to stay out of trouble as because it is the right thing to do. True greatness also includes acknowledgment of own smallness.

 

That leads to the US/West War on Terror, a complex conflict with acts of war like 9/11, 07/07 in London and 11 M(arch) in Madrid, and massive killing and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Spain under Zapatero handled 11M masterly. Morocco's ambassador was not expelled, nor was Rabat bombed as somebody might have done. He travelled to Rabat for top level dialogue, no doubt also about Ceuta-Melilla--a Hong Kong solution might be useful-- legalized almost half a million illegal Moroccans in Spain, pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq and launched an Alliance of Civilizations--in Madrid October 2005.  Brilliant.

 

That brings up Sykes-Picot, the foreign ministers of UK-France who in 1916 promised the Arabs independence if they kill and overthrow the Ottoman Turks. They so did and were colonized; Iraq and Palestine for England and Syria and Lebanon for France. Rulers used rulers to define their artificial entities.  Maybe an Anglo-French-Arab history book about 1916 is overdue?  It is never too late; Arab school children live that trauma even if English-French do not.  And not all wrongs come from Washington.

 

Let us move from West-Christian/Arab-Muslim to the Balkans. Kosovo/a, with Serbs (Kosovo) having clear historical legitimacy and the Albanians (Kosova) clear self-determination, democratic legitimacy, and historical. Both status quo as a part of Serbia, and independence as a unitary state, are clearly untenable and will lead to endless violence.  Division is untenable for at least two reasons: viability and the right of all to consider Kosovo/a theirs with free travel and interaction.  Solution?

 

An independent federal Kosovo/a, with autonomous Serbian cantons, in a confederation with Serbia and Albania. Of course, majority-based self-determination for Kosova sets a precedent for Bosnia-Herzegovina.  And elsewhere.  But then, why not?

 

There is an Ottoman shadow over the region, which brings us to Turkey-Armenia and the question of conciliation. The conflict seems to be trilateral with Kurds being promised freedom if they would do the dirty job.  They did, and got no freedom. The UK-France/Sykes-Picot formula, a part of the Zeitgeist, probably passing as the art of statesmanship.  Does that exonerate the Turks?  No, but it provides a context. Imagine unconditional acknowledgment implies unconditional compensation; could that stand in the way?  Of course.  How about building the joint future of neighbors around the contested mountain Ararat?  How about making Ararat a Mountain of World Peace, not only for the three abrahamitic religions but for humanity?  Under joint Turkish-Armenian administration, UN aegis, and paid by the EU? Aporoaching the past via the future--maybe also for Myanmar?

 

And open the EU for Turkey and Armenia and the Caucasian Community.  There is conciliation work to be done.  Like for formerly colonial countries. Like for many EU charter members.

 

But conciliation without conflict solution--shake hands, be good friends--is pacification.  Like a ceasefire, or money for development: it may buy time before violence erupts again.  All roads to peace pass through deep conflict resolution. And price stabilization in return for keeping EU-ACP division of labor is shallow. The East Asian formula was industrialization with protection and welfare state.  Deeper transformation is needed.

 

The EU-ACP structural conflict has an important dimension: who plans whom?  MDCs love to plan LDCs, and the EU the ACP, down to micro-management, as a part of ODA.  Imagine EU inviting ACP or the whole former Third World, AU+OIC+SAARC+ASEAN+SCO+ALC, to advise the EU and half a billion EUians?  Inviting experts, having dialogues with their nationals in EU diaspora, eliciting good ideas. Symmetry, reciprocity.  The EU Commission has little or no hesitation dispensing advice.  Is it able to receive some?

 

Thus, EU is facing a very important dilemma: the civilian peacekeeping favored by the Commission, or the military version with rapid deployment favored by the Council?  The latter might like to fill the gap left behind when the USA withdraws troops, like the British did East of Suez in 1965.  The Third World, the chosen battle-field like Orwell's Malabar Coast, might have some advice to offer about taming the forces favoring interventions and enhancing those favoring creative solutions?

 

And maybe the Chinese could offer some advice from the many addressed to themselves at the 17th congress of the Chinese Communist party?  And India something about high electoral participation in a country with well above a billion population to one with less than half of that?  The world does not need a new empire but inter-regional structures for joint planning.

 

And that brings us to exercise No. 10, conciliation No. 5.  As the South African foreign minister expressed at a conference  with the USA and Israel eloquently absent--as expected from the list given at the outset--on the whole issue of colonialism:  this is not about money/compensation/ but about dignity.  How is dignity promoted?  By perpetrators acknowledging, elaborating and designing new ways of entering the future together.

 

Dignity is a relation with symmetry, reciprocity, equity. One approach, building on the UNESCO German-Polish experience and the German approach in general, would be to invite a major joint history project on colonialism, with slavery included. This would also focus on the Arab-Muslim world, and others.

 

These ten cases illustrate one point: to contribute something to solving big problems you must think big thoughts.  Small thoughts will do for small problems, like standardization of car bumpers.  Check your thoughts, let them grow with the people concerned.  And that can be done better by NGOs in the field than by diplomats in sterile rooms with linear agendas.

 

The Track 1 government vs Track 2 civil society with NGOs, local authorities, the young, the women is problematic. Track 1 often becomes Track -1, hoping that Track 2 can weigh in at +1.

 

The strength of civil society is direct contact, high on empathy and less inclined to violence. Having no hammer the world looks less like a nail. But creativity remains a crucial commodity. Its scarcity among diplomats geared toward correct process does not guarantee its presence in civil society--except for artists, engineers, architects etc.  Both can be trained in, say, non-Western ho'o ponopono, ga ca ca and shir conciliation approaches and then work hand in hand.  There is much to learn.

 

The civil society can do all three, peace-making, peace-building, peace-keeping.  The nongovernments can probably do it better than the governments. Thus, civil society can make 10,000 dialogues blossom, within and among conflict parties, find out where the shoes pinch and what future society, region, world they want to live in - like what Middle East, what Kosovo/a.  They can let all that information flow together and watch the GNIP, the gross national idea product grow.  Something will emerge; peace may be made.  Governments may clinch the deal.

 

But peace also has to be built.  Webs of togetherness must be woven; humanizing where there has been dehumanization, and depolarizing where there has been polarization.

 

And peace has to be kept, by nonviolent peace forces, numerous, competent, inserting themselves so densely between violent parties that there is not enough space left for battle.

 

How about gender and generation? Very important. In general men are more deductive, from grand principles, and women more compassionate, unless they permit PhDs in those grand principles to stand in the way.  In general the older generation has a more closed, and the younger a more open, discourse, more sensitive to new aspects and new ideas.  Thus, in a conflict women should meet the women on the other side(s), the young the young on the other side(s).  Young women should meet.  And wherever older men enter a conference room some brigade of young women should get into action.  Seduction rather than deduction?  Well, those older men run the world. And they often engage in mischief.

 

To this you may object, watch yourself Professor Galtung, you look like a man who has come of age.  Wrong.  I am actually a charming young woman, only disguised as an elderly man - - -.