One World, Many Peaces

Just for Fun? Peace Games and Toys for Everyone

Most of us can't remember our childhood without at least passing thought of war-related games and toys, from action figures to first-person shooter videogames, to military strategy board games  and beyond. But can you imagine what the world would be like now and can be in the future with next-generation game and toy makers taking up the cause of peace in their designs? Here are just a few fun examples for everyone:

A Force More Powerful: The Game of Nonviolent Strategy, by York Zimmerman Inc.: Remove corrupt regimes, secure the right to organize free trade unions, organize for women's rights and self determination for ethnic minorities, force an end to aggressive foreign policy, and hold free and fair elections in the groundbreaking peace videogame.

Give Peace a Chance 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle, by Aquarius: An awesome 1000-piece puzzle featuring beautiful peace images forming a mosaic peace sign,  measures 20 x 27 when completed, full color with snug fitting pieces and 100% officially licensed merchandise.

PeaceMaker: Play the News. Solve the Puzzle (Mac or PC), by ImpactGames: Inspired by real events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using real news footage and images, two games in one: play both the role of the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President.

Decorate-Yourself Peace Sign Canvas, by DM Creations: Personalize your own artwork with this paint-your-own Peace Sign on canvas, includes painting guide, 12"x12" canvas, paints and paint brushes.
 
Conflict Resolution Game Theory, by Ichiro Nishizaki and Masatoshi Sakawa: Presents important concepts in noncooperative and cooperative games, advances in game theory in fuzzy and multiobjective environments, and several game representations and solution concepts. Also demonstrates the computational methods used to find these solutions.

However, it is important to keep in mind that few if any peace games and toys makers give a portion of their profits towards actual peacebuilding efforts. This could be take as a form of peace profiteering, similar to war profiteering, just as clothing manufactures like Gap and Victoria's Secret use the peace sign without paying any royalties or licensing to any peace organization. Still, wouldn't the world be a better place if future generations grew up playing with peace games and toys instead of war ones?

Remembering Elise Boulding, Peace Research Pioneer

By Mary Lee Morrison

Hailed as a “matriarch” of the twentieth century peace research movement, she was sociologist emeritus from Dartmouth College and from the University of Colorado and in on the ground floor in the movements of peace, women’s studies and futures and played pivotal roles in each. Her writings on the role of the family, women, spirituality and international non-governmental organizations have offered activists and educators new ways of conceiving the tasks inherent in making peace.

Beginning in tandem with her late husband, economist and Quaker poet Kenneth Boulding and later on her own, she went on to build a life that encompassed research, writing and teaching, networking and building communities of learning. Dr. Boulding is the author of over 300 publications and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Her theoretical work on the role of the family in educating toward social change, and the role women have played in peacemaking, together with her ideas on transnational networks and their relationship to global understanding are considered seminal contributions to twentieth century peace education thought.

Prior to her scholarly career, which formally began for her at age fifty after receiving her doctorate from the University of Michigan, Dr. Boulding was making major contributions in other areas, most notably as a peace educator and prominent Quaker and as a leader in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), rising up to be International Chair.

She was a founder of the International Peace Research Association and later became its International Secretary-General. She was a co-founder the Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development. As an active opponent of the Vietnam War, Dr. Boulding ran for Congress in the 1960s on a Peace Platform in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She taught sociology and women’s studies at the University of Colorado, where she helped to found the peace studies program. She later taught sociology and helped to found the peace studies program at Dartmouth College.

She took key leadership positions in the American and International Sociological Associations, worked on climate change, population, and arms control with the American Association of the Advancement of Science, was engaged with the American Futures Society, the World Policy Institute, the United Nations University in Tokyo, consultative work with UNESCO, and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the only woman to sit on the Commission to establish the U.S. Institute of Peace. She was on the boards of the National Peace Institute Foundation, the Boulder Parenting Center, the Exploratory Project on Conditions for a Just World Peace, the International Peace Research Association Foundation, the Committee for the Quaker United Nations Office, and Honorary Chair of the National Peace Academy Advisory Board.

Prior to her retirement from Dartmouth College, she was a Senior Fellow of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at that university. In 1993 Dr. Boulding represented Quakers at the inaugural gathering of the global Interfaith Peace Council.

Born in 1920 in Oslo, Norway, her status as an immigrant profoundly affected her life and work. A graduate of Douglas College (now part of Rutgers University), Dr. Boulding joined the Religious Society of Friends at age 21, Her sense of herself as a Quaker and her deep spirituality informed all of her subsequent work. Blessed with a very high energy level, at times she also sought out Catholic monasteries for times of retreat from her very heavily scheduled life as an academic, activist, author and speaker. In 1973 she spent a year in retreat in a mountain cabin outside Boulder, CO, where she began writing her seminal work on women, The Underside of History, a View of Women Through Time.

Her last book, Cultures of Peace: the Hidden Side of History, is a celebration of the many ways peace is made in everyday places and hidden spaces and its writing was a culmination of her life’s work. Retiring from Dartmouth College in 1985 she returned to Boulder, Colorado. In 1996 she relocated to Wayland, MA and in 2000 she moved to a retirement home in Needham, MA.

Pre-deceased by her husband, Dr. Kenneth Boulding and her two sisters Sylvia Griffith and Vera Larson, she is survived by her five children and their spouses: Russell and Bonnie Boulding of Bloomington, IN, Mark and Pat Boulding of Englewood, CO, Christine Boulding and the late Gregory Graham of Wayland, MA, Philip and Pam Boulding of Olalla, WA and William and Liz Boulding of Durham, NC, 16 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the National Peace Academy online or by mail to PO Box 306, Shelburne, VT 05482 (on the check, please identify Elise Boulding Scholarship Fund, which was established to honor her life of dedication to peace). Russel Boulding at 4464 N. Robbs Lane, Bloomington, IN, 47408) is collecting tributes/reminiscences of those touched by her to be complied, shared with the family and placed in the Elise Boulding Collection at the University of Colorado Archives, Boulder. Elise Boulding died at 4:40 pm, June 24, 2010 in Needham, MA.

The Learning Curve of Peace and the U.S. Department of Peace Conference in Detroit

By Robert C. Koehler

“Why are we violent, but not illiterate?”

This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: “We’re taught to read!” Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.

Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word “mir” means “earth”; it also means “peace.” We know the answers. They’re hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to H.R. 808, the bill to create a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace. It was first introduced by Dennis Kucinich in 2001, and reintroduced in every session of Congress thereafter. It has some 70 co-sponsors in the House right now — thanks to the tireless grassroots lobbying efforts of members of the nationwide Peace Alliance — but remains a long way from passage, or even congressional debate. That’s almost beside the point, however. At this stage, the legislation is a focal point for spreading awareness and getting people (members of Congress and everyone else) to start asking the right questions.

“From the growing rate of domestic incarceration to increasing problems of international violence, the United States has no more serious problem in our midst than the problem of violence itself.”

So cries the Peace Alliance website, going on to point out that, while we pursue incarceration, punishment and war with enormous gusto, economically, emotionally and spiritually, “there is within the workings of the U.S. government, no platform from which to seriously wage peace.

“We place no institutional heft behind an effort to address the causal issues of violence, diminishing its psychological force before it erupts into material conflict. From child abuse to genocide, from the murder of one to the slaughter of thousands, it is increasingly senseless to merely wait until violence has erupted before addressing the deeper well from which it springs.”

This begins to get at it. There’s an enormous amount of data, scholarship and technology available on the root causes of violence and the waging of peace, but the fact of this has yet to be embraced politically. To a large extent, government and its attendant industries (especially the media) remain part of the problem — a huge part of the problem — rather than part of the solution.

To know this, ironically, is to know no peace. Building peace is a lot of work, and the work never stops, nor does the awareness that, if we fail to do so, we’re headed, as a nation and a species, along an arc of self-obliteration. It’s far more “peaceful” to remain in denial, to shut down awareness, to numb ourselves with “the comforts of pessimism” (in the words of Paul Williams, in his poem “Common Sense”).

The irony, of course, is linguistic, not real, because working for peace is a process of connecting and bonding with others in deep and joyous ways, which I learned again and again during the conference weekend. Indeed, creating peace means creating connections with one another and pushing past our isolation. Doing so sometimes feels risky (“the luxury of enemies, the sweetness of helplessness,” Williams writes), but is satisfying beyond measure.

The establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Peace, while it would hardly solve all our problems — and while it may not be the mechanism for challenging the rampant militarism of the American empire — is to my mind a crucial step in the de-escalation of American violence.

The department would recognize and fund a myriad of programs already in place, in our schools and courtrooms and on our streets, and signal that government itself recognizes the value of nonviolent conflict resolution. The legislation would also fund a peace academy, advancing our awareness that peace education and the presence of peacemakers in our society are crucial parts of the future we hope to build.

“We have to take the lead on peace,” said Detroit’s Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, the longtime peace activist who gave the keynote address at the conference. He also made a heartfelt plea for the abolition of war, and described in vivid detail the human cost of war in the modern era, mostly as it waged by the United States.

Right now, and throughout my lifetime, we have been the planet’s primary purveyor of violence. For too many, this remains a source of pride — though I doubt those who feel that way would feel a sense of righteousness if we chose, instead, to spread illiteracy in the name of God and country.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.)

New 'Prison Valley' Shockumentary Offers Rare Window into Growing Industry

If you're looking for what may become the next big shockumentary, here it: Prison Valley, directed by David Dufresne and Philippe Brault and produced by Alexandre Brachet, the group who also brought us the critically acclaimed Gaza/Sderot. Certainly not for the weak at heart or mind, the much-anticipated film (at least in certain circles) is sure to make a stir and cause long-term trouble for the blooming American prison industry. It's slogan could be: One town, thirteen prisons. Terrible but true.

The film, which will be featured at this year's International Documentary Film Festival (IDFF) in Amsterdam, is already raising eyebrows in France, where one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, Michel Foucault, made the study of prisons into a full-fledged activist discipline aimed at changing, and even perhaps eliminating, them. At least as we know them today, which is the focus of the film, revolving around the prison industry that for the most part sustains the 36,000 inhabitants of Fremont Country, Colorado, and contains the lives of more than 7,000 inmates, mostly African-American men.

"Using the Riviera Motel as the base of operations, the visitor moves around Prison Valley to investigate the background of the prison industry," the IDFF reports. "Along the way, he or she meets the people involved, including the sheriff, a journalist, and a prison guard. But the visitor is never alone, because other visitors are always "visible," and at various points in the story all the visitors and those affiliated with the industry can access "interactive zones." Foucault's famous analysis of the panopticon, social media style.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, as is well known, is among America's biggest investors in the prison system (perhaps trying to extend his successful hair-splitting legalist international record at home?). He won't like this movie. Depending on what your views on the current prison system in the U.S. are, the film could be very good or very bad news, but nothing in between. A trailer of the film is available here.

See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Troubling Terms: Muslim, Islamist, Arab... All the Same, Right? Wrong

Few words are used more often with less scrutiny than those referring to the followers of Mohammed's Qur'an, and this in an age when what's left of political correctness (quantitatively and qualitatively) is just enough to prohibit progressives from speaking at ease and conservatives the sick joy of contraventions. What one of the latter, the leader of the British National Party (BNP), said in a live radio session that was also televised really went out his way to make the terminology political… and politically incorrect (depending on your views).

In response to a caller accusing him of anti-Muslim sentiment, ultra-conservative (a nice way to say racist bigot) BNP leader Nick Griffin politely stated he had read the Koran and believed it to be 'not a religious book, but a manual for conquering other people's countries', which it decidedly is not. He is not anti-Muslim, he started off by saying, but he is anti-Islam. The facetious point he was making is that there is a difference between being against a religion and being against people who belong to that religion. Splitting hairs, maybe, but here are some of the terms being used and abused:

Islamist: Usually used in reference to actively fighting soldiers, guerillas, insurgents or resistance fighters (and not necessarily terrorist, see below) who adhere to Islam and who may or may not be fighting in its name, which gives the peaceful a bad one.
 
Muslim: By far the most widely used word referring to adherents of Islam, and generally considered the most neutral term; the literal translation of the word aslama is "one who submits or surrenders," i.e. to Allah's/God's will as expressed in the Qur'an.

Mohammedan: Rarely used today, this term can still be found in works of literature, news and Western government reports that date from about 1400s to the 1930s; among the other historical and more derogatory or ambiguous terms are Turk, barbarian and heathen.

Black Muslim: Although Muslims who have black or dark brown skin live throughout Africa and the world, the term is usually used with specific reference to African-American Muslims who belong to the Nation of Islam, like Malcolm X.

Arab: Although the majority of those the West here about outside of Pakistan and India are of this racial origin (which perhaps ironically has the same antecedents as Semitics, or "racially Jewish"), it only has to do with Islam insofar as implied or explicit associations are made, and no more.

Fundamentalist: Contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, not all Muslims are fundamentalists, any more so than Christians are; the term tends to be used in reference to people who live in places where religion is all they can cling to, from poverty or abundance.

Terrorist: Again contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, only a tiny fraction of the Muslim population worldwide is involved with terrorism, and even fewer commit terrorist acts, which are in any case not limited to this religion but have been done in the name of all.

The point here is not to be politically correct when you refer to adherents of Islam, but to be accurate and assured that the words you use are a current event creating a world in which words hurt less and help more.

Photo credit: Bird Eye

Who Gives a Billion Muslims Worldwide a Voice? Meet Dalia Mogahed

Dalia Mogahed is Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and leads the analysis of Gallup's unprecedented survey representing the views and opinions of more than 1 billion Muslims worldwide, including Muslims in the West. On behalf of One World, Many Peaces, Antony Adolf held an exclusive intereview with Ms. Mogahed. 
 
In addition to her work with Gallup, Ms. Mogahed directs the Muslim-West Facts Initiative. Through this initiative, Gallup, in collaboration with the Coexist Foundation, disseminates the findings of the Gallup World Poll to key opinion leaders in the Muslim World and the West.

Ms. Mogahed is also involved with important international organizations that address issues of Muslim communities. She is a member of Women in International Security, serves on the leadership group of the Project on U.S. Engagement with the Global Muslim Community, and is a member of the Crisis in the Middle East Task Force of the Brookings Institution.

Antony Adolf: In what ways do you see personal relations and information-sharing (or their absence) among Muslims and non-Muslims influencing what Muslims think? And vice versa? How do you think this situation can be improved?

Dalia Mogahed: Information and personal relations is key. For example, Americans who know a Muslim are half as likely to have extreme prejudice toward the faith community.  However, the key is not information, but accurate information. 

Our research actually finds that those who know nothing about Islam and cannot even tell us the name of the Prophet are more likely to say they have no prejudice.  Prejudice in America is learned, not inherently a function of knowing nothing about a group.  Media content analysis shows that Islam is the most negatively portrayed religion in the world as well as the most reported on ideology.  People may think they are well informed but unfortunately, the information is inaccurate. 

Surprisingly, educated people are more likely to have negative views of the other both in America and in the Muslim world.  This might be that less educated people do not have the level of engagement in global affairs to have a strong opinion. 

Antony Adolf: Being in the position in which you are, can you tell us about how (or how not) your professional and biographical backgrounds have influenced one another and do so in the projects you carry out? What would you say to Muslim youths in these regards?

Dalia Mogahed: I believe that all of us bring our life experiences in to inform and enrich our work.  I am no different.  My training is in the hard sciences:  Chemical Engineering to be specific.  I bring the empirical rigor and the scientific method of inquiry of this training to the work I do today.  I also had graduate and professional training in market research, and this approach of crafting solutions based on the views and needs of people is one I utilize in my profession. 

I also spent several years in the field of inter-cultural education, and the communication skills I developed in this work come in very handy when I present our research.  Gallup’s training and commitment to accuracy, integrity and objectivity guide my analysis perhaps more than anything else.  In addition, my own background as a devout Muslim and a proud American, a living contradiction to the Clash of Civilization theory, also enriches my work.

Antony Adolf: Can you situate how your projects on Muslim communities worldwide fit within Gallup’s work as a whole, as well as in relation to key academic and/or policy formation fields you contribute to?

Dalia Mogahed: Gallup’s core business is giving people a voice.  We do this in our Enterprise work by measuring employee and customer engagement.  We do this in our Polling work, but conducting global public opinion research in 150 countries covering 95% of the world’s population.  Within this massive research area we have different areas of focus, one of which is Muslim Studies.  The Center for Muslim Studies draws on this global research and focuses on Muslim communities around the world, both as majorities as well as significant minorities. 

This empirical research helps to inform policy discussions and academic research around the world.  This occurs through direct briefings to these centers of influence, our involvement in advisory committees and commissions, or through our reports which are publically available on our website. 

Antony Adolf: Your book with Professor John Esposito, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, provides fascinating accounts about public and personal opinions among the world’s Muslims. Can you let us in to some of the methodologies you used and surprising findings that resulted?

Dalia Mogahed: Our book is the result of years of research and tens of thousands of face to face interviews.  We drew a representative sample of residents in more than 30 countries and conducted hour long interviews with each in their homes.  Our sample includes young and old, educated and illiterate, men and women and urban as well as rural populations. 

Our most important finding was that the conflict between Muslims and the West is not inevitable.  Muslims admire much of what the West holds dear.  They don’t hate our freedom, they respect us for it.  In fact, the problem is not what they think of us, but what they think we think of them.  Muslims around the world believe that the West disrespects them and that this disrespect and racism is reflected in our policies as well as our prose.

Antony Adolf: What about dissenting voices, or ones that are usually kept silent, even within Muslim communities? In other words, how is it possible (or not) to actually speak for or represent all Muslims, is not a lot always lost in efforts to find out what can be gained?

Dalia Mogahed: You are right and this is why it is very important to be representative in the sample that is chosen.  The real issue however is that the media, especially the Western media, has been over representing minority voices, and in fact the majority has been silenced.  The fringe, both extremists of religious or secular ideologies, have monopolies the conversation for too long. 

Many have been lead to believe that there are only two possible voices on Islam:  Osama bin Laden or Ayan Hersi Ali.  Neither are representative,  both only speak for a miniscule minority, but unfortunately both get a lot of air time.  Our research opens the lenses and gives us a window into the lives of ordinary people who do not have access to the airwaves.

Antony Adolf: What does (or doesn't) your research show about what Muslims think about peace within themselves (i.e., denominationally), with others currently hostile forces (i.e., NATO and US-llied forces), and within other cultures (i.e., in Europe and North America)?

Dalia Mogahed: We found that Muslims, both Sunni and Shiites, believe that the most important thing Muslims should do to help themselves is to be more united.  We heard a great deal about the lack of unity, sectarian division, that Muslims feel is their greatest problem as a community.  On the surface, there are good intentions and Iraqis for example say they have positive views of both Sunnis and Shiites regardless of their own identities.  But despite this, publics see these division as major problems.

***

Along with her involvement with these organizations, Ms. Mogahed co-authored, with Professor John Esposito, the book Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Her analysis also has appeared in such prestigious publications as The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Harvard International Review, the Middle East Policy Journal, and many other academic and popular journals.
 
Ms. Mogahed has spoken at events and for organizations worldwide. Her audiences include the High-Level Group of the United Nations the Alliance of Civilizations, the Community of West and Islam Dialogue (C-100) group of the World Economic Forum, the Brookings Institution’s U.S.-Islamic World Forum, British parliamentarians, American senators, and religious leaders from every faith. She has discussed Gallup findings with a wide range of opinion leaders, including Madeleine Albright, Deepak Chopra, Stephen R., Covey, Quincy Jones, Jeffrey Sachs, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, evangelical leader Richard Land, bestselling author Karen Armstrong, U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, Muslim activist and teacher Amr Khaled, Sheikh Habib Ali al-Jifri, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Her Majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan, as well as two of the highest authorities of Sunni Islam - the Grand Muftis of Egypt and Bosnia and their Excellencies Dr. Ali Gomaa and Dr. Mustafa Ceric.
 
Ms. Mogahed earned her master's degree in business administration with an emphasis in strategy from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. Upon graduation, Ms. Mogahed joined Procter & Gamble as a marketing products researcher.

Hot Off the Press-- 2009: The Year in Review from One World, Many Peaces with Antony Adolf

 

 

What was 2009 all about — or was but you didn’t hear about it? How will 2010 and beyond take shape? 2009: The Year in Review is One World, Many Peaces’ answer. Antony Adolf, author of Peace: A World History, shares the stories he covered throughout the year as “Current Events Creating the Future” — Ours.

Includes three new essays by Antony Adolf published together for the first time:

•Buyers and Buy-Nots: The New Economics of Poverty and Affluence
•Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration Can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace
•A Missile Shield by Any Other Name: Is Obama's Global Military Strategy Taking Shape in Eastern Europe?

One World, Many Peaces: The Blog and Podcast will start anew on January 5. Thank you for a great year and have a safe and happy New Year!

 

Food First, Everything Else Next: The Decade in Review, Part Three

Being eager to "save the planet" in its Copenhagen form is noble and necessary and all, but it remains more than a bit relevant to ask: who are you saving it for? The single most stunning piece of news this decade is, for me, that one billion people in the world are hungry. One billion, roughly one in six: think of your favorite five people in the world and, with yourself, one of them is hungry with little to hope for but still too weak to do anything else.

 

 

That the news came out halfway through 2009 only makes clear to what extent the situation has been building for years, if not decades. In Peace: A World History, I show that nutrition as the most basic component of corporeal peace is the basis for all other peaces. Far from the first to say so, food forms the basis of peace since time immemorial: Ancient Chinese sages and Ancient Greek philosophers each attested to the primacy of food in peace (and everything else, for that matter).

 

 

That hunger should persist as a worldwide problem is as atrocious as state-sanctioned slavery lasting till the late 19th century, and in other forms today. As is well known, the world's hungry are kept that way for lack of proper distribution, not production. Americans, we found out recently, waste about forty percent of their high-calorie diets on average. That's enough for about half the world's hungry, with the rest coming from removing the red tape and skimming in food aid, and sustainable local farming.  Easier said than done, of course, but worldwide hunger is worth more concerted effort and news coverage as a current event creating the absence of a future.

 

This decade's closing in two short weeks gives occaision to reflect upon it as well that which is about to open. In honor of this arbitrariness, One World, Many Peaces will run a four-part weekly series on Thursdays, "The Decade in Review," to offer provocative closing and opening. thoughts.

Two New Articles by Antony Adolf: 'Post-Islamophobia' and 'A Missile Shield by Any Other Name'

Two renowned news and commentary outlets have recently published articles by Antony Adolf, author of Peace: A World History, publisher and host of One World, Many Peaces: The Blog and The Podcast.

The first, George Mason University's History  News Network (HNN) released "Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace." The second, Global Americana Institute's President Juan Cole's Informed Comment, released "A Missile Shield by Any Other Name: Is Obama's Global Military Strategy Taking Shape in Eastern Europe?" As current events, these article are aimed at shaping a better informed and more peaceful world. Here are excerpts from them and links.

"Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace." On the History  News Network (HNN).

...Competing versions of local, regional, national and international histories can for example be reworked to be more inclusive, potentially stemming violence originating in the experience of exclusion. South Africa has probably taken the most proactive steps in this respect in recent times. Institutions like museums, galleries, sporting events, parades and holidays have for as long as we’ve known been consciously used in nation-building. The ethnic parades in Northern Ireland that have decreased in bloodshed and the religious monuments in Jerusalem that have increased in tensions are two cases in point. That they and the narratives they institutionalize and canonize can also be used in peacebuilding should be less of an innovation than it is. The opportunities for cultural integration they collectively offer exposes the minaret debate for its deliberate exclusivity. Perhaps the first step in systematizing and practicing cultural integration as a means of preventing terrorism and build peace at local, regional and global levels is to separate the nation and the state, just as John Locke did for religion and the state three centuries ago...

"A Missile Shield by Any Other Name: Is Obama's Global Military Strategy Taking Shape in Eastern Europe?" in Informed Comment.

...An agreement was announced by both Polish and U.S. high officials about the types, quantities and locations of advanced missile launchers and projectiles to be stationed in Poland. But they left two lecherously lingering questions about President Obama's global military goals as compared to his predecessor, particularly as to how different or similar they actually are and are likely to be. Campaign rhetoric and first Presidential steps are seemingly turning into a bait and switch. Having inked a SOFA deal with Poland, the Czech republic will be next, according to official sources, with the environmental summit in Copenhagen acting as an inconvenient cover. Romania’s contested elections make for fertile grounds for intervention, if they are not already the result...

Beware the Rise of Regionalism: The Decade in Review, Part Two

The past ten years have seen a staggering rise in what is now being called, rather benignly, regionalism: groups of geographically proximate countries that unite in an organization or agreement to pursue common goals. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It is in one way, but in another regionalism is exactly what George Orwell warns us of in 1984. He turned out to be quite accurate in his depiction of totalitarian communism, how feasible is it for his nightmare to come true in our waking dreams?

 

 
Much more so than not, I would argue. Just weeks ago Asian nations agreed to extend the existing ASEAN organization (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) of ten nations into a much larger powerhouse including China. They are self-consciously taking as their model the European Union (EU) which has been operating on ever larger scales for decades. What these two organizations have in common is that their most basic goals are economic, with foreign policy and internal governance important too, but secondary. Of course, security trumps all at least in name.

 

 

In South America, the Organization of American States (OAS) of 35 chartered member-states has as its slogan "democracy for peace, security and development," more than hinting at its origins as a U.S.-instigated group aimed at stemming communist influence in the region during the Cold War. I guess the OAS won, except for Venezuela. Two regional organizations that have not fared so well in being ineffective are the African Union (AU) and the Arab League. The AU, unlike the EU and ASEAN, set out to be a political organization first and an economic and security one second. It hasn't worked. The Arab League's sole purpose was to destroy Israel, and that hasn’t worked either.

 

The only comparable arrangement in North America is the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, which does form the economic kernel that has lead to success in other cases of regionalism. So far, all these organizations (except the Arab League at first) have been too preoccupied with internal squabbles to think of actively targeting their rivals. As current events, these regional bodies which have taken an ever larger part of the world stage may in the future take it over, and run alongside rather than against the multipolar paradigm we encountered last Thursday.

 

This decade's closing in three short weeks gives occaision to reflect upon it as well that which is about to open. In honor of this arbitrariness, One World, Many Peaces will run a four-part weekly series on Thursdays, "The Decade in Review," to offer provocative closing and opening. thoughts