Hope For Peace Research Articles

The New Great Trek: The Root Causes of the Influx of Refugees from Syria and Iraq to Europe

In 2010, a wave of political uprisings blew across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the result of which persists in some countries like Syria, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. That of Syria is unique given the number of people killed as well as the number of refugees that fled the country. Also, since 2003, people have been fleeing Iraq to other parts of the world. In an attempt to provide answers for such demographic mobility, this research examines those factors that impelled the Syrians and Iraqis to embark on such perilous journey to Europe in 2015, in particular. One of the factors, according to the findings of the study, is the total loss of hope for peace and change in Syria and Iraq. Thus, the article suspects that if the present political debacle in Syria and Iraq continues, the refugee will maintain their influx to Europe in 2016 and beyond.
 
 
 

Peace and End Time Expectations in Christian Zionism

This study examines how the hope for peace in the Middle East is articulated in Swedish Christian Zionist movements, both publicly and in private interviews with leaders and speakers. The article s ...

A World Without Tags

Many important questions and concerns emerge when one observes what is going on in the world today.1 Some scholars even speak of a clash of civilization and have little hope for peace and justice across different cultures, religions, and societies. They describe our world as if people were not born free, as if God did not create all of us equally, and as if God created people so that we would hate and kill each other instead of learn from each other and coexist in peace. Why are the concepts of justice, diversity, reconciliation, and forgiveness, which I consider the principal teachings of God, absent from our discourse today? I will examine the concept of social and gender justice and diversity in Islam and its importance in a world torn apart by war, radical religious forces, and blind nationalism. I will also shed light on the obstacles and challenges we face and the strategies we must adopt to create a world without tags, a world where people coexist in a just and diverse world without boundaries, a world based on love, respect, and tolerance regardless of color, sex, religion, and ethnicity. Only such a world fulfills the true spirit of God, which is justice and peace.

Friedensgesänge 1628–1651: Musik zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg. Werke von Johannes Werlin, Sigmund Theophil Staden, Melchior Franck und Andreas Berger by Stefan Hanheide (review)

MUSIC FROM THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR Friedensgesange 1628-1651: Musik zum Dreissigjahrigen Krieg. Werke von Johannes Werlin, Sigmund Theophil Staden, Melchior Franck und Andreas Berger. Herausgegeben von Stefan Hanheide. (Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Bayern: Neue Folge, Bd. 22.) Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 2012. [Pref. in Ger., p. ix; introd. in Ger., p. xi-l; sources and statistics in Ger., p. li-lxxviii; crit. report in Ger., p. lxxix-civ; texts, p. cv-cxviii; facsims., p. cxix-cxxxiv; scores, p. 1-118. ISMN 979-0-00480293-9; pub. no. SON 252. i152.]The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was a tragic period in German history. Numerous military conflicts played out in rotation across the German landscape, leaving a swath of death and destruction unmatched in scope until the twentieth century. Complete cities were razed, untold thousands died at the hands of rapacious mercenary armies, while countless others succumbed to starvation and disease. The lyric poet Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664), who in 1636 knew his homeland only a battleground, described the atrocities in grim detail in his sonnet Threnen des Vatterlandes. The country was impoverished, and everywhere the arts suffered never before. Heinrich Schutz, the Electoral Saxon Kapellmeister in Dresden, in the dedication of his Kleine geistliche Konzerte (1639) lamented the woeful state of music and the arts as if suffocated under military arms and trampled in the mud (A Heinrich Schutz Reader: Letters and Documents in Translation, ed. Gregory S. Johnston [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013], 111). Once-illustrious court ensembles that had previously performed lavish works for multiple choirs of singers and instrumentalists were reduced to faint shadows of their former glory. Other courts and towns were forced to disband their Kapellen and civic ensembles altogether. Publishers who were able still to produce music in print were few in number, and faced chronic shortages of paper and customers. One hoped and prayed for the return of peace and prosperity.The music contained in the present volume reflects this hope for peace, represented by the works of four composers from southern Germany and what is modern-day Bavaria: the Lindau Kantor Johannes Werlin's Irenodiae Oder Friedensgesang (1644), the Nuremberg organist and composer Sigmund Theophil Staden's Musikalische Friedensgesange (1651), the Coburg Kapellmeister Melchior Franck's Suspirium Germaniae Publicum (1628), and a concluding ten-voice Da pacem Domine (1635) by Andreas Berger, Kapellmeister to Graf Ludwig Eberhard von Oettingen. The first two works are significantly more ambitious in scope, whereas the latter two are modest compositions published individually. Together, though, especially if one pays particular attention to the texts, they reveal an optimism for a better future, if not in this world then in the next.At more than 250 pages and printed in large format (27 cm x 34 cm), this is a critical edition ideally suited initially for scholarly study, but the works inside deserve to be heard. The front matter, running to 134 page in length, is exhaustive, rich in information, painstaking in detail, and abundantly referenced throughout. The first 60 pages or so are devoted to biographical entries on each of the four composers, the general historical background and context of the music, the origins and specific occa- sion of the works, full transcriptions of title pages and dedicatory poetry and texts, the authorial sources of the poetic texts, and issues of genre and formal characteristics of the compositions. It is also in these pages that the editor elaborates in great detail on aspects of the musical style and the original printed edition: notation, time signatures, barlines and other indications of meter, tempo indications, slurs and ties, accidentals, mode, and so forth. Statistical data on text, metric changes, voicing, mode, ambitus, and even whether or not the basso continuo part includes a textual incipit occupy a further fifteen pages of fine print (pp. …

Civilized Uncoupling: A Non-Adversarial Approach to Divorce

The word divorce can conjure images and expectations of ugly battles and emotional brutality involving parasitic attorneys profiting from the whole process. For many people the only hope for peace is to just walk away without a fight. There is another way for divorcing people. It is possible to get through a divorce and avoid the ugliness. This requires the willingness of the litigant and problem-solving skills of the attorney, as well as judges who demand compliance with court rules and accountability from both lawyers and litigants. Most of all, keeping divorce peaceful requires the viewpoint that it is possible to do so. This article advocates for this perspective.

Sissoko's La Genese and Africa's Hope for Peace

“Must we […] forever […] as brothers be condemned to hate one another?” asks Esau, one of the main characters in Malian filmmaker Cheik Oumar Sissoko's La Genese. In the filmic contextualization of the Old Testament stories of Dinah and Schechem; Jacob and Esau; Leah and Rachel, Sissoko explores notions of Reconciliatory Justice as opposed to Western understandings of Retributive Justice. He adapts African Oral and Literary Traditions to re-imagine a continent where African Socialism makes peaceful co-existence possible. He insists that nations, not only individuals, have to learn to occupy the same continent, the same world. Re-imagining the African Oral and Literary Tradition plays an important part in the African search for identity where story and identity are inseparable. Yet, for generations the story of Africa has been the story about Africa: those who invented the printed word claimed superior story-telling powers and “Oral Man” was silenced. Today those about whom the story was told are telling their own story, re-appropriating their own literary tradition, re-discovering a culture that no longer orients itself according to imposed values. This paper looks at how the African Oral Tradition, by definition a fluid medium, can be adapted within the filmic genre, a fixed medium. It asks how the story of yesterday becomes the story of today as Sissoko's exploration of the narrative of the descendants of Abraham through the lens of African Literary Tradition presents interesting possibilities for an African peace based on justice.

Religie en globale bio-etiek: Religieuse globale bio-etiek as voorloper tot ’n universele bio-etiek

Religion and global bioethics: Religious global bioethics as a precursor to a universal bioethics. From a general public perspective, this article presumes that there is such a thing as a universal ethics; however this assumption does not decrease the challenges with regard to a ‘global ethics’ and ‘bioethics’. The article discusses the views on global religious bioethics that were formulated in 1999. The article further considers these formulations as the forerunner of UNESCO’s perspective on universal bioethics accepted in 2005. The article aims to argue that a global value system will enhance hope of peace and justice in today’s global world. It argues that the absence of shared ethics will reinforce conflict between civilisations and worsen injustice.

Conflicts through the lens of Chinese war photojournalists

Abstract Since the 1990s, China, as a new global power, has played an increasing role in international affairs. Chinese journalists have travelled to war and conflict zones overseas to report and file news coverage back home. This article surveys the historical development of Chinese war photography. It also critically examines the ideology and practices of four young Chinese photojournalists who work at a Chinese state news agency through semi-structured interviews and analysis of the photographs they took in conflict zones. The author argues that contemporary Chinese war photojournalists take realism as their main aesthetic and ideological doctrine in a sense to provide visual evidences and to stress the naturalism and symbolic power of war images. The visual representations of civilians� sufferings and hope for peace correspond with China's peaceful diplomatic policy and non-intervention principles. The war images elicit sympathetic public emotions and collective memory in China. Chinese photojournalists� depictions of wars and conflicts are influenced by internal political, organizational and individual constraints as well as the changing nature of contemporary wars.

Perceptions of a changing world induce hope and promote peace in intractable conflicts.

The importance of hope in promoting conciliatory attitudes has been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is known about conditions inducing hope, especially in intractable conflicts, where reference to the outgroup may backfire. In the current research, five studies yielded convergent support for the hypothesis that hope for peace stems from a general perception of the world as changing. In Study 1, coders observed associations between belief in a changing world, hope regarding peace, and support for concessions. Study 2 revealed the hypothesized relations using self-reported measures. Studies 3 and 4 established causality by instilling a perception of the world as changing (vs. unchanging) using narrative and drawing manipulations. Study 5 compared the changing world message with a control condition during conflict escalation. Across studies, although the specific context was not referred to, the belief in a changing world increased support for concessions through hope for peace.

Pacem in Terris , Fifty Years Later

Pacem in Terris, Fifty Years Later Roland Minnerath (bio) Pacem in Terris can be considered as an epochal point of reference in the history of the social doctrine of the Church.1 It entails the richness of the past and opens new horizons with all the risks linked to such an operation. We must not forget that the times were ripe to welcome such a change. Was it a change or a simple development, a breaking off or a continuity? This is a question of hermeneutics. As Pope Benedict XVI strongly insisted in regard to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the council can be interpreted and received only with a hermeneutic of continuity. The paradigm of Vatican II applies also to Pacem in Terris, and should be the rule for all magisterial documents. Pacem in Terris comes to light in a changing world, one experiencing unprecedented economic and social development, and general optimism, at least in the West. The hard postwar years were over. Colonialism was ending in the South. The encyclical, too, is full of the yearning for more freedom, a better life, and the hope of peace. Yet peace was far from guaranteed in the early sixties. In addressing the world’s hopes, the movement that merged into Vatican II is already at work in Pacem in Terris. The Church would not miss its appointment with history. The issue taken up by the encyclical was no less than the reconciliation [End Page 33] between the teachings of the Church and the world, the latter understood as the liberal democratic society inaugurated by the European Enlightenment and the American experiment. The challenge was not small. Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, written in 1864, had ruled out any possibility for the Church to compromise with the modern social philosophy of a now liberal and relativistic world. One hundred years later, Pacem in Terris tried to reconcile the modern individual with the order created by God. In the social teaching of the Church the accent was on the objective reality in which all creatures move. This order, which is ultimately inscribed in the heart of human beings, is an object of knowledge through reason. It is not static or immutable. What is immutable is God’s design in creating an order that has to govern the relationship between human beings, human communities, and nations. What is submitted to change is our knowledge of that order. At the core of the modern understanding of humanity in the universe, there is no notion of such an objective order. The entire accent is on the individual, his autorealization and, as a correlate, autoalienation in the hands of the state through a contract. There is no truth to be researched or achieved; there is only a consensus to be found among contractors to define what would be the norm to which all should conform in order to build an acceptable social framework. I. In Search of Convergence with the Liberal Thought Modern times began with the Pax Westphalica, and certainly earlier. However, 1648 is one of those milestones that indicate a new beginning. The old world based on the evidence of an inherent order created by God was over. As Grotius puts it, we can organize the world “etsi Deus non daretur” (as if God did not exist). God was still mentioned formally through mere lip service, but he was no longer the God of the Jewish-Christian revelation, acting in history and guiding its course to an end decided by him alone. Now the course of history was in the hands of the strongest. As Hobbes suggested, [End Page 34] “Non veritas sed voluntas facit legem” (It is not truth but will that makes the law). The eighteenth-century Enlightenment mixed easily the claims of the absolute state with those of the absolute individual. Thus the Westphalian peace treaties opened three centuries of unlimited state competence, including in ecclesiastical matters, although not without strong resistance from the Catholic Church. For each territory, the state authority became the rule in Europe. Relations among states were dictated by the law of the strongest. The first attempt to overcome the Westphalia...

Judges and Rule of Law in Times of Political Change and Transitions

Political change, or transition, coming after conflict and repression, raises a multitude of challenges such as how to deal with the past while seeking to build a future of more than just hopes for peace, prosperity and a good life for all. This requires social change. The herculean task of making that change positive and far reaching requires the concerted effort of many institutions of governance, civil society and private citizens. Judges are among those with a critical role in processes of dealing with the past to take a country forward. As will be shown in this paper, judges can, and do, assume a range of functions during transitions and beyond. The end game for the judges should always be about justice and rule of law; social engineering has never been their concern. However, as we know, law and society do not operate in parallel universes, and what happens in a legal process can have major ramifications beyond the parties and the immediate issue. We also know that the law needs to fulfil certain needs of a society in order to have legitimacy. As this paper demonstrates, in times of political change or transition, the traditional judicial role can morph and extend into work that relates to wider projects for establishing or re-establishing rule of law and respect for law. This paper, using a comparative international approach, aims to address the role of judges in dealing with the baggage of armed conflict, repression and human rights violations, and to focus on the judicial contribution to rule of law. We begin with a general consideration of rule of law, moving on to the role of judges in a changing society. Bearing in mind our understanding of rule of law, we address the primary ways that judges engage in dealing with the past, ranging from fact-finding to legal proceedings and then to vetting and lustration. This is about judges being instruments of wider social change, vehicles of transformation. Our next section considers the issue of judges as subjects for change, where they themselves come under scrutiny. Finally, we sum up with an overall analysis of what judges can offer to rule of law and wider society in these situations, and how the concept of rule of law itself evolves in these unusual times. Our focus is on judges as judges, so we will not be studying their role as victims or in their private capacity.

Changing Landscapes of Mission: Challenges and Opportunities

The changing geographic and demographic of Christianity has created the imperative in the new century to rethink and reshape mission discourse and practice. Ecclesial communities, academia, and mission practitioners have been challenged to identify the challenges and opportunities brought by what Dana L. Robert calls the shifting southward of (1) Global/world Christianity thus, in principle, is the emerging face of southern Christianity that demands a new way of perceiving the as the context that is shaping the new contours of Christianity. The terms global and world are used interchangeably to refer both to the ubiquitous presence of Christianity and to the various forms of Christian practices that shape the worldwide presence of pluriform Christianity. The perception of Christianity as a Western religion--and, by implication, of mission as a Western agenda--is being deconstructed by southern Christianity in a way that mirrors the pluriformity of the Christianity of the new century. The mainstreaming of Pentecostalism shows a form of religious globalization that brings with it the voices of the undertow--the marginalized, women, laypeople, the poor, and the untouchable--who have been denied access to structural power and institutionalized religions. New ways of looking at the role of the Spirit as the transforming power that gives voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless are regaining space in the development of theological discourse. The role of the Spirit is being used to characterize Christianity as a people's movement (2) that reflects the grassroots dimension of the spread of Christianity. The new phenomenon of human networking--developed through migration, tourism, and trafficking--along with the most massive progress in information and technology that has ever been witnessed in human history are not only relocating the geography of Christianity but, even more, changing the way Christianity functions in the world. The collapse of national political boundaries and the rise of new economic powers, moreover, have preceded the recognition of the need to rethink a new practice of connecting spirituality and politics. Here, Christianity plays a crucial role in shaping the discourse on religion and politics, particularly on the new power-relation between politics and religion. The question, however, arises: Does the Christian response mirror the hope for peace and justice, regardless of the blatant realities of religious and political violence and discrimination today? Aiming to add insight to the discussion on the Changing Landscapes of Mission: Challenges and Opportunities, this article reflects on the mission of the Spirit by demonstrating how the mission of the Spirit contributes to the church's missional understanding and practice today. I will conclude this article with an outline of two models of mission to illustrate the ways in which the mission of the Spirit bears a transformative and dynamic power of witnessing to the possibility of life in the midst of the persistence of suffering and violence in our today. Landscapes of empire vis-a-vis landscapes of the Spirit The image of landscape is used to depict the site of the Spirit--from within which mission is constructed and practised--and the political location of Empire--as it is manifested in different religious and political powers in ways that discriminate, violate, and marginalize. Both landscapes create new challenges and opportunities for mission. As an inclusive framework, pneumatology provides a fresh basis for Christian responses to the challenges of religious pluralism, including the collapse of national--political boundaries intertwined with the rise of new nationalism as nations reclaim their power in the political of power and the continuing challenges of ecological disaster. On the one hand, the return to the Spirit--the reclaiming of a pneumatological framework for mission discourse--shows an emerging theological response to the changing landscapes of Christianity. …

Turkey’s New Vision for “Man’s Best Hope for Peace”: United Nations Reform and Reorganization of the Security Council

Despite its present reputation as weak, inefficient, and discreditable, the United Nations is one of humanity’s most noble endeavors. Although the structure of the Security Council prevents its decision-making procedures from being more democratic, the UN still seeks to suppress aggression, respect self-determination, and promote human rights and well-being. Furthermore, political cosmopolitans’ proposals for comprehensive UN reform, which goes far beyond increasing the number of permanent members of the Security Council, give us hope for substantial improvement. Nevertheless, the UN is still the sum of the states it is comprised of and UN reform depends on the broader and ambitious project of state reform as both concept and practice. Within this context, this paper argues that focusing exclusively on the Security Council and the geographical distribution of permanent membership only harms the comprehensiveness of the analyses seeking to reform the UN from a larger perspective. The fact that the success of a UN reform is closely related with the enhancement of member states’ ethical capacities should also be taken into consideration. The next round of debates for a proper solution to the UN impasse takes place in 2015, and Turkey is emerging as an enthusiastic voice for further reform and for its own potential permanent membership in the Security Council. However, Turkey has also developed a significantly anti-UN discourse unprecedented in its foreign policy, which now runs the risk of curtailing the country’s capacity to partake in substantial change in UN decision-making procedures. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu currently acts as a statesman, insisting on a statist reform (which focuses more on states’ individual interests) of the Security Council. Interestingly, in the 1990s, when Davutoğlu was a university professor, his views of the UN tended to be more cosmopolitan and suggested a civilization-based solution. This paper, while elaborating on the discussions of reforming the UN from a cosmopolitan perspective, also probes Davutoğlu’s conflicting approaches to the issue. It thus seeks to argue that Turkey, instead of pushing for a purely statist model, should consider supporting pluralistic, multilevel, and more-complex participation in the UN’s decision-making procedures. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu currently acts as a statesman, insisting on a statist reform (which focuses more on states’ individual interests) of the Security Council. Interestingly, in the 1990s, when Davutoğlu was a university professor, his views of the UN tended to be more cosmopolitan and suggested a civilization-based solution. This paper, while elaborating on the discussions of reforming the UN from a cosmopolitan perspective, also probes Davutoğlu’s conflicting approaches to the issue. It thus seeks to argue that Turkey, instead of pushing for a purely statist model, should consider supporting pluralistic, multilevel, and more-complex participation in the UN’s decision-making procedures.

Human Rights and Education: A Hope for Peace

“Human Rights For everyone is the necessary foundation upon which all of us may build a world where everybody may live in peace and serenity and plenty” —MichaelDouglas

War and Peace Theology in German and Swedish Christian Zionism

This is a comparative study of how Swedish and German Christian Zionist literature from 1967–2012 portrays the chances for peace and the risk for war, globally and in the Middle East. Christian Zionism is a theology supporting the establishment and the preservation of the modern state of Israel as a Jewish homeland. Christian Zionist literature, in Germany and Sweden, demonstrates very little hope for peace, since this world is assumed fallen, heading for the apocalypse, in the hands of the Devil, and inhabited by a sinful humanity beyond improvement. The image of Arabs is clearly that of an enemy image; so portraying them as inferior: permanently lying, violent, dangerous, and incapable. Thus, peace with Arabs is futile. Jews are given appreciative attributes: intelligent, democratic, progressive and capable. However, Jews are instrumentalized, being regarded as a tool in a fatalistic end-time schema. They are expected to “return” to Israel, a requirement for the return of the Messiah. In Israel, Jews will face Armageddon, leaving many to perish. The readership of this literature is required to pray for Israel and for the “return” of Jews. However, it is explicitly dissuaded from supporting peace initiatives, and never required to save Jews from Armageddon. German and Swedish literatures generally share the same beliefs, and the discourse has been largely consistent over the years.

Tragedy in the Aftermath of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: France’s First Phedre and the Hope for Peace

BEFORE the bloody Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre claimed thousands or tens of thousands of lives on August 24, 1572, France's first major tragedian, Robert Garnier, had published Porcie (1568), the first part of a trilogy detailing the Roman civil wars in evident echo of the current disputes between Catholics and Protestants. The second two parts of the trilogy--Cornelie (1574) and Marc Antoine (1578)--were published after the massacre and continued to offer indirect reflection upon the causes and consequences of the current chaos. (1) Published before and after the massacre, the trilogy depicts a country polluted by religious discord and political turmoil. The purpose of the present article is to study the curious interruption of the trilogy that coincided with the massacre. In the aftermath of the bloodiest event in the wars, Garnier published another, seemingly unrelated and apparently timeless and apolitical, tragedy: Hippolyte (1573). (2) The text, in fact, was actually published twice that first year. (3) Why? What made it so appropriate? And is the play really as disconnected from history as is generally thought? Garnier's decision to publish Hippolyte in 1573 is initially all the more surprising given that other French tragedians seemingly responded to the massacre in very direct ways, raising the issue of the limits of the reason of State, directly referencing the fifth war of religion, or offering unrestrained praise of the murder of the Protestant leader, Coligny. (4) Might it be possible, I ask in what follows, to reconnect France's first play about Phedre and her stepson to the massacre? 1. FROM TRISTES JEUX TO D'AUTRES JEUX A number of clues as to how Hippolyte opens out onto the historical moment of production can be located in the letters and praise poems that precede the play. Although Hippolyte can seem like a pause or rupture in Garnier's response to civil strife, such was not the opinion advanced by Pierre Amy in a Latin poem included in the original 1573 edition. There, Amy explicitly connects Hippolyte to the cycle of Roman plays about civil war. Porcie, notes Amy, was so moving that nostra obstupuit scena (our [French] stage was astonished)--before the 1568 tragedy, France had never known cothurni [...] magniloqui (the great eloquence of Athenian tragedy [in reference to the buskins, i.e. boots worn by Athenian actors]) (Hippolyte 55). Yet, he continues, Hippolyte will be even greater, such that Invidi major Graecis se comparat (greater will be the rivalry with the Greek muses). In this first instance, Amy compares the two plays purely on their esthetic merit. In a second moment, however, he asserts that the praise he offers Garnier is not just his own, but that of the French nation: the French are now again ready to face death for the wellbeing of the nation (pro re communi); all of France (nobis nostrisque) offer Garnier praise for his play. The stakes are clearly national. Porcie's relationship to France's suffering is here appropriated for Hippolyte. It is however not Amy but the great cousin of Pierre de Ronsard, Nicolas--he signs merely N.D.R.--who offers the most promising model for understanding how Hippolyte might relate to the massacre. Written in the second person (Tu) and naming its addressee a total of three times (France), Nicolas de Ronsard's sonnet, offered to Garnier, connects Hippolyte to the nation via the figure of apostrophe. Most importantly, the poem calls for peace: Ma France, je te pry, laisse ton propre flanc. But the poem is not just a call for peace--it is also a call for replacing fighting in the streets with something else: Tu devrois arracher de tes poings outrageux / Les glaives, et, paisible, a d'autres jeux t'ebatre. And the other games that the sonnet's author has in mind are theatrical. The connection becomes clearer when we recall that the sonnet begins by referring to France metaphorically as a theater: Tu sers trop longuement au monde de theatre, / France. …

Commentary: Possible Variables for Establishing a Military Confidence-Building Mechanism Across the Taiwan Strait

Asian Perspective 36 (2012), 725-734 Commentary: Possible Variables for Establishing a Military Confidence-Building Mechanism Across the Taiwan Strait Sue-Chung Chang and Chung-Yuan Yao On January 14, 2012, incumbent president Ma Ying-Jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party) on Taiwan was reelected. As President Ma embarks on his second term, the question of whether he will negotiate and sign a military mutual confidence­ building mechanism with mainland China has become an issue of concern for the public on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The issue also has potential regional security implications. In recent years, the leaders of Taiwan and mainland China have often expressed good­ will and proposed a number of critical initiatives that would bring about a new dawn in cross-strait relations. These initiatives include the signing of peace agreements as well as negotiations on a military mutual confidence-building mechanism. Nonetheless, many diffi­ culties must be overcome to achieve what the two sides envision. We examine these issues from the perspective of the leaders of the respective nations by presenting four variables that could potentially influence the progress of discussion. Leaders need to understand the potential outcomes in advance so as to formulate strategies to counter a negative turn of events that could derail the initiatives. If they can do so, the strategic objective of a win-win situation may be fully accomplished, ensuring the preservation of lasting peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the AsiaPacific region as a whole. The Taiwan-China Relationship Taiwan is an important democratic country in Asia, having twice undergone political party turnover. However, it has long been 725 726 Commentary subjected to military threats from mainland China. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has currently deployed no fewer than 490 combat aircraft along the perimeter of the Taiwan Strait as well as 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. These weapons pose a grave security threat to Taiwan. On May 20, 2008, President Ma took office and actively embarked on peace dia­ logues with the PRC. The governments on both sides of the Tai­ wan Strait, riding on the “1992 Consensus,”1 began cooperating and have agreed on a range of economic development measures. The past three years have been marked by common embrace of a philosophy of “peaceful development, coexistence, and mutual prosperity.” Both sides have accelerated their development through economic cooperation, signing fifteen important agree­ ments as well as completing the cross-strait Economic Coopera­ tion Framework Agreement (ECFA). The number of tourists from China to Taiwan in 2010 exceeded 1.63 million, bringing the tourism industry an economic gain of more than 70 billion New Taiwan dollars. At the end of June 2011 the Taiwan government announced the deregulation of travel by mainland tourists, enabling them to visit Taiwan and witness its free, democratic, open, and diverse society. Moreover, the number of direct flights between Taiwan and China has reached 370 per week and is expected to gradually increase to 500 a week in the future. These facts are tan­ gible proof of the benefits resulting from cross-strait economic cooperation and peaceful development. Despite these improvements in economic relations, military relations have not seen any improvement, and Taiwan’s national defense mobilization cannot be complacent for even a single day (Ministry of National Defense 2011). Since the KMT defeated the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the 2008 presidential elec­ tions, it has been actively working to improve the tense political relationship with mainland China, increasing the hope of peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, neither Taiwan nor the PRC can move toward signing a peace agreement or installing a military mutual-trust mechanism so long as the People’s Liberation Army still threatens Taiwan. Determining the means to dismantle the missiles aimed at Taiwan and implement cross-strait mechanisms Sue-Chung Chang and Chung-Yuan Yao T2J to build mutual confidence remains a major challenge that national leaders of both sides need to confront. The Current Cross-Strait Consensus on Peaceful Development During the rule of the DPP from 2000 to 2008, mutual trust between the Beijing and Taiwanese governments was completely lacking, with no communication...

Hope in Africa? Social representations of world history and the future in six African countries

Data on social representations of world history have been collected everywhere in the world except sub-Saharan Africa. Two studies using open-ended data involving university students from six African countries fill this gap. In Study 1, nominations from Cape Verde and Mozambique for the most important events in world history in the past 1000 years were dominated by war and politics, recency effects, and Western-centrism tempered by African sociocentrism on colonization and independence. The first three findings replicated previous research conducted in other parts of the world, but the last pattern contrasted sharply with European data. Study 2 employed a novel method asking participants how they would begin the narration of world history, and then to describe a major transition to the present. Participants most frequently wrote about the evolution of humanity out of Africa, followed by war and then colonization as a beginning, and then replicated previous findings with war, colonization, and technology as major transitions to the present. Finally, when asked about how they foresaw the future, many participants expressed hope for peace and cooperation, especially those facing more risk of collective violence (Burundi and Congo). A colonial/liberation narrative was more predominant in the data from former Portuguese colonies (Angola, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau) than from former Belgian colonies (Burundi and Congo).

Silent lines and the ebb of memory: narratives of Our Wall in the island of Cyprus

This paper moves away from ‘‘orientalist’’ visions of the island of Cyprus as the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and looks at the wounds contemporary Cyprus still bears 36 years after its partition. The UN-controlled ‘‘Green Line’’ divides the island into a northern and southern side and its barbedwire and decaying infrastructure renders the violence of the partition and its traumatic consequences impossible to forget. This paper is about dividing lines and impenetrable walls separating territories and nations; it is about ways of remembering and forgetting and about possible routes of overcoming physical and psychological rifts through hopeful representations of friendly cohabitation. In particular it looks at the potential transformations of the Green Line through a reclamation project into a healing inter-communal memory space (Gritching 2010); and provides a close reading of the 1993 film-documentary Our Wall by Panicos Chrysanthou and Niyazi Kizilyürek underlining its significance and influence as counter-discourse to the silence and the re-memorialisation of the years before partition. Both the ‘‘Green Line project‘‘ and Our Wall underline the importance of memory-embedded representations in the emerging genre of ‘‘postcolonial utopianism’’ (Ashcroft 2009), as positive active tools to energise the hope for peace and reconciliation.

THE DUTY TO SEEK PEACE

AbstractKant claimed that we have a duty to seek peace, and encouraged a hope for peace to support that duty. To encourage that hope he argued that peace was reasonably likely. He thought that peace was reasonably likely because he believed that historical trends would create opportunities to implement his plan for peace. But authorities claim that globalization is undermining such opportunities. Consequently Kant's arguments can no longer sustain our hope for peace. We can sustain that hope by devising a new plan for peace that globalization will give us opportunities to implement. But in order to devise such a plan we need to sustain our hope for peace. We can sustain such a hope by reflecting on the value of peace because hope is sustained not only by the belief that the object of hope is likely, but also by the conviction that it is valuable. In this way we can perhaps sustain a hope for peace that will support our duty to seek peace. But the fear of war and compassion for the victims of war may also support the duty to seek peace. Kant ignored these opportunities to support the duty to seek peace because they could support only the duty to avoid war. But Kant never showed that the duty to seek peace—as he saw it—outweighed the duty to avoid war. I conclude that Kant's arguments lead us to endless war rather than to peace.