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Category Archives: #Global Terrorism Index
The Politics of Compassion in a World of Ruthless Power
If we don’t begin to create the conditions within which politicians and political leaders work to encourage communitarian and socially driven policies the world will indeed become more merciless as it perfects itself. The politics of compassion, in the first instance, a politics that places the welfare of the community first and the state second. It is the opposite of dominatory, pathological, fear driven, xenophobic politics based on a monopoly of force and coercion. If we depend on that for our order, we’ve already lost the plot. The difficult answer to this question is that the politics of compassion is a new political paradigm for an interdependent world. The reality is that there is no way in which you can build a wall against anything in the twenty-first century. The whole notion of a wall is just stupid in an age of electronic communications. Continue reading
Posted in #Global Terrorism Index, Abe, Capital Punishment, Cosmopolitanism, democratic deficit, Dirty Politics, Dominatory Politics, Emancipatory Politics, political economy of compassion, Politics, The Politics of Compassion, Uncategorized
Tagged Deficient Leadership, Dominatory Politics, Donald Trump, Inequality and Greed, Norm of Reciprocity, Political Pathology, The politics of Intervention, US Primary Campaign
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Peace Researchers Urge Caution over Bombing in Syria
There are alternative courses of action available. The conditions which allowed ISIS to breed are the civil wars in Syria and Iraq. The top priority, as Syrians themselves say, is to stop the war. In the short term, the need is for a UN-mandated ceasefire. Over the longer term, the need is to continue and intensify the search for a political settlement, to end the outside supply of weapons and finance which fuel the war, to wind down outside military interventions and move towards disarming and demobilising the forces inside Syria.
In the immediate future, we urge a pause rather than adopting an irreversible course, which is likely to kill and maim more innocent people in Syria, to fuel terrorism, and to have further damaging effects in the Middle East and the world. We need more creative and imaginative solutions to the problems we are confronting than those currently on the table. Continue reading
What next after Paris?:Nonviolent solutions to Violent Politics
The whole point of terrorist political violence is to generate an enemy over reaction that will advance the cause and justify the violence that has occurred and future threats. Unfortunately we ( i.e the media and political leaders in the West) have responded to the appalling terror attacks in Paris of a week ago , in a way that is already an over reaction. If this over reaction is followed with political decisions to expand and deepen military intervention it will undoubtedly complicate what already is an extremely complicated situation and it may do more harm than good. In which case it will perpetuate rather than end the suffering. Continue reading
Posted in #Global Terrorism Index, #War in Iraq, Alternatives to Violence in the Middle East, Dealing with Terror nonviolently, Dialogue Processes, Iraq, ISIS, Non violent responses to Violent Politics, Nonviolence, political economy of compassion, Syria, Trauma, Uncategorized
Tagged #Non violent responses to violence, #Paris Attacks, human dignity, Middle East, political vision, resolution 2249 does not justify war, terrorism, University of Kent
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Kevin's Peace Musings 