The Fragile Universal Peace!
The following series questions the feasibility of peace-building culture as promoted by western governments and non governmental organizations and with them their local partners, around the world in general and outside the western system of governance in particular. While it is vital to have peace all around the world yet how could one explain the double standards of may western governments when it comes to the inalienable right to auto-determination of populations? Who decides on the terrorist and the freedom fighter?
I quote my dearest friend and activists – anthropologist Klass de Jonge with whom i share many a thought on freedom and activisim: “Western tradition considers violence legitimate only when it is practiced by the state. There is the tendency to label an action “terrorist” when it is deemed to be illegal. Today’s terrorism is called group or bottom-up terrorism, but top-down (state) terrorism has been far more prevalent through-out history. In terms of victims, top-down terrorism [as by Israel recently and by apartheid South Africa before 1994] has taken a vaster higher toll than its bottom-up counterparts.”
The list is long and will be long for a long time… until universal justice becomes a practice and not a narrative!
