{"id":7588,"date":"2017-06-01T19:28:50","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T17:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=7588"},"modified":"2017-06-01T19:34:55","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T17:34:55","slug":"missing-political-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2017\/06\/missing-political-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing: Political Creativity – Vox populi, vox dei"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: TRANSCEND Media Service (TMS)\/<\/strong>Solutions Oriented Peace Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: Johan Galtung<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A key slogan during the student revolt in Paris May 1968, soon 50 years ago, was Imagination au pouvoir!<\/em> Bring imagination to power!<\/p>\n

We were there, walking with thousands from Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es to Place Etoile where a stentorian voice commanded us to sit in small groups in the circles under the Arch to \u201cdiscuss the situation\u201d.\u00a0 So we did.<\/p>\n

France is now suffering from more imagination deficit than ever.\u00a0 To call Le Pen-Front National \u201cextreme right\u201d when the issue is for or against the EU is not helpful; left-right was 20th century politics.<\/p>\n

Why not think bigger, beyond EU: for or against EURASIA, Russia-China are ready? Trade fills trains London-Beijing; a West-East axis, not the old colonial obsession with North-South (neo)colonialism. And how about both, EURASIAFRICA? They hang together geographically.<\/p>\n

Another word for imagination is creativity<\/em>. Engineers apply it to matter, architects to space, artist to form, scientists to how things hang together, humans to how people may hang together. And people who use their democratic power to how politics hangs together. \u201cPopulism\u201d so-called\u2013yes, democracy is populist=peopleist, and there have been solid No\u2019s recently to elitism shared by dominant political parties.<\/p>\n

Thus, the French managed to get rid of Socialists\/Gaullists.\u00a0 England graduated from Tory\/Liberal to Conservatives\/Labour long ago; now with the labor party disappearing.\u00a0 Brexit was not elitist, and Theresa May, loyal to populist Brexit, is no classical conservative.<\/p>\n

Sooner or later USA will be liberated from Democrats\/Republicans, the alliance running the US political machine. Trump did. Fired FBI director James Comey called him \u201ccrazy\u201d (NYT<\/em> 12 May 2017); \u201cautistic\u201d, rather. He is now up against \u201cFired by Trump, unite!\u201d and a Nixonian future.<\/p>\n

What is happening?\u00a0 All over, old social faultlines yield to new.\u00a0 Like right-left to war-peace?\u00a0 People see it more clearly than those with vested interests\u2013including money!\u2013in the old.\u00a0 Vox populi, vox dei<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But that divine voice is not heard at the level of world politics as there are no world elections or referenda, and the EU is not the world.<\/p>\n

There is something static, almost dead about the world state system, particularly how states relate to each other; as if they have found their final form and as if their relations will remain anarchic.\u00a0 Concerns for security, no violence within and without, are legitimate; but not dominance of police and military using violence and threats as knee-jerk reflexes, devoid of imagination, even of reflections.<\/p>\n

In addition, more seriously, as if the agenda for inter-state relations had only one point: security, guided by what is known as paranoia.<\/p>\n

Except that states do trade across gaps of distrust, even paranoia?\u00a0 They do, and often very creatively, for mutual and equal benefit, greatly helped by market price mechanisms defining what is \u201cequal\u201d. And all are better off with good business deals.\u00a0 But they do not want other parties to be much<\/em> better off. They watch each other, knowing that the survival of the other party may be a condition for own survival. But they do not want all-out winners, with themselves as all-out losers.<\/p>\n

However, cooperation by exchange for mutual and equal benefit can be expanded much beyond economic goods supplied and demanded. This is where the theory and practice of negative and positive peace enter.<\/p>\n

Negative peace calls for non-provocative security, defensive defense, including guarding well what should be defended.\u00a0 Better than hunting for terrorists not understanding what they want. No violence, no exchanging of bad for bad; including psychologically, as threats.<\/p>\n

Positive peace goes beyond that, into exchanging good for good, like in trade.\u00a0 We would put our fingers on skills<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cYou seem to do well on something I am not good at; on the other hand, I am good at\u2013\u201c.\u00a0 At the personal level we may think of cooperation between the bright student with no skills in sports and the sporty but somewhat dumb student, both lifting each other up.\u00a0 And at the inter-state level?<\/p>\n

Using an Octagon map of our present multi-polar world, with Russia-India-China-Islam emerging, USA-EU declining, and Latin America Caribbean-Africa as the classical \u201cThird World\u201d, we get 8\u00d77\/1\u00d72 = 28 bilateral relations.\u00a0 All these poles have bad as well as good aspects. It is entirely legitimate to be on guard against the bad aspects, and entirely illegitimate not to be open to the good aspects, like skills. Examples abound, spelled out on the cover pages of A Theory of Peace<\/a><\/em>(TRANSCEND University Press, 2012<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Take two giants, nos. 1 and 2 in population (not smaller Western states), China and India.\u00a0 China is good at lifting the bottom up (but has still a far way to go), India not, ridden by caste. India is good at accommodating cultural diversity with its linguistic federalism (except in Assam); China not.\u00a0 How about meeting, comparing notes in an open-ended dialogue, itself an instrument of mutual and equal benefit? Preferably not behind closed doors because others have also much to learn, not the least from willingness to having problems publicly discussed.<\/p>\n

Take the old super-powers, USA and Russia. USA good on individual freedom to innovate and practice, Russia on divesting itself of an empire almost without violence\u2013both short where the other is strong.\u00a0 Of course, it takes some courage for them, as also for China and India, to admit shortcomings, but that could be forthcoming.\u00a0 Furthermore, the more forward-looking the better to make sense to the whole world of the great advantages of having a skills market where good can meet with good, not only bad meeting with\u2013deterring, fighting, winning over\u2013bad.<\/p>\n

There is a major problem though. Overfed with the developed-developing dichotomy, many believe that the former have no problems whereas the latter have only problems.\u00a0 Much better is a Yin-Yang perspective:\u00a0 something is missing in all; something has been accomplished by all.<\/p>\n

The limitation is in our limited political imagination. Grow so that world visions will open up in our minds, shared with others in new speeches, enacted in new acts.\u00a0 We can if we will.\u00a0 And we will if we imagine.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of <\/em>TRANSCEND International<\/a> and rector of <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University<\/a>. Prof. Galtung <\/em>has published more than 1500 articles\u00a0and book\u00a0chapters, over 470 Editorials for <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>, and more than 150 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, of which more than 40 have been translated to other languages,<\/em> including <\/em>50 Years \u2013 <\/em>100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a> published by <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press<\/a>. More information about Prof. Galtung<\/a> and all of his publications<\/a> can be found at transcend.org\/galtung<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 15 May 2017.<\/p>\n

Anticopyright<\/strong>: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Missing: Political Creativity<\/a>, is included. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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